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Calories (Read 1440 times)

DoppleBock


    OK - I understand and it makes more sense - Interesting enough I had read a study of Kenyans living comminally in USA and they were @ 3000-3200 daily.

     

    I weigh 200 - Meaning I burn more calories per mile and I am more like 125 in training - If I can hit 3000-3500 and do it with the right foods - I feel I can still train and still lose a bit of weight.  Maybe 4,000 on the days where I consume a lot of Nutriceuticals on a 5-6 hour long run. 

     

    When I say light, I don't necessarily mean caloric values. I'm talking more about the actual constitution of the food. So a heavy meal would involved red meat and perhaps a lot of roughage from raw veg orwholegrains such as brown rice, wholemeal pasta, wholegrain breads etc whereas I see a light meal being something gentle on my stomach which is quick to digest like white rice, white pasta, chicken.

     

    Typically a pint of milk and a few pieces of fruit can be in the region of 400-500kcal easily. Looking at maybe 1000kcal for lunch. Add in a few hundred more for afternoon snacks and drinks. Another 600-800 at night maybe. I found that somewhere in the region of 3000kcal a day seemed to keep my weight fairly stable, 2500 was achievable but found it quite hard to spread the reductions across the meals in a way to feel good for training and not go to bed hungry.

    Long dead ... But my stench lingers !

     

     

    DoppleBock


      Eating to fuel workouts makes sense to me - I purposefully had more at lunch today 1100 - 1200 because I want to do a decent workout in the morning.  I want to eat lighter tonight.

       

      I did a tough interval session today so I purposely ate more yesterday. I ate around 2700kcal which tbh had me worried as I ever go  over 1800kcal.

       

      I felt good on the workout so perhaps this was due to more food in my system? Strange though as after today I will have only had shy of 1600kcal and I feel satisfied, Where could I pad it out?

      Long dead ... But my stench lingers !

       

       

      TeaOlive


      old woman w/hobby

        Disagree. It may not be the *ideal* long-term solution, but it can certainly be a long-term solution.

         

        +1

        steph  

         

         

          I'm not surprised about the better work-out.    You have probably been in glycogen debt, which makes uptake into the muscles greater.  This also increases the amount of water retained (1 gram glycogen and 3 grams water).   Don't be surprised if your daily weight is up.

           

          As far as weight loss, exercise, and diet, there is not a simple answer.  Ideally, you would consume enough to recovery sufficiently from your work outs, but lower than your overall expenditure for the day (if you want to lose weight).   Your expenditure is your basal rate as well as your workouts.  The goal would be a 1-2 pound weight loss a week.  More than this, you are probably burning through glycogen and losing water, but not losing the fat we would like to lose.

           

          I would use Apollo Ohno as an example.  When he was training for the Olympics, he went from 156 to 142 pounds, and dropped his body fat from 10% to 2%.  This happened over 12 weeks.  His caloric intake varied from 2500 kcal to 8000 kcal a day depending on what his training was for the day.  This consisted of skating, running, intervals, weight lifting, and hill work outs.  

           

          Before glycogen depleting sessions such as long runs, hard intervals, etc, a day or 2 of higher carb intake is desirable.  If another long work out occurs within 24 hours, then post session carb intake is recommended.  A typical starting point is 5 grams/kg/day, with some people needing 8 to 12 grams/kg/day before long work-outs, and 1 grams/kg/hour x 6 hours if they do another session the next day.   Most nutritionist would add protein in a 4:1 ratio as well as essential fatty acids.  

           

          Of course Apollo had a personal nutritionist make all his meals!

          2018 Goals:

          Get Lucky Half  1:47:59

          Grandmas Marathon

          Fall Marathon - Twin Cities??

            The consensus I have heard is that a daily caloric debt of 500 kcal is the most effective and safe

            method for losing weight while exercising. I think that if your energy level is such that a slow run

            which should be easy is difficult, you probably aren't eating enough. This is one of the ways I

            have gotten injured in the past.  

             

            I've dabbled briefly in the realm of counting calories, but found it ultimately unsustainable

            (and detrimental) to both health and performance. I'd shoot for some calculated figure instead

            of listening to my actual hunger, and ended up either eating too little on days that I ran, or too

            much on days when I didn't. Listening to the body seems to be the best bet, but it requires you

            to be very in-tune with natural signals of hunger and fullness, i.e. knowing whether you're really hungry

            or just think you are. 

