Article written by Michael Beisty for Runner’s Tribe
Disclaimer: The author is not a qualified medical practitioner or accredited coach. The information provided is not intended as medical advice or to replace advice given by trained medical or allied health professionals or qualified coaches. Content herein does not constitute specific advice to the reader’s circumstance. It is only opinion based on the author’s perspective that others may learn from.
Anyone of any age who engages in running, and related exercise, should be in tune with their body and seek medical advice before embarking on an exercise program (including changes to said program) that may unduly extend them. This is critical should the aspiring athlete have underlying medical conditions and/or ongoing health issues requiring medication.
‘Ideal weight is unique to the individual, based on his body makeup and the physical work he’s trying to accomplish.’ (article Finding Ideal Weight, author not identified, 1972)1
‘If you look at body fat, it seems to increase with age, even though your weight does not. That’s a physiological fact of ageing, they say. Heck it is. It is an adaptive effect of ageing.’ (Dr Kenneth H Cooper, 1987)2
‘For masters athletes wanting to lose or control body fat and improve that PB or win a gold, it is also important to hold on to or develop muscle mass. This can only be achieved by weight training.’ (Peter Reaburn PhD, 2009)3
‘While a reduction in body fat may well boost running performance, cut down food intake too drastically, and not only will training quality suffer, but the risk of illness and injury also increases dramatically.’ (Prof Ron Maughan)4
‘Scientific research reveals that there is an inverse relationship between endurance-running performance and percent body fat.’ (Owen Anderson PhD, 2013)5
‘Self-confidence comes from hard training and from what kind of nutrition you are eating. Your weight is important as well. When you gain weight, you cannot run very fast.’ (Henry Rono, 1997)6
- Introduction
The relationship between body weight and distance racing performance is a vexed issue for the mature distance runner. Inextricably linked to body composition (fat, muscle and bone), and encompassing nutrition, it is not a simple equation. For no matter what a mature endurance athlete does, the slowing of the body’s metabolic activity that is caused by ageing generates unwanted fat.
I am now into the back end of my seventh decade and despite being reasonably disciplined in my commitment to a twice weekly free weights regime, and consistency in my running, I have noticed a propensity for the development of a paunch around my stomach. I have also noticed this phenomenon in other mature aged athletes. Of course, there are mature endurance athletes who may appear ultra-thin. But even these individuals will likely admit to some additional girth around their waistline, hidden from view by their singlets, but apparent when naked in front of the mirror. It’s a matter of degree.
In researching this article, I nearly fell down an investigatory rabbit hole of fitness versus longevity versus diet versus calorie counting versus body mass index versus fasting versus everything else that health industry experts throw at the issue of weight loss. However, the purpose of this article is not to engage in broad ranging discussion about all of the issues that may relate to body weight and fat, but rather, to centre the discussion on some critical body composition issues that affect racing performance of the mature aged endurance competitor.
It is a taster for future articles in the Fundamentally Speaking series about nutrition, sleep and hormonal changes. Content is introductory in nature, and based on a presumed level of knowledge: it is not a three-course meal, so to speak! So, it may not totally satiate your appetite for information about body composition and weight loss.
Comments are also based on the assumption that readers are not suffering from a medical condition or taking medicine.
- A Wicked Problem
For the mature runner the lighter you are, per se, does not necessarily equate to improved performance, for it is your body composition that counts. As you age it is a constant battle between loss of muscle mass and bone density and strength, pitted against increases in body fat. Often described as a ‘dead weight’, excess body fat adversely impacts your power to weight ratio (aka ratio of active to inactive bodyweight)7, which is a key contributor to race performance outcomes. For many of us, the task is to reduce fat, increase/retain muscle and decrease weight, while maintaining or improving this ratio. It is important to understand that fat doesn’t replace muscle with ageing, rather muscle decreases and fat increases as a result of two totally separate physiological processes.
There is a yin and yang that is central to all of this discussion. As Reaburn8 states: ‘If an athlete is trying to increase body weight, energy intake must exceed energy expenditure. Conversely, if an athlete wants to reduce body weight, energy output must exceed energy intake.’ Sounds simple enough! But it is a challenging balancing act, made more complex by the need to understand nutrition and physiological exercise/training effects.
