progress

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Quoted message said:

BTW, how tall are you?

Quoted message said:

Only 5'0,

OK. I was wondering about your weight. I'm 5'6" and if I weighed in
the 130s even, I'd be skinny as a rail. I know, because I weighed 133
the day I joined the army.

According to www.dietitian.com, for someone my height and age, a
healthy weight range is 95 to 110 lbs. So I am definetly not
underweight, anorexic, or rail thin. I am at a BMI of 21. I tend
towards an apple shape, and my waist/hip ratio is just over 0.8
still... so that is another factor I have to consider. Being
prediabetic, it's healthier for me to get my waistline down a bit
more.

So I might end up floating down another 3-5 lbs - but if it happens
it'll be the consequence of running and healthy eating, not deliberate
or extreme dieting. I would never shoot for any weight under 100
though, because then I'd lose my chest... and I'd have a terrible time
finding clothes. I'd be shopping in the children's section, yuck. I
have too much of a taste for fashion to want to do that!

More likely, I'll start doing some weight training and gain a few lbs
back, but it'll be muscle.

jen

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

I dropped Higden's plans for my first marathon, despite his book
being the primary stimulus for wanting to run a marathon, cos the
daft [censored] asks you to run more than a marathon distance in
training.

I just checked out his plans at his web site; all of them max out at 20
miles. Maybe the plans in his books are different, or maybe he's
revised them since the time you read the book.

But there are people posting here who have said that you should train at
longer distances than the race.

I don't think they mean that you should do that regardless of race distance.
Everyone who competitively races 800m trains longer than race distance. Most
marathoners don't.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

shinypenny said:

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body fat
you're dragging around?

Both. Extra weight is extra weight.

Quoted message said:

I ran my fastest 5K when I weighed 125 lbs with a body fat of 13%.
This is when I was body building, so I had a lot of muscle. Now I am
not body building and haven't been in years. I have somewhere between
18-23% body fat, but weigh only 107, and I'm actually an inch or two
wider in places than I was at 13% bf and 125 lbs. And I'm definetly
slower.

Part of that is cardiovascular fitness and training and yeah maybe
even age (shudder!), but I also tend to think that having more muscle
- even if it translates into 20 lbs more body weight to drag around -
can make you faster.

In 400m or less, it would. Body building muscles don't do much for your endurance.

Quoted message said:

It probably depends on where you carry that
muscle.

The problem with extra muscle mass is that most of it's going to be fast twitch,
which won't help you in distance races.

Quoted message said:

A guy with a huge upper chest might be slower because he's
carrying the muscle above the waist. A female like me, well, the
muscle is more in the butt and thighs and calves instead.. and that
powers my running more than it detracts from it.

.... for distances of 400m or less, probably.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Quoted message said:

But there are people posting here who have said that you should
train at longer distances than the race.

I don't think they mean that you should do that regardless of race
distance. Everyone who competitively races 800m trains longer than
race distance. Most marathoners don't.

Hurley (maybe others; I didn't check) suggested that for a half marathon
and a marathon, you should train at longer distances than the race.

"The only reasonable way to race a half marathon is to have completed a
whole bunch of times that distance and more."
<[email hidden]>

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Michelle said:

Quoted message said:

Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely will, if
you keep up the running.

Yup; the question, though, is how much body fat I lose.

Not really. Lose weight and you'll get faster.

Quoted message said:

That's a more important figure than BMI,

Depends -- important for what ? A 220lb bodybuilder with 5% body fat could be doing just
fine in terms of health (and he will look better than the body builder with 8% body
fat), but he's not going to be much of a distance runner.

Bottom line is, lose weight and you'll get faster, as long as you're sensible about it.
The distinction is not terribly important, because you're not going to lose bone mineral
density, or suffer muscle atrophy, so trying to distinguish between pounds of lean/fat
mass lost isn't a useful exercise.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely will, if
you keep up the running.

Yup; the question, though, is how much body fat I lose.

Not really. Lose weight and you'll get faster.

True, but a different issue. From a health standpoint, it's more
important to lose body fat than muscle mass.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That's a more important figure than BMI,

Depends -- important for what ?

Health. BMI is a very poor indicator for mesomorphs.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

"shinypenny" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

shinypenny said:

Yeah, that's an interesting discussion. When it comes to running
faster, is it the total weight that matters, or the amount of body
fat you're dragging around?

