I've been injured and kind of depressed since December of last year. I realized I was gaining weight but never stepped on a scale, until today. I'm nearly 170 pounds. I realize I just need to create a calorie defecit, stop eating crap, and run more (no problem there now that I'm healthy), but I was wondering about how long is this going to take? How much should I shoot to lose each week? How much protein should I eat?
I'm 5'11 by the way.
Nobody can estimate how much time it will take to get to your weight goal - there are just too many unknowns, like your individual metabolic rate and how quickly and efficiently your body responds to the changes you make.
Cut out sugar and even diet crap (diet soda, Splenda) - most people don't realize that even though there are 0 calories, the brain still triggers a response that has been theorized to cause weight gain. Eat fruit for your sweet fixes. Reducing carbs for lean protein (hard boiled eggs and tuna) will help the weight come off faster. I don't think there's a magic formula, it's just a combination of reducing calories and increasing activity/calories burned.
I wouldn't set a firm number for weekly weight loss, just trust in a good program and be patient. Anything else is likely to discourage you, or even worse encourage unhealthy habits to reach a silly number.
170 for 5'11 is fine, unless you have a really diminutive build.
1. Workout HARD 2-4 days a week. Be it weight training or short sprints for 20-30 minutes.
2. Keep track of what you're eating at
. Reduce calories by 500.
3. Eat less than 100-200g of carbs a day.
4. Eat more than 170g of protein a day.
5. Drink a gallon of water a day. Your body requires water to function and you'll need this to LOSE WEIGHT.
Alan
The running is obviously the main thing that will get you there. You should return to the same diet you were on when you weighed 150, which probably didn't involve much skimping but also involved less junk than now. These people telling you to reduce your calorie count...I wouldn't do that. The hard work will get you there eventually.
Once a skinny runner wrote:
I've been injured and kind of depressed since December of last year. I realized I was gaining weight but never stepped on a scale, until today. I'm nearly 170 pounds. I realize I just need to create a calorie defecit, stop eating crap, and run more (no problem there now that I'm healthy), but I was wondering about how long is this going to take? How much should I shoot to lose each week? How much protein should I eat?
I'm 5'11 by the way.
A lot depends too on how old you are.
A few years ago when I was 41 I was running real well and weighed about 148 (I'm 5'9), which is light for my build. I got hurt and couldn't really do anything for 3 months (the injury required surgery - long story). In 3 months my weight went to 173. When I started back running I lost 5-8 pounds in about 6-8 weeks of running around 35-40 mpw and doing some swimming. But then I just stayed at 165 forever. I swear it seemed like for months and months I was at 165 no matter how i tried to watch what I ate.
About 6 months after surgery I got my mileage up to a steady 50-60 a week and suddenly the wieght started coming off again. Now, 2+ years later I'm back down to about 152.
I suspect you're a lot younger, so you should be able to drop the weight much quicker than that.
cut out carbs basically for a couple of weeks. eat only chicken (take skin off), fish (baked or microwaved-NOT breaded fish sticks-Gortons fish in the yellow boxes is good), vegetables, salad and lots of water. take a vitamin too, daily. I dropped 15 lbs in 3 weeks. When you cut out 90% of your carbs, the weight drops off pretty fast. Drink green tea or sugar free energy drink or coffee to keep energy level up the first week during the day. Drink a low cal protein shake for breakfast. This works. I have lost 28 lbs now in 2 months and feel great. No chips, bread, cookies or dairy (unless it's fat free milk). You can snack on carrots, apples, some types of nuts, etc...JUST DO IT!
been there done that.. wrote:
cut out carbs basically for a couple of weeks. eat only chicken (take skin off), fish (baked or microwaved-NOT breaded fish sticks-Gortons fish in the yellow boxes is good), vegetables, salad and lots of water. take a vitamin too, daily. I dropped 15 lbs in 3 weeks.
How did eating so few carbs affect your running?
Have you been taking a lot of Aleve/Advil kind of drugs? NSAIDS will make you heavy.
carbs wrote:
been there done that.. wrote:cut out carbs basically for a couple of weeks. eat only chicken (take skin off), fish (baked or microwaved-NOT breaded fish sticks-Gortons fish in the yellow boxes is good), vegetables, salad and lots of water. take a vitamin too, daily. I dropped 15 lbs in 3 weeks.
How did eating so few carbs affect your running?
