Long distance running and having trouble losing weight

From what I understand doing any exercise for more than an hour is counter productive. Try interval training which is short bursts of sprinting whilst your running/jogging.

Gawd I hope this isn't turning into the "how to run >90min thread."

Post what you know rather than what you "understand."

My $0.02 is that the more aerobically fit you are, the less intake you need (your HR is lower and you burn less calories). Perhaps try a different model (IIFYM to TDEE or the other way around) and see how that works. If you do IIFYM, eat back maybe 1/4 of your burned calories on your dailies but about half on your longs. I'm in maintenance now and that's what I do, but I was actively losing weight on 15-20 MPW a year ago.

I'm a little confused by this.

IIFYM and TDEE aren't mutually exclusive. I do both. TDEE method refers to your overall calorie intake. IIFYM just means that you make your food choices fit your macronutrient requirements. It doesn't have anything to do with exercise calories.

I'll just call it "the one where I log all exercise as 1 calorie and eat more cals every day" and the other one "the one where I log calories burned and eat some/all of them back." If I butchered the terminology, I'm sorry, but that's what I meant. When my training kicks in, I have high burn and low burn days, and my eating is unpredictable, so I smooth it all out with the upped daily calories and non-logging of exercise. On steady maintenance training, my cals burnt are more consistent every day.

From what I understand doing any exercise for more than an hour is counter productive. Try interval training which is short bursts of sprinting whilst your running/jogging.

Gawd I hope this isn't turning into the "how to run >90min thread."

Post what you know rather than what you "understand."

My $0.02 is that the more aerobically fit you are, the less intake you need (your HR is lower and you burn less calories). Perhaps try a different model (IIFYM to TDEE or the other way around) and see how that works. If you do IIFYM, eat back maybe 1/4 of your burned calories on your dailies but about half on your longs. I'm in maintenance now and that's what I do, but I was actively losing weight on 15-20 MPW a year ago.

Heart rate is not directly related to calories burned. There is a relationship between VO2 max and heart rate that allows for a calorie estimation in specific circumstances(during steady state cardio) but having a lower heart does not mean you burn fewer calories.
Two people of the same weight, one fit and one unfit, running the same course at the same speed will burn the same calories. The fitter person may have a lower HR, and perceived exertion may be lower, but the calorie output is the same.

You will find that HRMs will give lower calorie readings to fitter individuals because they have lower heart rates. That's why it is recommended you get a HRM that will allow you to adjust the VO2 max setting as those that don't are based on averages.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak?month=201005

I used to be a medium-distance runner (my longest run was 25K/15.5 miles). Now I'm a long-distance cyclist (up to 125 miles in a day). What I discovered is that running or cycling long distances is a lot of fun and improves my fitness. However, it does nothing for weight loss unless I run a calorie deficit. In 2012, I put on weight while cycling about 2400 miles. In 2013, I lost 45 lbs. while cycling 3600 miles. The difference? In 2013, I counted calories carefully and ran a deficit of about 450 calories a day (on average).

I'd recommend that you get a high-quality heart rate monitor (the best you can afford--the Garmin units that use the FirstBeat algorithm, like the ForeRunner 620, are pretty good, and they adapt the more you use them). Use it to measure your running calories. Then set MFP for your desired weight loss, record calories you eat carefully (I strongly recommend a food scale), record and "eat back" your running calories, and check your results after a couple of weeks. If you're losing at your goal, keep on as before. If you're not losing as much, cut back on calories. If you are losing too much, add in some additional calories.

You can get faster while running a deficit. I increased my average cycling speed and hill climbing power substantially last year while running a deficit. It's not easy (interval training helped a lot), but you don't have to choose between improving performance and losing weight.

^^^What he said. Aside from the fact that I'm a marathoner (not a cyclist) and I use TDEE (instead of eating back exercise calories each day), this is my experience. I use my Garmin to track my calorie burn, I use a food scale to weigh most of my food, and I use MFP to track my calories to ensure I'm eating at a deficit; doing that, I lost ~27 lb while training for my last marathon. If you're losing too quickly or feeling overly tired; eat more; if you're not losing at all / quickly enough, eat less. Adjust as necessary. That's really all there is to it. Overall, I wouldn't set an excessively large weight loss goal rate; but it's basically as simple as that. (Well, for me it was.)

