Some people run to lose weight. Some people lose weight to run better. And some people run for the sole purpose of being able to eat more pie. Whatever your motivation, running and weight management are inextricably linked.
There isn’t a perfect weight for every runner. That’s a decision made by you and your running body. But whatever number you target as your goal or maintenance weight, it’s important to pick a rational strategy for achieving that weight—and to understand the ramifications of exceeding that weight. After all, you wouldn’t run a race with forty sticks of butter strapped to your waist, hips, and thighs. So why carry an extra ten pounds of body fat? (In fact, the calories in a stick of butter are roughly equivalent to a quarter-pound of body fat.) Healthy weight loss increases VO2 max, reduces the impact forces weathered by your muscles and connective tissue, and improves running economy. Simply put, less weight—lost intelligently—will improve your endurance.
Runners perform best when they are near the bottom of their healthy weight range. A quick way to gauge whether your weight is healthy is to check your Body Mass Index (BMI), keeping in mind that BMI doesn’t account for frame and muscle mass—very muscular people have a high BMI. The National Institutes of Health provides the following calculation for determining BMI:
Then check the following chart to see whether your weight is healthy for your height:
|
BMI |
Classification |
|---|---|
|
<18.5 |
Underweight |
|
18.5–24.9 |
Healthy |
|
25.0–29.9 |
Overweight |
|
30.0–39.9 |
Obese |
|
>40 |
Extreme or high risk obesity |
Of course, just as muscular people have high BMIs, super-fit runners might discover that they have a BMI on the low end. Double 2012 Olympic champion (5,000 and 10,000 meters) Mo Farah has a BMI of 21.1, while sprint star Usain Bolt tips the scales at 24.9. Some elite marathoners and ultra-marathoners fall into the “underweight” classification, scoring below 18.5, but most top-ranked marathoners yield marks between 19 and 21. What does this mean for you? It means that if you’re otherwise healthy, a BMI anywhere in the 18.5 to 24.9 range is fine—and a little below or a little above probably isn’t a cause for concern, either.
Another way to determine healthy weight is to check your body-fat percentage (if you have a skinfold caliper or a specialized water tank for hydrostatic weighing handy). The following chart from the American Council on Exercise offers body-fat ranges for several classifications (“essential fat” is the minimum percentage of fat required to remain healthy).
|
Classification |
Men |
Women |
|---|---|---|
|
Essential fat |
2–5% |
10–13% |
|
Athletes |
6–13% |
14–20% |
|
Fitness |
14–17% |
21–24% |
|
Average |
18–24% |
25–31% |
|
Obese |
25%+ |
32%+ |
Most runners, through experience, find a weight range in which they perform best. Training above this range leaves them sluggish. Training below this range robs them of strength and energy. In the meantime, it’s important to understand how you lose weight.
For runners, losing a few “sticks of butter” isn’t as easy as going on a juice cleanse, eating nothing but bacon, or chowing down on all-you-can-eat cabbage soup. You need calories in order to train and nutrients to replace those lost during workouts. Crash diets lead to just that: a crash, as in bonk, nosedive, hit the wall. Losing too much weight or losing weight too quickly can be worse for your running body than having the extra weight in the first place. You’ll need to lose weight strategically, with the aim to drop one to two pounds per week.
“8 healthy snack swaps”
Few things kill a diet faster than snacks. They tempt and lure. They hold a secret sway over us. It’d be easy to suggest keeping a stash of fruits and veggies on hand to thwart snack attacks, but let’s be honest: Celery doesn’t cut it when it’s potato chips you crave. So here are some swaps that are wholesome, palatable stand-ins when raw carrots just won’t do the trick.
Roasted seaweed snacks for chips: One of the biggest surprise success stories in the snack food market has been that of roasted seaweed sheets, which can be purchased just about anywhere now. Even more surprising is how tasty and satisfying they are! You get all the crispy, salty je ne sais quoi of chips without the distressing calorie count from fat.
The mechanics of losing a pound per week is simple: There are 3,500 calories in a pound of body fat; therefore, a deficit of 3,500 calories will lead to the loss of one pound. You can create that deficit by caloric reduction (dieting) or by training (burning more calories). So to lose a pound a week, you need to consume 500 fewer calories than you burn per day, either by eating less or exercising more—or, better yet, through a combination of both.
