Eat less
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Are you on any meds? In one year I gained 20 pounds. I worked out the same and ate the same for the entire year. Nothing had changed. I had started taking lipitor is the only change that was made. As soon as I stopped taking liptor I started to loose wieght. Still not down the entire 20 buts its slowly coming off.
Its a myth that walking a 20 min mile or running a 6 minute mile consumes the same amount of calories. What about wind resitance at 6 min per mile which is not negligible!
No, no medicine. I noticed that I was gaining weight during a taper week for a marathon, I knew that was natural. Ever since then I am not losing weight and keep gaining it. My workouts have increased too. Nothing is different. In fact I am eating less then I was when I was before the marathon
You can get into a situation where you gain weight by virtually changing nothing because your hormones are out of whack, specifically cortisol. How does it get out of whack? By overtraining. So: are you over trained? Do you think you might be? How have the workouts been the last few weeks? I’ve been going thru this so I know of what I speak… AP
sounds like you have it generally set correctly. What about the activity level setting? That could factor in the calculations.
I am confused why you are using the Garmin, but anyway…
While I am certainly not an expert at this, here are some suggestions (aside to what others have posted already):
-Look into any health issues.
-If you are cleared of health issues, then…
-Not good to just drink water over a long endurance workout unless you are getting calories from somewhere else. Your body could possibly start to conserve energy.
-If your BF % is 8.5%, that’s pretty good. At 5’6" and 160lbs, maybe you are spending too much time in the weight room…?
-Get tested on what your basic metabolic rate is.
-Don’t skip breakfast as what I’ve read suggests that it jump starts your metabolism
-If you don’t already, become a grazer/snacker instead of eating big meals in a sitting (bogs down the metabolism or so I’ve read).
There’s a ton of other stuff I can regurgitate about eating habits— just do a careful search on this forum.
Hope you find out what’s wrong.
This whole thing started when I switched coaches. My old coaches last comment was that I had a great season at 170lbs, imagine how good you could have been if you were 160. ever since then that has been all I have been thinking about
I have been training pretty hard lately. I am sure a day or 2 of rest probably wouldn’t hurt me… interesting.
I use the Garmin because I have no other way to tell the distance I am running. It is strictly used for distance. I use my Polar for everything else. I had a hard time calibrating the footpod and eventually it broke so I use the Garmin to tell me how far I am running
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-242-304-311-8402-0,00.html
this article would suggest you are correct, serves me right to rely on conventional wisdom.
Good article. Thanks for posting it.
clm
Your worried too much about your weight. Perhaps you are gaining weight b/c you are too concerned about it? For your size, it sounds like your weight is fine. Unless you are a pro, do you really want your body to look like a pro triathletes’ upper? Keep some muscle and don’t try to get too thin!
" don’t know what is happening, but I have been gaining a lot of weight lately. …People keep telling me that I am not eating enough and my body is holding onto the fat it has already."
MHO:
Your body is in stress. You aren’t eating enough calories but I also think your caloric expendature notation is off a bit. You are stressing your body to train for 4 hours (bike/run) on only water.
The THEORY is to ‘expend more calories than you take in’. However, you are stressing your body out so much with the training, that it can’t recover, both during the training and afterwards (recovery). You are in “overtraining” – which is, actually, UNDERRECOVERY. Food is recovery, btw: you need food (nutrition) to fuel your training as well as repair what you just trained.
Weight gain is a symptom of under-recovery (“overtraining”).
Inability to eat is also another symptom of under-recovery – may be physiological or psychological.
Consult a coach to help you create a solid training plan which allows for recovery and also ‘build’. You will probably need to back off your heavy training schedule a bit to allow for recovery from your current signs – and to make sure that your nutrition plan is good. If you are persisting that this type of training is “good for you”, you also may be eating wrong; all the better to consult a quality coach so that you get on a healthy food plan.