I think that it's not an either-or question. If losing total weight
also involves losing muscle mass, that could slow you down or at
least
countervail any benefit from the lost weight. And you need some fat
to
burn while running.

Quoted message said:

I ran my fastest 5K when I weighed 125 lbs with a body fat of 13%.
This is when I was body building, so I had a lot of muscle. Now I
am
not body building and haven't been in years. I have somewhere
between
18-23% body fat, but weigh only 107, and I'm actually an inch or
two
wider in places than I was at 13% bf and 125 lbs. And I'm definetly
slower.

13% of 125 is 16.25 pounds of fat.

23% of 107 is 24.61 pounds of fat.
18% of 107 is 19.25 pounds of fat.

My scale has the impedance testing, it gives me 23% but apparently
these scales are notoriously inaccurate and tend to read high for
women. The Navy method, and a few other ones online (Covert Bailey has
a good one), where you pop in your neck, waist, hip, thigh, calf, etc
measurements, all put me at 18%. I figure if I had it tested with
calipers the results would probably be somewhere in the middle... but
who knows.

The 13% was calculated using caliper method when I belonged to a gym.
So that's the only one I'm really sure about!

Jen, calipers are equally notorious for inaccuracy as is impedance and
yes, Bailey. If you don't mind a +/! 5% variance then ok. Unless they
have come up with something as accurate, the hydrostatic method will
give you real numbers. An underwater scale. All the other hand held
doodads can't be trusted at all. Some YM/WCA's offer the service.

-Doug

"Michelle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

steve common said:

I dropped Higden's plans for my first marathon, despite his book
being the primary stimulus for wanting to run a marathon, cos the
daft [censored] asks you to run more than a marathon distance in
training.

Steve, are you sure it was Higden and not Galloway? I don't remember
Hig being a big fan of extra long runs where Gal was often taken to the
wood pile. As A side bar, I was a fan of going past 26 in training but
never for the first time thoner.

-Doug

"Michelle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Yes you need some fat but that fat does not come from love handles or
abdomen.

Where does that fat come from? Seriously, I don't know; I thought
that
fat is fat. When you lose weight by losing fat, the fat is burned as
energy, right?

"How much fat your muscles use for fuel during a run depends on the
following factors: your training history, the proportion of slow twitch
fibers in your muscles, how hard and how far you are running, and how
long it has been since you ate a carbohydrate-rich meal. When you run,
your muscles use carbohydrates, fats, and a small amount of protein as
fuel. Endurance training allows your muscles to use more fat at a given
pace. Aerobic training stimulates the following adaptations in the
muscles to use more fat: 1) more capillaries to bring oxygen to the
individual muscle fibers; 2) more myoglobin to carry oxygen through the
muscle fibers to the mitochondria; and 3) more and bigger mitochondria
to produce energy aerobically."

To over simply it's triglycerides and we all have oodles of them
naturally floating in all of us for even multiday races. If you want all
the gory details look up Krebs cycle. As the quote above explains we
run long and slow to teach/build our muscles to use more fat and
preserve the almighty glycogen(carbs). As is often written, fats burns
in the flame of your carbs. When you run out or get severely low of
glycogen you hit the notorious wall. The wall is the body trying to
burn fats in too low a flame and that's like adding water to your gas
tank or more like using kerosene as you car fuel.

To get rid of the love handles you need to burn off more calories than
you take in. You can do that without running a step with pure calorie
control - diet. We all know that diet alone to lose weight never lasts
and so we run or pogo stick to use up more of the fats.

The weight will come off as long as you burn more Kcal then you take in.
Please note that "on average" we burn 100 KCal per mile. So a 4 mile run
is 400 Kcal. If one was to go to Starbuck's after a run for a triple
yada with piece of lemon pound cake, well, you get the picture.

"shinypenny" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

To guard against losing muscle, I've been very careful this time with
my diet - nothing extreme. My software program estimates that since
January I have averaged only a 175 calorie deficit per day. My calf
muscle has stayed the same measurement as the rest of me has shrunk,

You do use and stengthen you calf when you run. It is weight lifting
just like curls. 🙂

Quoted message said:

so that to me is a good sign. There was one month there when my calf
lost a 1/2 inch, and I realized I was cutting too many calories, so I
fixed that.

