How to lose weight while marathon training?

man I have no idea - I would assume anybody marathon training is burning tons of calories, shocked you actually gained

don't think there is anyway you will be gaining any appreciable muscle from purely marathon training - certainly reasonable to lose fat though, must be consuming a heavy amount of cals

Congrats on your first marathon! If you did it this weekend, give it a few days before weighing yourself. Carb loading causes weight gain (though you should have sweat most of the extra water out), and your muscles will be retaining water for repair for a few days after.


Its not really advised to eat at much of a deficit while marathon training. Fuel is needed for those runs, so at most I will lose a pound or two during an 18 week training period. Some muscle will be gained, but its not exactly a bulk. I make sure to get 120g protein a day (that's 1g per pound lean mass), and only stick to a deficit of 100-200 cal/day. This has me maintaining at 2700+ cals/day during high level training, and that keeps me feeling good on my runs. It can be done, it just requires tight control on your diet during training, which can be tough, since marathon training turns people into ravenous hunger beasts.

I'm reading this book right now.
So far it's very interesting. And it's made for athlete wanting to lose body fat and gain muscles.

http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Weight-Lean-Performance-Series/dp/1934030996

I have only ever run half marathons, but in my experience my scale weight never decreased while training but I definitely lost inches. If you restrict calories your runs will suffer, you need the appropriate fuel for those types of workouts.

I've never had this problem. By the time I am ramped up to my peak mileage I am stuffing down ice cream nightly just to keep from getting too light.

I have lost small amounts of weight during marathon training (5 lbs) I think the biggest issue is only keeping a very small deficit and even more important is the proper foods and macro percentages. What work's for everyone is different so you'll have to experiment to find what ratio and combination works best for you. For me its about 55% carbs, 25-30% protien and 15-20% fat. Where your getting these calories from is equally important, probably even more important. Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables for those carbs, lean protien, good fats, stay away from too much reifined sugar and "junk food". I recently ran my best 1/2 marathon only 2 weeks after a marathon while also maintaining a significant deficit. It worked because I made my calories count. (Most of them anyhow, i do treat myself so i dont feel deprived). I have had times during training where ive had to adjust calories because I clearly was in too much of a deficit. I could manage my runs, but they were slower than typical, my legs would be very heavy, and I was generally fatigued the rest of the day after workouts. I run between 30-50 miles a week and don't take an off season. I recently added a few days of CrossFit back into my schedule and again had to adjust as fatigue was beginnning to take over. Listen to your body. Be aware of showing signs of inadequate nutrition. Log your calories so you can be conscious of where they're coming from, and so that you will have a reference point as you need to tweek things. Also, it is not uncommon to gain weight during training either. We get lax because we know were burning thousands of calories a week extra and then stop being diligent about our calories and food choices. Also, the more you run, the more efficient your body becomes and you do burn somewhat less calories at the same pace. A heart rate monitor is a beautiful thing for more accurate measurements of burn. Running marathons is an awesome way to eat like a king but to perform and feel your best, make those calories count.
my favorite carb choices: oats, rice, beans, sweet potatoes, butternut, acorn, and spaghetti squash, rutabaga, greens, carrots, green beans, brocolli, cauliflower... and bananas, great running fuel! Also fresh berries and apples.
protein: non fat plain Greek yogurt (mix it with fresh fruit), cottage cheese, skim milk, eggs (I do a ratio of 1 whole egg to 2 egg whites, chicken, salmon (excellent for runners with anti inflamitory properties), tuna, and extra lean beef. I use whey powder generally only on CrossFit days immediately after the workout.
Find what works for you and congrats on your first marathon! Happy training!

I didn't do the short runs, just the long runs - and though that's up to 2200 cals for me for a 22 mile run (longest long run), that's really easy to eat past that in a week when you're eating whatever and not tracking. Oh well, it's proof that losing weight really is 80% diet.

I did gain muscle though, husband and I can both see the difference in my legs (which were already pretty cut!).

Just so you know, you may have gained 1 lb of muscle at max doing only long endurance training. And likely whatever you gained in your legs was lost in your upper body. Past 60 min, and especially 90, amino acid conversion to glucose becomes 10-20% of the energy supply. At that point in time, that ain't amino acids floating around from your last meal, those were already used up.

You likely loaded your muscle up with glucose stores though, which has attached water - that will swell the muscle up pretty good.

But endurance doesn't need more muscle. Only if you do sprints to put an overload to increase speed do you need more muscle - and then you can get some.

Congrats though, and very true, if aiming for any kind of performance, about impossible to eat at deficit for that kind of training. At least not on or following the big run, where body is trying to repair.

That is such a stress on the body, your really don't need the stress of a diet anyway.

Same thing applies to training for century bike ride or triathlons. Very difficult.

Also - only 2200 for 22 miles?

For 120 lb person doing 6 mph, therefore 220 min, at 1% grade, that's a tad over 2200.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

What's providing your estimate? Maybe it's a good one.

Only suggest that because if you actually go too low, and doing that kind of stressful training, body has less room before adapting negatively, you may not have had enough on your big run days or after. That can also cause little to no loss, and bad performance compared to what could have been.

I skimmed the other comments and didn't see this suggestion.
I would try to work in a day or two a week of sprints. I know it doesn't really fit the marathon running style, but it does build muscle mass and it has been shown that, only doing steady state cardio like long distance runs, your body adapts quickly and learns to conserve energy. HIIT cardio is not subject to this adaptation.
Here is an article on the subject: http://www.simplyshredded.com/cardio-for-fat-loss-high-intensity-interval-training-cardio-vs-low-intensity-steady-state-cardio.html