If you won’t/can’t consult a coach, read the books which will help you make your own plan. Joe Friel’s “Triathlon Training Bible” explains the role of recovery and also nutrition. Read it cover-to-cover before you zero-in on the weekly training plans. Follow the nutritional advice and make a deep effort to understand the biochemical principles he discusses.
Training is chemistry… you can’t go on aphorisms (“to lose weight you need to expend more than you take in”). Most often you have to MANIPULATE the factors to create the chemical responses to lose weight – that simply makes a messier aphorism, however.
Hope this helps.
Lauren
“My old coaches last comment was that I had a great season at 170lbs, imagine how good you could have been if you were 160. ever since then that has been all I have been thinking about”
This IS a sign of obsessive thinking, which isn’t healthy (and can be harmful). Sometimes obsessive thinking can be a sign of depression (but not always) – the mind wants to keep latching onto a subject outside of oneself which it imagines will solve all its issues. Maybe your mind thinks that being under 8% bodyfat will solve all your life’s issues.
Yes, everyone can have a better season if he/she was lighter. Lance Armstrong admits that he wouldn’t be as good of a rider if he didn’t lose 20 lbs with cancer, despite his natural abilities. (Funny, that when he stopped his intense training, racing, and dieting like a maniac, his body immediately went to a healthier composition).
Imagine what you can do at 155. or 150. Imagine how well you can climb hills if you weighed 120… see how crazy this can sound? However, this isn’t ‘crazy’ to the myriad of other training fanatics in other sports, or the teenage girls starving themselves into fatal oblivion: they just keep thinking that such intensity will create the perfection they are looking for. Ha.
Training and weight has to do with how you USE the weight you have, and how healthy you are when you train, race, and post-race. You can easily race at 165, especially with a mesomorphic frame, than if you were simply counting pounds and tried to get too low.
At around 8% BF, you are doing healthy enough. You need some BF to sustain your training and racing needs. You are probably not a pro, so your mortgage doesn’t rely on prize money. However, do you want to pay for doctor bills and/or hospitalization from malnutrition, cortisol illnesses, or other overtraining ailments?
Just train healthy. Ignore the scale. Ignore the bodyfat numbers under what you have (8%) if you are doing well in your season… I am also fully aware that to an obsessive person, my advice may (and probably will) fall on deaf ears.
Best of health and season,
Lauren
“My old coaches last comment was that I had a great season at 170lbs, imagine how good you could have been if you were 160. ever since then that has been all I have been thinking about”
This IS a sign of obsessive thinking, which isn’t healthy (and can be harmful). Sometimes obsessive thinking can be a sign of depression (but not always) – the mind wants to keep latching onto a subject outside of oneself which it imagines will solve all its issues. Maybe your mind thinks that being under 8% bodyfat will solve all your life’s issues.
Yes, everyone can have a better season if he/she was lighter. Lance Armstrong admits that he wouldn’t be as good of a rider if he didn’t lose 20 lbs with cancer, despite his natural abilities. (Funny, that when he stopped his intense training, racing, and dieting like a maniac, his body immediately went to a healthier composition).
Imagine what you can do at 155. or 150. Imagine how well you can climb hills if you weighed 120… see how crazy this can sound? However, this isn’t ‘crazy’ to the myriad of other training fanatics in other sports, or the teenage girls starving themselves into fatal oblivion: they just keep thinking that such intensity will create the perfection they are looking for. Ha.
Training and weight has to do with how you USE the weight you have, and how healthy you are when you train, race, and post-race. You can easily race at 165, especially with a mesomorphic frame, than if you were simply counting pounds and tried to get too low.
At around 8% BF, you are doing healthy enough. You need some BF to sustain your training and racing needs. You are probably not a pro, so your mortgage doesn’t rely on prize money. However, do you want to pay for doctor bills and/or hospitalization from malnutrition, cortisol illnesses, or other overtraining ailments?
Just train healthy. Ignore the scale. Ignore the bodyfat numbers under what you have (8%) if you are doing well in your season… I am also fully aware that to an obsessive person, my advice may (and probably will) fall on deaf ears.