Best of luck to you!

[ETA]: With 10-15 lb left, I'd target between 0.5-1.0 lb/week...

From what I understand doing any exercise for more than an hour is counter productive. Try interval training which is short bursts of sprinting whilst your running/jogging.

Gawd I hope this isn't turning into the "how to run >90min thread."

Post what you know rather than what you "understand."

My $0.02 is that the more aerobically fit you are, the less intake you need (your HR is lower and you burn less calories). Perhaps try a different model (IIFYM to TDEE or the other way around) and see how that works. If you do IIFYM, eat back maybe 1/4 of your burned calories on your dailies but about half on your longs. I'm in maintenance now and that's what I do, but I was actively losing weight on 15-20 MPW a year ago.

I'm a little confused by this.

IIFYM and TDEE aren't mutually exclusive. I do both. TDEE method refers to your overall calorie intake. IIFYM just means that you make your food choices fit your macronutrient requirements. It doesn't have anything to do with exercise calories.

I'll just call it "the one where I log all exercise as 1 calorie and eat more cals every day" and the other one "the one where I log calories burned and eat some/all of them back." If I butchered the terminology, I'm sorry, but that's what I meant. When my training kicks in, I have high burn and low burn days, and my eating is unpredictable, so I smooth it all out with the upped daily calories and non-logging of exercise. On steady maintenance training, my cals burnt are more consistent every day.

:laugh: The one where you eat back your exercise calories I call the MFP model. IIFYM is a different thing. :flowerforyou:

Busted! In my defense, I eat all day like a friggin' cow and have maintained my weight for 8 months now

I would recommend running intervals. I have lost 50 pounds in 3 1/2 months running and strength training. Good luck to you

I find my weight loss slows when my distances go up significantly. I lose best when my long run is no more than 6 miles. I don't know why that is my magic number. But in general, in terms of the not losing when distance training, it's down to cortisol.

Keep the running up if you love it (I do!), but if you're wanting to lose more, maybe maintain a lower base mileage for a while, keep ticking over, and see if that shifts the weight.

I am 5 foot 8 my current weight is 156-158, calories vary between 1200- 1600 depending on workouts

How accurately are you measuring everything? This would be the first thing I would look at about why you aren't losing. Running as much as you are, your given intake should put you in a calorie deficit - a pretty big one, in fact, and I'd generally expect your running performance to suffer from it. Of course, your body can have adapted to the increased activity, becoming somewhat more efficient at running (thus using fewer calories per run), but I would still say that 1600 for a woman your size would be low and I am going to suggest you may be eating more than you think.

Measure everything. Don't forget to log anything like gatorade or GU or any other fuel/electrolyte replacing items on your runs (hey, it's not an uncommon mistake!). Even log any taste tests when cooking for now. Sort out how many calories you really are eating; if you already do all this, it'll be time to look at what's next.

Because the bottom line is, if you are in a calorie deficit you will lose weight. The size of the deficit will determine the speed of the loss.

From what I understand doing any exercise for more than an hour is counter productive. Try interval training which is short bursts of sprinting whilst your running/jogging.

Gawd I hope this isn't turning into the "how to run >90min thread."

Post what you know rather than what you "understand."

My $0.02 is that the more aerobically fit you are, the less intake you need (your HR is lower and you burn less calories). Perhaps try a different model (IIFYM to TDEE or the other way around) and see how that works. If you do IIFYM, eat back maybe 1/4 of your burned calories on your dailies but about half on your longs. I'm in maintenance now and that's what I do, but I was actively losing weight on 15-20 MPW a year ago.

Heart rate is not directly related to calories burned. There is a relationship between VO2 max and heart rate that allows for a calorie estimation in specific circumstances(during steady state cardio) but having a lower heart does not mean you burn fewer calories.
Two people of the same weight, one fit and one unfit, running the same course at the same speed will burn the same calories. The fitter person may have a lower HR, and perceived exertion may be lower, but the calorie output is the same.