Now the disclaimer: It’s not really that simple. Your body has tricks up its sleeve. According to the “set point” theory, your body has a preferred weight that it attempts to maintain by lowering (and raising) your metabolism, thereby offsetting small calorie deficits or temporary, minor calorie excess (for an analogy, think about how your body maintains your body temperature regardless of air temperature). Changing your set point takes time and a long-term lifestyle adjustment. Of course, running can help instigate that change. As mentioned in Chapter 1, running has a unique relationship with weight loss, with runners losing almost twice as much weight as walkers from the same amount of exercise-induced calorie burn. This could indicate that the higher intensity of running has a more direct effect on your set point, giving you more weight loss bang for your calorie-burn buck. Bottom line: It takes a combination of reduced calories and increased activity to lose that pound a week while maintaining a diet healthy enough to support your running.
Although the handy-dandy 3,500-calorie-per-week trick is simple, not everyone is good at counting calories. Some need a well-defined diet plan. But which one? There are more than 70,000 diet books available on Amazon.com. Where does a runner even begin? Right here, that’s where, with a rundown of five of the most popular diets and how they rate for people who pound the pavement.
When Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution was unleashed in 1972, it suddenly seemed that the entire world was eating itself skinny on steak, eggs, and bacon. The plan (and its imitators) is based on the concept that carbohydrates are bad; by drastically reducing them and eating more protein and fat, we shift from the use of carbohydrates to burning stored fat (ketosis), thereby losing weight. Can you lose weight on the protein party-train? Yes. Is it healthy? No. Studies have found that low-carb diets increase heart attack risks. Is it good for runners? If you don’t know the answer to that, you skipped Chapter 19 of this book. Please read it.
Enter the Zone (1995) was written by Dr. Barry Sears, a former bio-tech researcher at MIT, and promises great health benefits and a hot body, offering (in its subtitle) “a revolutionary life plan to put your body in total balance.” Seriously, who wouldn’t want that? The Zone preaches revamping your metabolism with a diet of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat. The diet’s approach has some very good components, like its preference for vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and fruits, as well as its attempt to steer dieters away from simple carbohydrates. But while it’s promoted as a diet for athletes, the limit on carbohydrates will prove prohibitive for most runners.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute created the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet to help prevent and control blood pressure. And the diet regularly takes the top spot in the annual diet rankings released by U.S. News & World Report. It’s also recommended by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) as an ideal overall eating plan. The DASH diet emphasizes fruits, vegetables, fat-free or low-fat dairy, whole grain products, fish, poultry, and nuts. It deemphasizes lean red meat, sweets, added sugars, and sugary beverages. Runners will like the way it favors foods rich in potassium, magnesium, and calcium. The goal of the diet is 55 percent carbohydrates, 18 percent protein, and 27 percent fat (in the neighborhood of a traditional 60 percent carbs, 15 percent protein, 25 percent fat running diet).
Cardiologist Arthur Agatston and dietician Marie Almo created the South Beach Diet in the early 1990s after watching their patients and clients gain weight on the then-recommended low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets. “We tried a different approach,” says Dr. Agatston, “that emphasized the quality of the fats and carbohydrates, rather than the relative quantity . . . The basic principles of the South Beach Diet are good fats, good carbohydrates, lean sources of protein, and plenty of fiber.” The diet plan is divided into three phases. Phase One eliminates “bad” carbohydrates, the source of cravings for sugary and refined foods. Phase Two introduces “good” carbohydrates and lasts until the dieter reaches his or her goal weight. Phase Three lasts for life and involves making healthy food choices. Runners might have trouble with the low-carb Phase One, but by Phase Three you can pick from all allowed foods and set your own carb-protein-fat ratio.
Weight Watchers works on a points-based system, although much of its success can be attributed to the community aspect of the program: regular meetings, weekly weigh-ins with staff members, and lifetime memberships (LTMs) for those who meet and maintain their goal weight. Moreover, LTMs who continue to weigh in within two pounds (above or below) of their healthy goal weight are allowed to attend Weight Watchers meetings at no charge, an incentive that helps to keep LTMs connected with their weight-loss community for life. On Weight Watchers’ PointsPlus plan, there are no food restrictions; instead, points are based on food content: calorie-dense foods with more fat and simple carbs have higher points totals, while protein- and fiber-rich foods get fewer. The plan encourages eating a wide variety of healthy foods, split between three meals plus snacks, and has enough flexibility to support a runner’s fueling requirements. The diet also adheres to the macronutrient ratio established by the National Academy of Sciences: 45–65 percent carbohydrates, 10–35 percent proteins, and 20–35 percent fat.