I am middle aged now and not running 90 miles a week or doing 10 x 440 for workouts anymore, but simply jog 3 miles several times per week; so I wouldn't be a good gauage for a serious runnner; but, I did do some fasting in college and a form of this diet to lose weight quickly after long injuries. I was ok. the first few days are the toughest. then it is easy.
I had a similar experience my senior year in college. I lost it within a month, but I was trying really hard. I knew if I tried to do a ton of running right away I'd just get hurt again, so I finished every run with a bike ride just to burn the extra calories and get my cardiovascular system back in the game. I also really focused on my diet. I was a hardcore cheese it addict. It wasn't a huge deal when I was burning a million calories a day at practice, but just cutting them from my diet was probably 500 calories. That plus healthier meals made it go pretty quick.
Your body doesn't NEED a dietary source of glucose...it does however NEED fat and protein. Your body is just fine converting protein to glucose via gluconeogenesis.
I exercise an hour or more a day 5-6 days a week and will keep my carb intake under 150g (~100g not including vegetables) IF I'm trying to lose body fat and under 100 if not exercising that day. Otherwise is around 200-300 on workout days and 100-200 on non-workout days if I'm actually trying to GAIN mass.
A runner isn't trying to gain mass be it fat or muscle. Excess carbohydrate intake will lead to increased fat mass. Excess protein is converted into glucose. Unless you're lifting like a fool excess protein won't make you gain muscle.
Lesson: Eat more protein for muscle recovery and fat loss.
Alan
First, the remark about diet pop is just ignorant. I honestly drink over a gallon a day and have for 30 years.
If you want to get serious about losing weight, you have to count calories. 2,000 calories is plenty to have enough energy to work out as hard as you want but still lose weight. If this is a 500 calorie deficit for you, you will lose a lb a week. If you are more active, you may lose 2 lbs a week.
After a couple weeks of eating 2k calories/day, you will soon figure out what foods are best to eat to not be hungry all the time. I eat a lot of simple ham (or chicken) sandwiches, bagels, salads, veggies (lb bag of carrots, broccoli, asparagus mixed with some sort of flavoring like spices or creamed soup. I always eat something an hour or two before I workout so I am not hungry and have the energy for the workout. I also try to save up enough calories during the day so I can treat myself with a candy bar in the evening.
I have lost 7 or 8 lbs in the last 4 weeks and am getting close to my racing weight. What people forget is that if you are running a calorie deficit, your body will automatically use stored fat which is FULL of energy. I feel I have more energy when I am dieting than when I am not. Of course when you get real lean, you have to up your calories back up to what you are using every day.
Today I ate a toasted cheese sandwich for breakfast(300 calories). Ran a 9 mile run with 4 tempo. Finally ate a big salad of lettuce, tomatoe, pickles, ham, toast, yogurt dressing (500 calories) at 3:30. Will have wings tonight which will probably be about 800 calories. That will leave about 400 calories for a couple small snacks and I will still hit 2k calories today.
Once a skinny runner wrote:
I've been injured and kind of depressed since December of last year. I realized I was gaining weight but never stepped on a scale, until today. I'm nearly 170 pounds. I realize I just need to create a calorie defecit, stop eating crap, and run more (no problem there now that I'm healthy), but I was wondering about how long is this going to take? How much should I shoot to lose each week? How much protein should I eat?
I'm 5'11 by the way.
You will still run your normal amount -- don't increase the running just to lose weight; increase running only to increase fitness.
Doesn't matter if you eat CRAP or not -- matters only how many calories you are eating. It's EASIER to eat fewer calories if you don't eat crap, but you can lose weight eating only at McDonald's if you want.
Pretty much you need to lose 20 pounds. You should plan to lose 2 pounds a week, so you could do it in [let me get out my calculator]...10 weeks.
Here's a GUIDE to go by:
Men burn 12 calories per pound per day ON AVERAGE (and it varies with age a bit) when AT REST. You weigh 170, so you burn 2040 calories per day if you just sat on the couch and did nothing else. Since you are MORE active than that, you could eat 2040 calories per day and carry on with your normal life and likely lose a couple pounds per week.
You need to have a deficit of 3500 calories A WEEK in order to lose a pound of fat, so for 2 pounds a week [again with the calculator] you need to have a deficit of 7000 calories a week.
