Finding the sweet spot with long distance running

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brandoncallah
brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I have been running on and off for the past 5 years but this year I got really serious about it. I lost 35 lbs in the spring and ran my first full marathon 3 weeks ago. I had been maintaining my weight since June but decided it's time to finish my goal. My goal is to weigh 175 lbs and I'm currently 198 lbs. Here is the issue I am running into.

Yesterday I went for a 14 mile run which netted me about 2400 extra calories. However, I ended the day with an extra 1,700 calories to eat. Now that today is a new day my calories reset and I really can't see myself staying under my goal with how hungry I am. When I say hungry I mean really really hungry. I'm feeding myself healthy food (hummus, pita chips, chicken, peppers, onions, fruit, etc.) I would have eaten more but I went to bed at a reasonable time. Any advice? Is there a way to take those calories and split them throughout the week? I'm very commited to the weight loss but want to do it right. Thanks!

Replies

  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
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    Yes, you can split those calories over several days. You can average them out over the whole week, or eat more on days immediately before and/or after you run. Up to you.

    There's also no particular reason to stick to just 'healthy' food unless you want to - a bowl of ice cream or some such makes getting the calories in easier if needed.
  • CherylP67
    CherylP67 Posts: 772 Member
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    Congrats on your marathon, I run half marathons and look forward to doing a full some day. I believe that the general idea of weight loss is calories in needs to be less than calories out. I haven't been running, but I was never hungry the day of my long runs, I was always hungry the day after. I added the calories I earned on the long run to the next day, because that was the day I was hungry. It worked for me, I was quite successful losing weight.
  • brandoncallah
    brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
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    stealthq wrote: »
    Yes, you can split those calories over several days. You can average them out over the whole week, or eat more on days immediately before and/or after you run. Up to you.

    There's also no particular reason to stick to just 'healthy' food unless you want to - a bowl of ice cream or some such makes getting the calories in easier if needed.

    Is there a way to do that in the app or on the website? I would like to show green everyday. :smile: Yes I know I can eat something unhealthy and will do that from time to time but would prefer to give my body what it needs to recover from a hard run. A lot of times I got for a burger after a hard run.
  • CherylP67
    CherylP67 Posts: 772 Member
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    brandoncallah wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    Yes, you can split those calories over several days. You can average them out over the whole week, or eat more on days immediately before and/or after you run. Up to you.

    There's also no particular reason to stick to just 'healthy' food unless you want to - a bowl of ice cream or some such makes getting the calories in easier if needed.

    Is there a way to do that in the app or on the website? I would like to show green everyday. :smile: Yes I know I can eat something unhealthy and will do that from time to time but would prefer to give my body what it needs to recover from a hard run. A lot of times I got for a burger after a hard run.

    If it's about showing green, log your long run on the day after you do it so that you can eat the calories that day.
  • brandoncallah
    brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
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    CherylP67 wrote: »
    Congrats on your marathon, I run half marathons and look forward to doing a full some day. I believe that the general idea of weight loss is calories in needs to be less than calories out. I haven't been running, but I was never hungry the day of my long runs, I was always hungry the day after. I added the calories I earned on the long run to the next day, because that was the day I was hungry. It worked for me, I was quite successful losing weight.

    That's good to hear it worked for you. I assumed it would but it's hard to say. Yes, the day after I'm ravenous! Good luck with your running. The best way to commit to a marathon is just sign up. :) Give yourself at least 16 weeks. Thanks!
  • CherylP67
    CherylP67 Posts: 772 Member
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    brandoncallah wrote: »
    CherylP67 wrote: »
    Congrats on your marathon, I run half marathons and look forward to doing a full some day. I believe that the general idea of weight loss is calories in needs to be less than calories out. I haven't been running, but I was never hungry the day of my long runs, I was always hungry the day after. I added the calories I earned on the long run to the next day, because that was the day I was hungry. It worked for me, I was quite successful losing weight.

    That's good to hear it worked for you. I assumed it would but it's hard to say. Yes, the day after I'm ravenous! Good luck with your running. The best way to commit to a marathon is just sign up. :) Give yourself at least 16 weeks. Thanks!

    Thanks, I'm currently in grad school and can't commit to the training. I will be done with school in summer 2017, I'm planning a fall marathon then, I will be getting into the really long runs after I've graduated.

  • brandoncallah
    brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
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    CherylP67 wrote: »
    brandoncallah wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    Yes, you can split those calories over several days. You can average them out over the whole week, or eat more on days immediately before and/or after you run. Up to you.

    There's also no particular reason to stick to just 'healthy' food unless you want to - a bowl of ice cream or some such makes getting the calories in easier if needed.

    Is there a way to do that in the app or on the website? I would like to show green everyday. :smile: Yes I know I can eat something unhealthy and will do that from time to time but would prefer to give my body what it needs to recover from a hard run. A lot of times I got for a burger after a hard run.