And I'm sure you know, mother nature is most protective of maintaining
fat in females, even through menopause to have that one more child. If
you get too severe with calorie reduction your body will burn muscle and
preserve the fat.

Quoted message said:

But I could certainly still stand to gain more muscle. I just chose
this time to lose the fat first, and once I got to a certain level
(about now), to then add the weight training (won't ever add it back
in at my previous levels - I no longer have any interest in living in
a gym every day!). A big part of that decision was based on my fear of
injuring myself with the weights.... since I have done that in the
past. And also because my number one priority has been the running.

Your running will take good care of your leg strength and a small
calorie reduction will work on your total weigh without gobbling up your
muscles. For upper body, light weights to maintain strength and not
bulk, is best unless you plan to return to body building. As for [censored],
well they are fatty tissue and in some/many females, they reduce
quickly. 🙂 Many of the females that run a lot have to enter the boys
wet tee shirt contests but they usually have great butts, flat stomachs,
shapely strong legs. 🙂

-Doug

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

How much fat your muscles use for fuel during a run depends on the
following factors:

Thanks.

Upon the advice of a friend, I've switched from Gatorade to NUUN for
short runs (5 miles and under), and to a combination of NUUN and
Gatorade (finish the NUUN and then start on the Gatorade after its
finished) on longer runs. I'm trying to increase the distances with
NUUN and phasing out the Gatorade, so my body won't keep used to the
calories in Gatorade and will burn more of the fat.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

Doug Freese said:

"shinypenny" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

To guard against losing muscle, I've been very careful this time with
my diet - nothing extreme. My software program estimates that since
January I have averaged only a 175 calorie deficit per day. My calf
muscle has stayed the same measurement as the rest of me has shrunk,

You do use and stengthen you calf when you run. It is weight lifting
just like curls. 🙂

The repetitions are higher when you run. Too high to be effective as strength
work.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Quoted message said:

> Especially if you drop your BMI further. Which you likely will, if
> you keep up the running.

Yup; the question, though, is how much body fat I lose.

Not really. Lose weight and you'll get faster.

True, but a different issue. From a health standpoint, it's more
important to lose body fat than muscle mass.

There's not much point getting caught up in these details. If you lose weight as the
result of commencing an exercise program, nearly all of the weight loss will be fat.

It only becomes important for strength athletes because they often gain lean mass which
offsets fat loss, so there's not much weight change.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

That's a more important figure than BMI,

Depends -- important for what ?

Health. BMI is a very poor indicator for mesomorphs.

I'm not sure I follow -- is this supposed to be a reason you personally don't
find tracking weight useful, or is it just a general observation ?

This is really a corner case. The vast majority of people with a BMI of 30 are just
plain fat. There are maybe a few who are super-athletic body builders, but for each
super athletic body builder, there are 100 fat slobs out there, many of who will
swear black and blue that they are "big boned", or "it's all muscle" or whatever.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Quoted message said:

But there are people posting here who have said that you should
train at longer distances than the race.

I don't think they mean that you should do that regardless of race
distance. Everyone who competitively races 800m trains longer than
race distance. Most marathoners don't.

Hurley (maybe others; I didn't check) suggested that for a half marathon
and a marathon, you should train at longer distances than the race.

I think that quote specifically refers to a half marathon. It's not surprising
that someone would think this -- all the worlds fastest half marathoners do
indeed run longer than that distance in training, as do nearly all serious local
level competitive runners.

If you're just trying to *finish* the race, a 10 mile long run is fine, but if
the goal is to complete it as fast as possible, most people will need to run further
than 13.1 miles in training to reach their potential.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

Michelle said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

How much fat your muscles use for fuel during a run depends on the
following factors:

Thanks.

Upon the advice of a friend, I've switched from Gatorade to NUUN for
short runs (5 miles and under), and to a combination of NUUN and
Gatorade (finish the NUUN and then start on the Gatorade after its
finished) on longer runs. I'm trying to increase the distances with
NUUN and phasing out the Gatorade, so my body won't keep used to the
calories in Gatorade and will burn more of the fat.

Ultimately, all that matters is calories in versus calories out. It doesn't
matter whether you burn more fat here or there. If you take in 200 calories
worth of gatorade during a run, that's fine, but it's 200 calories that you
may not have otherwise taken.

For easy training runs less than an hour duration, electrolyte replenishment
during the run shouldn't be an issue. IOW, you could ditch the NUUN and have
plain old water instead.