             

            Personally, I don't count, but if I had to guess I'd ballpark my caloric intake somewhere between 2,200-3,000

            most days, at least while I'm training. 

            if you're tired of starting over then stop giving up!

            dennrunner



              Finally, calorie counting is not a long term solution. Been there, done that and I've still got the same size t-shirt I did before. How many ttimes have you heard about or seen that happening to people? Changing your attitude to food and your habits will be more fruitful in the long run but it takes a fuckton more effort than weighing out your food or reading the back of the packaging. Depends how much you want it, I guess.

               

              A tangent not related directly to any of the info in this thread:

               

              Thirty years ago I wore a medium in most shirts (Polo-type etc.) that were sized small, medium, large etc. Starting in the late 1990's I had to change to size small in almost all brands.  My measurements are the same, and I still wear the same size shirts as I used to that are sized by neck size.

               

              My point?  1) It bugs me that a medium of today is not a medium of yesteryear...especially since small's a not very common at a lot of retailers. 2) If you wore a medium many years ago and you still wear a medium, you're not the same size person as before. 3) I think the textile industry is in cahoots with the food industry to try to hide that Americans are getting fatter. (Not really, on the last point.)

               

              (Sizing comments applicable to my experience in the USA.)

              Poppypbr


                I'd like to relate my personal experience with weight control and fitness training. I'm 5'10" and will be 64 in October 2012. In the past 12 months I have gone from 247lbs to 174lbs (yup: 73 lb weight loss!) basically without dieting or counting calories and without hunger. I have counted calories in the past and have been very successful losing weight but I found it maddening to be continually concerned with it and found it was not a long term solution because it was necessary to be continually vigilant. I was also very hungry with a sometimes uncontrollable tendency to binge. Something was unbalanced and I was determined to change that.

                 

                To lose weight without dieting, counting calories and without hunger except for the infrequent workout that gets too brisk for the current state of your body metabolism, you must first reject the typical American Diet and take a path that probably no one in your immediate social circle is likely to follow.

                 

                You must eat like our ancient ancestors: the hunter-gatherers, and you need to live a highly active lifestyle continually looking to do for yourself when others chose to "eat out", "order out" or "have pizza delivered". If you want to join with such activities, then get out the door and walk to the restaurant or to get the pizza and walk back. And when the pizza eating starts, you are limited to just two slices because it is nutritionally incorrect to consume more. It does not provide you with everything you need. Put aside any ideas you have about carb loading. The best athletes have VO max above 90% and can burn fats without "hitting a wall". Carb loading is for amateurs that haven't trained long enough and if you are looking to lose weight, you won't do it by convincing yourself that it is necessary to periodically binge on carbohydrates!!! That is hunger disguised as "training" and should be a discarded activity until you already reached your ideal weight.

                 

                "Hunger" occurs in several different ways. There is psychological hunger because several foods affect our central nervous system and endocrine system and there is psychological hunger that is stimulated by familiar smells and sounds or the time of the day. Then there is physiological hunger because we are missing a particular vitamin, mineral or phytochemical that our body knows it needs. Whenever we are lacking something, our appetite is being stimulated by the deficiency. Whenever we are used to a particular eating schedule, our appetite is being stimulated to eat on THAT SCHEDULE, even if we don't need a bite of food. Whenever we are used to particular foods such as cookies, cakes, pies, ice cream, the empty calories cause our appetite to be stimulated in search of the vitamins that are necessary for processing unneeded sugars and fats. Eating concentrated, unnatural and processed  foods is not only contrary to weight control, it is also contrary to your overall health. Recognize that sugar is an unnatural refinement and concentrated sugar does the same thing to our central nervous system as methamphetamine. It releases dopamine and it is addicting! White bread contains no fiber, the nutrition has been removed and it was necessary to pass a law to re-supplement the empty calories. Our bodies need fiber to operate correctly and there are plenty of much more nutritious bread alternatives. White bread is something I do not wish to eat and those that do are making a choice based upon psychological hunger or childhood remembrance and not knowledge about the food or they wouldn't eat it!

                 

                Ethnic, Traditional and Customary foods: some of them, like hummus, are very nutritious, low calorie and desirable but most of them were concocted by people whose primary goal was "taste and appearance" and they are not what a hunter-gatherer would find. They also don't fit in well with weight control. Look at the body proportions of bakers, good cooks and chefs: these people work with food all the time and they are not good role models for what you should eat or the quantity that you should consume.

