Henry Rono training for masters mile record. PART II

Henry:

I can offer you some useful nutritional advice. My mother is an emeritus professor of Nurtrition Education at an Ivy League university as well as a skilled organic farmer, and I've absorbed much of her knowledge along the way.

One of her favorite sayings was, "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a pauper." Translation: have your big meal of the day as early as you can. Have bacon, eggs, toast, and homefries, if you want. But do NOT stuff yourself at 8 PM and then go to sleep. That's the way to put on weight, not take it off. If you have a high protein breakfast, it keeps your blood sugar high all morning. Do NOT skip breakfast. That just leads you to eat too much later in the day.

The key, really, is not to overeat after 6 PM.

Drink lots of water. When you're dehydrated, your body sometimes interprets that as hunger and demands that you put SOMETHING in your mouth. So you end up eating. But drinking water would have killed off that "hunger."

I've found that carrots are a miracle food. I buy packages of those milled mini-carrots. They're high in roughage, low in calorie density, but they do give you a little sugar-hit. The key to losing weight isn't to deprive yourself of snacks, but to make sure that what you're snacking on doesn't set back your weight-reduction plan. Carrots are excellent for that. Carrots, along with salads, let you eat "big" without eating high-calorie. Just stay away from heavy salad dressings.

Broccoli is another great food: low in calories, high in nutrients, high in roughage. I cut it up, steam it for five minutes or so, and toss it with vinaigrette salad dressing and a little black pepper. Fill up on food like this and you'll lose weight.

Of course, if you're putting in some serious mileage, you'll need to keep your carbs up too. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, bread, pasta: we all know how to do that!

You've lost 20 pounds since you first began this program. That actually sounds very good to me. I think you're on target. A pound is about 3500 calories. In order to lose one pound a week, you need to run a 500 calories deficit per day. A pound a week is a good goal. That's another 10 pounds by Valentine's day. You could do more than that--but probably not without compromising your energy levels.

KuzuRunner

The 210 day of training phase II. I ran on top of snow for 125 minutes.The training is coming so well and the weights is coming off very good.One meal a day can shad the weight off my back plus alot of water that is it.

What do you think?

henry

Henry:

If you're running for two hours, at whatever pace, you're transforming your body into a calorie-burning machine. Your metabolism is elevated for several hours after such a run. The key to losing weight, apart from drinking a lot of water and making sure that you're getting enough protein to rebuild worn-down muscles, is finding a way of taking in enough carbs to replenish your glycogen stores while maintaining a modest net calorie deficit.

I tend to think that one meal a day makes this whole process more difficult than it needs to be, so I'd advise you to modify that.

What I'd suggest, actually, is that you make your biggest meal of the day the one you eat during the hour or two after your longest daily run. Obviously, for maximum glycogen replacement, you need to get some carbs in you within half an hour after you finish that run. In the summer, after runs lasting two to three hours, I threw down a quart of Gatorade right after I came through the door, followed about fifteen minutes later by a fruit smoothie: yogurt, banana, fresh or frozen strawberries, honey, a little strawberry jam, juice of one lime, orange juice, and a tray of ice cubes. Blend this up for about 60 seconds on "high." This did the trick.

An hour later, when I'd regained my appetite, I'd have a real breakfast: eggs, toast, maybe sausage. A bit of fat is a good thing at this point, since it slows digestion.

Now, that particular regimen--Gatorade, followed by a smoothie, followed an hour later by breakfast--pretty much took care of my glycogen stores.

If I were trying to lose weight, I'd do exactly the same thing. A two-to-three-hour run can take care of all that food. But I'd then carefully monitor what I had for the rest of the day. In your situation, I'd probably have a snack of some sort about three hours after that breakfast, and I'd have a big salad for dinner with chicken strips on top for extra protein. Just a solid, reasonably low-fat dinner, with some kind of portion control: chicken (not fried!), salad, potato, or a couple of pork chops, sweet potato, and green beans.

I'd stay away from

*) potato chips and other devour-the-bag snacks

*) desserts of any kind, apart from a couple of cookies

*) noticeably fat-heavy foods, such as cheesecake, greasy meat, etc.

*) beer! Have no more than one beer, max. Or one glass of wine. Beers are 150 calories apiece. Three beers and you lose no weight that day.

I'd snack on carrots and celery sticks, with a few triscuits (basic low-fat carbs) thrown in.

The key to losing weight with this kind of regime is NOT going to bed with a full stomach--unless the stomach is filled with low-caloric density foods, such as salad or broccoli or carrots. The key is to have the big meal of the day early enough that by the time you go to bed, you're very slightly hungry. That very slight hungriness is the beginning of your net caloric deficit, and that's precisely what you want to be cultivating.

Of course, if you go to be too hungry and you try to run long in the morning, you may find yourself running out of energy. But only you can determine if this is true. It may not be true for you. Some runners--and I'm one of them--can do just fine on an empty stomach. As long as you've taken care to replenish your glycogen stores as I've described above, you should be fine.

So rather than one meal a day, I'd say: one big meal a day, during the hour or two after your longest run, and one or two smaller meals whenever you need them.

To KudzuRunner

So rather than one meal a day, I'd say: one big meal a day, during the hour or two after your longest run, and one or two smaller meals whenever you need them.

I don't drink beer nowdays, so that beer part is out of question.I need something else to fill the empty stomatch for energy, so that I'm ready for the next workout.

Thank you for your advice.

Henry

I threw down a quart of Gatorade right after I came through the door, followed about fifteen minutes later by a fruit smoothie: yogurt, banana, fresh or frozen strawberries, honey, a little strawberry jam, juice of one lime, orange juice, and a tray of ice cubes. Blend this up for about 60 seconds on "high." This did the trick.

this stuff has alot of calories...you could gain weight eating and drinking all that....(healthy, but full of calories).

