2 fat 2 furious

I liked the heading of your post. Come on lard-ass you already know the answer.

Yep, you know the answer. More miles, less weight.

Losing weight will help with the miles, so focus on that first. You will hear all kinds of things about weight loss, but for most people, the simple "burn more calories than you consume" approach is the best approach. Track your consumption with an app like myfitnesspal. Set a goal of losing 2 pounds per week as that is an amount that should be sustainable for the long term and should also leave you with the energy needed to workout. You don't have to starve to lose 2 pounds per week - if you make smart food choices, you really won't even be hungry all that often after the first week or so. Weigh yourself daily and track your weight so you have good trend data, but don't stress yourself out over what the scale says over the short term if you are maintaining the desired caloric deficit. Weight loss isn't linear, it ebbs and flows.

Increase the mileage slowly and consistently; but don't worry about pace. Your pace will drop as you drop weight and increase your volume. Shoot for 4 runs per week of 30 minutes per day in the next week or two. After a couple of weeks, increase one of those runs to 40 minutes. Then add a 5th day of 20 minutes. Then bring that up to 30 minutes. Then move one another of your 30 minute days up to 40 minutes. Then another. Then move one to 50 minutes . . .

Cross train to assist with both fitness and weight loss. Weight training with moderate amounts of weight (3 sets of 8-12 reps) will build a little bit (but not a lot) of muscle which will jump start your metabolism. Get in the pool or on the elliptical for another day or two per week to burn calories and build up your aerobic system without any stress on your legs.

All of this advice is from someone who has gone through this process before.

There are no shortcuts. It just takes consistency over time, but the time starts adding up quickly when you just focus on one week at a time.

I am sure you know what you did and didn't do to put on the weight. Reverse those trends. Weigh yourself weekly, resist the urge to step on the scale everyday.

You can absolutely can get down to averaging 7 min/mile for 4-5 miles.

I was running those times when I was 190 lbs and 10 years older than you before I took an extended break. I am just getting back into training and looking to get back 200lbs or just under. I cannot really go much lower than that because of my height and build, nor would I want to. The key is to take it slow and let the weight come off and the times go down naturally.

Good luck. Good to see I am not the only one coming back after an extended time off.

damn, that 8k is way better than your 5k.

My fastest 8k was 27 flat, and I was running around 16:50 for 5k at the time.

you are still young enough to have some muscle mass and running ability.

You can get there.

Be patient. It took 10 years to get where you are now and you can not expect that to change much overnight. 6 weeks is about the minimum time for your body to begin to adapt.

just keep running, modify your diet to cut back on whatever you ate that helped you gain the weight, you will lose weight (that is key)

I would not worry too much about specific workouts till you get to over 25 miles a week and drop 20 lbs weight. Sure, if you feel good pick up the pace some but do not go all out.

Slow down and stretch those runs out to 4 or 5 miles. Rinse and repeat.

December 1 2015 - 28 years old, 200 lbs (6'2"), Pre-22yo PR of only 18:00 and marathon of 3:25 off very low mileage. Hadn't really run in about 5 years. Signed up for Memorial Day weekend 2016 marathon for motivation.

6 weeks later I was averaging ~15 miles a week (first couple weeks less) usually all 9:00-10:00 miles.

Most running between December and June was just easy running (following Higdon Novice "just finish" marathon plan that peaks at 40mi with no specified speeds...about all I could muster was slow running, maybe tried to push the pace on Wednesdays later in the plan.)

By Early March I could only do 7:25 for 6 miles.

By Mid-April I did 8 miles @ 6:59 in a workout (with significant effort...not easy run but breathing and pace stayed pretty controlled).

Today I'm at ~180lbs, going to try to run a 7:0x pace half this weekend sans taper because the goal race is another marathon next month, and averaging a little over 50mpw, when I peaked at 40mpw all time before this year.

It's slower than some people's progression and it's slower than many people's times, but I went from the couch to >50mpw without any injuries and I'm still getting better.

So to answer the question is it possible to get to 4-5 miles at 7:00 pace: yes it is, but it takes longer than 6 weeks. I wouldn't start thinking about workouts yet. Just stay consistent, stay healthy, some weight should come off naturally and once you're running more miles and a little bit lighter, then add the workouts.

More McDonalds daily and more mileage.

You should be able to do 5 mile runs now without a problem. It might take you 2 hours since you are a lardy dump truck, but get it in.

32 is not old. I was nearly 40 when I started running again and I feel young. I was over 200 lbs.

You shouldn't be worrying about training paces yet. Just put the time in. You're also only running 15 miles a week. Even after a year I doubt you would see much improvement.

Instead of trying to bolster your ego with paces and weekly mileage, run for a set time everyday (when possible). Take a day off if you need it. Slowly increase the time to an hour. Eat three meals a day and do not drink alcohol.

Your weight will go down and your fitness will improve. You have to be prepared to do this for the long haul. I didn't make any real gains for a year and that was running a lot more than you.

You've been running for 6 wks wrote:

32 is not old. I was nearly 40 when I started running again and I feel young. I was over 200 lbs.

You shouldn't be worrying about training paces yet. Just put the time in. You're also only running 15 miles a week. Even after a year I doubt you would see much improvement.

Instead of trying to bolster your ego with paces and weekly mileage, run for a set time everyday (when possible). Take a day off if you need it. Slowly increase the time to an hour. Eat three meals a day and do not drink alcohol.

