Weight Management for Marathoners: Is It Broken for You? Read This

Weight management should be a no-brainer for marathoners, right? Then why is it broken for so many of us?

You may have other questions, such as these:

• Shouldn’t weight management for marathoners be automatic?
• What’s a Calorie?
• Are all Calories the same?
• What’s BMR?
• Where does the human body get energy?
• Why am I losing muscle mass instead of “fat”?
• If running helps with weight loss, then do faster runs help more?

Keep reading for the answers.

Weight management? I thought that marathon training would help me to lose weight

Welcome to the club. Yes, many people train for their first marathon in part to lose weight. And, yes, there are stories of people who lose weight while training for their first marathon.

But, all that new running or walking every week may make no dent in your weight.

I neither gained nor lost weight while training for my first. But, I gained several pounds within six months after my first marathon. The reason? Marathon training led me to eat more than usual, and I kept eating more than usual after I stopped training.

In other words, I boosted my “Calories in” as my marathon training boosted my “Calories out”. And, I kept those “Calories in” at that boosted level after I stopped training. So, I gained weight after I stopped training and until I dropped my “Calories in” to their previous level.

What’s a Calorie?

Physicists talk about calories; nutritionists talk about Calories.

• A lowercase-c “calorie” is the energy needed to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree Centigrade at 1 atmosphere.
• A kilocalorie is one thousand lowercase-c calories.
• An uppercase-C “Calorie” is a kilocalorie (with a lowercase “c”).

Lowercase-c calories are also called “small calories” or “gram calories”. Uppercase-C Calories are also called “large calories” or “kilogram calories” or “food calories“.

Nutritionists use “Calories” to refer to the energy-producing value of food in the body. They use uppercase-C “Calories” because using lowercase-c “calories” would be too extreme. For example,
[Tweet “A 2,000-Calorie diet is the same as a 2,000,000-calorie diet.”]
The daily arithmetic for weight management is simpler with uppercase-C Calories.

A Calorie is a Calorie, right?

Of course, one unit of energy according to some scale is always one unit of energy according to that scale. For example, one calorie = one calorie, one Calorie = one Calorie, and one joule = one joule.

In contrast, a unit of energy on one scale requires a conversion to some X units of energy on another scale. For example, one calorie is roughly 4.2 joules, and one Calorie is roughly 4.2 kilojoules.

So:
[Tweet “Physics-wise, a Calorie is a Calorie.”]
Nutritionists use Calories to refer to how much energy exists in a food.

• 1 gram of carbohydrates contains 4 Calories.
• 1 gram of fat contains 9 Calories.
• 1 gram of protein contains 4 Calories.

How Calories from food get stored in your body affects your weight. For example:
[Tweet “One pound of adipose tissue contains 3,500 Calories.”]
[Tweet “One pound of muscle tissue contains 600 Calories.”]
Here’s what this means. Suppose that your diet keeps your weight constant. And, suppose that you then consume 3,500 more Calories for one week. Then you would gain weight. But, where and by how much would you gain the weight?

• If all 3,500 excess Calories consumed went to adipose tissue, then you would gain 1 lb. (3,500 Calories divided by 3,500 Calories/lb. = 1 lb.)
• If all 3,500 excess Calories consumed went to muscle tissue, then you would gain 5.83 lbs. (3,500 Calories divided by 600 Calories/lb. = 5.83 lbs.)

Now, suppose again that your diet keeps your weight constant. But, suppose that you then consume 3,500 fewer Calories for one week. Then you would lose weight. But, where and by how much would you lose the weight?

• If the weight loss all came from adipose tissue, then you would lose 1 lb.
• If the weight loss all came from muscle tissue, then you would lose 5.83 lbs.

[Tweet “You likely want to lose adipose-tissue weight, not muscle-tissue weight.”]
But, whether and where you lose or gain weight depends on:

• the sources of Calories in your food (carbohydrates, fats, and protein);
• how your body uses its stores of Calories to meet its energy needs that are not met by your food;
• how your body stores excess Calories consumed.

For example, watch Dr. Robert Lustig’s “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” lecture on the Web. You’ll learn that fructose Calories and glucose Calories are not the same.

So:
[Tweet “Body-weight-wise, not all food Calories are the same.”]

Steganography in fitness-product infomercials

“Stega-what? Writing with steaks?” No, steganography refers to hiding information in plain sight. For example, spies use steganography to hide instructions in certain pixels of images.

Fitness-product infomercials practice their own form of steganography. You only need know where to look to find the hidden information.

I first learned this from an infomercial guru or from a personal trainer who had worked in Hollywood. I don’t recall who it was; I may have learned this from both of them.

Here’s the idea, which is hard to un-see once you know it:
[Tweet “Fitness-product infomercials that promote weight loss almost always include a nutrition guide.”]
The infomercial may call it a recipe book or a food poster. But, whatever these marketers call it, they want you to change how you eat.

Why? Because they believe that it is very difficult to lose weight from exercise alone. They want you to change your Caloric intake, too.

Let’s talk about BMR

A building in cold weather requires energy to maintain its heat. The larger the building, the more heating it requires. So, the larger the building, the more energy it consumes to maintain its heat.

Building size is a good analogy for body weight. The larger the body, the more Calories it must burn to maintain itself at rest. For example, a 300-lb. body at rest needs more Calories to maintain itself than does a 150-lb. body at rest.

