Middle-Aged men marathon guys with a gut

An acquaintance of mine works in the area of disordered eating and he once made the comment that if you lose more than about 10-15% of your body weight you will be chronically hungry. I've seen several of these posts that seem to bear this out. The 150# college runner that is now 175# and they can't seem to get back to their old "fighting weight". Fat cells will initially fill up and then you will build new fat cells that fill up to accommodate the extra energy intake. When you lose weight you are simply shrinking the cells; however, the number of fat cells doesn't decrease. Shrunken fat cells very readily fill.

ANYONE that is in a caloric deficit will find themselves to be hungry (young, old, skinny, fat). The greater the deficit, the greater the hunger. If we gain 25# over 10 years why do we think we can lose it all in 1 year without a problem? While some might be temporarily successful, we have about a 98%+ chance that we will put the weight back on in the subsequent 2-3 years. There is nothing in life that you can do to an extreme and maintain it. However, it is the small changes over the long haul that can be maintained.

I'm now in the "old" category (57). Was 5' 9" and 138# in college and probably about 7% body fat. 35 years later, a professional job, a wife, 4 kids, a mortgage, and a golden retriever and I am now 154# and 20% body fat and it is a STRUGGLE to keep it at that. Seems that if I blink I can go to 165#. In the words of the great philosopher, Jimmy Buffet, "we are the people our parents warned us about". If you are not old yet, just wait!

local drunkard wrote:

Spirits are ~64 calories/ounce. A properly made Martini should have 2.5oz of gin. Any more and it will warm up before you finish it. So instead of one gigantic mediocre one have two smaller good ones and save yourself some calories.

Now here is a man or woman who understands how things work. Kudos to you, good sir or madam!

If you are having to run in order to maintain weight, your metabolism isn't "slowing down", you are more insulin-resistant.

https://thenoakesfoundation.org/nutrition-network/running-on-the-banting-diet-carb-intake-and-fast-runners

I am under 10% bodyfat currently, and I could stop running or aerobic training right now and six months from now still be at the same body comp (I won't, because I Iove to run 40-60 miles/week and be overall fit). At 61 I in no way run for weight management, and despite being insulin-resistant myself, I do not worry about weight and do not count calories or fight of urges. How? At first I counted carbs not calories (kept carbs under 50-75g/day for a few years) until I was in ketosis. Now I have a breatalyzer that tells me each morning whether I am still in ketosis.

Nowadays my carbs are a few pieces of fruit per day, maybe a small side of sweet potato or rice with a meal. I have one evening nightcap of 2 oz vodka or tequila in a mixed drink. I eat tons of veggies and high-quality animal source fats, including meat, fish eggs, along with nuts, avocados, coconut etc.. I also eat in a window of six hours a day. I never have the "hunger pangs" or "hangry" feeling of old.

All of this keeps me in ketosis, and my energy is even and consistent all day, and I can easily run for 2-3 hours anytime with no "bonk" (by running slow enough to be fat-burning). My muscle mass is about 15 pounds greater than when I was a skinnyfat teenager, and yet my waist size is the same. I can fire off 20-25 pullups or climb an overhang for over an hour without getting off it. It took 30 years, but I finally have the body I always wanted as an athlete.

Count the carbs, not the calories. Stop being hungry all the damned time.

An alternative entry point, which I haven't tried but is physiologically sound, is to use a glucometer and test after meals. If your glucose goes above 130, you need to reduce the carbs. By the way this will help your heart health, keep you from diabetes, stroke and likely even cancer. The discipline involved is not loading up on the starchy sugary food that the rest of society considers as "food".

That's a big family these days in the USA. Good for you.

To add to the fat cell discussion, it has been shown that these fat cells release hormones (leptin/grehlin being indicated) that regulate hunger/satiety. Thus, an increasing waistline begets an increasing waistline, but if you can improve insulin sensitivity, decrease fat cell size, it stands to reason that you can better control these hormones and curb the appetite problem to some extent.

