Walking a Tightrope

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Replies

  • Lo0BLu
    Lo0BLu Posts: 84 Member
    I think I am in love with you all and MFP too!! Thank you so much for all your advice, it really has been very helpful. I have now manually set my calories a snack higher and will continue to monitor as the mileage goes up. Will be abiding totally with what has been said and love you all for the support <3
  • Lo0BLu
    Lo0BLu Posts: 84 Member
    PS have really taken on board what has been said about the "eating what you like" advice that I was given. I won't be doing that :)
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited April 2016
    I trained for a HM back in Dec 2015 to March 2016. I actually was trying to loose weight during this process and planned to maintain after training and race end. I did not worry about any maintaining until it was over. Too much going on each day to make sure I was eating this and that and drinking this and that in order to perform each day for training.

    Then once it was over, I did not stop running so I had to figure out TDEE for calories I would still be burning and I was also lifting during training and I predicct you will not stop running when all of this over unless you plan to take a break.

    To need to eat for being an athlete first and foremost and not worry about weight, I predict you cannot gain any weight at this point and can eat a lot more than you think. The switch from fat burning to maintaining took me a while to figure it out.

    2 to 3 marathons and an ultra marathon all before May is a lot training, and a lot of calorie burning you will be doing, a lot recovery going on in the body and specific needs your body needs. Since you are no longer wanting to lean out for these races, you just need to fuel the running, and find a balance into maintenance.

    I think you should focus on nutritional needs to fuel for being an athlete right now and perhaps reverse diet to get to an actual maintenance now or when all of this done and if you need to eat more calories during the day to reach a magic number you can always add in "calorie dense" foods to hit a target.

    I had eat a certain way and drink a certain way 7 days a week for training. It is funny that you are second person in the two days trying to get to maintenance right in the middle of training. It will take a while for your body to stop burning fat and get into fat gaining mode, because you will not be eating nearly enough to gain weight during training of this magnitude, so enjoy more calories and you may even perform better.
  • mitch16
    mitch16 Posts: 2,113 Member
    I run half marathons and I, too, find it hard to eat all of my calories back on long run days. I think you have it figured out though--add a small amount of calories (100-250) to every day, and over the course of the week it will even out.

    Maintenance is tough... Remember that your weight will fluctuate by ~5 lbs from day to day. If your trend is still going down, add a few more calories back in. My downfall in maintenance has always been to get lazy/sloppy with my tracking and I gain a few pounds--now that I am aware of it, I try to be more careful. I don't think that with your training for the marathons/ultra that you will fall into that... Good luck!

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