                 

                We aren't meant to have desserts on a regular basis. Not even once a week! Leave all the desserts to just the following festive occasions: Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Weddings, Graduations. Note that I did not list "parties". If you regularly attend social parties, you need to eat the fresh vegetables and dip, not the chips and dip, not the cake, ice cream or cookies. Keep in mind that 99% of all the people in the US are pretty ignorant when it comes to nutrition and you cannot follow them: many are on a dead-end path, literally. Obesity and diabetes are at epidemic levels. You cannot go this route and live a long, healthy life.

                 

                Begin to substitute every food you are accustomed to with a more nutritious and lower calorie equivalent. You should eat at least about 20 different foods a day in very small portions of a tablespoon or two (like the hunter-gatherers who ate whatever they were able to find). Never consume more than 4 oz of fish&shellfish(65%), chicken(20%), pork(10%) or beef(5%) at a particular time: your body does not need and cannot use more than about 160 grams of protein a day which is just 5.64 ounces. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains have protein too. You can find great variety of foods in certain trail, fruit and granola mixes. Avoid any trail mix with candy in it. Chocolate should be consumed rarely for its antioxidants and not for its dessert like sweetness.

                 

                What do I have against beef? Bovine steroids which promote cancer. Keep to 4 oz and infrequent consumption. If you must eat beef, then eat steak. Leave sausages, kielbasa, hot dogs and most hamburger alone.

                 

                If you make your food decisions based upon nutrition and not taste, appearance, tradition, or the expectation of others, you will be well on your way to solving the appetite and weight control dilemma. Without that knowledge, you will be constantly fighting the battle of ravenous hunger and excess weight.

                 

                Check out Dr. Joel Thurman on the internet. Catch his PBS program. Here is a bit of it:

                 

                G.O.M.B.S.: Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Beans, Broccoli, Brussel sprouts, (cabbage and cauliflower), Seeds and nuts. They should comprise 80% of everything you eat. THE SALAD SHOULD BE THE MAIN COURSE.

                 

                You need the greens for the optical pigments needed by the retina and macula and vitamin A for the cornea. Onions and mushrooms contain compounds that are anti-angiogenesis: they prevent the creation of new capillaries that are necessary to supply cancer cells and tumor growth. Beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower contain chemicals that block estrogen and other uptake sites in the body, preventing and inhibiting cancer. Seeds and nuts provide natural fats that we evolved with and many minerals that are necessary for our health.

                 

                80% of the people have at least some degree of lactose intolerance. As adults it is better if we obtain our dairy through cultured cheeses and yogurt with natural bacteria cultures which support our immune systems and dramatically improve our health. Dairy has components that promote cancer growth just as it promotes growth in infants and calves. As adults, we should also limit our dairy intake. There are many ways to get calcium and milk is not the best or only way. In a country awash with milk, osteoporosis is rampant. Exercise with proper nutrition is the key to correcting osteoporosis. If you want to increase your calcium absorption, eliminate phosphoric acid (in cola drinks) from your diet and make sure you get adequate silicon (as in whole grains and in craft beer made with whole grains) in addition to the calcium and vitamin D. Make sure you get some sunshine on your skin every week. Craft beer is arguably a substitute for milk in adults, and definitely for endurance athletes.

                 

                Nutrition is a very complicated subject and a lot of misinformation abounds. But look to our origins and you will get a pretty good idea of what we should be doing. The majority of decisions made in the food industry are made with a profit motive in mind and packaged foods should be immediately suspect. For example, you pay as much for a 16 oz bag (1 lb) of chips as you would pay for a 5 lb bag of potatoes. And potatoes is not a particularly great food...versatile, rather ethnic, served in restaurants and certainly not in the top 50 most nutritious foods you can eat. The food industry has made the potato ridiculously high calorie and they do that with mostly everything: too much salt, fat and sugar. Remember: empty calories increase your hunger because your body needs certain vitamins and minerals to process the empty calories. Keeping people hungry increases food industry profits. Excess salt takes advantage of our natural craving for salt, leftover from a time when salt was more difficult to obtain. By the way, substitute sea salt for iodized salt. Iodized salt is devoid of about 82 trace minerals that you need. I use iodized salt infrequently: once a week or so.

