Training for a half marathon, should I increase carbs and calories a bit?

advisingwench

When I initially joined MFP, I calculated my nutrition for 1 lb/week weight loss. Based on a 1300 calorie/day diet, I was aiming for 20% carb (65g), 40% fat (58g) and 40% protein (130g). I've also been running 3 - 4 miles, 3x a week and strength training (body weight and dumbbell stuff) 2 - 3x a week. I haven't been losing quickly but I've seen a steady downward trend (and my body is definitely changing even if that change isn't reflected on the scale).

I've started training for a half marathon, which is running in October. As such, I'm running an extra day each week and my mileage per week will increase as I go. Today I bumped my calories up by an extra 100 per day and changed my macros to 30/35/35. Does this make sense?

I've had some problems over the last couple of days with hunger between meals and at night and I thought perhaps this small change might help. FTR, I'm not eating back all of my calories from exercise, just some of them and if it matters, I use my HRM's calculation rather than MFP's to tell me what I burn during exercise.

Should I be eating more burned calories back or are there other changes I should make (or was my diet fine the way it is before today's tweak?) Thanks in advance for any insight!

BrianSharpe

As a runner looking to do longer distances you may want to up your carbs (typically I eat 55% or so of my calories from carbs) if you want to have enough stored glycogen available (pretty much a non issue for short runs but the first time you bonk you'll understand....)

acheben

While I was losing weight and training for half marathons, I found that I could usually eat back 75% of my exercise calories and still lose. I also have a 40/30/30 macro split because I like how that works for me.

advisingwench

Thanks for the input! Right now my long runs are only up to 7 miles, but it sounds like increasing the amount of carb % as I go is a good idea. Trial and error until I find what works best, I guess!

ka97

There is a good degree of trial and error involved. The difficulty with training for an endurance event, and trying to lose weight at the same time is that you need to eat enough so that you are properly fueled (and not raging hungry all the time!) but maintain enough of a deficit to keep losing. If you are not far from your weight loss goal you might want to consider adjusting your calorie goal to a 0.5lb loss per week and eat back 50%-75% of your exercise calories. Alternatively you could use TDEE as the basis for your calorie goal, if you like to have a fairly consistent calorie goal from one day to the next regardless of exercise. As you progress you will probably find that you need more carbs to fuel longer runs, somewhere in the 40%-50% range. I go with 45/25/30 and that seems to work pretty well for me.
Part of the training process is figuring out what works for you nutrition-wise. Pay attention to your body signals, and note what makes you feel well, and what doesn't.