Need honest help: How to tell female collegiate runner to drop 5 - 10lbs

Here's some helpful advice:

Vacate your coaching position to enable someone with better judgment to coach your athlete.

It's one thing telling someone who doesn't exercise and unhealthy that they need to lose weoght, it is quite another thing to tell someone who is healthy and exercising at the level of a college runner that she needs to lose weight.

Weight is not as simple as changing calories in. Your body wants to stay the same, you don't just automatically lose or gain weight by eating slightly more or less. If you really want to change things get her in the weight room. If you start telling her to eat less you will just end up with a runner with not enough energy

just tell her: oi porky, you're dropped from the team, as we don't stock XXXL singlets.

as a female 5'5 runner her competitive weight is more like 115 most likely. At 140 she is definitely porky. Losing 5 to 10 lbs is just the start if she wants to be competitive.

That said, weight is a touchy subject with women (which is stupid, tell a guy runner he needs to drop 25lbs to be at his best and he'll just be like alright great I'll get on it). Likely if you tell her she needs to drop even just 5 to 10 lbs, which is super obvious, you'll have some problems.

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Gotta agree that giving it straight ain't gonna work. Doubles and a bit more volume will take care of things automatically.

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A calorie surplus is a necessary condition for fat gain but not a sufficient condition. A calorie deficit is a sufficient condition for fat loss but isn't the only contributor to fat loss.

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You should tell her: 'you would be a better runner if you lose 5-10 pounds', or something along those lines.

Not really rocket science.

Tell her she needs to be faster and she needs to lose weight to do that. Make her run doubles and keep a food log.

Who cares if she's a freshman? If she can't take it, she's too weak to do anything valuable for herself or the team.

doubles and more volume will help, have the team eat together and on road trips don't take the team to junk food restaurants, not terrible to have a university nutritionist give a talk to the team about sensible eating as college students traditionally, especially women, add on the freshman ten or fifteen pounds, and talk to the athletes about improving certain habits and working hard, but never to the females talk directly about weight, because it will backfire. Weight training may help to accelerate metabolism. If she's new, she'll likely drop that weight during the season with the increased training.

Coach,

You know the old cliche kiss. Running is just that, simple. It sounds as if though you are missing a much larger part of the equation that comes with being a runner or athlete. We focus all of our energy on the run but to often we ignore the other 23 hours in the day.

What are you doing to insure the kids are sleeping and geting acess to tutors and healthy food? Running hard is a grind. Add in all the outside distractions ontop of running and some kids are crumbling. Do they have access to sports psychologist? Dr. Kristin Kein is great. Look her up or see her stuff on twitter @ thek2

Obviously you are concerned about your runners and are intouch with them and their thinking. However telling someone to loose weight but not having the support in place to help them with that is a set up for failure. To often as Coaches we forget sports are just a methphor for life. Our job as a coach is not to win but to teach the kids about life. Creating a healthy and well rounded program takes care of the freshman girl who Is over weight by a few pounds. If you give the kids the tools to be successful and create a healthy enviroment your entire program will flourish. Obviously it takes a lot of work and is not something that you can do overnight but implementing some things gradually positive change will take place. I would be happy to help you and the kids if that interest you. These are the sort of things that make me tick. Reach out to me if intrested.

Regards

Thomas

Sorry for typos i am on my phone.

The women's coach on my college team would comment on the eating habits of the (slightly) heavier girls on the team. They ignored her and resented her for it, while several of the top girls developed some serious eating disorders. Based on this, I'm not sure if saying anything is a great course of action, but as others have said maybe emphasizing she work on core or other strengthening exercises could be beneficial.

Not Wise Enough wrote:

I am a head coach who has been at the collegiate level for nearly 10 years. We have had success across the board but I have reached a point that I need outside help. For those who have experienced this situation and had positive outcomes (not created an eating disorder), how do you approach this situation?

I am a straight-shooter but at the same time, I know that women can take discussions about weight over-board.

Specifics on this situation involve college freshman who weighs around 140 at 5 foot 5. This is not a muscular build. This athlete is motivated and does what is asked of her. Clearly she would be a stronger runner if she was 130. Both of her parents are bigger.

Any positive/helpful advice would be greatly appreciative.

That's about the same height/weight as Erin Donahue, who has run 2:01/4:05. If she keeps training hard any extra weight will come off naturally. Give it time and don't say anything.

Don't tell her anything, and certainly not to lose weight.

Ask everyone on the team if they are eating a balance of fruits and veggies, protein and carbs. Perhaps suggest going easy on empty carbs.

If she's motivated and does your workouts, by spring she'll be in good trim.

Do NOT say anything like that.

1) Even if she takes it the best possible way, it is more likely that trying to drop weight while training hard will have a negative effect on her training and performance.

2) This could be a really damaging thing to say to a female college freshman. It is not OK to risk mental problems, stress or eating disorders for such a small potential upside. As others have said, she is probably well aware of her own body and if anything needs your support to stay healthy amid tons of pressure to unhealthily try to lose weight.

3) Going down this road can cost you your job, possibly for good reason.

Even in the best possible scenario, the upside is dubious. What you could do instead: discuss nutrition in general with the whole team. I would emphasize the importance of getting enough fuel to power training, but making sure it comes from healthy sources.

There are a lot more important things than running!

doble wrote:

Tell her she needs to be faster and she needs to lose weight to do that. Make her run doubles and keep a food log.

Who cares if she's a freshman? If she can't take it, she's too weak to do anything valuable for herself or the team.

Anon wrote:

There are a lot more important things than running!

Like hot college boys.

I was in a similar situation in college. 5'6 128 lbs and needed to be at 120-123 for my build.

Chances are she knows she is too heavy. Maybe she doesn't know she has a poor diet. Three things that worked for me:

-trainer told us our BMI and I asked if that was bad or good. He told me it was typical for a volleyeball player--I knew that was not good since I was a 8/1500 runner.

-coach taught us about nutrition at every weekly team meeting + randomly told us stuff when we were stretching, car rides, etc.

-coach had us keep a food and sleep journal and we had to evaluate it ourselves...didn't have to turn it in or anything.

Now in my 30s I'm still benefiting from the knowledge the coaches instilled in us.