Marathon training vs Daily Calorie intake

First, you are eating your exercise calories back, right? That's crucial.

Second, have you ever calculated your BMR? You don't want to eat below that number, especially if you're doing endurance training. My guess is it's higher than
I'm probably a lot bigger than you, but my BMR is almost 1700 cals, which was a big shock after restricting to 1200 for a while. it was worth it to up my calories- huge performance gains and I'm still losing, slowly but surely.

Third, while CICO is the only thing that matters for weight loss, when you're training for endurance events, your macro ratios should probably be tweaked a little bit- higher carbohydrates will make life easier. Matt Fitzgerald's book Racing Weight has a handy chart for making sure you're eating optimal macro levels. He claims calorie counting is too much work and has a different system for tracking intake, but I find it confusing so I stuck with MFP. He has a lot of valuable insight into endurance athlete nutrition, though.
- Your longest run of the week is 2 hours, correct? What's your total training volume each week? Also, what are your stats (height, weight, age, etc.)

susie383 wrote: »

Thanks....glad to hear my instincts were correct:-). SBRRepeat, I'm a lot older than you (45), 172cm in height and 66kg. I must admit I haven't always eaten all my exercise calories. My long run on a Sunday is gradually increasing as I get closer to my marathon in May

I'm also doing a marathon in May, I eat about 2x as much as you do...

Based on your stats, the Scooby's Workshop TDEE calculator put your BMR at 1386, your TDEE (what you need to eat to maintain weight at your current exercise level) at 2392. If you want to lose at a reasonable rate, recommendation is then 1913 a day (TDEE -20%, that would include your exercise calories).
If you stick with MFPs NEAT method, that would be around 1525 net (and eat your exercise calories!)

So, yes, definitely eat more. I tried to do Tri training while eating at 1200 calories. My hair started falling out and my nails got brittle, so I said, eff this, bring me a (carefully weighed and logged) cheeseburger.

susie383 wrote: »

I need some advice on whether I'm eating enough to sustain my marathon training. I train 6 x a week which includes 2 gym sessions of approximately 90 min each and then 4 runs, one of which is usually around 2 hrs or more long.
Based on the above and me wanting to lose 0.5kg a week, MyFitnessPal says I should be on 1200 calories a day. I've been sticking to this for a while but have started feeling really tired and have had 4 colds since Christmas and I'm wondering if the low calorie intake has something to do with this???

1200 calories is the minimum that MFP gives you for SEDENTARY...if you're training for a marathon, you are obviously not sedentary. If you're going to use the MFP method you're going to have to log your workouts and eat back exercise calories...otherwise I suggest using TDEE. Either way, you're going to be eating...a lot.

Granted I'm a male, but just to give you an idea...normally I maintain on around 2700 calories per day with my daily grind and my normal, regular exercise for which I'm still pretty active...so I lose about 1 Lb per week @ 2,200 calories or so per day. When I was training for my century ride (a roughly equivalent training regimen to a marathon, I was losing weight steadily while consuming about 3200+ calories per day.

sjp_511 wrote: »

SBRRepeat wrote: »

susie383 wrote: »

Thanks....glad to hear my instincts were correct:-). SBRRepeat, I'm a lot older than you (45), 172cm in height and 66kg. I must admit I haven't always eaten all my exercise calories. My long run on a Sunday is gradually increasing as I get closer to my marathon in May

I'm also doing a marathon in May, I eat about 2x as much as you do...

Based on your stats, the Scooby's Workshop TDEE calculator put your BMR at 1386, your TDEE (what you need to eat to maintain weight at your current exercise level) at 2392. If you want to lose at a reasonable rate, recommendation is then 1913 a day (TDEE -20%, that would include your exercise calories).
If you stick with MFPs NEAT method, that would be around 1525 net (and eat your exercise calories!)

So, yes, definitely eat more. I tried to do Tri training while eating at 1200 calories. My hair started falling out and my nails got brittle, so I said, eff this, bring me a (carefully weighed and logged) cheeseburger.

TDEE-20% is considered a fairly aggressive rate of weight loss. If she goes for a slower weight loss goal, she will probably see better performance on the marathon training. It is a matter of priorities: losing weight or marathon performance.

Agreed. I was just trying to demonstrate just how much more she should be eating, even to lose weight quickly. Should have been more clear.
Thanks for clarifying that!

WickedPineapple wrote: »

I'm training for a half. I had to switch to the TDEE method, rather than eating back my exercise calories, because I discovered I wasn't properly fueling my runs that way. I was eating 1500 + exercise calories (after exercise) and set up to lose 0.5 lbs/week. Now I eat 1700 everyday, still set up to lose 0.5 lbs/week. My runs are MUCH better. Seriously, I couldn't believe how a couple hundred calories improved the quality of my runs. Granted, I could have eaten more beforehand, assuming the exercise burns in advance, but I'd been meaning to switch to TDEE for awhile now anyway.

Also, your profile says you only have 17 lbs to go? You might want to change your settings to 0.5 lb/week rather than 0.5 kg/week (1 lb/week). Running on 1200 calories a day seems like a really bad idea.

Same experience. Happened once when I got a couple of months into lifting - started feeling tired all of the time. Increased a hundred calories and felt worlds better. Happened a second time during half marathon training. Same deal, but I added on a couple of hundred calories.

I'm also in marathon training, and I'm netting ~1400 a day, consuming a total of 1700-2000 typically depending on how much I ran that day. So you should definitely be eating more! More calories could help your weight loss, especially eating back all those exercise calories (though maybe not on 1500+ cal burn days... it can be hard to add all that extra food in!), in addition to boosting your training.

I'm glad to find this thread. I've been marathon training and have packed on 10 lbs. I haven't made the best dietary choices because I think I've been super hungry but I seriously don't think I should have packed on 10 pounds. I had maintained for a couple years, so I don't believe I'm deluding myself.

My marathon is Dec. 5th, so my longest training week is next week, then taper starts.I ran 18 miles on Sunday, and was up 2.6 pounds the next day. I've tried eating a bit more this week, but the scale hasn't moved at all. It is not "muscle" - I wish!

Should i use "moderate" exercise as the selection? I have a desk job. I'm 5'3 and now, sadly, 178 pounds. MFP puts my baseline at 1310 if I add my weekly workouts and divide by 7.I also had my gallbladder out in Dec, if that makes any difference. I struggled until very recently with digestion issues while training, but I think I finally have that worked out. I had been unable to eat prior to a run...now I can have a piece of toast or a roll, but that's about it.

I think the TDEE method would be best, but I'm not sure how to work that with the varying training. Help?

MFP gave me 1200 and I got 2,578 for my run. (I'm slow - it took 4 hours and 9 min for my 18 miler). I ate 2,205 calories, which left 1573 calories that I didn't eat. I was satisfied and not hungry. Monday, I was starving, so I ate my 1200 plus another 600. I kept it whole grain and protein mainly but didn't see a drop...and haven't all week.

I'm also not counting the gu chomps I ate....I had 3 servings during my run.