                DoppleBock


                  I was thinking about this - The main reason I want to lose weight is to get faster.  At 6'3 195-200 with a larger frame and some left over upper body muslce from weight lifting days - I am nto ripped - But I am not giggly either and honestly that does not matter that much to me.

                   

                  What I often struggle with - I will get to this weight range and then plateau - But while I plateau I am working hard with speed work - hill work and putting on fitness in chunks.  I know the speed would come on much more slowly if I was dieting hard.

                   

                  It is a pay me now or pay me more later thing - I think I am happy to stay the same or maybe lose 5 more # in the next 3 months as I have 3 goal races.  Then I am hopeful to take this stabalized weight down 20 pounds over the winter when I can grind out 3-4 months of training.  Hopeful to emerge in spring and stabalize and start adding speed in chunks again.

                   

                  The end goal is 170-175 and get into 2:30-2:35 marathon shape.  Although from past experience and results this appears reasonable - Father Time is against me and to actually get 170-175 will not be easy.  After age 16 I weighted in this range once for 6-9 months until weight lifting took me up to 190-195 and then fat much higher.

                  Long dead ... But my stench lingers !

                   

                   

                  Poppypbr


                    I was thinking about this - The main reason I want to lose weight is to get faster.  At 6'3 195-200 with a larger frame and some left over upper body muslce from weight lifting days - I am nto ripped - But I am not giggly either and honestly that does not matter that much to me.

                     

                    What I often struggle with - I will get to this weight range and then plateau - But while I plateau I am working hard with speed work - hill work and putting on fitness in chunks.  I know the speed would come on much more slowly if I was dieting hard.

                     

                    It is a pay me now or pay me more later thing - I think I am happy to stay the same or maybe lose 5 more # in the next 3 months as I have 3 goal races.  Then I am hopeful to take this stabalized weight down 20 pounds over the winter when I can grind out 3-4 months of training.  Hopeful to emerge in spring and stabalize and start adding speed in chunks again.

                     

                    The end goal is 170-175 and get into 2:30-2:35 marathon shape.  Although from past experience and results this appears reasonable - Father Time is against me and to actually get 170-175 will not be easy.  After age 16 I weighted in this range once for 6-9 months until weight lifting took me up to 190-195 and then fat much higher.

                    Getting faster and losing weight at the same time is somewhat at odds with one another. Lose the weight slowly and you will automatically become faster as a result. For running a marathon at sub-6:00 min pace, you need to get down to about 2.2 lbs for each inch of height before "sharpening". That would mean 165 lbs. Sharpening work twice a week would then commence about 4 weeks prior to the Marathon. The rest of training should to devoted to gradually reducing LSD to gather your strength as the marathon date approached.

                     

                    Excessive speed work is stressful which can cause cortisol secretion inhibiting your body to lose weight and stimulating your appetite. Long slow distance at 9 minute pace will burn a tremendous amount of calories with a pretty good fat percentage and should be the core of your training. Sharpening can be set aside until 3 weeks before an event if you choose somewhat hilly routes that challenge you a little every day. In fact, runners that train in very hilly areas are generally able to sharpen their speed within a two week period. Flatlanders take more like 4 weeks. When you sharpen your speed, you are tapping onto survival level psycho-endocrine production that has a finite limit. Too much speed work and you will hit endocrine shutdown before the marathon rather than after it, destroying the results of all the gains you made. That is why you sometimes see world class athletes bail out from a marathon.

                     

                    Effective speed training takes just as much discipline to NOT run fast as it does TO run fast or you will leave your best performance on the training route.

                     

                    Be satisfied with a weight loss of one pound a week because it gives your body time to adapt and get accustomed to the change. Faster weight loss tends to cannibalize more muscle and causes problems with ravenous appetite. I found that when I relaxed about the weight loss but just kept it in mind as a goal I was often rewarded with 2 or 3 lb loss instead. Arnold S would advise that at mealtime you think of yourself as a little bird only requiring a very small amount of food. Arnie was pretty advanced for his time and understood the importance of mentally thinking about and visualizing the goal you wished to obtain.

                     

                    So you want to lose 20+ lbs and you have 6 months (26 weeks!) to do it. Sounds very reasonable. Pay careful attention to nutrition and I advise supplements. Just don't do speed work more often than twice a week and keep the intervals between 3 and 5 total. Check out Livestrong.com and they have some pretty good advice there.

