Perfect college running diet/sleep schedule/everything

you sound like a cool guy, man

Eat foods that are as unprocessed as possible (you don't have to be perfect)

Fruits and veggies pretty much as much as you want - include a lot of dark green leafy stuff.

Quality proteins like chicken feast and turkey breast.

Healthy good fats like salmon, nuts & nut butters, avocados.

Eat grains that are as unprocessed as possible. White grains are poison to the system.

Drink beer? Perhaps, but practice moderation. Alcohol is bad for you and makes you fat.

Count your calories and watch your macronutrient ratios. Find the ratio where you feel your best.

Diet is more about mindset.

Treat food as fuel.

Optional dialogue wrote:

Count your calories and watch your macronutrient ratios. Find the ratio where you feel your best.

Diet is more about mindset.

Treat food as fuel.

any good refrences for macronutrients? I have seen that word thrown around a lot but always forget what it is..

Maybe I should print out like a good chart that covers a good diet...

How do you guys recommend I track what I eat?

HighMileageMiler wrote:

[quote]Optional dialogue wrote:

Count your calories and watch your macronutrient ratios. Find the ratio where you feel your best.

Diet is more about mindset.

Treat food as fuel.

any good refrences for macronutrients? I have seen that word thrown around a lot but always forget what it is..

Maybe I should print out like a good chart that covers a good diet...

How do you guys recommend I track what I eat?

Macronutrients = Carbohydrates, Protein, Fat

Download an app like MyFitnessPal on your smartphone and track everything you eat to get a good idea of what you're putting in your body. Just track what you normally eat for a week or so then if you find anything you would like to change, change it.

Start each day with a perfectly healthful, organic breakfast.

Bump

I know X_Fit_Guy receives a lot of flack here, but he is right about limiting carbs. Have a diet high in protein and fat, but very low in carbs. They're good to have immediately after exercising, like chocolate milk, but not very useful beyond that.

reader of the forums wrote:

I know X_Fit_Guy receives a lot of flack here, but he is right about limiting carbs. Have a diet high in protein and fat, but very low in carbs. They're good to have immediately after exercising, like chocolate milk, but not very useful beyond that.

Do you not realize xfit guy is a troll? He is intentionally giving bad advice and this is not an exception. Limiting carbs is a terrible idea.

Avoiding high G.I. carbs is a good idea and avoiding excessive carbs is a good idea.

Also, chocolate milk is terrible for you. That syrup is just as bad as any other refined sugar, being combined with milk and chocolate doesn't magically make it good for you.

HighMilerMileage wrote:

I have 4 years of 5 left to run in college and want to go out knowing I gave everything I could to be the best.

Paradoxical but true, being really anal-retentive about stuff that is important doesn't necessarily make you better at it. Get 8 hours, eat as clean as you can without being neurotic, don't trust everything you read on the internet, practice patience moderation and consistency in building your workload, focus on school first and foremost, running may be a passion but at the end of the day it's a hobby.

lift for strength and power but limiting building muscle mass. plyos for sure. in terms of running faster as humans we all have pretty much the same turn over speed the real differnce is the amount of ground you cover with each stride and how efficiently you do so.

Just continue with your training and if you run fast and stop progressing you can train a little more/harder.

Nutriton: something like 70-75% of calories from carbs, 10-15% from fat and 10-15% from protein will be good. We are speaking calories here, not grams. 1 gram of carbs is 4 kcal, 1 grams of fat is 9 kcal, 1 gram of protein is 4 kcal.

themanontherun wrote:

HighMilerMileage wrote:

I have 4 years of 5 left to run in college and want to go out knowing I gave everything I could to be the best.

Paradoxical but true, being really anal-retentive about stuff that is important doesn't necessarily make you better at it. Get 8 hours, eat as clean as you can without being neurotic, don't trust everything you read on the internet, practice patience moderation and consistency in building your workload, focus on school first and foremost, running may be a passion but at the end of the day it's a hobby.

I was going to say something like this. Enjoy life when you're in college. Do all your runs, eat right, listen to your coach, but enjoy life too. Go on dates, watch movies, play a video game, or whatever you want to do. If you get super obsessed, you're going to psych yourself out or beat yourself up over bad performances and workouts, leading to more bad races and workouts.

The one thing I'd say you can do that a lot of other top guys aren't doing is explore. When you have a run to yourself, run somewhere new. Drive 30-60 minutes to get in a run sometimes.

Schedule classes at a normal time of day, mid morning or early afternoon.

One semester I did all night classes Mon-Thurs. You'll get back at night, eat, troll letsrun and before you know it its midnight or later. Get on a sleep schedule where you're sleeping consistently 8 hours a night and waking up no later than 8AM. Live like a clock...

