No wonder I'm fat. Drew Hunter only eats ~2500 calories/day.

Thia is why some runners go anorexic. They see someone faster claiming to eat a smaller amount (perhaps sensationalized or not even accurate) of food. Everyone is different. Listen to your own body. If you are hungry, eat. This sport is not worth sacrificing your long term health and the results of starvation are always ironic because a weaker runner is a slower runner.

You ever met Meb in person? The guy is 5'2"

Sorry calling BS on this. Meb is maybe 5'2". Maybe if he was wearing Alpha Flys he'd be 5'4"

Crowd Sorcerer wrote:

That's about what Meb was eating while training for marathons, no?

Meb's listed weight on wikipedia is 126. He's only 10% lighter than Drew. I wouldn't be surprised if Drew runs a little less than Meb was when training for the marathon, but don't actually know how much either of them run.

I think in Meb for Mortals he wrote about eating around 7,000 calories a day in college. He said he met with a nutritionist and then tightened up his diet. 7,000 calories is a crazy amount

Few people really have to track calories (and macros). I do and have to keep my diet carefully in check or I ballon up even running 70+ miles per week. I managed to hit over 200 pounds (5’-11”) in November running even a bit more than that (and weightlifting 3 times per week). I’m pretty cut at about 180-185 so it’s not like I’m huge at 200 but it’s definitely way too heavy. 4,500 calories per day SHOULD be maintenance level under those circumstances but it’s just not. My thyroid functions just fine but unless you use something like MyFitnessPal to track calories then it’s almost impossible to accurately keep track. I have lots of friends who eat more than me and run significantly less yet have no issue remaining skinny. That’s just life for many people out there. They don’t understand how much of a battle it is every single day to keep the weight off.

There’s research out there that suggests some people simply don’t really absorb calories after a certain point - they’re not saved as energy and that’s why than can eat 5000+ per day, remain thin, and be none the wiser. Studies primarily pertaining to strength training have produced a lot of valuable information for runners to use in this regard because counting macros is common even for hobbylifters.

Basically, lots of runners are gonna say that there’s no way you have to restrict calories that much because they don’t. I hear it all the time from people I know too. It sucks but they don’t know because they don’t really have a need to know since they stay skinny regardless.

Crowd Sorcerer wrote:

You should be able to edit the appropriate cells only now. Let me know if it works for you. Note that there are separate calculators for men and women, which you select down at the bottom left hand side of the screen.

That worked great! With my stats and 90 mpw I got 3472 cal/day which seems very accurate. Thanks for posting this!

jamin wrote:

I probably eat ~1000 more per day and he runs a lot more than I do. I would be always feeling a little bit hungry all the time if I ate ~2500 per day. But maybe that's what I need to do to get down to distance runner weight.

I always knew the thing about pros like Galen Rupp and Jordan Hasay eating tons of Slurpees and whatnot was B.S. And some people here still believe that Kloster Klaufenhezen or whatever is naturally a skeleton and georges herself on chocolate-covered pretzels every night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzqZXm3Ommc

maybe that's why he's injured......?

Would you recommend going by this calculator or garmin data? calculating off 84 mpw for a 5'7" 15 year old, it says only 2844, but my garmin said i was burning way more than that.

I have no idea how the pros live off these diets. A few years ago when I was running 100-115 miles a week and marathon training, I basically ate all the time, ate plenty of junk food and still kept my weight at 140 lbs, which felt tiny for a 5’11” guy. I know they are all pretty restrictive with their diets, but seems their elite engines would just burn through everything. I always thought I was skinny until I got close to some of the pros at the Trials a few years ago.

if the furnace is hot enough wrote:

I have no idea how the pros live off these diets. A few years ago when I was running 100-115 miles a week and marathon training, I basically ate all the time, ate plenty of junk food and still kept my weight at 140 lbs, which felt tiny for a 5’11” guy. I know they are all pretty restrictive with their diets, but seems their elite engines would just burn through everything. I always thought I was skinny until I got close to some of the pros at the Trials a few years ago.

They are extremely efficient at burning fat. Even if someone runs a 28 min 10k, he is still burning 5% fat or something. At slower paces, it's 90%+. Therefore they never run out of carbs and don't get depleted as we recreational runners do.

Also, the more carbs you eat the more carbs you burn. I've been eating very high amount of carbs for many years to fuel, so my body is a glycogen burning machine. Even if I do a slow 2h long run, I burn a good amount of carbs.

It's easy for us to look at Hunter's diet and say/think: "wait - that's not enough! that caused his injury!" but it might just always leave him full and not hungry and be enough. He conditioned his body and metabolism to function on that calory/carb intake. Also, he just came off injury and probably got plenty of glycogen stores right now. After a few hard training weeks, he might naturally increase his carb intake, also once he starts racing or doing hard workouts.

To back up my previous post with science:

https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000047

Here they compared well-trained runners (VO2MAX 72, avg 5k 14:30) with recreational runners (VO2MAX 56, avg 5k 18:00).

At the same RPE and blood lactate levels (carb utilization), the well-trained runners burned around 3x more fat than the hobby joggers, despite running much faster!

That explains

- why they are skinnier/have lower body fat%

- why they don't need to eat as much

Some people in the recreational runner groups ran the same mileage as the well-trained runners (say 90 mpw), so it's not just because they run more they are leaner and able to eat less. This can be improved however. I wouldn't be surprised if the people here posting and only have 1-3 years of running experience, will end up becoming more efficient at burning fat and maybe also eating a bit less once they have 5+ years of running experience.

Since our bodies use what we fuel/have first, it is actually a genius idea by Hunter to fuel himself with sandwiches with eggs/protein, bacon and avocado's as compared to the pancakes, oat flakes, breads, and other high carb foods most of us are eating. He eats a lot more % of protein and fat, and therefore his body will not just burn the excess of carbs that we have, but really utilize his fat stores.

Man

No wonder you are a fat people country....

A pro runner eating bacon, processed cheese, sausage, etc,,,disgusting

Check Japanese, Kenyan athletes diet....

You will never get close

Poor, poor diet

GarminGuy wrote:

Would you recommend going by this calculator or garmin data? calculating off 84 mpw for a 5'7" 15 year old, it says only 2844, but my garmin said i was burning way more than that.

Garmin seems to estimate high usually. What does yours say?

Jamin is fat because he has zero muscle mass. He needs to do dips, pull ups, deadlifts, back extensions, and more. Instead he trespasses on school property and does endless 200s. Should do 200 push-ups instead.

Nevermind, its because i was also doing bike rides. it was about 1000 calories for an easy 90 minute run and then 300 for a hard 30 minute bike ride.

Is Ernst van Aaken the assistant coach at Tinman Elite?

He never says anywhere that’s the only thing he has throughout the day , a lot of these runners have a shake or something post work out , snacks etc etc , I’m sure there’s at least an additional 1000 calories to be found somewhere

Exactly, he probably has snacks, deserts sometimes like he said (not shown in video). It seems like the video was just showing what his “meals” are.

And it looked fine to me, I think people overestimate how much pro runners eat - could be wrong though.

he probably fuels during runs and workouts too. everyone calm down. you want a peak at what pros do and then you bring negativity to the table.