51 year-old runner here. My weight has been the same for months, I added 5 minutes to each run this week and lost 3 pounds!

BTW, right after I stopped running in college, I got into weightlifting and went from skinny to muscular, with a weight gain of about 45 lb. over the course of a year or so. I feel like that forever changed my physique to some degree. Not sure if others ever got back to really thin again after such an experience, as I've gotten much of the fat off some extra muscle seems to hang on, not that it's a bad thing, but I think it may limit my distance running capabilities.

I hate to tell you this, but it's not the extra 3 miles of running that resulted in you losing three pounds. Weight varies over time. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of increased volume over time. Maybe it was how hydrated you were. Maybe it was a result of what food choices you made the day before you weighed yourself.

Running for 3 miles burns about 300-400 calories for someone your size. That are 10,500 calories in three pounds. Unless you somehow increased your calorie burn to about 10,500 calories more than you consumed, you didn't lose three pounds this week.

You may be on a downward trend, but you need to look at trends over time, Not just a snapshot of a moment in time.

Smoove wrote:

I hate to tell you this, but it's not the extra 3 miles of running that resulted in you losing three pounds. Weight varies over time. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of increased volume over time. Maybe it was how hydrated you were. Maybe it was a result of what food choices you made the day before you weighed yourself.

Running for 3 miles burns about 300-400 calories for someone your size. That are 10,500 calories in three pounds. Unless you somehow increased your calorie burn to about 10,500 calories more than you consumed, you didn't lose three pounds this week.

You may be on a downward trend, but you need to look at trends over time, Not just a snapshot of a moment in time.

Yeah, I understand that. It's been weird this week, though, and what makes me excited about it is that each morning I've weighed myself, I've been a bit lighter, and I'm down to a weight I haven't seen on the scale at all in a couple of years. I really had been somewhat ignoring it until this morning when I saw the drop under 158. I know it's not dehydration because the weather has taken a turn for much cooler this week but I've continued to constantly drink water all day as I always do, and actually have been eating pretty large meals this week. I would have expected to be a pound or so over my typical weight had I not done anything different with my running mileage. I've been feeling really strong, so I don't believe it's illness-related weight loss.

Smoove wrote:

I hate to tell you this, but it's not the extra 3 miles of running that resulted in you losing three pounds. Weight varies over time. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of increased volume over time. Maybe it was how hydrated you were. Maybe it was a result of what food choices you made the day before you weighed yourself.

Running for 3 miles burns about 300-400 calories for someone your size. That are 10,500 calories in three pounds. Unless you somehow increased your calorie burn to about 10,500 calories more than you consumed, you didn't lose three pounds this week.

You may be on a downward trend, but you need to look at trends over time, Not just a snapshot of a moment in time.

You never cease to impress me with your knowledge, looking forward to 2018.

Smoove, I echo Pretzel Man on his comment. You bring great insight and reason with your posts, and I appreciate your comments. I fully agree with what you said here, and I realize that the weight loss may be an anomaly, but I'm hoping it's part of a trend that's more of a cumulative effect of the increased volume over time. ; )

I thought I'd start the thread, though, because I was thinking that maybe there is some sort of a tipping-point at which things such as weight loss start to kick in, as many have seen with other things like a sudden major improvement in running performance after being plateaued for some time.

Just wow... wrote:

each morning I've weighed myself

Running is supposed to be a pleasurable experience and a passion, not a daily obsession with your weight.

Throw the scale away. Do it now.

Here's how this ends: you get some good times out of this, then your times fall off a cliff and you feel awful and your weight increases and then you work even harder to somehow get back to that magic weight.

Feed your body good stuff and plenty of calories. It knows what to do after that.

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Just wow... wrote:

each morning I've weighed myself

Running is supposed to be a pleasurable experience and a passion, not a daily obsession with your weight.

Throw the scale away. Do it now.

Here's how this ends: you get some good times out of this, then your times fall off a cliff and you feel awful and your weight increases and then you work even harder to somehow get back to that magic weight.

