Weight loss and Running

Most of us plunge into running or plan to take up running aiming to lose weight or to lead a healthy lifestyle. Over a period of time, running would have become our passion and we start thinking about breaking our personal records, completing marathons, buying running gears, apparels and the list keeps increasing. As we keep adding miles to our kitty, the primary goal of losing weight would have taken a back seat. We also find the weighing scale showing a constant reading or more irrespective of the miles we are covering per week. Unknowingly we would have developed the habit of consuming more food (or calories) than our basic daily energy needs, rewarding our body for the tiring long runs.

If the above points reflect your story, try to follow some simple tips and achieve your primary goal.

Maintain a food journal: Just like you maintain a journal for tracking weekly mileage, maintain a journal for tracking your food intake. This will at least help us in knowing whether we are eating less or more.

The following calculation would give you an approximate energy requirements per day. Before taking a plunge I would suggest you to do some research and proceed further.

Approximate Calories required per day = Body weight in lbs (or Body weight in Kgs x 2.2) x 13.

If you weigh 75kgs, your daily requirement would be 75 x 2.2 x 13 = 2145 calories per day. To lose 1lb or .455kgs our calorie intake should go on a deficit of 3500 calories. Spread this over 7 days, end of 1st week you would have lost 1lb. There are many websites dedicated for weight loss which can be helpful for your specific needs.

You can find calorie charts for indian food items here and here.

A snap shot of my food journal.





Off season diet: While we are training for a marathon, it becomes difficult to reduce the carb intake. But during the off season, try to eat primarily wheat based foods, many fruits and go less on rice based foods. We usually tend to count chapattis or rotis, but we don’t measure rice, so that makes a difference.

While carbohydrate loading does appear to be effective for most runners, it does have its drawbacks. Consuming too many calories in the name of carbohydrate loading can add extra body weight, which will increase the energy demands of running a marathon. Also, for every gram of glycogen stored, almost 3 grams of water are stored with it. This can leave a runner with a bloated or heavy feeling. Think for a moment before you binge on pongal and vadas.

Weight Training: Most of the road runners hate to hit the gym and do weight training. If you are a runner then dont ignore weights.
The following are some of the benefits of weight training (source : http://www.marathontraining.com/marathon/m_wt.html )

Upper Body - A strong upper body helps minimizes fatigue and stiffness in the arms, shoulders, and neck areas that in turn, enables a runner to maintain form late in a marathon or long run. Legs move only as fast as the arms swing. The runner with a strong upper body will find more power for the sprint to the finish line, an easier crank up a hill, and better balance when running on trails. In short, all of these add up to an ability to run faster and more efficiently.

Legs - Running creates a slight muscular imbalance in the legs as the hamstrings and calf muscles develop at a faster rate than the quadriceps and shins. Weight training helps address this imbalance. Additionally, strong quads and hips help protect these areas from a variety of injuries. Strong legs also offer protection from the possibility of injury when running at a fast pace downhill.

Abdominals - A strong abdominal region helps protect the back while at the same time, assists in maintaining proper running form and posture.

I followed these basic points and lost 4kgs since the Singapore marathon December 07.
Enjoy running, know what you are eating, lose weight and have fun.

Before concluding just have a feel of how a 5lbs fat (Gluey yellow colored thing) and 5lbs of muscle would look like.