The Gatorade has 200 calories. The smoothie? One banana, 1/2 a cup of yogurt, a tablespoon each of honey and strawberry jam, one lime, 2/3 a cup of orange juice, four or five strawberries. I haven't done the calculations, but that's not a diet-breaker--especially when you've just run two hours and 30 minutes in 75-80 degree weather.

KudzuRunner wrote:

The Gatorade has 200 calories. The smoothie? One banana, 1/2 a cup of yogurt, a tablespoon each of honey and strawberry jam, one lime, 2/3 a cup of orange juice, four or five strawberries. I haven't done the calculations, but that's not a diet-breaker--especially when you've just run two hours and 30 minutes in 75-80 degree weather.

The 211 day of training phase II. I ran for 130 minutes and it was great,I did burn alot calories today I can see it with the weights coming down its so encouraging.

I can't wait to hit the intervals.This snow is getting on my way.I feel so intense and salvating for intervals my muscles says and well focus. I can't hold the horses for too long.

What do you think?

Henry

Henry,

It was great catching up with you today. When we met the first time (when we ran the Legends Mile at the San Diego Indoor meet) I always remeber that you were the only runner in the field that did not utilize your fitness as an excuse leading into the race. At the end of the day, you were the one athlete that was the furthest from being in great shape!

Thanks for the great contributions you provide to the readers of Letsrun.com. Thanks for motivating me to sign up for this great forum.

Paul Thomasd

Jesuit '87

PS

Does anyone know if there are any portals for cycling, hockey, basketball, or tennis, where you can speak directly to eddy merckx, wayne gretzky, larry bird, or john mcenroe

paulthomas wrote:

Henry,

It was great catching up with you today. When we met the first time (when we ran the Legends Mile at the San Diego Indoor meet) I always remeber that you were the only runner in the field that did not utilize your fitness as an excuse leading into the race. At the end of the day, you were the one athlete that was the furthest from being in great shape!

Thanks for the great contributions you provide to the readers of Letsrun.com. Thanks for motivating me to sign up for this great forum.

Paul Thomasd

Jesuit '87

PS

Does anyone know if there are any portals for cycling, hockey, basketball, or tennis, where you can speak directly to eddy merckx, wayne gretzky, larry bird, or john mcenroe

Thanks,Paul, we had a long conversation and now you know me well and my past experiences are behind me.Lets move-for-ward for mile record with hangovers.I can talk nowdays about two people of me.The drunk runner and the sober runner and you got me in business.

Henry

To diet dr...

The 212 day of training phase II. I ran for 128 minutes +30 minutes sauna + 15 swiming-pool + 30 minutes whirl-pool.

I hit 177lbs today I'm realy burning some calories in few days I should be able to lanch phase III.I'm finding hard to hook the wheels into level training training. I'm learning that it is something to do with my weights coming down in a snail pace.

I also need to remember that I'm 54 years old,that the wheels does not run up the hills as those year when I was 29 years old.

The day I'm 172lbs it will be easy to hook the gear number three.You don't think so? or what do you think?

Henry

I think you are headed in the right direction, but you need to stay on course and don't cheat on your dieting. You should be 170 lbs by Feb 1; you can do it; but you will feel hunger and the desire to eat and drink; you must fight it and think of the long term benefit: Picture yourself on the starting line of some race in May at 150 lbs, feeling good, a flat stomach, light as a feather...keep thinking of that and it will stop you from momentary eating lapes. Hang tough!

remember to drink plenty of green tea during the day along with lots of water....and NO eating or drinking (except water), after 6pm.

To diet dr..

'a flat stomach, light as a feather'

Ha! And the eyes will have a hunger of a tiger crying for the prey.

This is a very good plan

Thank you

Henry

diet dr... wrote:

I think you are headed in the right direction, but you need to stay on course and don't cheat on your dieting. You should be 170 lbs by Feb 1; you can do it; but you will feel hunger and the desire to eat and drink; you must fight it and think of the long term benefit: Picture yourself on the starting line of some race in May at 150 lbs, feeling good, a flat stomach, light as a feather...keep thinking of that and it will stop you from momentary eating lapes. Hang tough!

remember to drink plenty of green tea during the day along with lots of water....and NO eating or drinking (except water), after 6pm.

The 213 day of training phase II, I ran for 130 minutes + 35 minutes sauna + 15 swiming pool + 15 steamroom 15 minutes.

I have 177.9 lbs sitting on me.You are right by february I should I have 170lbs very stable.Drinking tea and ginger in it and one meal a day in the evening all day Kenyan tea.

Like when I was in Gilgil Kenya 1974-76 before I came to USA.One of the Doctors asked me last month in Cincinnati

"Do you want to weigh 150lbs?"

"I say yes."

"Eat like the day when you were in Kenya." Wow!!I order Kenyan tea from Kenya which it took 10 days,I'm drinking now as we speak.And the weight is head to 150lbs.

Henry

hi diet dr, I dont wish to 'hijack' this thread but would like to ask you a question, if need be I can start a new thread for it?

Thanks

Beware of the tea. Caffeine is bad for the heart and a prescription for a heart attack. Caffeine is toxic to humans and certainly won't do any good.

so what about people who run at night, say 9pm, what would they have as a post run meal/snack, or how would their big meal go, would it be breakfast?

Messages still being deleted.

J. R. wrote:

Messages still being deleted.

elaborate

Ivory wrote:

I don't have two free house a day to train, an hour max if possible. I'm envious.

I just finish 126 minutes. You can train like me which means you train one time run for two hours.

Next week I'm going to cut it into two. Sixty minutes in the morning and another in the evening.What do you think of that?

Henry