Best of health and season,
Lauren
OMG… where to start… do you actually get money from people to spew this crap…?
Vince,
I forgot that Red Devil is your screen name. I went to your website and remembered it was you. Your pictures reminded me.
You can’t be a bodybuilder and a light triathlete. You can train with weights to aid your triathlon, but to “get lighter” you must lose some of the “bodybuilder” muscles. Decide your focus, talk with your coach; then you can plan your training and nutrition. In any case, you can’t s/b/r PLUS lift weights to get that physique WHILE underfeeding yourself with no recovery days.
MHO,
Lauren
“OMG… where to start… do you actually get money from people to spew this crap…?”
Yes. I get money to spew crap.
Note that I’m NOT a triathlon coach. I’m a fitness and wellness coach: this includes losing fat and also whole-body and whole-mind health. This is the subject that Red Devil asked about: he didn’t ask how to get faster on a run, or how to get his climbing better. He was concerned about bodyfat and gaining weight while he thought he was supposed to be losing weight.
I didn’t tell Red Devil to “forever” ignore bodyfat or the scale… note that I said to stop WORRYING about it FOR NOW. He’s becoming obsessive --and his obsession is causing him not to eat, to overtrain, and may get ill. I recommended in my advice to CONSULT A TRIATHLON COACH to check that his training is in line with his nutrition, which is in line with recovery. What you also don’t know is that he’s contacted me privately before, to ask a few questions.
If you don’t like what I write, then ignore it… my comments were regarding the way HE was thinking and training and recovering – my comments were not regarding anyone else’s goals or situations.
Lauren
I agree! You aren’t gaining weight as your post says. You are losing weight. You say you started out at 170 now you are 165! So what if you were 163 yesterday. It is VERY normal to gain two pounds in a day even when you are losing weight. Please lighten up on yourself. It is very easy for an athlete to get an eating disorder and become obsessed with his weight. Especially after a coach makes a comment about losing. If you really think that 160 is the magic number (which may or may not be realistic for your body type), then give yourself time to lose the weight and allow your body normal fluctuations of weight of at least five pounds. Weight fluctuates for many reasons other than fat. You may just be holding water from a hard workout. When the muscles are sore they swell with water so they can heal. Just eating a lot of carrots can make you gain a few pounds as they are could still be in your intestines. That does not mean that you have gotten fat. Please stop obsessing about your weight. At a minimum stop weighing yourself everyday. Weigh once a week in the morning before eating instead.
You guys are great. I really appreciate the help/suggestions. For the longest time I though running/swimming was the hard part, who knew that eating would be the hardest part of my training!
I think I am going to take the advice given and see a RD to get my mind in the right place!
A couple of things on the “walking burns as many calories as running” First of all, while the runner’s world article is on the right track the researchers at Syracuse miss my point about wind resistance effort at faster paces (of course, I would not expect runner’s world to even mention something like 6 min per mile lest it be perceived as elitest…but I digress). Anyway, when you are running fast, you are to some extent bounding, taking off, fighting gravity and then working against gravity upon landing. So this part is taken into account on the treadmill test vs walking where there is minimal anti gravity work since one foot is always on the ground (and at one point, both feet are on the ground…running only has one foot on the ground and when you run fast for some time no feet on the ground).
Anyway, most people overestimate how many NET calories they are burning (above base metabolic rate of sitting on the couch). You can only eat extra for the NET additional calories burned, or you’ll end up adding mass. The best approach is to eat slowly, chew your food till it turns to liquid and before you take a second helping stop for 5 minutes to let the food settle. Chances are that after the 5 min break, your brain will tune in that you are no longer hungry 
I think the estimates on how much you burn are overestimated by a lot. I’m not sure how much you weigh or if you are a guy or girl, or your age but those figures are off. So that might be a place to start by getting an accurate calorie burn.
3hrs (3,267 calories) and ran for an hour at an 8:05 pace (1752 calories)
There is no short cut unfortuantely. You have to eat less.