Feed your body good stuff and plenty of calories. It knows what to do after that.

I think weighing in regularly has some benefits. Sure, one can get OCD over it, but it does give some good info as well, such as pre vs. post run weight which can guide re-hydration consumption.

What I'm saying is that weight is just one potential indicator of fitness gain, and can give helpful feedback. I agree that if you are doing all the right things and your weight is trending upwards, it's not reason to freak out and push yourself further into an overtraining scenario. Also, as pop-pop! says, combined drop in performance and increase in weight with feeling awful means something significant is going on for which trying to lose weight by working harder is not the correct answer. In other words, weight is not your measuring stick of fitness, but only a potential indicator, as well documented by the Female Athlete Triad, where getting obsessed with weight takes over. But pop-pop!'s point is well taken.

Thanks. I wasn't trying to be critical, just trying to provide some context. I think lots of people don't really tune in to certain aspects of weight management, so I thought it would be helpful to lay out some basics.

The biggest thing is that weight loss is a lot like fitness gains in running - the results aren't produced in a linear way. You just keep at itnconsidtently and the results come, but usually in fits and starts.

So it really could be just a cumulative effect of the increased volumes over time that you mentioned in your first post.

"Feed your body good stuff and plenty of calories. It knows what to do after that."

Yes. It knows to store the extra calories as fat.

I use a caffeine/green tea diet supplement for weight management. I've been running for decades with tens of thousands of miles on these old legs and with chronic injuries creeping up, I'm restricted to a certain amount of mileage & run days per week. And since I don't race that much anymore (burned out), I don't fret too much over my weight. But for me, the caffeine/green tea supp helps maintain my running weight without dieting.

Apop pop wrote:

"Feed your body good stuff and plenty of calories. It knows what to do after that."

Yes. It knows to store the extra calories as fat.

Hell, I dropped 3 pounds just by taking my morning dump.

I agree with with Smoove, and would put hydration at the top of the list of explanations. Drink a liter of water and you will have lost less than a pound, unfortunately. I also agree that you are probably trending down.

If you cut out five minutes of eating or drinking (drinks other than water) each day, it would probably do more than five minutes of running.

Now, I just need to take that advice myself!

My weight dropped by about 3 pounds a few weeks ago....then it went back to "normal". As others have said, it can fluctuate from week to week without obvious reason.

A gallon of water is around 8.34 lbs, so you can fluctuate like crazy hour to hour much less day to day.

Distance running doesn't just burn calories, it also produces adaptations. Muscles change and get lighter as slow twitch muscles dominate over fast twitch. I have also notice some sort of a weight loss dam breaking after maintaining decent mileage for a few months.

Smoove wrote:

I hate to tell you this, but it's not the extra 3 miles of running that resulted in you losing three pounds. Weight varies over time. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of increased volume over time. Maybe it was how hydrated you were. Maybe it was a result of what food choices you made the day before you weighed yourself.

Running for 3 miles burns about 300-400 calories for someone your size. That are 10,500 calories in three pounds. Unless you somehow increased your calorie burn to about 10,500 calories more than you consumed, you didn't lose three pounds this week.

You may be on a downward trend, but you need to look at trends over time, Not just a snapshot of a moment in time.

The first response is the best. 1 week in weight loss a trend does not make. Observing patterns month to month is more accurate. You have to account for temperature fluctuations, your metabolism variance due to seasonal changes, body composition water retaining, etc.

In addition to minor factors always changing, I find now that I'm older the weight loss is delayed by about 2-3 weeks. Any weight I lose in week N is from what I ate or how I trained N-2 weeks ago. That's why some weeks you might put on 1-2 pounds when you're running higher mileage. Come on dude, you're 51 you should know this by now. ;)

So you are still 30 lbs overweight. You need to address your diet, not splitting hairs on your weight scale.

You can't outrun a bad diet.

What I know and what I want to believe are two entirely different things! BTW, my weight has not bounced back up to it's typical numbers yet since I started this thread. Still hanging down there consistently. We'll see what the next pizza does...