Nutrition for Runners

When I started my running journey, I was a bit heavier than I am now. I weighed about 170 pounds back when I started. Today I weigh about 128. I am 5’7″. I feel that I am a pretty healthy weight now. 

How I lost weight:

I was some-what strict about counting my calories and macros on the app myfitness pal. I learned a lot about my eating habits and the nutritional value of food through using this app every day for 3 years. I went from 170 down to 130 within the first year then I maintained my weight from there. I have not used this app for calorie tracking in over 2.5 years.

Things that helped me lose weight:

1- Eating an entire plate full of salad before dinner every night. 

2- Learning healthy options at restaurants & avoiding eating out more than 1-2x a week

3- Sticking to the meals and snacks I had planned- I would log almost everything the day before and plan out my meals and snack. It will not help you to buy a bunch of fruits and veggies if you don’t prep and plan on eating them

4- Eating my “exercise calories” and NOT under-eating. Even when losing weight, I was eating close 2000 calories a day. Everyone is different, but I could never had survived mentally and physically (running) off eating less than 1700-1800 calories a day running my 30 miles a week back then

How to know how much you should eat?

Try an online calculator like this fill this out like your activity level before exercise

 then add additional calories for your exercise. IE, if you run 30 miles a week that is close to an additional 3000 calories a week of 4ooish a day. 

What Running 60+ miles a week @ 128 5’7″ looks like:

8:00am- post run breakfast 

Bagel, Peanut butter, banana, protein/recovery drink 

10am- morning snack

Protein Bar and pretzels/apple

noon- lunch

pasta, chicken, side salad

1:20pm- afternoon snack

trail mix

3:00pm- afternoon snack

beef jerky

5:30pm- dinner

grilled kabobs, dinner roll, side salad

7:30pm- bedtime snack

greek yogurt, berries, musli/granola

I eat roughly 2800 calories a day if I had to guess. If I am hungry, I eat. The hardest part about my eating now, is eating the most micro-nutrient dense foods. 

Some of my favorites:

-chia seeds & anything (hummus, shakes, mama-chia)

-La croix sparkling water (if you like pop- this will help you kick the habit!)

– pretzel chips

– beef jerky

 

 

 

Published by

Leave a Reply