Also, would you say the ideal best method would be to create a smaller calorie deficit as not to feel the intensity of the affects of hunger? Say a 250 calorie deficit a day for a longer duration rather than a 500-750 deficit in order to arrive at your ultimate weight goal. I get why that would drive people crazy though. Who really wants to have to focus on losing weight so incrementally and slowly. Motivation is a factor too and weight loss is hard to sustain because you have to dedicate mental energy and focus to it on top of hunger/calorie deficit effects. I also wonder if you can offset some of the negative hunger /intense cravings that lead to the subsequent "98% weight gain" by instituting a regular re-feed. Perhaps a 500-750 calorie/day deficit 5-6 days a week and a 300-500 calorie surplus on the other day or two would mitigate the effects.

Everything in moderation wrote:

Also, would you say the ideal best method would be to create a smaller calorie deficit as not to feel the intensity of the affects of hunger? Say a 250 calorie deficit a day for a longer duration rather than a 500-750 deficit in order to arrive at your ultimate weight goal.

It's almost impossible to fine-tune your caloric intake that way unless you severely limit the kinds of foods you eat and weigh everything.

oregon oldtimer wrote:

An acquaintance of mine works in the area of disordered eating and he once made the comment that if you lose more than about 10-15% of your body weight you will be chronically hungry. I've seen several of these posts that seem to bear this out. The 150# college runner that is now 175# and they can't seem to get back to their old "fighting weight". Fat cells will initially fill up and then you will build new fat cells that fill up to accommodate the extra energy intake. When you lose weight you are simply shrinking the cells; however, the number of fat cells doesn't decrease. Shrunken fat cells very readily fill.

This isn't quite accurate. Fat cells get WAY bigger before they ever divide. If you're gaining 10-15 lbs as an adult, that's not enough to grow more fat cells. (There is some indication that kids are more susceptible to fat cell division.)

This was me 2 years ago (age 41), the middle aged guy with the hanging guy, when I trained with a local running club 9:00 pace group for the LA Marathon. Despite running 25-35 miles a week per the club running plan, I did not lose any weight or fat and ended up with a 4:12 with a big positive split hitting the wall at mile 20 dropping way off a sub-4 Pace. I started to train for the marathon to try to lose my love handles I had gained through the years but it didn’t work. I went on a diet using MyFitnessPal food diary app and read books by Daniels, Pfitzinger, and Hanson and decided to follow Hanson’s Advanced (and I added cross training with Orange Theory) to help me lose the weight and fat (33 lbs) and run significantly faster (2:52 marathon and 1:18 half PR now).

I also read and follow the Racing Weight diet by Fitzgerald which helped with keeping the fat and weight off.

Only a few posts noted it, and I am surprised more don't adopt it, especially the aging runner. Strength training. Running puts you into a catabolic state. Combine that with years, and years of aerobic output, with little to no resistance work to supplement, it's only natural that the body will break down whatever lean muscle you once had in your youth. The body thrives and def needs to be put into an anabolic state on a regular basis. Especially past 30. BW, bands, kettlebells, and good ol fashioned barbell and dumbbells should be used at least 2-3 x per week. Strength work keeps your metabolism jacked up, improves insulin sensitivity, and the lean muscle mass improves all of the above too. The fear of "bulk" seen in bodybuilders, and more muscle bound athletes like football players, is not realistic with years of running under your belt. Supplement with full body strength in the 4-6 rep range, and I'd bet most struggling to keep their body in tact would be pleasantly surprised.

Bruin1996 wrote:

This was me 2 years ago (age 41), the middle aged guy with the hanging guy, when I trained with a local running club 9:00 pace group for the LA Marathon. Despite running 25-35 miles a week per the club running plan, I did not lose any weight or fat and ended up with a 4:12 with a big positive split hitting the wall at mile 20 dropping way off a sub-4 Pace. I started to train for the marathon to try to lose my love handles I had gained through the years but it didn’t work. I went on a diet using MyFitnessPal food diary app and read books by Daniels, Pfitzinger, and Hanson and decided to follow Hanson’s Advanced (and I added cross training with Orange Theory) to help me lose the weight and fat (33 lbs) and run significantly faster (2:52 marathon and 1:18 half PR now).

