Marathon

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Mermaid_135
Mermaid_135 Posts: 11
in Fitness and Exercise
Hi All
who else is training for a marathon? I was just wondering if you eat all the calories you burn or if you stick to the 1500ckal limit?
It might get difficult eating so little, especially for the long runs.
Any tips appreciated:smile:

Replies

  • marikevr
    marikevr Posts: 389 Member
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    I certainly do not eat all my training cals, but 1500 is defintely too little! After long runs protein is the only thing that fills me up.
  • timboom1
    timboom1 Posts: 762 Member
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    Hi All
    who else is training for a marathon? I was just wondering if you eat all the calories you burn or if you stick to the 1500ckal limit?
    It might get difficult eating so little, especially for the long runs.
    Any tips appreciated:smile:

    During marathon training you will need to eat back most of those calories. Your overall deficit should never be more than 500/day. Training is stressful an you need to recover, which means you need the calories, otherwise your recovery will be slow from one run, impacted the next run and sabotaging your training.

    You can still lose, but go slow and track very carefully. Good luck
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    I've got a half coming up in January and have signed up for a full next May, in the latter phases of training for previous half-marathons I have always eaten back my exercise calories, as the full marathon approaches my plan is to eat closer to maintenance (ie a very small overall caloric deficit)
  • Mermaid_135
    Mermaid_135 Posts: 11
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    Thanks for your reply! This is good to know. No point if my body collapses while training for the big day. I will try to eat the training calories back in a healthy way. I'm using gels on long runs and usually a protein/carb meal afterwards.
  • draculaspointer
    draculaspointer Posts: 106 Member
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    I am currently half marathon training (first next weekend, second in november) then after that going to full. Right now, I dont eat back all my calories, and Im not trying to lose weight. I just dont get hungry after 10+ mile runs. Usually run days are my lowest net calorie days I have, but I try to make up some of those calories during the week. So I might eat an extra 100 per day than I normally would, or have a bigger dinner Monday, as I am usually quite ravenous the day AFTER my long runs.

    I can definitely tell if I havent eaten enough back when I am running though. That is a horrible feeling and one which I would like to avoid...once was enough. I stopped "dieting" when I started running 8+ mile long runs because I couldnt perform well on those runs while eating at a large deficit.

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