How long to go from 150 to 140 lbs?

Here is how to lose weight. EAT MOSTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN EATING AND WHAT YOU LIKE. Just eat less of it. The more times you eat during the day, the less hugry you will be.

I think 2500 calories a day is a great number to start. Divide that into 6 meals of around 400 calories each. Keep the carbs fairly high, the protein moderate, and don't worry about a little fat.

Here are some tips I use when I want to cut to race weight.

Replace fat and sugar condiments with mustard or eat sandwiches plain.

Skip the cheese on sandwiches and replace with pickles or veggies you like.

Save a couple hundred calories over the course of the day and treat yourself each night with one candy bar that you like.

Eat some meat (chicken preferably) but leave it out of some dishes that don't need it like pasta and chili.

The stuff about diet pop is garbage. If you usually drink it, then keep drinking it. If you don't, you can drink it if you want but it isn't going to make much of a difference. As long as you are counting calories, it won't take you long to realize drinking sweet pop cuts into the real food you could be eating. An alternate would be the sugar free fruit drink mixes you can buy. Just shake one up in a 20 oz water bottle.

Don't try to stay at race weight all the time. I try to stay within a few lbs so it only takes me 4-6 weeks to get there but I can only stay there a few weeks before it gets too hard. Nothing wrong with training a little heavier and only cutting down for a specific season.

The last and most important tip is to ALWAYS make sure you are fueled up BEFORE your run. The easiest way to have problems is trying to train when your body doesn't have any fuel. I always try to eat a little extra before the run and cut back a little after the run.

bumbojumbo wrote:

Ok...ALL you paleo people. It's time to learn. Look at the Kenyan runners and what they're eating. It ranges from 70-100% of calories coming from CARBS. They don't look fat to me. What about the rural Chinese? You know what they eat: rice, which is 90% carbs. Who do you think eats the most meat? What is the absolute fattest country on Earth? Just think about it.

To the OP: You don't need to restrict your calories at all, so long as you eat the correct foods, those being high-carb, natural, plant-based, and whole grain/brown rice. In fact, I totally guarantee that you can DOUBLE these paleo noobs' daily calories and you will reach a normal weight.

Seriously.

Pushing all this protein doesn't make any sense seeing as how meat is a fairly scarce commodity in much of the (much thinner) world.

bumbojumbo wrote:

Ok...ALL you paleo people. It's time to learn. Look at the Kenyan runners and what they're eating. It ranges from 70-100% of calories coming from CARBS. They don't look fat to me. What about the rural Chinese? You know what they eat: rice, which is 90% carbs. Who do you think eats the most meat? What is the absolute fattest country on Earth? Just think about it.

What a BS:

People in Africa are thin not because their diet is superior but because they can't afford to overeat. If they had the wealth that the US had and would still stick to their diet, they'd be a lot bigger.

Americans aren't fat because of the meat. They're fat because the meat is wrapped in "bread" (read: HFCS bread), drenched in Ketchup (again: HFCS ketchup) and comes with a side of fries.

J.R. wrote:

You should be able to get to 140 in a month, certainly within 2 months.

Up your mileage to 80, and then 100 miles per week. Run like Cam Levins. 50 miles a week is fine if you're 60 years old though.

He gained 10 lbs running 70mpw. He is not going to lose weight by running more. Moron.

race guru wrote:

Here is how to lose weight. EAT MOSTLY WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN EATING AND WHAT YOU LIKE. Just eat less of it.

Ok, so he should eat burger, fries and drink coke all day long, just less of it.

Buddy, it's not going to work. Stop making up facts.

If it goes well, I will let you know. I just started yesterday.

Eurodonkey wrote:

Flagpole, I would be curious how your diet is going. This is the Slow-Carb diet from Tim Ferriss's book "The Four Hour Body", right?

I am currently trying another one with some similar ideas,

http://www.carbbackloading.com

. Daily rather than weekly cycle, carb up after your run.

Some good (and similar) sciencey sounding stuff in both, and lots of adherents.

What I have found so far is that cutting out carbs yet still eating tons of fat/protein leads to pretty quick fat loss, and is compatible with both slow mileage and sprints/weights, but leaves me unable to run high quality sessions. Early days yet but my sense is you need to carb up a bit before the key sessions.