Do you not realize xfit guy is a troll? He is intentionally giving bad advice and this is not an exception. Limiting carbs is a terrible idea.

Avoiding high G.I. carbs is a good idea and avoiding excessive carbs is a good idea.

Also, chocolate milk is terrible for you. That syrup is just as bad as any other refined sugar, being combined with milk and chocolate doesn't magically make it good for you.

Does anyone else see the comedic irony here? It reminds me of the Rick James "True Hollywood Stories" on Chappelle's Show. "Limiting carbs??? What, are you crazy???? No one should do that. . . .yeah, you should definitely limit carbs."

I would like to see your reasoning why high GI foods or refined sugar or chocolate milk is terrible for runners.

You came to a message board for advice. You're now going to base your life off of the recommendations from strangers. That sounds like a GREAT idea. I will simply write down some recommendations.

You're in college. You need to live your life. Wake up in the morning- eat some fruit. Granola. Yogurt. An egg sandwich. Drink some coffee. Slam some water. Whatever you like. Don't go to McDonalds. Have a decent lunch, if you have a good metabolism, eat until you're full.. Do your workout. Don't overtrain. If anything- Don't stress. Eat right after you're done working out. Stretch. Eat a good dinner. Don't snack too much. Don't drink caffeine after 3 pm. Sleep at least 8 hours. But you can figure out what type of sleep makes you feel best. Experiment with stuff. You can fail and then you can pick yourself up to try again. Over time you will learn about your body, especially what works for you.

But the most important thing- CHILL THE EFF OUT. Have fun. Enjoy college. When you can run, give it 110%. Smash your workouts. Enjoy your recovery runs. Take it seriously. But once it's done. Chill out. If you had a great race or breakthrough result. Drink some beers. Get a little drunk. Wake up and go for a run feeling like hell. But be happy you got to celebrate your hard work and success. No I wouldn't recommend drinking every night. But a beer isn't going to kill you every now and then. It's just extra calories.

Signed,

A professional athlete who does exactly that.

Booze isn't what hurts you, it's the late nights and no recovery that kills you. If you're gonna drink make sure you're ready to get up and get your run in the next day. Or nap all day and then run

The ideal lifestyle is very individual. Do what makes you feel the best and most able to handle the level of training you are interested in achieving.

For sleep, you don't necessarily want to get 8 hours. Sleep tends to be in 45/90 minute cycles. The reason people use 8 hours is likely that they get 7.5 hours of actual sleep with some time to fall asleep and 10-15 minutes where they're almost awake in the morning, assuming they're regular with their sleep. If you can, get 9 hours if you're training hard, so more like 9.25 hours in bed if you need 15 minutes to fall asleep. Or add a nap in the early afternoon. Or both. Be consistent with your bedtime and wake-up time and you should be able to wake up without an alarm. And you'll wake up feeling more rested than if you were to wake up to an alarm.

You can drink a bit. The occasional beer or two makes minimal impact on you, and probably nothing noticeable if you actually look into it. Drinking to excess is stupid regardless of training. Whether people like it or not, drinking excessively within a few hours of sleeping will impact the quality of rest you get. Drinking more than one or two will certainly impact your training because it will impact your sleep, your recovery, your nutrient intake, and your hydration.

Journal what you eat if it helps you keep track of what makes you feel good, bad, recovered, sluggish, etc. Or if you feel like you're eating too much, or not enough. Otherwise, there's probably not much of a reason to do it.

All of the things like partying, going out with friends, staying up all night - basically, the "student life" - that people claim and will continue to claim that you're going to miss out on are not things that everyone cares about. If I could do it over again I would not participate in any of that. I regret almost every minute of it. None of it was worth my time and I am happier now that I no longer do anything like that. Most of my friends are the same way. But some people who didn't do any of that stuff, or only did it a bit, wish they had done more of it. It's really up to you and what you want.

HighMileageMiler wrote:

Optional dialogue wrote:

Count your calories and watch your macronutrient ratios. Find the ratio where you feel your best.

Diet is more about mindset.

Treat food as fuel.

any good refrences for macronutrients? I have seen that word thrown around a lot but always forget what it is..

Maybe I should print out like a good chart that covers a good diet...

How do you guys recommend I track what I eat?

Girls. They'll like it I'm sure

I'm in my last year of college, so I've pretty much let the sport consume me....HOWEVER, there's nothing wrong with going out, partying, and chasing tail in September. I've been averaging about 5-6 hours of sleep and i PRed by 1 minute in my most recent race. 27:58 to 26:58 As my team is approaching the hardest phase of our training cycle, I'll gladly sacrifice a few nights out.

In terms of nutrition, i try to eat around 4,000 claories a day. I eat mostly carbs (about 800 grams of carbs) and lean meats (100 grams of protein) Carbs come from easily digested, "natural" sugars found in fruitz. CARB UP