Eating while training

sstroh2

Hello everyone! I am finishing my first week of training for the Rock the Parkway 1/2 marathon in April. Does anyone have anyone have any suggestions for diet during training, I am also trying to lose some weight, but the primary concern is fueling the workouts for the training. I know the common sense stuff, like avoiding soda and fast food, and eating lots of fruits and veggies, but the other stuff that I have found regarding diet has been really overwhelming. I'm not looking to go paleo or vegan or anything as drastic as all that, but I want to know if there is something I might be missing or not considering as I get further in training. Thanks for listening!

poke987

I'm curious too. Trying to run my "longer" runs (8 or so miles as of now) at a deficit has been taxing. Trying now, to eat at maintenance and find a balance of fueling the run, but also leaving enough calories left over since I really love dessert! Don't want to log everything now that I'm at maintenance, personally need a break from that. So, I'm weighing a few times a week, watching trends and trying to be sensible. I'll be curious what others say

mesteinmann

I've run 25 half marathons (I use the term "run" loosely, sometimes I've had to walk-run due to injury). This year I'm getting serious about training. I too am trying to lose weight, because I found previously that I tended to gain weight running longer distances for various reasons (the bump in metabolism makes you hungrier, feeling inappropriately like I "deserve" more calories because I worked out, etc). Lately, I've had a lot of success bumping up fiber and protein. Fiber keeps you fuller, and protein helps the muscle building that happens as you train. I've also liked eating smaller, frequent meals whenever possible because it prevents feeling overly hungry and therefore ravenous eating.

Anything over an hour you can do some small sugar boost (50-100 calories, like 1/2-1 packet of Gu), but anything less than an hour running you don't need this. I fuel all runs 30-45 minutes before with a banana; longer runs I add peanut butter to get the initial "carb burst" and the protein, which kicks in later. I still track everything, because even those Powerades add up and I often forget about them.

Hope this helps and wasn't too rambling.

SteveTries

We might get an interesting debate going here because I don't really agree with mesteinmann's point of view on this topic.

Now I don't have 25 half marathon's worth of experience, so my view may not be as sound on this topic. I have just 5 and 1 full marathon and it was during training for the latter that I started reading up different points of view and experimented and tried out different approaches.

Prior to that I would always take a gel or two with me if I was going much over 1 hour, but with marathon training, 1 hour and 1 hour 30 runs were a common mid-week component and I did learn that I didn't need it. For me at least, that was something I was using as a mental crutch because those distances used to seem so far and so hard. I no longer feel that they felt hard because of fuel deficiency but actually it was because I wasn't used to it.

Now my weekly long run is never less than 10 miles, which I'll do at a conversational pace taking about 90 mins. More often I'll go further and if that's going to take me above 2 hours then I'll start with a gel at 40 mins and one every 30 mins thereafter. I find that when going beyond 2 hours I will definitely need fuel and it's good to get that started early. Now I am a pretty big bloke, you may not need that volume at all.

One school of thought you'll read on this topic is that the body carries enough stored energy in the muscle cell walls (glycogen) to fuel us for two hours. I totally buy into that.

But there is a BUT.

If you've been eating at a calorie deficit all week trying to lose a bit of weight, or even if you did a 10k jog the day before your long run, you won't have these glycogen stores topped up and you will deplete what is there faster than two hours. If this is the case then I'd be urging some breakfast before heading out on that 90-120 min run and I would think about taking a gel or two with you.

djscavone

I find that I take it very easy for at least two days before a half marathon, eat a PBJ that morning and stick with water for a drink, and I am fine for the ~2 hours it can talk me to do the race. I stay away from fiber and coffee and gels as that would make me run to the nearest port-o-potty and not the finish line. I run to complete the race and have a great time and maybe just challenge my own PR. If I was out to win or crush someone then maybe I would worry more about diet for race day. I agree with SJB74UK that in my case and tiredness is due to me not being ready rather than fuel depletion.