August (2016) Running Challenge

TattooedDolphinGirl78 wrote: »

After 4 days of consuming less than healthy stuff, I found that my performance in my runs were less than stellar. I always knew intellectually that poor fuel choices would equal crappy performance but it's a completely different scenario when you actually do it IRL. lol

Let's just say I'm super happy to be back to my regular routine which includes my meal plan. This morning's run was brutal. I hope that my runs for the rest of the week will be much better.

Subject: Refueling and your diet as runners. Since a lot of you are talking about this, and I just answered 2 of the LDR's forum questions on a similar subject, I figure I throw in some of my personal observations.

BLUF: Running requires energy, run a lot and you use up a lot of your reserves. To replace those reserves, you need to eat them back.

A lot of you guys also are trying to lose weight at the same time. Losing weight means eating less calories than what you use in a day. So how do we as runners properly fuel ourselves and still maintain or lose to a healthy weight level?


WARNING: I am about to talk all sciency-like.

Body in catabolic mode = body is breaking down (usually breaking down reserves like fat and glycogen to use as energy but could also refer to the muscle and other tissue breaking down as you exercise).

Body in anabolic mode = body is repairing itself. (i.e glycogenesis which is turning sugar into carb reserves, gluconeogenesis which is turning non-carbs like fat and amino acids into sugar, and muscle sythesis which is muscle tissue repair and building).

In order to lose weight, you have to have your body be in a catabolic state for a great deal of time. This may be contrary to your goal of you recovering from a hard workout. That is because your body is only efficient in doing one of these things (catabolic or anabolic) one at a time.

If your goal is to improve your strength or endurance (strength training, tempo runs, increasing your mileage, speed work, ect) then you will want to create a lot of stress in the body which will put your body in a catabolic state for a short period of time and then followed by a lot of recovery with your diet supporting an anabolic state. To fuel your recovery properly, you will want to consume enough building blocks (protein for muscle growth, calcium and vit D for bone growth, certain helthy fats for harmone building) as well as plenty of calories to put your body into anabolic mode.

If your goal is to lose weight, then calories will have to decrease. But expect performance and recovery to be effected. That is because you will be in a state of catabolic (breaking down your fat and carb reserves to maintain energy levels). The less calories you consume, the longer you will be in a catabolic state and longer recovery will take.

But some catabolic actions are good for distance runners. Like breaking down fat and using it for fuel. But like anything, the body gets better at something the more it practices it. And the less you practice something, the less efficient your body gets at doing that function. So follow that principle, if you rely a lot on carbs (refueling carbs sufficiently), the less it relies on fat for fuel. The more you force your body to run when in a carb deficient state, the more efficient it becomes in using fat as fuel.

As your body gets used to becoming more of a fat burner than a carb burner, a lot of your runs will feel sluggush. That is because as a carb burner, your body has lost a lot of the ability of producing enough of the enzymes and harmones necessary to break down your stored fat and use it as a fuel source. It's more efficient at breaking down glycogen (carb) and using that to fuel your run.

Also, your body can use fat as fuel for your aerobic (less intense paced) runs. But once you workout at an anaerobic intensity (more faster/intense paced) you are forcing the body to burn your stored carbs. Burning fat for energy requires oxygen.

So if you are trying to lose weight, keep consumption of carbs lowered, but also keep your workouts at a lower intensity (more managable volume) and expect recovery to take longer. Expect to be very sluggush while your body gets used to this. But your body will transition within a couple of weeks. I know this first hand.

I regularly get up first thing in the morning and can run 9 miles at an easy pace without eating anything or drinking anything (except a cup of coffee). But when I first was running, I had to eat something before hand. I just got used to running without eating anything in the morning and my runs slowly felt a lot better.

If i know I have a hard workout coming up, like a hill run or tempo run, I make sure I am well fueled up the night before.

Protein is always high as well as the other building blocks your body requires. This is the case if you are losing weight or trying to build up your strength. This is what the body builders follow. During bulk cycles, bodybuilders eat a lot of calories and protein to gain muscle mass. During cut cycles, they eat less calories (to burn the fat) but keep protein high to maintain that muscle mass.

I figure I throw all of this out there. Sorry if this confuses anybody.