Running high mileage, eating right, can’t get down to racing weight to save my life. What’s up?

You're undereating and will soon break your bones and never be able to run again. Good luck with that! If you want to avoid this, eat more, get to ground with the fact that you're weight is just fine and stop caring about what a stupid machine says.

I mean it, sooner or later you will not be able to run at all if you continue to eat to little and try to loose weight. Seriously!

Undereating and not losing weight is a RED blinking light! You should be eating 4000 kcal btw, not the stupid number you yourself have made up.

Listen to the 2nd response. Stop obsessing about your weight. At 100 mpw, you should be worried about getting injured from not eating enough, not trying to get down to an arbitrary number.

I couldn't break 16:30 at 144 lbs and was obsessed with what I was eating and dropping under 140. Now I eat what I like and I'm running under 14 at 150 lbs ... (not to brag, just trying to make a point that weight =/= performance)

Also, it looks like you're not eating enough carbs, and too much protein. Most distance runners eat a ton more carbs and little protein+fat. It's natural to gain a bit of weight as you get older, you shouldn't expect your body to be exactly the same at 20 vs 24.

And I strongly recommend deleting your calorie tracking app, and only weighing yourself once every 2 weeks.

Based on your height and weight and amount of running, a simple calculation says you must be eating about 3200-3400 calories/day for maintenance (assuming you're not very active outside of your daily running).

The truth is that you're eating more than 2400 calories a day if you're not losing weight. A lot of people can't count calories. There's no such thing as 'holding on to fat'. If you are in calorie deficit, you will lose weight, period.

Whether or not you should be worried about your weight is not something I can not offer advice on.

Peanuts and chicken breast are garbage food, high in omega-6. Replace with red meat and omega 3 fish. Saturated fat is your friend, gives satiety and lots of key micronutrients.

I think Run6556 is onto something. Could be your metabolism is slowing down due to not enough calories. The human body, under some conditions, has a survival mode and your body may be in that. This also happens to anorexics. Sounds like you're not eating enough.

You're most basic body requirements are your skeletal system and your organ systems.

You need a certain amount a muscle to move that efficiently.

And I think your body somehow knows what that is.

I don't think your breakfast is enough and you're not getting enough protein in the morning. You need a much better breakfast.

I think if you give yourself a chance to you just a little muscle, you'll get leaner.

But I don't think you can say that you will be healthier with less body fat.

But you can definitely say that you'll be healthier with more muscle.

As your muscle mass drops and approaches the minimum needed to propel your skeletal system and organ systems, you'll see degrading performance and you increase your chances of injury or sickness.

Really keep an eye on your resting heart rate, especially during this pandemic. It's better to slightly undertrain than to overtrain and suffer a set back.

Especially if you're becoming mentally stale, switch it up and do some circuit training for a week or three in between cycles.

I suppose the issue is we don't know portions so we don't really know how much you're eating. A bagel in one place can be 800 kcal - in another it could be 200. Peanut butter could be a smudge or a tonne. We don't know.

I would eat that amount (2500) when not running, completely sedentary.

It seems very low for your mileage.

Surprized no one has mentioned it. Lack of sleep could be the factor preventing you from getting to "race weight". When you do not get enough sleep, your cortisol levels become evaluated, leading to weight gain. Likewise, insufficient caloric intake can cause evaluated cortisol levels, making it harder to lose weight.

I have a few questions about your situation. When you said that when eating ~2900 calories, you felt great running but gained weight. I am questioning whether that "weight gain" was actually fat. What I think might be happening is that "weight gain" may actually be from increased glycogen stores. When you are eating too little but exercising a ton, your body doesn't have a chance to sufficiently replenish glycogen stores. However when you increased your caloric intake, your body had the necessary energy to store more glycogen. Because glycogen is stored with water, weight gain occurs. This is why when people lose weight on a low carbohydrate diet, there is rapid initial weight loss. Most of this weight loss is actually water from reduced glycogen stores.

Although your problem may be due to your habits, you also might want to get checked for promblems that can lead to weight gain such as insulin resistance and hypothyroidism.

I had a period during this year where I suddenly lost muscle mass (and got puffy), felt awful and was still running a lot. Turns out I wasn’t eating like I should. As soon as I stopped obsessing with the calories and what exactly I ate I started to progress again. Started feeling better, lost the puffiness and my muscle definition came back. I eat mostly healthy, don’t obsess and eat way more calories/carbs in general. I manage to have pretty awesome abs (as a lady), a normal cycle and am back to running normal as I marathon build.

Basically eat more, worry less. It evens out.

Also as a 5’4, 112-115ish lady I eat 2500 at a minimum, it’s usually closer to 3k if not more. Im running 65-75 mpw, swimming 2 hours a week and do some strength stuff. Plus normal active stuff like walking the dog and puttering around the house.

So don’t be afraid to eat more to become stronger as a run we