Your weight will go down and your fitness will improve. You have to be prepared to do this for the long haul. I didn't make any real gains for a year and that was running a lot more than you.

This agrees with my experience getting back to running.

Thanks for the replies!

One thing I will focus on more now is running for time instead of distance...

I've been complementing my runs with a 30 minute swim on tuesday wednesday thursdays also,

I guess i started the post because I was shocked there was no wieght loss or improvement in the first 6 weeks at all...i think i even gained a few pounds...

I don't drink alcohol or soda and I cut back on the chocolate..but still nothing in terms of performance or weight loss...

Im wondering if I should get my blood checked for deficiencies of anything.

Old, but not dead yet wrote:

Thanks for the replies!

One thing I will focus on more now is running for time instead of distance...

I've been complementing my runs with a 30 minute swim on tuesday wednesday thursdays also,

I guess i started the post because I was shocked there was no wieght loss or improvement in the first 6 weeks at all...i think i even gained a few pounds...

I don't drink alcohol or soda and I cut back on the chocolate..but still nothing in terms of performance or weight loss...

Im wondering if I should get my blood checked for deficiencies of anything.

Figure that it took six weeks just to get your legs moving again. The next six weeks you should see improvement here and there. As you nudge your mileage up, you'll start to see some weight drop off.

Old, give it some time, 6 weeks isn't very long.

One thing you want to do is track your food; Smoove is right, the app Myfitnesspal is great and you might be surprised at how much you are actually consuming. Now is not the time to obsess about earing too much, but you should start tracking consumption.

And since you are still fat, you can use this joke I used to tell my wife, before I dropped the 50 pounds I put on after college.

"Honey, (pat belly) when you have a Tool like this, you have to build a shed over it!!(pat belly again)" She just used to roll her eyes.

Thanks for the feedback to everyone that replied,

I'll just give some updates randomly to keep of those of you following interested in the progression ...

Tuesday 3/29

35 min swim at 6:20am

3.1 Miles in 28:00 at 6:20pm

Both efforts at about 80%

Calorie intake 2400

Come on fatboy you only ran once in 8 days? ?

Forget about floating in the pool and start running every other day, and pick a 5k to race in July and you will succeed.

Pretzel Man wrote:

Come on fatboy you only ran once in 8 days? ?

Forget about floating in the pool and start running every other day, and pick a 5k to race in July and you will succeed.

This cracked me up, but I think he was just giving a snapshot, not a complete diary.

Firecracker 5k, or whatever they call it where you live, is really an ideal motivational tool to get consistent efforts in. Don't set a time goal, just an effort goal and then use whatever time you run as a baseline against which to measure yourself.

Generally speaking, if this entry is representative of what you are doing on a consistent basis, you are well on your way to where you need to be.

Its not even possible to only have a 17:05 5k pr but average a faster pace on your way to 26:11 8k

I'm a chubby (184lb) and old (49). Been running a little while now but the last year has seen me consuming too much high calorie foods, sitting on my ass at my desk all day and pilling on the pounds.

I recently (two weeks ago) managed to run a 71 minute 10 mile road race in very tough conditions. My aim, like yourself, is to drop the poundage over the coming weeks / months. I want to get myself back to what I believe is my ideal weight (154lb) for my height (5'9") and age (49).

I was 192lb just 4 weeks ago, the key for me was to become more disciplined with my diet and pushing the plate away when I was full. I've added a twice weekly early morning fasted run. Not sure if the early morning runs are making much difference to the overall weight management strategy however, I have seen a significant drop in the last couple of weeks.

Good to see I have some followers, definitely helps with the motivation.

The earlier entry was indeed just a snapshot of what i've been doing,

and for the guy that says my 5k isn't in line with my 8k, that's because I never ran a 5k in college that's my HS PR.

For the past week my diary looks like this

Tuesday (3.0 @ 8:47 pace @ 6pm)

Wednesday (3.2 @ 9:28 pace @ 5pm)

Friday (3.1 @ 8:51 pace @ 8:30am)

No joke though the 3 milers hurt, if you asked me to log another half mile at the end of those I wouldn't be able to.

Monday I had no time to run and yesterday (Thursday) I had a terrible Headache I couldn't shake so I couldn't get a run in but I still got a morning swim in.

I went swimming

Tuesday ( 35 minutes @ 6am)

Wednesday (40 minutes @ 6am)

Thursday ( 40 minutes @ 6am)

My swimming routine consists of flutter kicking for 10 minutes, breast stroke kicking for 10 minutes, 5 minutes Dolphin Kicking all with a kickboard. Then 5 minutes freestyle and 5 minutes breastroke with arm paddles and no legs. The remaining 5-10 minutes is freestyle and breaststroke alternating laps without kickboards or arm paddles.

My Calorie intake for Monday through Thursday was

(M2272, T2421, W1903, T1697)

Weighed myself today and I'm 185 pounds and a little dehydrated so my true weight it probably closer to 187-188.

In february I did 40 miles in 20 sessions and in March I did 40 miles in 15 sessions + 12 swimming sessions.

In April my goal is to get 75 miles in 24 sessions plus maintain my 12 swimming sessions at 40 min.

Kudos to the dude that logged the 10 miler in 71 minutes, that seems so far away for me right now it's not even funny!