    If it's about showing green, log your long run on the day after you do it so that you can eat the calories that day.

    That's a good idea but it automatically syncs from strava. Maybe I could write an app to split my exercise or something...something to think about.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
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    brandoncallah wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    Yes, you can split those calories over several days. You can average them out over the whole week, or eat more on days immediately before and/or after you run. Up to you.

    There's also no particular reason to stick to just 'healthy' food unless you want to - a bowl of ice cream or some such makes getting the calories in easier if needed.

    Is there a way to do that in the app or on the website? I would like to show green everyday. :smile: Yes I know I can eat something unhealthy and will do that from time to time but would prefer to give my body what it needs to recover from a hard run. A lot of times I got for a burger after a hard run.

    I don't have the pro version of this app, but I'm pretty sure I saw that you can set different calorie goals for different days if you want, but then you'd need to have your long run on the same day all of the time. Don't know about you, but the weather keeps moving mine around.

    The other option is to average your planned weekly calories and change your goal every week. That's too much of a pain for me, but it can be done.
  • dewd2
    dewd2 Posts: 2,445 Member
    edited November 2015
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    I look at this as more of a weekly goal than a daily goal. I want to consume about 3500 calories less than I burn each week. This approach has worked great for me and allows me to eat 'normally' as my body needs fuel.
  • pondee629
    pondee629 Posts: 2,469 Member
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    A "red" number does not effect your weight one way of the other.

    " I would like to show green everyday." Focus on your long term goals and leave the day to day colors to themselves.
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
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    I also run a lot, but I like to keep my calorie intake fairly consistent throughout the week. I use the TDEE method based on the average miles I run in a week. If you look at several weeks of data from when you were maintaining, add your calorie intake up over that period of time and divide it by the number of days (this is independent of your exercise). This is your TDEE. But in order for this to work, it assumes that you are running close to the same amount of miles every week. If you divide your total mileage over that same period of time by the number of days, that will tell you the average number of miles per day you have to run to get that TDEE number. For example, I have figured out that my TDEE is around 1800 calories per day if I run an average of 5 miles per day, or 35 miles per week (I am a small female, so yours is probably much higher). I have my goal set at 1800 and I log my exercise as 1 calorie burned so I don't eat those back. When I m training for something and my mileage increases, I increase my daily goal by 70 calories per mile per day. Of course, if you want to be in a deficit, you will have to subtract this from your TDEE.
  • ThickMcRunFast
    ThickMcRunFast Posts: 22,511 Member
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    You can definitely make it more of a weekly goal than a daily goal. I have found that its often hard to make such drastic swings in calories (3800 for a day with a 20 mile run, followed by 2000 for a rest day, etc, its just hard on the system and I'd rather eat the same amount every day)

    Though- how are you figuring 2400 cals burnt for a 14 mile run? For a 198 pound male, its more like 1800 cals.
  • brandoncallah
    brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
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    lporter229 wrote: »
    I also run a lot, but I like to keep my calorie intake fairly consistent throughout the week. I use the TDEE method based on the average miles I run in a week. If you look at several weeks of data from when you were maintaining, add your calorie intake up over that period of time and divide it by the number of days (this is independent of your exercise). This is your TDEE. But in order for this to work, it assumes that you are running close to the same amount of miles every week. If you divide your total mileage over that same period of time by the number of days, that will tell you the average number of miles per day you have to run to get that TDEE number. For example, I have figured out that my TDEE is around 1800 calories per day if I run an average of 5 miles per day, or 35 miles per week (I am a small female, so yours is probably much higher). I have my goal set at 1800 and I log my exercise as 1 calorie burned so I don't eat those back. When I m training for something and my mileage increases, I increase my daily goal by 70 calories per mile per day. Of course, if you want to be in a deficit, you will have to subtract this from your TDEE.

    That makes sense. I'm now focusing more on the daily average rather than each day as a single entity.
  • brandoncallah
    brandoncallah Posts: 6 Member
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    ThickMcRunFast wrote: »
    You can definitely make it more of a weekly goal than a daily goal. I have found that its often hard to make such drastic swings in calories (3800 for a day with a 20 mile run, followed by 2000 for a rest day, etc, its just hard on the system and I'd rather eat the same amount every day)

    Though- how are you figuring 2400 cals burnt for a 14 mile run? For a 198 pound male, its more like 1800 cals.
    Yeah I'm going to be focusing on the weekly total and the daily average rather than the daily amount. It makes a lot more sense with my lifestyle. Strava calculated the 2400 calories. It was 14 miles at a 9:13 pace. MyFitnessPal put it around 2100 calories. Either way, I don't think I'm going to make up all those calories anyway.
  • Heatherthecyclist
    Heatherthecyclist Posts: 41 Member
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    2100 calories for a 14 mile run is crazy!!!!!
    I have had mine tested and I burn 67 calories per mile. Lots of places will tell you 100 but much more than that is just getting silly

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