Marathons and Weight Loss

Congrats on your marathon.
I seem to be in the minority, but during my marathon training cycles, I could not keep the weight on me. Those were the 2 lightest weights I've been during my adult life. I think far too many people use all the running as an open license to eat all they want. Sometimes it can take a little bit of trial and error finding the sweet spot of calories, but once you do, you can lose weight and successfully train.

This is a great topic, thanks for posting. While I did run my best times when I weighed 35 pounds less than I do now (in the 10k), my training times are just as good now and I have started running longer distances (half marathon and many more 10k's). That is not to say that I wouldn't much prefer weighing 35 pounds less again (or at least 25), but I'm not going to stop running in order to do it. Just wish I could figure out how to have the best of both worlds....

Last year when training for my half I pretty much maintained. When I first started I was eating too little for the increased miles and getting sick so I upped to maintain.

This year I figured out appropriate calories and am losing during my half training. I am making sure I am eating enough and on my long run days I bump my calories up to maintenance to account for the extra calories and hunger.

I think weight loss and training can be done and like someone else said you just need to find the balance. Although when I start training for my marathon next year I hope to be at my desired weight and hopefully can maintain through training.

As far as the sales guy, sometimes they are just duds. The first time I was fitted the guy insisted I go up an entire size from my normal 7.5. I kept telling him they were too big and felt as if they were slipping off my heel. He said I just needed to tie them correctly. I thought ok, you are the "expert", bought the shoes knowing I could return them. I went for my first run and barely made it down the street. I took them back and had a very helpful woman who took me down to an 8 and found a great pair.

I have seen every age, shape and body type at my races. I don't get why people are so surprised about this.

Great topic, and timely for me.

I love how people assume that you have to be thin to be healthy. I personally have seen that theory dis-proven many many times, and I try to keep it in mind when I'm having one of those days where I'm not feeling confident about my weight. In fact, during one of my 10km races, an overweight man blew past me - on the back of his shirt it said "fat, diabetic, and beating you". Cracked me up, and I thought "good for you!"

I'm currently training for my fifth half, my second since having a child and packing on some weight. Although my decision to lose weight and do a half were separate decisions, the weight is flying off while I'm on my half training program (41lbs since mid-June). I've upped my calories a few times to try to slow down the process, but the fact is, I simply cannot "eat back" even close to the amount of calories I'm burning during my training. I've come to the conclusion that it will be even out once I'm done my half and am not training so much.

I have to say though, doing a half is much easier when 40lbs lighter. My last one (first after having a child) I was at 2:47, and this time I'm on track for about 2:15.

I've run half dozen marathons at various weights during the last 15 years. I love the melting pot of shapes,sizes and ages not to mention the gear that you see at the starting area! Yea for diversity! The diverse starting line population has such great commradarie because the basic goal for all is the same-finish. Cheers to anyone who wants to give it a go, it is a goal unto itself.

Sadly, I put on weight training for my marathon. On a completely unrelated thing, I got injured and I'm on the shelf for another week and have been for a bit. I plan on getting down to "fighting weight" before I start training for my next marathon. Training starts late February...

If I'm down to "fighting weight" I hope to just maintain. At least I didn't jump a pants size or anything.

It is a lot of combo stress. I think the problem of doing the training and weight loss together comes in from not taking a reasonable deficit for the amount of training being done, and not having a good calorie burn estimate to make that deficit.
Body recovers slower in a deficit anyway, accidentally have it too big, bad performance. Too small, little weight loss. Way too big, negative adaptations by the body.

I've helped a few using Fitbit's lately that have noticed what studies have already shown - if you undereat too much, the body slows down rest of your activity.
And they noticed that, accounting for steps that may have been done during the longer training, they just slowed down their day and didn't burn as much outside exercise.
What would have been normal 2000 daily burn with say 1000 cal run, becomes 1700 and 1000. If not using a Fitbit - they would never have caught that fact.

I noticed it 2 springs ago when I was using calorie burn formula based on older VO2max test. Performance ho-hum, weight loss little to none. Got another VO2max test after race and new formula - I was way off on calorie burns, creating terribly big deficit for what I was trying to accomplish.
Using the new formula and basically eating more because I did burn more - lost the weight and performance got better.

This is a wonderful thread, and an issue that isn't discussed enough. There is a different "running weight" for everyone, sometimes even multiple ones. I've run three marathons, including Boston 2014 (I re-qualified while I was there, so I'm planning on 2015 too! Training for ten minutes faster than last year!), and a few ultra marathons.

It's cool to hear you're in law school, since I'm in grad school studying Geochemistry. From high school through now, because of school work and stress, my weight has been all over the charts, but I've kept running. And guess what? My marathon time at 145 isn't much slower than my marathon time at 115 (I'm short. Admittedly, the times are harder to achieve at heavier weights. More mass to haul up a hill. Actually, I'm finding it's great to do base building at a heavier weight, while planning on losing a bit to do speed work, etc. I feel stronger when the weight comes off. Free strength training!). In fact, below about 110, I start slowing down a lot, yet I got comments along the line of "You're in such great shape now! I bet your times are so much faster!" Whereas, heavier, no one assumed I ran, and was surprised to hear I did. There was some internal conflict in me between this making me very upset and me taking pride in surprising the people I passed during races, especially as they tried to keep up. It would also make me mad when I was TRAINING if someone walking on the trail would look at me and say something like "You're doing really well!" or "You can do it!" even if I was going ridiculously slowly. My mom has dealt with similar issues, especially now that she's in her 60s. The combination of age and weight fluctuations tends to surprise people. You cannot speculate on someone's health based solely on appearance.

There's even more body diversity in ultra running. I think you have to be a bit sturdier than a road runner to excel on the trails for 12-48hrs. People in the ultra community also seem more accepting.

My opinion is weight loss and running marathons are not mutually exclusive. I was 235ish in Dec 2013 for my second marathon (4:56) and about 210 in May 2014 for my third (4:28). I'll be about 180 for my fifth in 2 weeks (Monumental) and expect to finish around 3:45. Also, my diet was less than 20% carbs.

glevinso wrote: »

hermann341 wrote: »

My opinion is weight loss and running marathons are not mutually exclusive. I was 235ish in Dec 2013 for my second marathon (4:56) and about 210 in May 2014 for my third (4:28). I'll be about 180 for my fifth in 2 weeks (Monumental) and expect to finish around 3:45. Also, my diet was less than 20% carbs.

While not mutually exclusive you *do* have to be careful to still fuel your body for the training. You can under-fuel a *little* to drop weight but it is dangerous to try to drop significant weight, at least towards the end of the build.

As a low carber, my fat is my fuel. I save my glycogen for my brain. I'm about at my desired weight, so I will be transitioning to maintenance, but my carbs will stay at about 20%.