runners- weight loss stall while training for 10k?

carriekwi

Hello! Here's a question that I hope some experienced runners might be able to answer:

For seven months I lost weight using mfp very consistently at a rate of 1.5 lbs/wk. During that time I was running about 6-10 miles per week (on three to four days @2.5 miles/day).

Five weeks ago I became more aggressive about running and am training for a 10k. I have worked up to 20-25 miles/wk (3.5 to 6.3 miles/day, five to six days/wk).

While my logging had remained the same, my weight loss stalled. In fact, I am up 1 lb. I have always eaten back my excersize calories so maintain a 1000 net calories deficit daily.

So, in your experience, do you think I am eating too few calories and putting my body into starvation mode or does the stall represent added muscle, water, glycogen?

Seems based on my loss history that if the latter were the case it means I added 5-7 pounds of non-fat mass... What do you think?

glevinso

If you currently look like the right side of your profile photo, I would say 1000/day deficit is WAY too much. You should be looking for more like 500/day if not even less. At the beginning, 1000/day was appropriate but not now. Especially when training for running, fueling your body is important. It can be difficult to get consistent quality training AND maintain a deficit.

There is no such thing as "starvation mode", but you are likely holding on to more water.

jonsmithkidd

I doubt that with that much of a deficit that it will be additional muscle mass, unless an awful lot of your calories are protein!

I would say it's likely to be holding on to water, or perhaps you are burning less than you think you are? Are you using MFP values for calorie burns? If so, they are usually a little high.

jacksonpt

How many cals per day are you burning when you run? Could be your estimates are off, and with the increased mileage that error rate is enough to make a difference.

1000 cal deficit is probably more than what most would be considered ideal, but I'm not sure it's a showstopper. Are your workouts good? Good energy levels, good progress, etc?

1lb is negligable, and well within normal margins. Assuming your 1000 cal per day deficit is correct, you should still be losing. But given the fairly recent change in programming, I'd give it another couple of weeks before I changed anything significant.