We live in an age of food avoidance. Gluten-free this. Fake-meat that. Nut-free these. Non-dairy those. But whatever reason fuels one’s rejection of certain foods—allergy, disease, taste, wellness, ethics, neurosis—the question remains: Do meticulous dietary restrictions put some runners at a disadvantage? A suitable answer to that question can be supplied via three names: Scott Jurek, Amy Yoder Begley, and Tim VanOrden.
Jurek is one of the top ultra-runners in the world, having notched multiple victories in most elite trail and road events, including seven straight victories (1999–2005) at the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. He’s been named UltraRunning magazine’s Ultra-Runner of the Year three times. He’s also a passionate vegan. Yoder Begley is a two-time USA champion at 10,000 meters, an Olympian, and a sixteen-time NCAA All-American. She also has celiac disease and can’t eat gluten. VanOrden is a two-time USA Masters Mountain Runner of the Year and has won USA Masters Trail Running titles at multiple distances, including 10K, 15K, half marathon, marathon, and 50K. And he’s a raw vegan who fuels his running with plant-based food that hasn’t been heated above 100°F (while most raw vegans allow food to be heated to 118°F, VanOrden believes that “foods begin to break down and lose nutritive value when subjected to temperatures over 100°F.”)
The point: There are many ways to fuel a runner. Success is about making smart nutritional choices. If you stick to a proper macronutrient ratio and make sure you’re getting enough calories and nutrients, you should be good to go. And go and go and go.
As if living along the lovely Mediterranean coast wasn’t enough, people from that region not only have beautiful food to eat, they also have a decreased risk of death from heart disease and cancer, as well as a reduced incidence of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Welcome to the Mediterranean diet—not a meal and exercise plan, but instead an approach to eating inspired by the traditional dietary patterns of Italy, Greece, Spain, and Morocco.
Foods that make up this diet include vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, nuts, olives and olive oil, cheese, yogurt, fish, poultry, and eggs—all packed with micronutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Most of the foods in the diet are fresh, seasonal whole foods. Meat, sugar, sodium, and processed foods are kept to a minimum. There is no limit on healthy fats (you may indulge your love of olive oil with reckless abandon), and moderate consumption of wine is allowed.
For runners, it’s the best of all worlds. If you’re looking to lose weight, a switch away from processed foods to nutrient-dense food will help you achieve that 3,500-calories-per-week reduction. Plus you can customize your macronutrient ratio of carbs-protein-fat to what works best for you. With very few empty calories, the Mediterranean diet is sound, sensual, delicious real food in which every element offers some kind of nutritional whizbang. It’s the real-world summation of all the nutritional ideas put forth in the previous five chapters. And it is, quite possibly, the best way to build your running body.
2 SERVINGS
This really couldn’t be easier, and it’s way more satisfying than 200 calories has any right to be. Among vegetables, asparagus is the leading supplier of folic acid and a good source of potassium, thiamin, and vitamin B6. It is also one of the richest sources of rutin, which strengthens capillary walls. Eggs are an excellent source of protein, choline, lutein, and zeaxanthin.
20 spears asparagus
1 teaspoon olive oil
4 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Truffle oil, shaved Parmesan cheese, or fresh herbs, optional
1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Snap off the rough ends from asparagus stalks (save them for soup) and toss the spears in olive oil. Spread out on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes, turning occasionally, until they begin to brown lightly and look slightly wilted, but still have body left to them.
3. While the asparagus cooks, poach the eggs. There are many methods for poached eggs, and each cook will swear by theirs and theirs alone. If you have a favorite, use that. If not, play around with the methods available and see what works best for you. We like a simple method using a pot with at least three inches of gently boiling water; break the eggs into a cup and gently slide them into the water and boil for 3 to 4 minutes. If you’re afraid of poaching eggs, simple fried eggs will work just as well. Even scrambled eggs will do in a pinch—you can’t go wrong.
