Losing weight with running. Why it can be tough for you?
There’s no escaping the truth: the more you run, the more you have to eat. A hard fact for all those people who try losing weight with running. After a long run or hard workout, you might feel as if you might eat everything in the refrigerator. The ravenous hunger that accompanies strenuous jogging makes weight loss seem hopeless when you’re training – although it appears counterintuitive. But it’s not: Matt Fitzgerald calls this phenomenon the damages effect in his book The New Rules of Marathon and Half-Marathon Nutrition.
Why Losing Weight with Running is Difficult

Is losing weight with running good for you?
As for jogging quantity and strength increase, your desire causes will become more sensitive due to hormonal changes within the body. To put it differently, exercise makes you feel more starving and need to eat more.
So if that’s what occurs when you run a real deal, how will you achieve your losing weight with running targets?
True, it may be hard for some runners. Especially since the damages effect is more powerful for some, actually causing weight gain during intervals of heavy training.
However, there are means to restrain your Cookie Monster cravings, get all the nutrients and fuel you should run nicely, and slim down.
Lately, Anne e-mailed me an outstanding question
“How do I manage loosing weight with running? I don’t would like to quit running to go on a strict diet but I’m unsure as to how I can drop some weight and run at the same time.”
Anne’s question harks back to many thoughts that I’ve heard from runners who fight with weight loss and jogging. Perhaps you have thought about how it is possible to keep losing weight while eating all the carbs needed for running? Or the best way to control your hunger after a very long jog?
These are all excellent questions. And to answer them, we must quit thinking about diets and cutting calories because those strategies just don’t work for runners.
In the event you cut calories or carbs while losing extra weight with running a lot (like during marathon training), you’ll feel slow, have lousy post-workout recuperation, and might not have the capacity to complete your most demanding workouts. Your capability to withstand high training levels will undoubtedly be drastically reduced.
So you can’t “diet” by cutting calories if you’re training because you’ll run poorly. And to lose weight (and keep it away), it’s necessary for you to run bright.
Train Smart to Lose More Weight
There’s encouraging news for competitive runners: Intelligent training can assist you to lose more weight than merely running. When your training is designed correctly with a time goal in mind, you’ll lose pounds quicker than if you were only running for fun.
I’ve asked lots of runners what quick workouts have you done lately? As well as the answers in many cases are a variant of the same response:
- “45 minute – 1hr runs at the same speed several times per week.”
- “None…”
- “Once a week I complete a run a little quicker than normal and make an effort to get a negative split.”
- “Random intervals when I remember… about once per month.”
No question why many runners find it almost impossible to shed weight. Their training isn’t structured to encourage weight reduction.
And it’s not only quick workouts, either. The progression of workouts, extras, long runs, and sometimes even frequency of running all work collectively to enable you to shed weight.
So when you see some my runners posting remarkable personal bests, being at their individual target weight is a large part of that. Smart training helps get them there and is what I help runners with every day.
Continuing exercise is, also, essential for weight control. Individuals that have successfully lost weight and kept it away nearly continuously work out frequently. That’s why intelligent training is an important piece to permanent weight reduction.
To see ways to train smarter, have a look at the PR Race Strategy or the entire Injury Prevention for Runners plan.
However, in addition to training right, your food choices make an essential contribution to your own weight loss targets too.
Control Your Hunger and Get Rid Of Weight (No Dieting Needed)
I despise diets. I really detest them. They’re unsustainable and gimmicky – whether you’re following Zone, Jenny Craig, or Atkins, you’re ultimately doing one thing: eating a low-calorie diet. And we’ve learned that low-calorie diets won’t allow you to run to your full potential.
But with better food choices, we can control weight gain and prevent it from coming back once it’s (finally) lost. While I’m not a nutritionist – nor do I play one on the internet – there are several tried and true methods of controlling your hunger and shedding unwanted pounds.
Eat additional protein in the morning. This weight loss strategy was first introduced to me by Tim Ferriss in his outstanding book The 4-Hour Body. The assumption is simple. Eat 30g of protein within half an hour of waking up to make sure that you stay full longer and quit the catabolic breakdown of muscle from fasting immediately.
Ferriss’ credits this one simple rite as the driver because of his dad losing 90 pounds – at age 65.
Which kind of protein is the best?
The fastest digesting type of protein is whey, derived from milk and broadly accessible as a powder you could combine with water or milk.
I’m frequently asked what nutritional supplements I take, and my response is “virtually none.” But the one dietary supplement that I often use is a protein milkshake using whey powder. Specifically, I use Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard because it’s the most affordable, trusted, and best-tasting product available.
And in case you’re uncertain: a daily protein shake isn’t going to cause you to gain weight or “bulk up.” There are not enough calories, and you’re not doing the weight workouts necessary to increase muscle mass.
Anyway, if you’re running several times per week, it’s very hard to gain muscle mass. Trust me; I’ve attempted…
Concentrate on nutrient dense foods. Too many people reward themselves after a superb run with bagels, cupcakes, or biscuits. And before you whine that I’m a stick in the mud, understand that I’ve out-eaten men 100+ pounds heavier than me. I can eat!
But that doesn’t alter the truth that if you’re striving to shed weight, nutritionally dense and low caloric density foods must form the cornerstones of your diet plan. Here are some instances of nutrient dense foods:
- Vegetables (low calorie)
- Fruit (moderate number of calories)
- Legumes (reasonable amount of calories but high satiety)
- Grains (moderate number of calories but high satiety)
Satiety is crucial here because these foods keep you full and satisfied for more without lots of calories. For more recipe ideas than you can shake a stick at, have a look at this record of healthy recipes by Registered Dietitian (and runner!) Anne Mauney.
Make Supermarket Shopping Simpler
Surrounding yourself with whole, clean, and “real” food is just one of the most efficient approaches to drive yourself to eat nutrient dense and wholesome food. That’s not a diet it’s only empowering yourself to make better food options.
The first step is to clean out your kitchen and remove most processed foods that are calorically dense but nutrient poor. Either has one last eating bender, give those items to a food pantry, or just throw them out.
Now it’s time to go shopping! Instead of worrying about eating the same ten foods over and over again, I put together a free resource to help you eat more real foods.