Active lifestyle, adding muscle, and eating

RoyalMoose11
RoyalMoose11 Posts: 211 Member
edited February 9 in Fitness and Exercise
Hey all,
After months of hard work I've lost the weight I hoped to lose and can wee bit of new muscle definition in my arms (thanks stronglifts!) The number on the scale is nice but I'm just overall feeling great- it's been very rewarding personally.

I'm looking for some guidance with eating to support my active lifestyle now. I am in the middle of my half marathon training (meaning about three runs as week ranging from 3.5-10.5 miles but averaging around 6 miles/week). I also lift and swim three days a week with hopes of doing a sprint triathlon in 2014. I've come to really enjoy being active more so than before and want to keep these more aggressive fitness routines up.

I'm currently in as lightly active in terms of daily activity (my job mostly has been walking some but not too much). My workouts are the most active part of my days. I've updated MFP to be at maintain but it seems like my calorie intake has skyrocketed (2,900 today and I only did a small lifting routine) but maybe I'm used to be trying to lose and not at a maintenance level.

Am I at a point where focusing on macros/setting custom goals is better? Also, I'm struggling with knowing how many calories to eat back after big runs/swims and what calories to take in after. For example, I did an 8.5 mile run yesterday (~1,200 calories burned) so I added lots of extra food to all my meals that day (doubled the eggs with breakfast added more chicken at dinner, etc). Anyone have suggestions for that? Thanks.

Replies

  • AllanMisner
    AllanMisner Posts: 4,140 Member
    At this point, eat what your body asks for. You're in maintenance. On hard days, eat more. Focus on how you feel (energy level) and other measurements (running strength, weight, body measurements) and if they get out of whack, adjust. Don't sweat the small stuff.
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Eat back 100% of your calories burned from excercise and start adding 100 calories a week to your base calories, so, for example, if your base calories are currently 1500 and you do a 1200 calorie run, your goal should be 1600+1200=2800.

    NOW, that's a lot of food, since you're not going to be running 1200 cal runs everyday, you can eat until you're full, say 2400 cals, and add the extra 400 to the next day or next couple days. I personally have never been able to eat all of the calories from a long run back on the same day.

    Keep adding 100 cals a week until you're at predicted maintenance, and then you might need to adjust up or down a little bit until your weight totally stabilizes. Give each adjustment a week or more to settle out the bumps, you might gain a little right after you adjust but it will most likely come back off in a few days.

    Good luck!
  • RoyalMoose11
    RoyalMoose11 Posts: 211 Member
    Thanks for the advice. Yesterday (day after 8.5 mile run) I was so hungry since I didn't eat back 100% but couldn't eat more on that day. Spreading calories out over two days is a nice idea. Today's run was about 700 calories which should be easier to manage (queue the peanut butter, banana, and brown rice with dinner!).

    Re: sweating the small stuff, I have got to keep that in mind. With being so watchful of my foods over the weight loss time (with less intense workouts) I need to remember I'm in a different phase now.
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