I currently am 5'7 and around 125 pounds (125-30, haven't checked in a while). My coach told me I could lose around 5 pounds and I want to get faster.
How can I go about losing some weight? I am a freshman collegiate runner and have a meal plan at the dining halls so I need to exercise some self control there. I've already cut out eating desserts (cookies, pies, ice cream, etc.). Should I just eat things like pasta, whole wheat bread, veggies, salads?
Sounds like you got it figured out already with eating healthy.
Normally I'd tell someone trying to lose weight to start running, but that doesn't seem to be a problem...
Are you a man or a woman? If a man ... wow, I don't think you should lose another 5 pounds if you want to stay healthy. (I'm not as familiar with women's healthy weight.)
Generally speaking, check the calories on what you eat. Some foods, e.g. bread, are -much- higher calorie that you'd expect for the amount of "enjoyment" they give you. Others, like most fruit, are lower. Cheese is quite high calorie. Fruit juice is high calorie and really not that healthy. Veggies are super low. You don't have to obsess about it - after a while, you get a general sense for where the calories are.
All that said, at 18 and 125 pounds ... I think you should enjoy life, eat as much bread and butter as you want, and tell your coach to take a hike. (I'm 41 years old. Believe me. At your age, just have fun. Do well in class, though.)
just say no wrote:All that said, at 18 and 125 pounds ... I think you should enjoy life, eat as much bread and butter as you want, and tell your coach to take a hike. (I'm 41 years old. Believe me. At your age, just have fun. Do well in class, though.)This is good advice if you have no goals as a runner. Remember you can do everything right at practice but if you aren't doing the right things away from practice there is an huge chance you aren't going to make progress to your goals. I'm assuming your coach has asked you to do this because he feels it will help you achieve you and the teams goals or you've expressed to him that you need guidance in attempting to achieve your goals.
I'd eat the desserts, and skip the other stuff.
Does the coach weigh less than you do?
Buy, read:
I won't comment on whether losing 5 lbs is a good idea or not. That's for you to figure out.
One good resource I just came across is in Matt Fitzgerald's "Racing Weight - How to Get Lean for Peak Performances". I would recommend you check it out - it has a lot of good info for endurance athletes specifically about your question.
The two big things I took away from that is, as an endurance athlete that's not hugely overweight, you should try to lose weight by upping your activity level and maintaining calorie intake rather than just calorie restriction. You need proper fuel to maintain your training. More training (running in this case) will send a signal to your body to dump any excess weight (get lean), whereas calorie restriction will send a starvation signal and actually cause your body to slow its metabolism to survive the famine it thinks you're experiencing.
He has a chart on p.99 that simplifies the whole "what should I eat & not eat" question. I'll list it below. Basically it's a point system, and you want to accumulate as many overall points as possible each day. Good stuff raises your score, while bad stuff adds negative points, lowering your score.
Servings
Food 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
Fruit 2 2 2 1 0 0
Vegetable 2 2 2 1 0 0
Lean protein 2 2 1 0 0 -1
Whole grain 2 2 1 0 0 -1
Lowfat dairy 1 1 1 0 -1 -2
Essential fats 2 0 0 0 -1 -1
-------------
Refined grain -1 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2
Sweet -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2
Fried food -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2
full-fat dairy -1 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2
Fatty protein -1 -1 -2 -2 -2 -2
Run more, and drink less beer.
As a fellow freshman runner I can see where your troubles are coming from, primarily the dining hall. In my first season of xc this past fall (though I did run well and set PRs) I put on weight due to this newly introduced idea of all-you-can-eat buffet-style meal plan. All the vices I didn't have at home such as cookies, brownies, ice crea, high fat entrees, etc... were all suddenly readily accessible. I gained 3-4lbs which was not noticeable to the rest of the team but for me, I could tell I had become less tone and lean, more flab. This was made worse by the fact that I began eating even worse during the tapering period of our training. Following xc season I made a resolution to drop what I had gained and become tone/lean. Over our winter break I accomplished that and now try to eat as healthy as possible in the dining halls. I would recommend STAY AWAY from the pastas. They cook them in oil and very high-fat sauce. Stick with grilled chicken and veggies, beans, meats, rice. Try to eat food that you can see being prepared and not just made in the back kitchens with enormous amounts of grease, lard, and butter. Just my .02.
The book's a good start.
An easy rule of thumb to follow is to try to maximize "nutrient density" -- go for foods that are high in good stuff other than just calories. Example: White bread vs. 100% whole-wheat (the white bread has the nutrients stripped out and then is re-enriched with a subset of vitamins and minerals; the 100% whole wheat has them naturally and has more fiber, etc.). Pasta and refined sugar have lots of calories but few other nutrients - as another poster suggested, go for (brown) rice or potatoes (or sweet potatoes... without the butter and sugar) instead. Beans instead of a hamburger made from cheap, high-fat ground beef.
As others have suggested, at your age, I'd suggest not worrying excessively about the weight in particular, but if you're serious about being an athlete, you owe it to yourself to have a good diet that covers all of your nutritional bases. And if you're eating in the dining hall, just improving the quality of your diet and upping your mileage a bit as training goes on will probably result in losing a few pounds.
quack wrote:
The book's a good start.
An easy rule of thumb to follow is to try to maximize "nutrient density" -- go for foods that are high in good stuff other than just calories. Example: White bread vs. 100% whole-wheat (the white bread has the nutrients stripped out and then is re-enriched with a subset of vitamins and minerals; the 100% whole wheat has them naturally and has more fiber, etc.). Pasta and refined sugar have lots of calories but few other nutrients - as another poster suggested, go for (brown) rice or potatoes (or sweet potatoes... without the butter and sugar) instead. Beans instead of a hamburger made from cheap, high-fat ground beef.
If you want to lose weight, avoid the bread (whole wheat or white or other), potatoes, pasta, rice, etc. and opt for the cheap, high-fat beef.
And go easy on the beans.
ask your coach to pull out his member, that should buy you a pound or two, HA!