You will find that HRMs will give lower calorie readings to fitter individuals because they have lower heart rates. That's why it is recommended you get a HRM that will allow you to adjust the VO2 max setting as those that don't are based on averages.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/Azdak?month=201005

You save me a lot of writing. :laugh:

Maybe not. Open discussion time?

Given that the two individuals of the same weight sitting and doing nothing (MET of 1 at RMR) can have significant different calorie burns (see Ketch McArdle equations).

While the work provided in moving the same weight the same distance would be the same wouldn't a variety of factors give different energy expenditure (muscular firing efficiency, blood flow, thermal loss from sweating) so that the untrained individual would burn more calories?

VO2 would be different for each individual and while the activity might have the same MET, the base metabolism may differ on LBM composition.

I'm also going to suggest that using MET is if not questionable in general, not necessarily accurate.

1) Findings confirm recent studies of otherwise healthy individuals and indicate that the average resting metabolic rate in subjects with coronary heart disease is 23% to 36% lower than the widely accepted value of 3.5 mL O2.kg(-1).min(-1). Results demonstrate the limitation of the convention of expressing energy expenditure in multiples of an assumed constant.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17558194

2) Body composition (fat mass and fat-free mass) accounted for 62% of the variance in resting VO2 compared with age, which accounted for only 14%. For a large heterogeneous sample, the 1-MET value of 3.5 ml O2 x kg(-1) x min(-1) overestimates the actual resting VO2 value on average by 35%, and the 1-MET of 1 kcal/h overestimates resting energy expenditure by 20%. Using measured or predicted RMR (ml O2 x kg(-1) x min(-1) or kcal x kg(-1) x h(-1)) as a correction factor can appropriately adjust for individual differences when estimating the energy cost of moderate intensity walking (5.6 km/h).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15831804

There are also article on age variance, etc...

Edit: adding quote:

However, there is evidence that the factorial system may be inaccurate for estimating activity energy expenditure in people of different body mass and body fat percentage (16, 29). Furthermore, Ainsworth et al. (1) advise that, when calculating the energy cost of physical activities, the MET (factorial) system does not take into account individual differences that impact on, and thus may alter, the energy cost of movement. As a consequence, Ainsworth et al. (1) have purported that a correction factor may be required to adjust for individual differences when estimating the energy cost of physical activity.

Got caught up in work this week, but since you raised the questions, I wanted to respond, albeit briefly.

1. Untrained burn more calories: Whatever inefficiencies that might (and I stress that word) be present in an untrained person that would lead to a transient increase in caloric burn compared to a trained individual (and I am not conceding that is true, just going along for the sake of argument), it is MORE than offset by the fact that those same inefficiencies inhibit the untrained individual from working at a higher intensity. Thus they will almost always burn fewer calories. Another thing: those so-called "inefficiencies" are a transient response to a new activity--the body adapts very quickly. The initial response to a new activity involves a lot of randomness and inconsistently and cannot be accurately quantified. That's why whenever researchers study a new exercise modality or type of program, they always put the subjects through a process of facilitation so that the response to the exercise "treatment" can be consistently and accurately measured.

2. Variations in MET values. I can't speak for all uses of MET values, but for me, a MET is used as a numerical convenience only. By that, I mean it is used to make a bigger number (VO2) into a smaller number that, for reasons known best to behaviorists and psychologists, is easier for our brains to process. We don't actually measure in METs--the measurements are done and the VO2 number is divided by 3.5 to determine a MET value. If I say that running 6.0 mph has a VO2 35 mi/kg/min, as a convenience, I express that number as 10 METs. If it turns out that 1 MET is only 2.6 ml/kg/min, then I might express that number as 13.5 METs, but it doesn't really change anything substantial about the energy estimates--you would just have to learn a different scale. The only error that would be introduced by determining that 1 MET was less than 3.5 ml/kg/min would be for equations in which the resting energy component is included, and then the effect would be very small.

For example the ACSM energy prediction equation for running is

VO2 = [Speed (meters/min) X 0.2] + 3.5

3.5 is the resting component (1 MET). So, if it turns out that the actual resting rate is 2.6 instead of 3.5, it would only affect that small part of the equation. Going back to the estimate of 6.0 mph running as 35 ml/kg/min, changing the resting component would only change the VO2 to 34.1, or a 2.5% difference.