Running more, eating less, gaining weight.. Calories per day

another moron wrote:

You come across as someone who's extremely ignorant. Try telling that to someone with severe hypothyroidism.

Quite the descriptive user name. If you really think a thyroid problem can allow a person to magically produce caloric energy out of thin air, you should contact the Nobel Prize association and let them know you just cured world hunger and the energy crisis all at the same time.

I feel bad for you guys who actually measure food and count every calories. The fact that you said you measure bread and milk might be one reason why you aren't losing weight. Calories are irrelevant, fat is not the enemy. Eat real foods, keep your sugar intake low. Don't eat carbs all day everyday. Some people never gain weight no matter what they eat, but sadly some people have to watch their sugar and carb intake. Limit your sugar, eat more meat/fish, eat more veggies.

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Lustig wrote:

I don't know when runners and people who think they eat healthy are going to get the memo that fat isn't bad for you and isn't the cause of weight gain - it is sugar - particularly fructose. The war on fat came from a very flawed study - it was the increased sugar (specifically fructose) not the fat.

When one is fairly sedentary, HIGH amounts of SAT FAT are easily just as bad for you as HIGH amounts of sugar.

HIGH AMOUNTS OF BOTH (i.e., the "western diet"), especially for a sedentary person (i.e., the western lifestyle) is the real killer combo.

Moderate amounts of either sat fat or sugar, especially for people who exercise, don't eat too many calories, have otherwise very healthy diets (lots of fruits and veggie, etc), and aren't genetically predisposed to particular health problems, won't likely cause any issues at all.

And sorry to break it to you, there was more than one study showing that high amounts of sat fat are potentially bad. More like 10,000.

And yes, too much fat (especially sat fat) can easily lead to weight gain for most people, more so than the other macronutrients.

Fructose isn't inherently poisonous. When consumed in high amounts without other nutrients (fiber, antioxidants, etc) to offset its potential deleterious effects, it certainly can lead to weight gain and fatty liver. This is what can happen with high consumption of soda or candy. With fruit or 100% fruit juice? Not so much.

Things aren't as simple or black and white as you seem to want to them to be (for example, your certainty that all fats, even when consumed in high amounts, are clearly harmless, and that fructose in obviously poison)

Calories in vs. calories out is NOT what determines weight gain. There is your fundamental flaw. It is all about hormones. Eat lots of lean meats, veggies, and some fruit (especially near training times). Throw in some potatoes here and there to get additional carbs for your high training volume. You will lose weight and feel better, I guarantee it.

Yes, that means quit eating pasta and bread, and quit drinking milk.

Are we talking about heart health, or losing weight? If we are talking about which fats are healthy for us, saturated and monounsaturated fats would be the majority of fats. Limiting fats high in Omega 6 poly-unsaturated fats (such as vegetable oils and hydrogenated oils) is the best for heart health. Sugar isn't good for health or losing weight, however a little bit won't kill anyone.

You can have a blood test to check that you don't have some sort of imbalance or deficiency that might be messing with your metabolism. I'm assuming that you're a guy (this is letsrun after all), but if you - or anyone else reading this - happen to be female, then there are other possible causes. Several forms of the contraceptive pill, for example, are known to be associated with increases in weight. While some of this is related to increased appetite (and resulting increased calorific intake, which doesn't seem to be the problem here), there are also reportedly increases in fluid retention and side effects arising from hormonal changes.

max219 wrote:

If we are talking about which fats are healthy for us, saturated and monounsaturated fats would be the majority of fats. Limiting fats high in Omega 6 poly-unsaturated fats (such as vegetable oils and hydrogenated oils) is the best for heart health. Sugar isn't good for health or losing weight, however a little bit won't kill anyone.

in high amounts, unsaturated fats are better than saturated fats. Don't buy into the fad diet hype that suddenly the decades of research showing negative effects of high sat fat intake were all wrong. Just not true. And while there is something to the concept/theory about high omega6/omega 3 ratio likely being not ideal for health, this is likely more to do with low omega 3 levels, and in general has been blown out of proportion.

Moderate amounts of sat fat are of course fine if you are active and your diet is generally healthy. But certainly wouldn't be more first choice of fat. Omega 3 from fish, and MUFA's and PUFA's from nuts, seeds, and oils like olive oil would come well ahead of them

And to the people who keep repeating: fat isn't the enemy. In general, sure, but in that same vein, neither are carbs. Your fadists are trying to swing the pendulum to the other extreme and proclaim:

' if you order a quadruple burger (grass fed of course) with cheese and bacon, as long as your remove the whole grain bun , you are golden! As much sat fat, protein, and cholesterol as you want. Just stay away from those evil grains!!!!!!!'

Complete and utter BS.

For those of you who insist on demonizing fructose should remember that a small amount stabilizes blood sugar.

You'll lose MORE weight by eating a tablespoon or two of honey, or drinking a glass of orange juice before bed than going to bed hungry.

wrong paradigm wrote:

Calories in vs. calories out is NOT what determines weight gain. There is your fundamental flaw. It is all about hormones.

Are you kidding me? Hormones are involved in regulating weight loss and gain, but they don't allow you to ignore the laws of conservation of energy and matter.

Has there ever been a thread with such density of ignorance and misinformation as this one?

Get an app for your computer or PDA that lets you track exercise and calories.

Then you'll know for sure.

I share the view that you are eating more calories than you think.

But at 90-100 mpw you should worry about calories or weight.

