Post-marathon eating plan
The November issue of SELF magazine features a “bold, modern logo and update of their design” (quote from the magazine) and I noticed they have renamed some of the sections of their magazine. Do you notice when magazines update their look? I always seem to notice.
Anyway, one of the new sections is called “Diet Insiders” and features two new contributing registered dietians who “are ready to solve your toughest diet dilemmas.” Honestly, I usually skim over crap like that, but the first question caught my eye!
I’m training for a marathon and eating all the time! How can I adjust my diet after the race to stay slim?
Stay slim? For me it’s “How can I adjust my diet after the race as to not pile on the pounds?” I had a hard time cutting back my eating after our first half marathon, and again after the second (and it didn’t help that I was injured and couldn’t run).
My hunger was different during marathon training than during half marathon training though. For the half marathons, I felt extra hungry throughout most of training and ate A LOT more. But for the full marathon, it didn’t really hit me until the last week or two, when I was tapering. I ate more throughout, but did not feel that intense hunger.
Either way, if I do not keep my mileage up, I need to cut back on eating, like they are talking about in this article.
And that is really, really hard for me to do.
So my plan is to try to keep my mileage up, and not eat mindlessly. Basically – avoid having to change my eating habits.
Have you ever trained for something that actively affected your hunger? How did you change your eating habits after the event was over?
Themocracy
Oh my gosh, YES! 🙂 I was a hungry MONSTER during my IM training! You would not believe how much I ate! Afterward, I knew I had to adjust but it was hard. Thankfully, my hunger wasn’t as insane so I could better control what I ate. My husband is a chiropractor/nutritionist so we had some great talks about eating. He’s very supportive. Like you, I try to listen to my body and eat when I’m hungry. I cut back on some of the high-calorie food like bread and nut butter. I increased my vegetable intake and try to eat every few hours so I don’t gorge later. However, the other day, I ate about 20 donut holes. It’s a constant struggle that is also affected by hormones. I look at it as my current training – it takes motivation and dedication.
I sort of really enjoyed that part of my half training. 🙂 I ate whatever I wanted for the most part (of course I mostly kept this to healthier options for training’s sake…). It was great, but it was hard to scale back a little after it was over. I think after this 15k is over, I’m going to chill out a little on the runs and focus a little more on my cooking skillz. 😉
I LOVE that part of training too. LOVE it.
It’s good to plan in advance though, like you are for after the 15K.
I’m way hungrier while training. Now that I’m injured my hunger has dropped off. I think my body knows what it needs depending on my level of activity.
Two suggestions I got from Dr. Fuhrman’s book eat for health. I eat 3-5 pieces of fruit every day, and a huge salad as many times a week as I can. Most people eat their salads out of tiny bowls. I eat my salad from the largest bowl I can find and fill it to the top.
After I’ve eaten 5 pieces of fruit and a giant salad, it really doesn’t matter how little exercise I get because I’m too full to gain weight.
The week that I ramp up marathon training I’m the crazy hunger woman. I seriously cannot eat enough ever. It takes a week or two to re-adjust post marathon but my body figures it out eventually that I need less. Like the article says try smaller portions but eat it slower, and wait before getting more to see if you’re really hungry or just used to eating the bigger portions.
Funny, my wife and I were talking about this just yesterday. Quite honestly, I put on weight when I am not training. I’m used to the ~2500 to 3000 cals I put down during my ‘normal’ training and it is REALLY hard to get back down to the 1800 or so that my scrawny little body needs when I am not training. that is a huge adjustment!
That said, I think that people really over estimate the calories you burn during a short 3 mile run. THAT, and I totally disagree that you can’t loose weight while marathon training because you need to eat tons to fuel the machine. I totally lost tons of weight during my first marathon.
Ha. At our first 5K, we went out to eat huge burritos… we thought we had worked so hard! Now I will sometimes run 8 miles, have a bowl of cereal or something small and go to bed.
I totally lost weight during marathon training too. You just have to be smart about it.
Do you think you will have to re-adjust your eating after Tiffany has the baby? You will be cutting back a bit on running then, right?
My hunger is almost always affected when I exercise, even if I don’t do a lot. It’s frustrating because the intense hunger doesn’t hit me until the END of the day and that usually what causes a binge. I think the best thing to do that would prevent overeating would be to eat consistently but to be aware of how much you’re eating. Basically what the magazine said.. haha.
I know that a lot of novice runners (or at least me, anyway) do tend to fall into the “I can eat anything!” trap, but I still don’t really like any advice that seems to preach calorie restriction over just plain sensible eating. I don’t know. I guess this advice is actually sound, but the first time I read it I felt kind of weird about it.
After my first marathon, I cut way back on my training… but not my calories! It was really hard to adjust.
I have days of complete hunger and then others where I just eat normally and it really doesnt matter if I am in training or not. An example of that is right now where I am not really working out at all and I can’t stop eating!
I noticed this page too! (I just picked up the magazine because Mariska Hargitay was on the cover.) I don’t really notice my hunger cues very well. I don’t remember being hungrier during training; I just remember KNOWING that I had to eat more on long run days. Actually, I notice now that on long run days, my hunger is actually somewhat suppressed for part of the day. Probably dehydration.
I know what you mean though–cutting back is hard!
I am like that too. I am not hungry right away and it hits later. I had to force myself to eat after the marathon. But then the hunger hits the next day or later. It’s so weird!
Well I certainly didn’t lose any weight while marathon training so I know I’m going to have to be vigilant about what I eat now that I’m done. I’ll probably go back to just one serving instead of two at dinner and not eating ice cream every night. Sad 🙁
Ha! Now I know I am not the only one who was helping themselves to ice cream a few nights a week during training 🙂
I was definitely hungrier than usual during half training. I wanted carbs! Now that it’s been two weeks my appetite seems to be in check/back to “normal.” I usually just ask myself if I’m really hungry. If I am, I eat!
This is exactly what I am worried about now that I am done marathon training (gaining weight). I still have a crazy appetite but being as I’m not supposed to run right now, I’m going to have to burn off the calories another way then running. I’m trying to be more aware of what I’m eating, but it’s a little bit harder I’m finding.