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MyFitnessPal Community

Calories Question

Lyadeia

Hello everyone!

I am fairly new to running, but I have been pretty consistent with it since late February when I started. I still need to lose a little body fat, too. I really want to get better at running, but I also realize that I probably just have to drop some more body fat before I see significant increases in running fitness. Not that I'm really heavy now, but I could stand to lose BF anyway.

I have been reading through Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald, and pretty much everything is making a lot of sense from a running standpoint. The only thing that I am confused about is calories.

In the book, he says you don't need to count calories to reach your peak racing weight. Of course, this goes against what I have always been taught about weight loss, and it makes things a little difficult for me on this website. I am a pre-logger: I have a calorie goal and I pre-log my food to reach that calorie goal.

I am basically wondering what calorie amount should I set as my goal? I currently run 4 days per week (about 2-3 hours total) and I do about 1-2 hours of weight training. My "old" method of determining calories would be to find a TDEE calculator, multiply my TDEE by 0.80, and use that as the daily goal. That gave me a goal of 1750 calories, and I do not eat back any exercise calories since they are already used in the TDEE calculation.

So while I am still cutting fat, do I still use the 1750 calculation from before, or is there a better way of doing it for endurance runners?

Replies

SteveTries

Hi! Congrats on your great progress.

Sounds like you've made the decision to ignore the edict in the book about not needing to count calories. I'm with you there. I'm sure that works just fine for people who are really good at self moderating but for some of us, we need a little tighter level of control.

Let me just double check I am understanding your proposed approach to achieving your deficit. I think you are saying the following
- Enter your weekly exercise expenditure and general activity level into a TDEE calculator to establish an approximate AVERAGE daily TDEE
- deduct 20% from that to determne your daily calorie intake. This will be the same each day, whether you workout or not.
Is that correct?

If that has worked for you previously then you should be fine. Personally I don't like the approach. If you map that out across the week you will have days where you don't exercise and your deficit on those days will be minimal and on days where you do exercise it will be very large. I would struggle with controlling my appetite on those days and would imagine being very low on energy the following day. Given that your priority (I think) is racing performance now, then you need to fuel those runs pretty well to benefit.

For me, I prefer to work from a sedentary baseline for caloric intake, then deduct the 20%. This is my daily target. On days where I run I eat back about 80% of the suggested caloric burn (because I don't believe the burn calc is all that accurate). I find this is an easier regime to stick to personally.

Carrieendar

It's kinda contradictory because, when you quick start, you create a 300-500 calorie deficit. You can't really achieve that correctly by not counting calories. In the version of the book I have, iirc, he recommends simple calorie counting sites or trackers (this is actually how I came to MFP, searching a calorie tracker).

But I have found that if you really stick to upping your DQS coupled with staying in your carb range, it will become a lot easier to stay within your calorie range. For me, it was all about switching to fruits/veggie snacks, getting vegetables into almost all my meals, switching to whole wheat, and making sure I maintained enough lifting days in my schedule even as my MPW increased got me to where I wanted to be.

Personally, I am maintaining right now because I am training and want to get a big PR, and I decided 18.5% BF is where I will be and stay for this one. I have myself set on lightly active and maintaining, so I eat 1750 calories a day + my workout calories. this number has been fine for me for both rest days and active days.

Carrieendar

also, in all his writings on triatholn and competitor, Fitzgerald recommends calorie counting. examples:
http://running.competitor.com/2014/02/video/racing-weight-why-counting-calories-makes-sense_31635

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/10/nutrition/racing-weight-is-counting-calories-worth-the-hassle_11220

http://www.active.com/nutrition/articles/how-many-calories-do-i-need

Lyadeia

Thanks for the advice guys.

I have looked over what I do again and compared it to the articles posted. Following the articles' advice and using the calculators given, then I need to be eating around 1800 calories on average daily to lose weight. If I go back and use the MFP calculators, it comes out to 1390 + exercise. I looked back at the estimates from my Garmin and I typically burn (according to them) around 450-550 calories per run (more on long runs, these are averages for 40-50 minute runs) which would mean MFP would tell me to eat about 1840-1940 calories. But, if I don't eat *all* of them back, I still get to the estimated average of the other method, right around 1800 give or take a few.

As far as the macros...I have never been told to eat so many carbs in my life and I am seriously looking forward to it, lol! I went back and changed those goals to 60% carbs, 20% protein, and 20% fat. I know that Fitzgerald says the exact ratio isn't all that important if you are getting what you need, but after doing the calculations, those ratios seem to be close to what he was suggesting anyway. It comes out to nearly 300g of carbs, 90g of protein (which is a little low, but 25% put it at 117g which was a little high...so I will probably go slightly over on protein daily), and 40g of fat. I know it is difficult to stay exact, but at least it gives me some kind of guide for logging.

I will definitely be revamping what I eat, which is why I haven't logged this week anyway. I think my meals are OK, but I need to work on snacks and added more carbolicious stuff to breakfast. I was thinking adding a banana to my typical meal of oatmeal with berries or bagel with cream cheese. And I can have more brown rice and pasta. Thank God. I never understood the attraction to low carb, and now I have more reason to NOT do it, lol.

jrline

I've been following the Runner's Diet program for the most part. It is 50% carbs 25% protein and 25% fat. It seems to give me the energy to run well. I am not still trying to lose I am in maintenance and have a 15k Sunday. Good Luck