Saturday, September 24, 2005

September 24, 2005 Run Less, Lose Weight?

There is a mystery among us. Since I have been taking a slight break from the longer runs and mega miles, I have been enjoying some relaxing three mile runs with no pressure for speed or performance. I just bask in the warm, end-of-the-summer weather and blab with my post partum running partner. We are a perfert match right now. She's too tired to be competitive and my right leg is too stiff, therefore we enjoy eachother's company and wake up run (we run at 5:30am!). So anyway, I am running about ten to fifteen miles less per week now for about three weeks and I am losing weight!?! Can one of you smartypants runners please explain this to me?

I have my own theory actually. I believe that when I am packing in the miles, like reaching the forty mile/week mark, my body goes into starvation mode and holds on to all my fat. So when I back off and become more balanced between running, weight training and yoga, it is actually more healthy for my overall health and wellness. I could be just nuts, but tell me what you think.

Thank you all my RBF friends for the ammunition for my next codependent fight I have with my beer pong playing, peter pan complex, dork husband! By the way almost no one knew what beer pong is, I shall enlighten you, I know your life might not be complete without this knowledge. Beer pong is a drinking game played on a ping-pong table. You set up cups of beer in a triangle shape and you and a partner try to bounce a disgusting, grass covered pingpong ball into the other teams' beer triangle. If you make it, they drink it. The whole thing is pretty gross. But the grossest alcoholic thing my peter pan husband has exposed me to is the ice luge. How about that one? Anyone know what that is? Well talk about germs and freaky ways to drink. Okay, an ice luge is a huge block of ice sitting on the back of some hick's truck. The said hick carves a trail into the ice block, then a stupid drunk squats at the bottom of the luge while another hick pours some type of hard liquor down the path. All I can think of is all the germs at the end of the luge where everyone has their lips wide open catching the poison.

Hope you all are enjoying the autumn weather, praying for those in Texas. I hope Rita weakens before it hits land. See you soon!

4 comments:

CJ said...

Gosh I'm learning new things all the time from reading blogs, and its not all running related!

I find that when I'm in the middle of training for a marathon I am a bit lazier with my diet in that I think I can eat anything because I'm running long distances. But it still comes down to energy taken in/energy expended. So now I'm a bit more careful with what I eat while training - I'm still doing long runs without hitting the wall and I'm not putting on weight.

Running Chick said...

Maybe when you are logging the longer miles, you are eating more...and quite possible more carbs than usual...and drinking more fluids...and since carbs like to hold on to fluids, that was making your weight a little higher??

just a theory.

Tell D. I said HELLO! How much longer do I have until she returns to the racing circuit!? (and are you racing next weekend?)

Jon (was) in Michigan said...

For me I know that I put on weight because when I run more, I get more hungry and then become a gluttonous ravenous pig and buy all kinds of candy bars and junk and stuff my face with them at night while I agonize about my running/injuries.

Ofcourse, this may not be typical.

Its probably because of the carb/storage thing you said for normal people.

Jack said...

I have had similar experiences with losing more weight while running less. Personally I tend to eat more when I run more. Better said, I tend to consume anything within arms reach while training for long races like a marathon. It's a wonder that I don't gain weight. The cycle continues the week following the major running event. I have named this week appropriately as the "Post-marathon Pig-out." The cycle comes to an end about 7 days after the major event, with a "Day of Truth and Reckoning" when I finally weigh myself and start training again because I gained weight. Then the cycle starts over again (today is the first day of a new cycle for me:-)