Weight Matters (train hard and eat whatever you want is BS)

I'm 48 and 6'2", 178 lbs.

Friends and family - "damn, you're skinny"

Elite runners - "damn, you're fat"

You do know people have different body types and metabolisms, right? Weight consists of more than fat. Solinsky weighs more than other runners, but it's not fat. Some people are born with fast metabolisms and don't gain much weight no matter what they eat. You probably are not one of them. Also, individuals react to training in different ways, just like there are people built for speed and others for endurance. There's not a one-size-fits-all plan.

ptmeltdown wrote:

I'm 48 and 6'2", 178 lbs.

Friends and family - "damn, you're skinny"

Elite runners - "damn, you're fat"

Ain't that the truth.

I'm 5'6", 170lbs and no one has ever called me fat.

Alan

Not fully relevant maybe, but I want to share my opinion. I run decently high mileage, 100-120 mpw for some time now. I have to make a concerted effort to eat enough calories when running that much, or my weight drops very low and I feel lightheaded, heavy-legged, and exhausted on the runs, and I often get overtrained or injured. For the longest time, I just thought that was how I was supposed to feel when I was doing high mileage. I thought I was bad at it. But by making sure my calorie intake was sufficiently high, I immediately felt better. So honestly, my own appetite was failing me, and I decided I needed to force down extra calories. For me, it wasn't about restraint, but instead paying attention to my own performance and making adjustments in the other direction. It's not abnormal for me to get up in the middle of the night and drink 16 ounces of chocolate milk or whatever just to make sure I'm getting enough. My opinion is that you should never let yourself get extremely hungry when doing high mileage, or you're going to feel some drastic energy swings. I would estimate I eat close to 4000 calories per day, and I try to eat often. I'm in my mid-20s.

Great post above. I'd bet there are many, many more runners over 100 miles a week who are not eating enough fat and protein calories. Frank Shorter slathered mayo on his pizza.

I'm running 100 mpw and am 6'0" and 145 lbs. I was running 40-50mpw during track and overeating and got a little heavy, probably around 155. Now I've been controlling what I've been eating and trying to eat really healthily and am at 145 and feeling fitter than ever. Nevertheless, I eat dinner but try not to have that bowl of cereal right before bed, or that extra peanut butter and banana sandwich. is this bad? I'm not feeling hunger pains but am trying to stay trim and lean. The post above made me wonder if I'm not eating enough, but I want to be fit and trim for racing this fall...I definitely miss eating tons of stuff all the time (instead of fruits and veggies etc.)

Hey man, if you're feeling great, then keep it up. But don't get in a cycle where you think you need to be staying under some arbitrary limit all the time. Don't think, "Well, I feel like I'm a little short on calories today, but I'd rather do that than be a little over." I think I did that in the past, and always erring on that side of restraint didn't pay off.

Runningart2004 wrote:

Ain't that the truth.

I'm 5'6", 170lbs and no one has ever called me fat.

Alan

Allow me: Alan, you are fat.

beet red wrote:

curiousc, you've been brain washed.

Agreed. CuriousC, go on the Atkins diet and die of heart disease.

Getting Lean And Fast wrote:

Okay fine, I'll hedge, FOR ME, diet is the most important factor toward determining my running performance (pretty sure I already stated this).

lol@tards.. wrote:

you're still wrong...

"correlation does not imply causation"...

google it. know it. live it.

And you are still retarded. He knows what works for him. Googled aphorisms don't change hard reality.

Runningart2004 wrote:

I'm 5'6", 170lbs and no one has ever called me fat.

Alan

YOU ARE A FAT PIG

Wonderinnn, you will not gain weight if you eat when you are hungry. Don't be afraid of calories, you are running 100 mpw!

Getting Lean And Fast wrote:

I was running 6 to 9 miles a day and still heavy and not really getting faster.

You're running too fast. Drop it down to a heart rate around 65%-70%; find a pace at which you feel you could run forever, and fat will fall off your body. It really won't matter what you eat then, because your body is burning more fat than glycogen on your runs.

I was the same as you; I pounded 90 mile weeks and wondered why I wasn't dropping weight. I switched to running an hour a day at about 8:30/mile, and I saw visible fat loss every day.

Former Fat Runner wrote:

Getting Lean And Fast wrote:

I was running 6 to 9 miles a day and still heavy and not really getting faster.

You're running too fast. Drop it down to a heart rate around 65%-70%; find a pace at which you feel you could run forever, and fat will fall off your body. It really won't matter what you eat then, because your body is burning more fat than glycogen on your runs.

I was the same as you; I pounded 90 mile weeks and wondered why I wasn't dropping weight. I switched to running an hour a day at about 8:30/mile, and I saw visible fat loss every day.

Don't listen to this.

SC2NY wrote:

Weight is a huge factor for me. I had low single-digit body fat (3.5% in water tank test) in college and ran decent, but at longer distances (over 10,000m) I found that losing 10 more pounds as a post-collegiate runner made a huge positive difference. (I am 5'10" and was 135 lbs. in college but got down to 125 after - wish I was still there, but I'm back to 135.) Basically, when people start asking if I'm sick, I know I'm getting fit and fast.

^^Tell me that this is a joke^^

That unhealthy man 0_o

A perfect example and good advice.

As do I wrote:

Getting Lean And Fast wrote:

Okay fine, I'll hedge, FOR ME, diet is the most important factor toward determining my running performance (pretty sure I already stated this).

lol@tards.. wrote:

you're still wrong...

"correlation does not imply causation"...

google it. know it. live it.

And you are still retarded. He knows what works for him. Googled aphorisms don't change hard reality.

V-E-R-Y C-A-R-E-F-U-L-L-Y, read the sentence i quoted one more time... if you think this statement holds any truth whatsoever, then you suffer from a really bad case of epistemological relativism...

I know I said that I was done contributing to this thread, but I guess I lied.

Thanks for the helpful advice slimfast and the reinforcement trachcoach. You're right. It is dangerous to get caught up in the mentality that lighter always means faster. At some point, it will start to have a nasty backlash and be counterproductive. I guess I just need to figure out where MY optimal racing weight would be. (I can confidently say that I am not cut out to be a 130 lb twig runner, I'd probably just get extremely sick before I even got there.) So I'll just keep eating as healthy as possible and putting in the work and see if my weight sort of just hits a set-point. Also, great distinction between "performance goals" and "weight goals". I think that's a great framework to develop a healthy mentality regarding running fitness and performance.

On a general note, pretty cool that my first thread has generated a ton of responses. Naturally - health, nutrition, and fitness are insanely complex topics that will generate a ton of disagreement. I guess the easy answer is "Well everyone is different, do what works for you, one size doesn't fit all, etc"...but that type of wishy-washy response just isn't any fun now is it?

Also, to the guy who mentioned something about epistemological relativism. Keep in mind that I typed that response in a matter of roughly 20 to 40 seconds. It's sort of funny how you now analyze my words like a lawyer. This is a casual message board with the normal banter one would expect. So I don't know why you're caught up and splitting hairs. In fact, I'll clear it up right now. Nutrition matters. Training matters. Long runs matter. Interval work matters. EVERYTHING MATTERS. I just can't underestimate the importance of really eating clean (unlike Bill Rogers apparently) because the foods I consume really do have a significant effect on how I feel and how I perform.

When people say they feel weak when they dip below a certain weight, are these only people who don't have much body fat on them?

I'm 5'7" 140pounds(male) and I still have body fat i can trim off. Need i worry about losing too much weight (dipping below race weight) if I keep losing until i get most of it off?