So, before going any further it is worth distinguishing between nutrition and diet:
Nutrition is the process of utilising food for growth, metabolism and repair of tissues.9
Diet is the total amount of food consumed by individuals. A nutritionally sound diet comprises five characteristics: adequacy, balance, moderation, calorie control and variety.10
Sports nutrition is the science and practice of nutrition/diet and exercise to optimise athletic performance.11
Hormonal changes also play a part in the body weight equation. By age 40, men start to lose testosterone and women lose estrogen, the effect on men’s loss of muscle being larger than women’s loss. In addition, there is a decrease in hormones related to muscle maintenance and development. From these combined changes, for some individuals there may not be any change in body weight because the loss of muscle is masked by an increase in body fat.12 And as Noakes13 and Anderson14 have indicated, the increase in body fat, and reduction in muscle mass, which is of a poorer quality anyway, also reduces your VO2max! The only realistic hope is to mitigate the loss of muscle mass by concentrating on appropriate strength-based training, as even the fastest senior endurance athletes carry perhaps 5 to 8 percent more fat than the lightest elite athletes.15
Maughan16 contends that we can separate food intake from body fatness if we add exercise to the equation, citing examples of study subjects who did the most running having the lowest levels of body fat, even though they did consume more food.
Reaburn17 advises that total body fat is less relevant to overall health and vitality, than where that body fat is actually stored. And goes on to say that a safe combination of diet and exercise means that body fat will be removed from where it is stored the most, not from what part of the body you exercise. By way of example, he states this is why doing a lot of sit ups will not necessarily result in a smaller stomach.
Anderson18 has identified four key negative effects of fat on running capacity as: an increase in energy costs, hampers running economy, lessens the ability to accelerate, and diminishes VO2max.
Friel has stated that high intensity training is more likely to reduce excess flab than long slow distance, and is beneficial for body composition and race results. Such workouts promote the production of anabolic steroids and burn more calories during and post exercise, and are particularly effective when combined with high-load strength training.19 Many experts point to the afterburn effect of high intensity interval training (lactate-threshold) and sprint training enabling an increase in resting metabolic rate (RMR) post exercise that continues to burn fat.
As Maughan states20: ‘as speed increases, the energy cost increases more or less in a straight line, but the relative contribution from fat begins to decrease, with muscle glycogen (author’s comment: drawn from carbohydrates) becoming the most important fuel. The problem with running slowly to reduce body fat levels is that it takes a long time, because the rate of energy expenditure is too low. Run too fast and you burn only carbohydrate, leaving the fat stores more or less untouched’ (authors comment: though as you become fitter you should require less glycogen for the same level of energy expenditure). I interpret this as meaning slow running can only take you so far down the weight loss path, if that’s where you want to head.
I note that Martin and Coe21 provide a more detailed physiological explanation of the interaction of carbohydrate and fat metabolism during exercise, and basically come to the same conclusion as Maughan. Using the analogy ‘Think of fats as the main burner of a gas stove, and carbohydrates as the pilot light’, they highlight that fats do the grunt work for energy fuelling at slower speeds, with a gradual decline in their relative energy contribution as the body exceeds 65%VO2max and approaches 85%VO2max (author’s comment: nearing equivalence to higher end aerobic speeds up to lactate threshold). And carbohydrates are the dominant energy supply for high intensity anaerobic work beyond 85% VO2max.
I could be misinterpreting this information, but seemingly, you get more bang for your buck from anaerobic exercise in terms of weight loss. In layman’s terms, my reading of this analysis is that aerobic activity definitely expends fat on some level and is time consuming, but does not trigger metabolic changes required to build significant muscle mass. And, while aerobic running uses a higher percentage of fat for energy (calories) as opposed to muscle glycogen, the total amount of energy burned during anaerobic exercise is much higher for any given period of time. In addition, anaerobic workouts draw upon fast twitch muscle fibres, activating your muscles to a higher degree, speeding up your metabolism, and increasing muscular size and strength.22
So, let’s cut to the chase. Ideally for the mature distance runner, we want to retain or increase muscle mass, not necessarily lose weight, while reducing body fat. But aerobic running may not, of itself, reduce all of our unwanted body fat. As you will see, apart from genetics, the primary influences over your body composition and level of body fat are food choices and nutrition, strength work and targeted high intensity training. The aim is to manage nutrition by eating an appropriate diet, not purely reducing calories, and for instance consuming carbohydrates to fuel higher intensity sessions, while optimising recovery by eating protein (muscle repair) and some carbohydrates (glycogen refuelling), and having adequate rest.