Humans are meant to be in caloric excess. So no, I am not kidding you. Yes, eating 10000 calories a day would make you gain wait. But simply counting calories isn't going to get it done in most cases.

Go read "Why we get fat" by Gary Taubes. I think he takes it a bit to the extreme (it is targeted toward sedentary people), but he is right about "why we get fat", hence the title.

wrong paradigm wrote:

Humans are meant to be in caloric excess. So no, I am not kidding you. Yes, eating 10000 calories a day would make you gain wait. But simply counting calories isn't going to get it done in most cases.

Go read "Why we get fat" by Gary Taubes. I think he takes it a bit to the extreme (it is targeted toward sedentary people), but he is right about "why we get fat", hence the title.

I have a degree in biology. I know how metabolism works.

If your point is that calorie counting isn't the best way to lose weight, I might agree with you. But that's not what you said.

At its heart, the issue of gaining/losing weight is one of energy input versus energy output. Claiming otherwise is just plain wrong.

Humbly- I actually consider myself an expert on weight-loss. I just spent the last 2 months to successfully get down to my college underclass weight. Guarantee this will work for anyone. I researched, and did it successfully:

Alter your philosophy:

Speed metabolism. Calorie counting or "losing" (or that approach) is not the best way or the way to think about it.

How to speed metabolism:

1) More & smaller meals. (Nothing ground-breaking here). Keep some food with you always, to nibble if at all hungry. I keep unsalted nuts. If the body goes long w/o food, then it "keeps" its calories and learns not to burn them- as it does not know when the next meal is coming. But if always nibbling or eating frequent meals, then it trusts food is always coming, and burns away.

2) Foods that speed the metabolism. Do a google search- but Oatmeal & Yogurt are a couple. Clean foods are obvious ones, too. Protein with each meal- not like those large powder quantities, that body-builders use. But like yogurt (lots of protein). Protein takes much more body energy to burn, and speeds the metabolism. So include it with each meal to get the body burning. Biotin vitamin as well. It actually has a chemical that is necessary for the metabolism process. A "wierd" thing is hot peppers. They speed the metabolism for ~20 mins. I resisted, because it didn't seem healthy. But Cayenne Peppers are super healthy for the blood pressure & for a low cholesterol. So before a meal, I take a swig of Cayenne Pepper sauce. Weird- but it's healthy & works.

3) 1 min of calisthenics before/after each meal. Exercise keeps the metabolism fast for a while- so your body is burning away that meal.

4) If you do pushups or lift weights in addition to running, then try doing them at an "inactive" period. In other words, if your finished exercising for the day @ 4:00pm.. then that's another 5-6 hours of inactivity. So maybe do some pushups or lifting around 8:00pm. It doesn't have to be a hero's workout. But frequent exercise helps keep that metabolism going.

5) Eat not to stuff yourself, but to cure hunger.

6) Never let you body feel "void" of food. That's just fool's gold for losing weight. It helps for tomorrow but not next week. At the same time, this doesn't mean 2nd's and 3rd's.

7) Patience. For me, it took about 2.5 weeks to notice things. And as we know, correct weight-loss is a slow, steady loss. But the method above can lose a person plenty, while they feel stronger.

8) Final note: Michael Phelps reportedly will eat 12,000 calories/day- but his body's a furnace. This is pretty high-end, but it's what I'm getting at. I'm eating more lately, but weighing less, and am lifting as well as before losing. It works.

Assuming that all of the above is accurate, it is likely that you are hypothyroid, hypogonadal (low testosterone) or are suffering from some other hormonal problem. What does your blood work say?

Could be too much training and too little rest resulting in elevated cortisol levels and some fluid retention. Perhaps you need to step up mileage a little more conservatively and/or rest more.

ammagamma wrote:

Well, it's physically impossible to gain weight unless you are consuming more calories than you burn.

There a few options:

1. Despite running more, you are burning fewer calories than you were a year ago. Your metabolism may have slowed down, maybe your day-to-day routine is not as active for whatever reason, something like that.

2. You are consuming more calories than you think you are.

This is correct, and the biggest culprit is #2 above.

At rest, a 150-pound male burns 12 calories per pound, so 1800 calories. You burn ~100 calories per mile run, so add that to your total to maintain weight. If you're more active outside of running than just being sedentary, then add about 200 more calories per day.

Thing is you need to have a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound, or 500 calorie deficit a day, each day, for a week. The easiest way to do that and the most successful way is calorie counting.

For an otherwise sedentary dude running 10 miles a day, (that's 1000 calories), he would need to eat 2800 calories a day to maintain. Want to lose a pound a week, then drop it down to 2300 calories. If you discover that so doing makes you lose way more than 1 pound a week, then either consider yourself lucky or decide to eat a bit more to balance it out a bit. Typically people lose the most in the first week of targeted weight loss (mainly due to excess water weight).

Anyway, that's the starting guideline...adjust as necessary. One thing you can't do and be successful though is to just estimate your calories...you really need to be sure...be honest about the portion sizes.

I actually had the same exact problem as you years ago. I was watching what I was eating very closely and running around 100 mpw yet if anything I was gaining weight, not losing. Not only that, I wasn't recovering from my runs and felt flat most of the time, so it was driving me crazy.

The situation didn't improve until I upped my protein intake. I felt like I recovered from runs quicker and lost weight the way I would have expected. Physiologically I am unsure of the explanation, but I wonder if getting a majority of my calories from carbs was causing my body to retain an unnecessary amount of water or something.

So, if I were you I'd look into not only how many calories you're consuming, but the proportion of carbs to protein.