I wold love to hear from anyone else trying these diets. Kind of handy to have a plan ready for after Christmas, eh?

SmartScience wrote:

bumbojumbo wrote:

Ok...ALL you paleo people. It's time to learn. Look at the Kenyan runners and what they're eating. It ranges from 70-100% of calories coming from CARBS. They don't look fat to me. What about the rural Chinese? You know what they eat: rice, which is 90% carbs. Who do you think eats the most meat? What is the absolute fattest country on Earth? Just think about it.

What a BS:

People in Africa are thin not because their diet is superior but because they can't afford to overeat. If they had the wealth that the US had and would still stick to their diet, they'd be a lot bigger.

Americans aren't fat because of the meat. They're fat because the meat is wrapped in "bread" (read: HFCS bread), drenched in Ketchup (again: HFCS ketchup) and comes with a side of fries.

The Kenyans I sited are the PROS. They eat more calories than almost all Americans. I'm eating more calories myself, but since we have a high-carb, low-fat, low-protein diet, we stay lean or thin all the time.

bumbojumbo wrote:

The Kenyans I sited are the PROS. They eat more calories than almost all Americans. I'm eating more calories myself, but since we have a high-carb, low-fat, low-protein diet, we stay lean or thin all the time.

Sorry, that's just BS. Yes, when you run 100+ mpw you need some carbs and you can pretty much eat anything and still not gain significant weight.

But the OP is clearly struggling with weight gain at 70mpw. 70mpw may not be a lot for a PRO, but for average population, it's insane.

Weight loss is 90% kitchen, 10% exercise.

I'm still laughing at the idea of Rupp lifting "heavy," after seeing a video of Halle G doing a weight workout. He was pushing poundages a 10 year old girl could handle, easily.

Anyone know what Rupp's full squat max is?

Also, there's a tremendous amount of bad dietary advice here.

Let's begin with the Paleo thing-- paleo has some merits but for endurance athletes, who tend to be carb hounds; but, even the most rabid crossfitters will tell you they carb up before and after long runs. They usually use Vitargo.

Junk Master wrote:

I'm still laughing at the idea of Rupp lifting "heavy," after seeing a video of Halle G doing a weight workout. He was pushing poundages a 10 year old girl could handle, easily.

I remember this video:

He sits on these grandma bicycles and slides left and right because the saddle is too big for him. Also, the whole bike is shaking. Needs to invest in a good spin bike.

One plate for the "bench press machine"? I don't even know where to start. That's probably a total of 10kg/20lbs. This does absolutely nothing. He will get more chest definition from running.

Leg ext with very minimal range of motion. This is NOT good for the knees. Rowing with 2-3 plates, again, not sure what he is trying to achieve with this? Probably a herniated disc?

The women's machine (leg abductor). This is totally useless. It's the bottom 1% you should be concerned about after you have done everything else.

Etc.

Not a single compound exercise like squat or bench press, pullup or deadlift.

Working with machines only leads to muscle imbalances and can lead to injuries. Coincidentally, Geb had a knee injury in NYC and multiple reported back problems.

BOTTOM LINE:

Just because you're the most accomplished runner of all times doesn't mean you know sh*t about weight lifting.

Thank you, I believe this is the most intelligent post in the thread so far.

I've been reading a lot on the bodybuilding.com forums the past few months, they know quite a bit about nutrition. I turned there for help when I was having binge issues, then stuck around to educate myself some. Very useful info for anyone who cares to look into it more. I didn't really start this thread to get nutritional advice, I've already got my plan pretty well worked out. My only real question was how quickly I should be cutting weight.

I will report back progress at a later date. By the way - I "whooshed" down to 146.5 this morning. Guess I was carrying a lot of water weight. Also starting to get used to the hunger aspect. It's just a matter of playing around with meal timing...for example I think I was eating too big of a breakfast before, which meant I got really hungry later in the day. I'd much rather restrict calories in the morning so I have more of a buffer at night when the cravings strike.

Thanks to everyone who posted, it's been an interesting read despite the large volume of misinformation.

"Sorry, that's just BS. Yes, when you run 100+ mpw you need some carbs and you can pretty much eat anything and still not gain significant weight.

