Help and Advice, please.

Hello,

Apologies if something to the following has been already been covered in previous posts. I am relatively new to running and extremely new to this site.

I’ve been running on and off (more off than on) since the beginning of the year and complete this years Manchester 10k in just over an hour and I am now down to do the Great North Run in October.

I need help as I would like to lose weight. I am 5’ 10” and 15 stone with approx 30% body fat.

I used a formula to work out what my calorific intake per day should be from a book called Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, but it seems a bit on the high side: Approx 2800 cals per day.

Can someone tell me if reducing my intake by 30% to 2000ish and running 4 times a week will be sufficient to lose weight, bearing in mind that approximately 50-55% of my intake is Carbs (pasta, bread and cereals), 30-40% protein and the rest fats.

Also will this be sufficient calories in a day to provide the required energy for my runs?

Any other tips and useful advice would be greatly appreciated

Will it be sufficient to lose weight?, yes, will it be sufficient to provide enough energy, I would say yes, but time will tell.

I am losing about 3 lbs a week ATM, and the "easy" weight loss started when my weekly mileage increased to 20+, I reckon I have a "normal" healthy diet, I don't count calories anymore, because I don't need to, but I reckon on average I cosume maybe 2000+ a day.

Like Dan I think that should easily be enough to lose weight. You are far more scientific in your approach than me. I have just tried to clean up my act in terns of what I eat (not that successful for much of the time) and make sure I run 3 or 4 times a week.

In four months I have lost 23lbs: Originally 18 stn 3 lbs down to 16 stn 8 lbs. Not prolific weight loss, but achieved without too much effort so far. I still have a takeaway once a week and the odd bar of chocolate. I try to focus more on my workouts and what I am trying to achieve in them and the weight loss seems to happen as a consequence.

You just need to remember weight loss is a simple numbers game, any attempt to complicate it makes it more difficult and you will quickly get fed up with it.

Use a food diary for a couple of weeks, work out what you can cut out, and what you can't, you could even use something like mydailyplate.com is thats easier.

Everytime you eat something think, do I NEED this, or do I just want it, because there is a huge difference, and the body is very good at lying to get what it wants, not nessecarily what it needs, especially if it's been used to processed, sugary, salty, fatty foods, which are, IMO, addictive and habit forming.

Also, forget any form of faddy diets, they don't work in the long term.

2800 cals a day isn't high for someone doing a moderate amount of running, I can easily burn close to 4000 cals a week with my running.

Personally I would have thought 2800 is a bit on the high side, at least when your weight isn't due to lean muscle (which uses a lot more calories).  I think most people recommend not reducing past 1500 for women who are running, so I'd have thought 2200.

One thing to bear in mind is that you can sometimes feel hungry when you are actually thirsty (probably due to the water content of food), so always have a drink before you give in to the hunger pangs just in case.

depends on the size of the person, because the heavier you are the more cals you burn for a given excersice period, also males need around 500 cals a day more than females

Should be enough but would say on balance that it's better to concentrate on the running because diets don't work excise does. Plus more fun!

"diets" as in faddy diets do not work, however, a good "diet" that you can maintain for the rest of your days does.

It certainly doesn't do any harm to monitor your dietery intake for a few weeks to see what you put in and expell out.

Thanks for all the replies.