4. Remove the asparagus from the oven, divide onto two plates, and top with two eggs each. Salt and pepper to your liking. Add the truffle oil, parmesan cheese, or herbs, if desired.
Per serving: 190 calories; 6 g carbs; 16 g protein; 12 g fat.
8 SERVINGS
Hummus has taken over the dip world. It seems there are a thousand different flavors at the supermarket to choose from—so don’t, because it’s really fun to make your own, and you can customize it to your heart’s content, making 100 calories’ worth of nutrient-loaded, flavorful spread. First off is the basic recipe, then some ideas for different ways to enhance it.
1 can chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
2 lemons
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt to taste
Drain the chickpeas, saving the juice and setting it to the side. Add the chickpeas, along with all remaining ingredients, to a food processor. Pulse until you have a paste, adding reserved liquid until you achieve a nice hummus texture—smooth, thick, and spreadable.
Per ¼ cup: 100 calories; 11 g carbs; 4 g protein; 6 g fat.
Try including these with the other ingredients above before the reserved chickpea liquid is added to the food processor.
Roasted red peppers and jalapeño; garnish with fresh cilantro.
Fresh ginger and mint; garnish with pomegranate seeds.
Miso paste and wasabi; garnish with sesame seeds.
Anchovies and sundried tomatoes; garnish with fresh oregano.
Black olives and capers; garnish with fresh parsley.
MAKES 6 AMPLE PORTIONS
Yes, we have lasagna in the weight loss section! While that may seem wrong on many levels, it really isn’t. By using whole wheat pasta, the dish is already healthier and heartier than regular lasagna (and whole wheat tastes great with mushrooms!). This recipe swaps the mounds of mozzarella and ricotta for some lower-fat alternatives.
Olive oil
1 12-ounce package whole wheat lasagna noodles
1 large garlic clove
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 pounds mixed mushrooms (white, portabello, shiitake, etc.), sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
1½ cups part-skim ricotta
1½ cups nonfat Greek yogurt
1 cup crumbled goat cheese
1 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Cook the noodles according to the instructions on its package, then set aside.
3. Mince the garlic and add to a large sauté pan with olive oil. Cook on medium-high heat until sizzling. Add the mushrooms (in several batches if your pan isn’t large enough), and salt to taste as you go along. Sauté, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms have released their juices and are slightly dry.
4. Stir the ricotta and yogurt together in a separate bowl.
5. Add a little olive oil to the bottom of an 8 × 12-inch baking dish (if you only have an 8 × 8 or 9 × 13, don’t sweat it; you can make it all fit one way or the other). Place a layer of noodles down, followed by ⅓ of the ricotta mixture, ⅓ of the mushrooms, and ⅓ of the goat cheese. Repeat until all the ingredients have been used, ending with a layer of noodles and topping it all with the Parmesan.
6. Bake for 45 minutes, or until browned and bubbly; let sit for 15 minutes. Serve with roasted kale (page 343).
Per serving: 393 calories; 33 g carbs; 26 g protein; 17 g fat.
4 SERVINGS
Every autumn it happens: All manner of food items begin to have “pumpkin” attached to them—coffee, muffins, beer, donuts, cakes, martinis, you name it. So why not a rich, custardy pudding? This recipe calls for butternut squash because it’s easier to handle when cooking from scratch (and the taste is nearly indistinguishable from pumpkin), but if desired you can make the recipe easier by using canned pumpkin puree. Both squashes are loaded with impressive amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium, and folate.
1¾ cups butternut squash puree (or one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree)
1⅓ cups coconut milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon molasses
¼ cup raw sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
1. If using fresh butternut squash: Peel with a vegetable peeler, cut it in half lengthwise, remove the seeds, and dice into cubes. Boil for 15–20 minutes or until soft, then puree in a blender or food processor until smooth. (There will be extra; you can use it in soup.)
2. Whisk all the ingredients until combined well and smooth.
3. Add to a medium pot and cook on medium-low heat, stirring, until thickened, about 8 minutes.
4. Transfer to a serving bowl or individual serving cups and refrigerate until set, overnight, or at least 1½ hours.
Per serving: 248 calories; 35 g carbs; 3 g protein; 11 g fat.