Running, Dieting, Not losing...

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There’s a Jessica in every gym. Spotting them is easy. They’re the women who run for an hour or more every day on the treadmill, setting new distance and/or time goals every week and month. Maybe they’re just interested in their treadmill workouts, maybe they’re training for their fifth fund-raising marathon, or maybe they’re even competing against runners in Finland via some Nike device. Doesn’t matter to me, because years of seeing my friend on the treadmill has exposed the results, which I’m not going to sugarcoat:

She’s still fat. Actually, she’s gotten fatter.

Her metabolism had slowed to a snail’s pace, and the fat was accumulating. This was her body rebelling. When Jessica asked for my advice, I told her to do two things: To schedule a second test for two weeks later, and to stop all the goddamned running until then.

Read for the rest: http://athlete.io/5343/why-women-should-not-run/

What a crock.......

As a runner, I am horrified by this article and I hope no one takes it seriously.
Running makes you fat...that's a new one.
:explode: :explode: :explode: :explode: :explode:

I’ve read this article before, and I think that it has a good point, but that it’s fundamentally flawed. There’s a line of thinking that I’ve seen in a number of places that running is the most natural form of exercise because it’s what the human body was designed to do. But I think that once you throw a massive amount of evolution into the mix, it throws a wrench into that idea.

I don’t think that running works for everyone, just like low-carb doesn’t work for everyone, or how any other specific diet doesn’t work for everyone. Our bodies are very different from one families genes to anothers, to anothers, to what even those genes turn into once they’ve mixed with another families, how could we possibly assume that one exercise is the one for people?

When I was younger, I was a speed skater. I took to it very naturally and very well. I have large, strong legs that can propel fast and powerfully when I skate. I feel fluid and comfortable, I always exceeded the expectations for my age level and often took my practices with people above my age group so my coaches could continue to push me against competitors. For awhile, when I first started working out, I was skating, and things were going well. But sadly, the ankle injury that originally took me out of it, led me to put the skates back in the closet.

At the time, I had friends that had started running. Two of them were dropping weight hand over fist. They were running races and leaning out, ropey muscles became defined in their lean calves and thighs. I wanted that, so I decided to try out running. Well, you can read the results of that above. I’ve done the races, even more than them at this point, but I gain, and they lose. One does some minor strength training, but mostly just runs. The other only runs, with occasional intervals. We’re all the same age, one is a guy and one is a girl. I’ve compared diets, we eat fairly similarly on a whole. But they continue to look more and more like runners you’d see on a magazine cover while I look more and more like the before picture of a weight loss ad.

So, in this article, I’m probably Jessica, or very similar to her at least. But for every Jessica at the gym, there’s going to be people that running just works for. Their bodies love it, they feel comfortable and right, they get runners highs and love the feel of the road beneath their feet. I’ve never felt that. I always feel clunky and out of place, like I’m forcing my body through motions it doesn’t like and fights me in doing, and even when I’m keeping a good gait with a steady mid-foot strike, I feel like I’m clodding along like a rhino in Nikes. So why have I kept running for two years? Because it’s natural, it’s what bodies were meant to do, it’s the best form of exercise, etc, etc, etc,. I always just figured that I was doing something wrong somewhere else, hence the giant list of hopeless attempt after hopeless attempt to correct it everywhere else in my life. (and I really love the race atmosphere. If I could somehow do the races without running, I’d have probably stopped sooner)

But, what I’m realizing as I come into the last week before my last race of this year, is that I am a Jessica. Maybe not in exact terms, but I am a Jessica and running does not work for me. Running has, in fact, made me gain weight. Yes, it’s against all standard thinking. But so is the fact that I lose weight better when I eat over 50% carbs and my body feels better on a whole when I have higher sodium levels. I am healthy, my heart is good, my vitamins levels are always met or exceeded, my thyroid tests have come back clean, my iron levels are right, and any other test I’ve had done always comes back nice and shiny.

I’m just not a runner, my body doesn’t want to be one, no matter how hard I try. And while I totally appreciate the people that are runners, that love it and lose weight or stay lean while running, I wish that it were more widely accepted that it’s not always just the best go-to exercise for people.

Look at the Olympics, look at the body types and shapes of all of those different elite athletes and how varied they are across the different sports. Put Michael Phelps next to Galen Rupp and tell me that all bodies are designed to run. Phelps has 22 Olympics medals, put him on a race track and have him run a 10K against Rupp and I’d place all bets on Rupp to take that race with ease. (note – I am not comparing myself to any Olympic athletes, simply using it as an example)

So, while your head may explode over that article because running has been great for you, and there are, as I said, some fundamental flaws with the “science” of the article, there are probably plenty of women out there that the article rings really true for. And maybe it help them not feel bad that they don’t like running that much, and help them find what they really love. Something that I’m still personally trying to do.

I've been on the C25k program for 7 weeks now and I'm running at least 3 times a week, plus doing a lot of remodeling work on our house several evenings a week. I'm watching my calories, eating more fruits/veggies/healthy proteins, etc.

It's been almost a month now, and I haven't dropped a single pound, still at 138, but I'd like to be under 130 (I'm only 5'2", but I historically have more muscle weight because that's what I weighed in high school when I was in shape and healthy).