I don't know how much you are running, but let's say it's 5 miles a day. You burn about 100 calories per mile. 5 miles a day x 7 days a week = 35 x 100 calories per mile is 3500. So, if you sat on the couch all day and did nothing other than run 5 miles a day, and you ate 2040 calories a day at 170 pounds, you would lose a pound in that first week with the running. Your caloric requirements drop every week you lose weight, so you need to adjust each week to keep pace.
Knowing that you probably do SOMETHING other than just sitting on the couch, you get to add more calories to your daily limit. Is it 200 more? 500 more? 1000 more? Depends on how active you are.
In the first week, if I were you, I'd eat 2040 calories a day (and you can be VERY healthy eating that) and run 5 miles a day and see where you are at the end of the first week. Typically in the first week of weight loss effort, you lose the most you will of any week -- most of that is excess water weight that is lost as you decrease your carbohydrate consumption (this just happens in general when you restrict calories). I would bet also that you COULD eat more than 2040 a week and lose at least a pound, but remember you are likely going for 2 pounds a week on average.
If you ate 2040 the first week and ran 35 miles, my guess is that you'd lose 4-5 pounds that first week. Do the same thing the second week and you'd likely lose just 1 or 2.
Anyway, watching the calories for the short term is the key. Once you slowly get fit again and are running more, you can relax a bit on watching the calories so much.
if you can stay healthy, run more miles.
nothing AT ALL works for me other than upping the mileage. I mean, not that I'm trying to lose weight by doing that, but the only times I get down to "fighting weight" are when I'm doing 80mpw and more.
lifting helps I think. also, i agree that intense workouts and long runs seem to help.
once i start doing all that stuff, i literally can't put weight on. and believe me, i eat like a dumbass sometimes.
well........ wrote:
170 for 5'11 is fine, unless you have a really diminutive build.
As someone who is 5'11", 170lb is far from a runner's build.
I was 155-160 for the last 10+ years, and I was never considered skinny.
I'm now at 175, the heaviest I have ever been, everyone says I look the same in clothes, but holy shit, I have rolls of fat.
When I weighed 155, I always wanted to get down to 145 or at least < 150 but never did it.
The real tricky part is making sure you don't get injured when increasing workouts/mileage.
These people who are suggesting a high protein, high fat, low carb diet for weight loss never studied nutrition. This has got two major problems:
-Since you aren't eating carbs, every time you go out and run, you will bonk. You will never get in shape like that.
-You will have health trouble. High protein and fat diets cause heart disease, cancer, impotence, etc. This has been shown time and time again.
The research is clear: the healthiest way to lose weight is to adopt a low protein, low fat, high carb diet consisting exclusively of plant-based foods. How many fat vegans have you met? There are some junk-food vegans out there, but very few. For the most part, when you eat only plant foods, your weight will naturally optimize itself, without having to count calories at all.
If you're 20 pounds overweight and running a normal amount, you shouldn't really have to change anything at first. I wouldn't be surprised if you lost 15 of the pounds in 3-4 weeks. If you eat buffet-style meals, try to limit yourself to one plate's worth of food. Once you get down to about 155 the progress will be slower, and you'll have to be more careful. For an athlete who is of a reasonable weight (5 pounds overweight is reasonable) you typically don't want to lose more than about a pound a week, or 500 calorie-deficit per day. I'm 5'11 as well, but more well-built so my racing weight is around 163. I got injured over the winter and on February 15th I weighed 172 pounds. 8 weeks later I weigh 163. It has been a steady but slow process. Reasonably cutting my portions and eliminating my liquid calories (I drink water with all my meals instead of juice/milk) has been key, in addition to beginning to run again.
Here is the answer - I am doing it now, trying to peel 15 lbs:
"Eat to Live" by Fuhrman:
- Eat at least 1 lb steamed vegtables per day
- In addition - eat 1 or 2 HUGE salads each day, no oils
- 4 or 5 fruits a day
- lesser amounts of starches (bread, grains)
- A handful of nuts
- No fruit juice or soda
- No oils or butter
It works. You can eat unlimited amounts of raw vegetables and fruits to satiate your hunger.
People who suggest a high carb low fat diet have been brainwashed by 30 years of piss poor "nutrition nscience" or enjoy feeling hungry.
please show me controlled clinical trials where a high fat high protein diet induced a statistically significant increase in heart disease or cancer compared to the control group. since it has been shown "time and time again" it should be easy for you to atleast humor my skepticism.