Ultimately, a nuanced approach to nutrition and exercise is required to ensure optimal outcomes that do not endanger the health of the individual and/or adversely affect race performance. This is particularly important for women, whereby a fall in circulating estrogen levels caused by reductions in body fat can lead to a significant loss of bone mass and a greater susceptibility to fractures in later life. The weight/fat loss versus performance relationship requires women to walk a very fine line in determining their optimum approach.
- Changes in body composition through normal ageing?
Reaburn23 has identified the three main body compartments as Body Fat, Skeletal Muscle, and Bone. He summarised the main changes in body composition through normal ageing, and recommended exercise to mitigate these changes, as follows:
Body Fat – increases in fat mass, internal fat deposits and body trunk fat deposits. Recommended exercise: aerobic or weight training.
Skeletal Muscle – decrease in muscle mass, the number of fast twitch fibres, and fast twitch fibre size and increases in intramuscular fat/connective tissue. Recommended exercise: weight training, speed training, weight/speed training, and aerobic or weight training
Bone – decreases in bone density and bone strength. Recommended exercise: weight-bearing aerobic training, weight training and high impact, high velocity loading of affected sites.
- Food
Your physique is affected by your parents/genetics and training and diet.24 One study has has shown that genetics account for 25 to 40% of differences in the amount of fat between endurance runners25, so it is not inconsequential. However, while it is easy to take the easy way out and blame your parents, I like this oft quoted phrase of Dr Judith Stern: ‘genetics loads the gun but the environment pulls the trigger.’26
Once we reach a certain level of fitness, for most of us, exercise such as slow aerobic running is more about weight maintenance. Once ‘fit’, nutrition, the eating of healthy and wholesome foods, becomes more germane to weight loss. Should you adopt an energy-restrictive diet, even moreso, it is the quality of food that matters, not the calories. However, many of us undermine our own intention to lose fat by eating unhealthy foods, or eating too many carbohydrates after exercise and not enough protein, or grazing with gay abandon between meals, and don’t think about the impact of the type and timing of food and hydration intake to maximise recovery.
Readers may be interested to know of the emerging field of chrono-nutrition that examines the relationship between temporal eating patterns, circadian rhythms and metabolic health.27 Though in its infancy, and doubters do exist, this field includes an acknowledgement that aligning the timing, frequency and regularity of food consumption with circadian rhythms may affect how we actually metabolise food and the efficiency of that process. One way or another, practical sports science has played in this field for years, sometimes on the back of recommended fasting regimes, but outcomes from investigative research appears inconclusive.
As a broadbrush statement about the main food types, an increased consumption of protein, carbohydrate and alcohol are burned up immediately by the body as an energy source and not easily converted to fat. The body tends to burn these food types in the first instance, before drawing upon fats.28 However, an increase in dietary fat intake tends to be stored as excess fat, rather than immediately burned as a fuel. I only mention alcohol because it is endemic within our social settings, whether in a general or even a sporting sense. Human experimental studies29 of acute (single dose) or chronic (repeated doses over time) usage ‘suggest that alcohol consumption decreases the use of glucose and amino acids by skeletal muscles, adversely affects energy supply and impairs the metabolic process during exercise.’ Chronic alcohol use also reduces the cross-sectional area of type I, IIa and IIb muscle fibres.
Ideally, a person who is serious about their health would not engage in alcohol consumption on any level, but for the most part that is not our reality. A case in point is Henry Rono, a multiple world record holder who battled body weight issues during his career, some cultural dislocation and alcohol abuse being compounding factors. His experience mirrors many in the distance running fraternity, some more celebrated than others.
Given the mature athlete generally requires approximately double the calorie intake of a younger athlete to achieve the same muscle rebuilding effect, after intensive exercise or strength-based workouts, we may need more protein.30 If you decide to increase protein consumption, this can be offset by a decrease in carbohydrates or fat.31 The optimal choice may be to decrease your carbohydrates. Though useful as a training fuel, carbohydrates are less beneficial than fats to your health – though you do need to keep saturated fats in check. Protein has two obvious benefits relating to weight control: it is the most satiating of the three main food types and it has a discernible anabolic effect in helping to rebuild muscle, especially for those who are regularly lifting weights. As protein is only processed by the body in small amounts, to get the optimal outcome it is preferable to spread protein consumption evenly throughout the day, rather than limiting it to a major evening meal.