Definitely losing motivation.

thank you for opening your diary. you're not eating enough. 1000 calories one day 900 another. that's not enough. think eggs (the entire egg), chicken, cheese, tuna, beans, veggies, fruits, oats - eat more.

There’s a Jessica in every gym. Spotting them is easy. They’re the women who run for an hour or more every day on the treadmill, setting new distance and/or time goals every week and month. Maybe they’re just interested in their treadmill workouts, maybe they’re training for their fifth fund-raising marathon, or maybe they’re even competing against runners in Finland via some Nike device. Doesn’t matter to me, because years of seeing my friend on the treadmill has exposed the results, which I’m not going to sugarcoat:

She’s still fat. Actually, she’s gotten fatter.

Her metabolism had slowed to a snail’s pace, and the fat was accumulating. This was her body rebelling. When Jessica asked for my advice, I told her to do two things: To schedule a second test for two weeks later, and to stop all the goddamned running until then.

Read for the rest: http://athlete.io/5343/why-women-should-not-run/

What a crock.......

As a runner, I am horrified by this article and I hope no one takes it seriously.
Running makes you fat...that's a new one.
:explode: :explode: :explode: :explode: :explode:

I’ve read this article before, and I think that it has a good point, but that it’s fundamentally flawed. There’s a line of thinking that I’ve seen in a number of places that running is the most natural form of exercise because it’s what the human body was designed to do. But I think that once you throw a massive amount of evolution into the mix, it throws a wrench into that idea.

I don’t think that running works for everyone, just like low-carb doesn’t work for everyone, or how any other specific diet doesn’t work for everyone. Our bodies are very different from one families genes to anothers, to anothers, to what even those genes turn into once they’ve mixed with another families, how could we possibly assume that one exercise is the one for people?

When I was younger, I was a speed skater. I took to it very naturally and very well. I have large, strong legs that can propel fast and powerfully when I skate. I feel fluid and comfortable, I always exceeded the expectations for my age level and often took my practices with people above my age group so my coaches could continue to push me against competitors. For awhile, when I first started working out, I was skating, and things were going well. But sadly, the ankle injury that originally took me out of it, led me to put the skates back in the closet.

At the time, I had friends that had started running. Two of them were dropping weight hand over fist. They were running races and leaning out, ropey muscles became defined in their lean calves and thighs. I wanted that, so I decided to try out running. Well, you can read the results of that above. I’ve done the races, even more than them at this point, but I gain, and they lose. One does some minor strength training, but mostly just runs. The other only runs, with occasional intervals. We’re all the same age, one is a guy and one is a girl. I’ve compared diets, we eat fairly similarly on a whole. But they continue to look more and more like runners you’d see on a magazine cover while I look more and more like the before picture of a weight loss ad.

So, in this article, I’m probably Jessica, or very similar to her at least. But for every Jessica at the gym, there’s going to be people that running just works for. Their bodies love it, they feel comfortable and right, they get runners highs and love the feel of the road beneath their feet. I’ve never felt that. I always feel clunky and out of place, like I’m forcing my body through motions it doesn’t like and fights me in doing, and even when I’m keeping a good gait with a steady mid-foot strike, I feel like I’m clodding along like a rhino in Nikes. So why have I kept running for two years? Because it’s natural, it’s what bodies were meant to do, it’s the best form of exercise, etc, etc, etc,. I always just figured that I was doing something wrong somewhere else, hence the giant list of hopeless attempt after hopeless attempt to correct it everywhere else in my life. (and I really love the race atmosphere. If I could somehow do the races without running, I’d have probably stopped sooner)

But, what I’m realizing as I come into the last week before my last race of this year, is that I am a Jessica. Maybe not in exact terms, but I am a Jessica and running does not work for me. Running has, in fact, made me gain weight. Yes, it’s against all standard thinking. But so is the fact that I lose weight better when I eat over 50% carbs and my body feels better on a whole when I have higher sodium levels. I am healthy, my heart is good, my vitamins levels are always met or exceeded, my thyroid tests have come back clean, my iron levels are right, and any other test I’ve had done always comes back nice and shiny.

I’m just not a runner, my body doesn’t want to be one, no matter how hard I try. And while I totally appreciate the people that are runners, that love it and lose weight or stay lean while running, I wish that it were more widely accepted that it’s not always just the best go-to exercise for people.

Look at the Olympics, look at the body types and shapes of all of those different elite athletes and how varied they are across the different sports. Put Michael Phelps next to Galen Rupp and tell me that all bodies are designed to run. Phelps has 22 Olympics medals, put him on a race track and have him run a 10K against Rupp and I’d place all bets on Rupp to take that race with ease. (note – I am not comparing myself to any Olympic athletes, simply using it as an example)

So, while your head may explode over that article because running has been great for you, and there are, as I said, some fundamental flaws with the “science” of the article, there are probably plenty of women out there that the article rings really true for. And maybe it help them not feel bad that they don’t like running that much, and help them find what they really love. Something that I’m still personally trying to do.

I'm glad that you posted this. I was definitely not meaning to say that running as a whole is terrible for women. There are somethings that work for others and somethings that don't. Like you said, everyone is different but if you are starting to notice a pattern and aren't happy with the results, I'd say it's worth changing what you are doing to see if there is another way to obtain your goal. Not you, but just the general population.