But the OP is clearly struggling with weight gain at 70mpw. 70mpw may not be a lot for a PRO, but for average population, it's insane."

Weight loss is 90% kitchen, 10% exercise."

http://m.active.com/running/Articles/Eating_practices_of_the_best_endurance_athletes_in_the_world

I agree. Weight loss is most affected by diet. Also, the Chinese farmers that I mentioned are NOT doing 100+ mile weeks and the diet is similar in carb intake.

bumbojumbo wrote:

Ok...ALL you paleo people. It's time to learn. Look at the Kenyan runners and what they're eating. It ranges from 70-100% of calories coming from CARBS. They don't look fat to me. What about the rural Chinese? You know what they eat: rice, which is 90% carbs. Who do you think eats the most meat? What is the absolute fattest country on Earth? Just think about it.

To the OP: You don't need to restrict your calories at all, so long as you eat the correct foods, those being high-carb, natural, plant-based, and whole grain/brown rice. In fact, I totally guarantee that you can DOUBLE these paleo noobs' daily calories and you will reach a normal weight.

I see you've read The China Study too. I'm skeptical about it. I think that everybody is different and whatever diet your weight stays the best at (high carb vs low carb vs slow carb vs whatever) is best for you. All of the studies that are pointed out in the book are ones done by the author. Granted, the book is about his studies but like most similar books (ones written by the author of several studies) the science that is cited could be very biased.

bumbojumbo wrote:

I agree. Weight loss is most affected by diet. Also, the Chinese farmers that I mentioned are NOT doing 100+ mile weeks and the diet is similar in carb intake.

Yes but the farmers are out there 12 hours a day on the fields doing physical work. Those are not farmers like in the US sitting on monster tractors.

Look at the rest of the Chinese population. They are catching up quickly with the US. And mostly in the weight department. Because they suddenly can AFFORD to buy food.

There's a simple trick to being able to eat whatever you want without gaining weight: Want the right things.

SmartScience wrote:

Ok, so he should eat burger, fries and drink coke all day long, just less of it.

Buddy, it's not going to work. Stop making up facts.

As long as it adds up to 2,500 calories per day, the weight will come off. The rest of my post explains that if you do this, you will be a LOT hungrier than if you eat more food that is lower in calories. The main point is to not start some silly diet that completely changes the foods you are used to eating. You start cutting out all the carbs and sugars while trying to train hard and you are not going to feel very well. Did you know you can eat 25 lbs of carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli a day and be right at 2,500 calories? Who has time to eat 25 lbs of food? You have to make your diet sensible or you won't continue for the 6-8 weeks it is going to take to lose 10 lbs.

To the OP, I also like to restrict the calories early in the day and eat just enough to not be really hungry. It is easier to do when you can look forward to that bigger dinner that will fill you up.

I am in my off season now so I don't go nuts but I just had a bowl of macaroni salad and a cookie. If I was trying to lose, I would replace that macaroni salad full of mayo with pasta that has a tomato based sauce. That might be a 100 calorie difference right there. (I would still eat the cookie though!!)

Totally agree with your approach. As long as you're hitting minimum nutrient requirements (which is really very easy to do), it does not particularly matter where the rest of the calories come from. The only big things I try to avoid completely are trans fats, partially hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup. Other than that, pretty much anything is fair game as long as target calories aren't exceeded.

Of course, when you're losing it helps to pick foods that fill you up. I've been trying to go to extra lengths to eat filling, calorie-sparse foods (like lots and lots of veggies) so I can afford at least one treat at the end of the day and not go to bed starving.

eating treats before going to bed isn't helping you.

Check the studies cited... wrote:

[quote]Check the studies cited wrote:

I see you've read The China Study too. I'm skeptical about it. I think that everybody is different and whatever diet your weight stays the best at (high carb vs low carb vs slow carb vs whatever) is best for you. All of the studies that are pointed out in the book are ones done by the author. Granted, the book is about his studies but like most similar books (ones written by the author of several studies) the science that is cited could be very biased.

I've read way more than the China Study, and I rarely cite it for this reason: everyone is trying to debunk it. John McDougall and Esselstyn have virtually irrefutable weight loss evidence for the same basic diet, so although The China Study may be biased, it is still correct on most claims.