                     

                    You may not have considered it but bicycling can be a great adjunct to running because not only does it burn calories, but massages the muscles in a nice way (if you keep the effort level down without additional stress on the feet, ankles, knees and hips. Walking is also an excellent recovery vehicle that burns some calories.

                     

                    I had observed Bill Rodgers training at length during his Boston dominance. I marveled at how slow he trained with LSD. His legs look like those on an Olympic speed skater yet he didn't exceed a 9 minute pace and seemed to be intentionally using slowness and eccentric contraction to pump his legs up with blood. Hypertrophy! I was the mediocre runner a hundred feet behind him and had no difficulty maintaining his pace.

                    dennrunner


                      For some reason, this reminds me of SJ.

                      TeaOlive


                      old woman w/hobby

                        For some reason, this reminds me of SJ.

                         +1

                        steph  

                         

                         

                          Poppypbr, congrats on the weight loss!  

                           

                          I agree with many of your points.  Small portions, more frequently is a healthier way to go.  I focus on vegetables, whole grains/fiber, fruits, and lean proteins in that order.  Avoiding white breads, rice, and bleached pasta.  When I have easy days, I will eat less overall, and probably less % carbs, maybe 40% to 50%.  

                           

                          Not sure about the appetite-

                          "physiological hunger because we are missing a particular vitamin, mineral or phytochemical that our body knows it needs."  

                          I don't think our bodies are that well tuned to what we need.  I do think if you eat right, you feel better.  

                           

                          I also still would advocate for higher carbs after long runs.  To me, the key is understanding insulin levels and its impact on weight.  At rest, the more carbs, the higher the insulin level.  This drives glucose into the liver (glycogen) but also into fat, and insulin decreases fat metabolism.  At this time, keeping carb intake lower would be good.   I try not to eat any big meals during these days, or on easy run days.  

                           

                          After long runs, especially if you did not eat before the run, your muscle cells increase glucose transporters on the cell surface. Having carbs after long runs would  increase the glucose uptake into muscles, and improve muscle glycogen content.  At these times, I would increase my carbs to 70% to 80%.   This is also true with strength exercises that you do to the point of exhaustion (muscle fatigue).  

                           

                          Unless you are running long or hard every day, your calorie intake should vary.  DB, your a tough one.  You run an incredible number of miles a day/week/month.  I'm sure your aerobic level is extremely high, meaning you burn fats very effectively.  I still think if you match your activity to calories, and avoid the high glycemic foods especially on "low mile days" you would lose weight fairly steadily.

                           

                          I also read a nice study on optimal weight for best performance.  It looked at world class marathoners.  They found a strong genetic component to the optimal % body fat.  For some marathoners, the best %body fat was 3%to 5%, while other did better at 5% to 9%.  It also concluded that the ideal body fat content went up with age.  For DB, who runs a sub 3 at 200+ pounds, I am not sure 165#, or for that matter, any preset determination of "optimal" weight is the best thing to focus on.  Lose some weight, race, lose some weight, race....etc.  Once you lose weight and stop improving, you may have lost too much.  

                           


                          2018 Goals:

                          Get Lucky Half  1:47:59

                          Grandmas Marathon

                          Fall Marathon - Twin Cities??

                            Hijacking the thread.....

                             

                            Any good stories on SJ?  

                            2018 Goals:

                            Get Lucky Half  1:47:59

                            Grandmas Marathon

                            Fall Marathon - Twin Cities??

                            DoppleBock


                              I ran 2:56 @ 232#

                               

                              I ran 2:45 ( really bad race tactics - I was in 2:42 or 2:41 shape) @ 205#

                               

                              I do not think I would have to be below 175 to be able to run 2:35

                               

                              I have run > 4,300 miles YTD - But very little speed work - Been working on 24 hour race training

                               

                              Getting faster and losing weight at the same time is somewhat at odds with one another. Lose the weight slowly and you will automatically become faster as a result. For running a marathon at sub-6:00 min pace, you need to get down to about 2.2 lbs for each inch of height before "sharpening". That would mean 165 lbs. Sharpening work twice a week would then commence about 4 weeks prior to the Marathon. The rest of training should to devoted to gradually reducing LSD to gather your strength as the marathon date approached.

                               

                              Long dead ... But my stench lingers !

                               

                               

                              runbambinarun


                                I think adding about 2 days/week of weight training (+ running) could help make one leaner (maybe faster), maybe not weigh less since muscle weighs more.  Yet, muscle and brown fat are the calorie burning tissue.

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