Let’s look at three definitions:

• “Metabolism” refers to the chemical processes in a living organism to maintain life.
• “Metabolic rate” refers to the rate of metabolism.
• “Basal metabolic rate” — or “BMR” — refers to your body’s at-rest metabolic rate, a key part of your weight management.

This gives us three takeaways.
[Tweet “No matter whether you exercise, you have a BMR.”]
Your body must “keep the heating on” to maintain itself.
[Tweet “Your BMR drops as you lose weight.”]
This occurs because your body need not burn as much energy at a lower body weight as at your original weight.
[Tweet “Everything else being equal, you need fewer Calories to maintain a lower weight.”]
This is true because your BMR is an expression of how many Calories your body needs to maintain itself at rest.

Beyond these three takeaways is this fact:
[Tweet “Muscle tissue needs more energy than adipose tissue needs to maintain itself.”]
This means that…
[Tweet “A very muscular body has a higher BMR than does a high-adipose-tissue body with the same weight.”]
Your BMR refers to your at-rest body, and there is an order of preference that your at-rest body has for energy:

1. Incoming Calories
2. Fat stored in adipose tissue
3. Muscle tissue

Quoting Meg Campbell at LiveStrong.com:

“Losing weight too quickly affects your body in several ways. If you don’t meet your body’s energy needs through caloric intake, your body uses it stored energy — primarily fat — to meet its functional needs and the demands you place upon it. During initial weight loss, your body sheds some amount of fluid, lean tissue and fat. If your weight loss continues at a fast rate, your body will slow its metabolism and reserve incoming calories for survival. Because muscle requires more calories than fat to sustain itself, your body may begin to metabolize its muscles to preserve energy.”

So:
[Tweet “Quick weight loss tends to lead to loss of muscle tissue.”]
[Tweet “Slow weight loss tends to lead to loss of adipose tissue.”]

Beyond your Calories ingested and BMR

Weight management must account for your Calories ingested, BMR, and exercise. Now that you know about the first two aspects of weight management, let’s look at the third.

Truth #1:
[Tweet “If you become more muscular with your exercise, then your weight can rise.”]
The reason for this is that muscle tissue is 18% denser than adipose tissue. So, even if clothing size does not change, you can become heavier as you become less “fat” and more muscular.

Truth #2:
[Tweet “If you gasp for air on your long runs, then you are not helping your body to lose ‘fat’ weight.”]
Your body has three sources of energy — three energy systems, as it were. Your body activates all three systems when you start to exercise. But, it turns to another system as its primary source after depleting the previous one. Here are those three energy systems in the order of preference by your body.

1. ATP-PCr system: This system’s name comes from adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and phosphocreatine (PCr). When a nerve tells a skeletal muscle to contract, ATP + water –> ADP + phosphate + energy. The muscle uses the released energy to contract. (ADP is adenosine diphosphate.) The body best uses this system for exercise lasting up to ten seconds, such as a 100 m dash.
2. Anaerobic glycolytic system: This is also called the “lactic-acid” or “short-term-energy” system. Glycogen stored in liver and skeletal muscles gets converted to glucose. Muscles convert this glucose — as well as glucose in the blood — to ATP for use in contractions. The body best uses this system for intense exercise of 10-120 seconds, such as a 400 m dash.
3. Aerobic system: This system uses oxygen to get energy from fat in adipose tissue. It also gets energy from stored carbohydrates and proteins. The body best uses this system for exercise lasting longer than two minutes, such as a long run.

So:
[Tweet “Sprints get anaerobic energy from muscles and blood.”]
[Tweet “Endurance runs can get aerobic energy from the fat in adipose tissue.”]

Step, track, and lose

If you are a veteran marathoner, then you may want to lose some weight. The weight loss may not make you any faster, but it can take some load off of your joints.
[Tweet “Don’t train and race to become slimmer. Become slimmer to make marathon training and racing easier.”]
Weight management need not be difficult for marathoners. There is a simple way to lose weight from exercise alone. I describe it in Weight Loss in 10,000 Steps a Day. In essence, …

1. If your BMR stays constant or rises,
2. If you keep your Caloric intake constant,
3. If your current Caloric intake is keeping your weight constant,
4. If you now take 5,000 steps a day (typical in the USA and Canada), and
5. If you start to take 10,000 steps a day instead,

Then you can lose about 25 pounds in a year.

Here’s how:

1. Include some muscle-building training in your week. Remember: More musculature leads to a higher BMR, which helps with weight management.
2. Track your Caloric intake with MyFitnessPal. I prefer the website, but you may prefer the app.
3. Track your weight by weighing yourself every morning and keeping a weight diary. I prefer a paper diary, but you may prefer a digital one. You can even use the “Check-In” feature on MyFitnessPal.
4. Wear a pedometer for a couple of weeks to confirm the average number of steps that you take a day. For example, I usually take about 5,000 steps on an “office” day, if I don’t also exercise on that day.
5. Track your new number of steps/day, to confirm that you are taking an extra 5,000 steps a day.

Don’t go anaerobic — gasping for breath — with your extra steps. If you do, then you’ll lose muscle mass. This will lower your BMR, which will force you to ingest fewer Calories per day.

Instead, your new, extra steps/day should be aerobic steps, so that you burn the fat in your adipose tissues.

How do you ensure that you are taking aerobic steps?

• You should be taking steps for at least ten minutes at a time.
• You should be taking enough steps every minute.

Do you want to know how to do this?

Click here to learn about a pedometer that tracks both total and aerobic steps per day:

Image Credit: Pixabay