Congratulations!

It's about time we see some reasonable assertiveness(!) instead of the, "Oh, poor me, I have a family, job, wife, it's too hard-impossible-inevitable, I love to drink too much...blah...blah...blah..."

Come on people! Don't resign yourself to a life of excuses!

Surprised nobody has brought up the lack of sleep angle

Getting minimal sleep is a great way to get fat

fatoldbald wrote:

Well in an effort to lose some inches, for a while I tried supplementing my running (~45mpw currently) with additional cardio at the gym. Some young punk kept running by the window while I was using the elliptical and making funny faces at me. It got to the point where every single time I'd try and workout this kid was just in the window, staring at me. Made me so uncomfortable to the point that I just cancelled my gym membership and have accepted that I'll be a fat runner for the rest of my life.

You couldn't just tell your son to quit doing that?

If he's 41 and trains for marathons AND cross trains , he must be either retired , live off a trust fund and quite possibly has no family for such a dramatic improvement .

You can run the exact same amount and effort, eat the exact same way and still gain weight as you age and your metabolism changes.

It's not always about diet and exercise.

Good for you guys, you are holding your weight. You are a little heavier than college, but you're keeping it under control and not allowing a death spiral to happen. I want to elaborate on that part of your post, which is probably not the part people focus on.

I'm over 50. I've had some of these thoughts ('the slow metabolism!'), but we need to be careful to compare apples with apples.

To start: some haven't finished maturing physically by the time they start college. The maturation process has a metabolic cost. Some began college as a scrawny freshman and ended as a trim but well-muscled senior -- meaning a gain a potentially a few pounds during college prior to the recalled 'college weight'. In such cases, that massive diet in college was actually resulting in gains.

In the intervening years, there is usually a habit of gaining weight: in this case, 15 lb since college. That's worth about 100 cal per week, or a mile per week. Not a lot, but not nothing. The point is that adaptation can happen to being on a gaining trajectory. That becomes the norm (gaining was the norm since infancy). It's a change (struggle?) just to break even, and when you need to lose, the change is more severe.

You are probably more sedentary than in college (during non-running times), as a general rule. In college you might have walked everywhere, played pick-up football or basketball or hockey daily, danced, bicycled, paddled, whatever. How often do you do that now?

When in college you could go hard for a long time, and then get up and do it all over again the next day -- even if you hadn't slept particularly well. The intensity of exercise was almost certainly higher: you can't do that now because you won't recover, or you might hurt yourself. Or looking at it the other way around: in college you had much less down time from injuries. That translates into both more calories burned from exercise, but also more tissue-repair cost, metabolically speaking.

Beyond that, the more time you are active, the less time you have to be eating and snacking. And the more you are in a rush to get someplace (think of the college life), the less you are going to linger at the table enjoying your wife's good cooking (as opposed to some plastic mac and cheese).

I would also say that most college kids don't have stretched stomachs, but we stretch them a little over time and tend to raise our eat-until-full sense accordingly. And that's not even addressing the increased portion sizes that are now generally sold, which make apples-to-apples comparisons pretty hard.

Body composition will have something to do with it. So will some other things. Some of these you can classify as metabolism, but there are many other factors that play into it.

These things are not all applicable in all cases, but I am pretty sure most of them are in many cases. I don't want people to despair about being over 40 and having a slow metabolism; I want them to understand that there are many common sense explanations about why it is harder to maintain the weight, and that once allowances are made for those things, the metabolism issue isn't a huge one and can easily be overcome.

WTF is wrong with you? 35-45 miles a week is a joke.

If somebody offered me enough money, I could easily put on as much as 50 pounds with a year while running a tiny 35-45 miles a week!

Honestly, I think the longer the distance the chubbier/more awkward the body type when it comes to running and older athletes. I think almost every single ultra runner I know who is female has an awkward body type and borderline is chunky or fat. I think when u eat badly and have a crappy unathletic metabolism that you can still be fat but still be able to exercise a ton.