Cheers,
--
Elflord

"Michelle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

How much fat your muscles use for fuel during a run depends on the
following factors:

Thanks.

Upon the advice of a friend, I've switched from Gatorade to NUUN for
short runs (5 miles and under), and to a combination of NUUN and
Gatorade (finish the NUUN and then start on the Gatorade after its
finished) on longer runs.

< I'm trying to increase the distances with

Quoted message said:

NUUN and phasing out the Gatorade, so my body won't keep used to the
calories in Gatorade and will burn more of the fat.

Whoa girl, bad science. For run under an hour you can get by with simple
water. Once you go over the hour please use a drink with carbs be it
Gatorade or any of the multitude of sport drinks. Not drinking or eating
carbs on a long run will NOT, repeat NOT get your body to burn more fat.
How much fat you burn has more to do with pace and distance. As For NUUN
it's a non-carb drink with
Sodium (carbonates)
360.0
Potassium (bicarbonate)
100.0
Calcium (carbonate)
12.5
Magnesium (sulfate)
25.0
Vitamin C
37.5
Vitamin B2
500mcg

The only two ingredients worth anything are the first two and you damn
well best know how much of that to take or you can get into deep doodoo.
I don't think you want to mess with NUUN until you understand more about
endurance running specifically your salt needs.

I'd find out what the race is serving as their sport drink and train
with it.

-Doug

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

Whoa girl, bad science. For run under an hour you can get by with
simple water. Once you go over the hour please use a drink with carbs
be it Gatorade or any of the multitude of sport drinks. Not drinking
or eating carbs on a long run will NOT, repeat NOT get your body to
burn more fat.

According to my friend, eating or drinking carbs right before or during
the beginning of a run will get the body expecting them, and shutting
down the fat burning cycle.

I sweat a lot while running; especially in this Arizona heat. I can
sweat a half gallon in a six mile run.

Quoted message said:

I'd find out what the race is serving as their sport drink and train
with it.

Fortunately for me, they serve Gatorade. I plan to carry a bottle of
NUUN and a bottle of Gatorade on the run, and will drink the Gatorade at
each aid station in addition to what I'll be carrying.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Ultimately, all that matters is calories in versus calories out. It
doesn't matter whether you burn more fat here or there. If you take
in 200 calories worth of gatorade during a run, that's fine, but it's
200 calories that you may not have otherwise taken.

Understood; however, my friend says that to be a successful endurance
runner, you need to have your body burn fat during long-distance runs.

Quoted message said:

For easy training runs less than an hour duration, electrolyte
replenishment during the run shouldn't be an issue. IOW, you could
ditch the NUUN and have plain old water instead.

The amount I sweat, I'm not so sure about that.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Elflord said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> That's a more important figure than BMI,

Depends -- important for what ?

Health. BMI is a very poor indicator for mesomorphs.

I'm not sure I follow -- is this supposed to be a reason you
personally don't find tracking weight useful, or is it just a general
observation ?

I didn't mean to imply that I don't find tracking weight useful. I
meant that although BMI is a good indicator for some things, it is not
as useful as fat percentage. I actually track both; I've got a
spreadsheet tied to charts that track weight, body fat, fat weight, lean
weight, and BMI. My personal trainer measures my body fat weekly.

From Aug 11 to Sep 13, I lost 1.7% body fat, and lost a total of four
pounds; all of it fat, with no lean tissue loss. My BMI went from 26.31
to 25.66. And I know that as of this morning, I've lost another pound
since then.

--
Crossing the starting line is 90%.
Crossing the finish line is the other 90%.

On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:47:02 -0700, Michelle <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Doug Freese said:

Whoa girl, bad science. For run under an hour you can get by with
simple water. Once you go over the hour please use a drink with carbs
be it Gatorade or any of the multitude of sport drinks. Not drinking
or eating carbs on a long run will NOT, repeat NOT get your body to
burn more fat.

According to my friend, eating or drinking carbs right before or during
the beginning of a run will get the body expecting them, and shutting
down the fat burning cycle.

With all due respect, your friend's talking some pretty weird science
there. I have never heard of a "fat-burning cycle" that can be "shut
down" by not giving the body what it "expects." And any theory of
energy balance that involves anthropomorphism should be taken with a
very big grain of salt.

Karen

live! vicariously!