The Fat Loss TroubleshootThis is your place to troubleshoot your fat loss problems from nutrition to training. This section is led by Leigh Peele, author of "The Fat Loss Troubleshoot," the ultimate fat loss manual. If your results have slowed or stalled this is the place to come for advice for all your fat loss needs.
Ok, so I need to get my BF%/weight down and I'm wondering what is safe/feasible.
I want to be at apprx. 10-14% BF (105-110 lbs) by March at the latest for racing reasons. Currently I'm at around 20-22% and guessing apprx. 125 lbs? Haven't weighed in awhile. I'm about 5' 4.5" and tend to carry a lot of muscle/fat in the lower body.
I'll be training approximately 75-100 miles per week, so caloric expenditure will be high.
Is it safe for me to have an apprx. 1000 kcal deficit/day since my expenditure is so high?
How often should I do refeeds and how many carbs do I really need to sustain my activity? I run 5 days per week: T, W, R, Sat (long run), Sun. Monday is complete rest and Friday is crosstraining. I was thinking:
Running 75-100 miles per week on a 1000 cal/day deficit sounds like a recipe for disaster. Endurance training and fat loss do not mix, you will most likely impair your running performance, not lose much fat, and risk injury/sickness.
What's your maintenance for that amount of training miles?
A 1000 kcal deficit sounds like a huge amount if maintenance is low, but with so many miles I'd expect a higher maintenance.. how high is highly individual.
Personally, when performance is also my goal, the average deficit wouldn't be higher than 10%, even though individual days may even have 40-50% deficits , the refeeds etc. bring that number back up to a deficit of just 10%.
To maintain at my current activity level kcals are about 3,000-4,000 per day on active days so I would still be eating 2-3k. On non-training days I'm usually around 2,000.
Do you think a weekly refeed would help?
I don't mind impaired performance for a bit. I plan on beginning my training for this marathon in January-April so I was hoping to have most of the fat loss accomplished in Nov and Dec.
What would you suggest? I'm new to this and could certainly use guidance.
Is there a possibility to do 2 runs on 1 day and get an extra rest day where you can lower food intake?
While it seems logical to take away most calories from the days when you spend most, it can oftentimes work out better when you do the reverse = have a smaller deficit for running days, but do a larger deficit on the rest days.
Mind you, I'm not in the endurance sports anymore but I have done 2 lifting workouts in 1 day to increase work volume but to keep the rest days the same.
Have no idea though how long your runs take.. so maybe it's a preposterous suggestion.. just throwing out an idea.
An idea that's advocated by more people though, but generally they combine 2 different activities = lifting & cardio in 1 day or speed work & technique for 1 sport. Lyle (McDonald) practices it for his skating sessions. It seems weird at first but having true rest days will outweigh the heavier load of training twice in 1 day.
For those rest days you can then decide to make the deficit as large as you can..
I do agree that I need to eat to support my activity but I guess I still don't quite understand the fat loss/eating connection.
Ok, scenario. Say I go on a 25 mile run and burn about 2000 kcals. Supposing my pace is slow enough (which it is on a long run), I'm burning roughly 50% fat, or 1000kcals fat and the other 50% (1000kcals) glycogen/carbs I eat during/some protein.
Why would I need to replace the kcals I burned from fat, even on such an active day? Wouldn't I simply need to eat enough carbs/protein to replace some of my glycogen stores and allow for muscle repair?
I haven't been able to find a post where this is addressed.
I do agree that I need to eat to support my activity but I guess I still don't quite understand the fat loss/eating connection.
Ok, scenario. Say I go on a 25 mile run and burn about 2000 kcals. Supposing my pace is slow enough (which it is on a long run), I'm burning roughly 50% fat, or 1000kcals fat and the other 50% (1000kcals) glycogen/carbs I eat during/some protein.
Why would I need to replace the kcals I burned from fat, even on such an active day? Wouldn't I simply need to eat enough carbs/protein to replace some of my glycogen stores and allow for muscle repair?
I haven't been able to find a post where this is addressed.
Help
For what its worth, chicks are way better at burning fat during endurance exercise - so your ratio could actually be 1500fat/500glycogen. If you carb up the day before the long run, you'll draw from those carbs during the 20 miles. So you're not totally dead for the next workout you still need to front-load carbs/protein in the (now-accepted, I think) ratio of 4-to-1 within 30 minutes of finishing the run. If you weigh around 125, it would be 62g carb + 15g pro. Chocolate milk meets this, I believe. Chug!
But if you want a deficit that day, you'll be consuming much of your calories during and right after the run. If you can live with that, then you're set.
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