4.1 Let’s Talk Some More about Fat Specifics
There is fat and then there is fat!
As Anderson32 points out, essential body fat exists throughout the nervous system, in bone marrow, and around all organs of the body, providing a protective cushioning. Essential body fat is estimated at 3% for men and approximately 12% for women, any residual fat being described as storage fat or adipose tissue. While from a performance perspective it would be easy to assume that all you have to do is lose all of your storage fat and thrive on just your essential fats, this can lead to serious health issues because adipose tissue is multi-faceted and always needed on some basis, as you will see from the next paragraph. Which leads us to the conclusion that, despite views to the contrary, there is no definitive standard for the percentage body fat of endurance runners, young or old.
Adipose tissue is made up of brown fat and white fat, the former sitting in the upper back and shoulder and along the neck and spine. Brown fat is a high calorie burning tissue, protects us from the cold and decreases with age. Basically, brown fat breaks down glucose and fat molecules to create heat and help maintain body temperature (it is activated by the cold).33 Whereas white fat stores energy required for good health, and increases with age causing a build-up of flab, or excess fat.34 Symptomatic of obesity, most of our fat is white, the type of fat we may want to reduce to enable a healthy body.
In the general populace, belly fat is a prevalent condition of the middle age and older cohort. It is no less an issue for some mature endurance athletes, especially those of us who do not take active steps to mitigate its onset. There are two types of belly fat: subcutaneous and visceral. Subcutaneous fat develops just under the skin, whereas visceral is deep seated within our stomach, surrounding vital organs.35 Of note, overall, women’s higher levels of subcutaneous fats provide a comparative advantage when competing in endurance events held in cold climates/running conditions. In particular, women also have an advantage in ultra distance running events, drawing upon body fat reserves that men of the same performance level just don’t have.36 Storing fat, particularly visceral, alters the way the body uses metabolic hormones which has been linked to health issues such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.
Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is an enzyme that causes increases in body fat as we age – an increase in adipose tissue throughout the body that is related to insulin sensitivity.37 In scientific terms it is described as ‘an enzyme responsible for hydrolyzing triglycerides, resulting in the release of fatty acids and glycerol and the production of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol.’38 This enzyme effect is heightened by increased inactivity that generally occurs in everyday life with ageing, and is something that even the most highly performed mature runner needs to guard against. Further, the fat generating activity of LPL is constrained by testosterone. However, as testosterone decreases with age body fat naturally increases, especially in the stomach for men. Women tend to store fat on their hips and backside, and post menopause, as a result of increased LPL, it becomes more prevalent on the abdomen.39
4.2 Sugar
The issues surrounding sugar intake are well documented. Insulin converts blood sugar into energy and an excessive intake of sugary foods and drinks can cause insulin resistance and lead to diabetes. There is always the potential for sugary carbohydrate foods to end up as fat deposits. As we get older our muscles become less sensitive to insulin but our fat cells do not.40 Friel41 notes that while exercise over long periods may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, it does not inhibit the activities of the leptin and ghrelin hormones, which cause satiety and hunger, respectively, and affect a person’s daily energy balance. Though aerobic exercise can definitely reduce the extent of swings between satiety and hunger. Of note, women produce more ghrelin than men, no matter what age. Women also experience increases in leptin as they age.
It is advisable to avoid the excess consumption of refined/processed sugars (aka junk food), sticking with natural sugars and fibre found in complex carbohydrates such as vegetables, fruits and whole foods. Filling up on fibre provides the added benefit of satisfying hunger more quickly, whereas junk food is calorie high, nutrient poor and drives poor/continuous eating habits.
- Resting Metabolism Rate (RMR)
Summarising Reaburn42, the effect of RMR on increases in body fat can be explained as follows: RMR is the amount of energy (kilojoules or calories) used at rest just to function (breathe and pump blood, and maintain body temperature). He further states that RMR makes up 60% of our daily energy expenditure. It decreases 2% per decade. RMR is highly related to muscle mass which is the major user of our body’s energy at rest. As we know muscle mass also decreases with age. While the average 70 year old needs 500 calories less per day than a 20 year old ‘fewer older people slow down their food energy intake. Too much energy intake, with too little exercise, a reduced muscle mass and slower RMR, mean an increase in body fat’, something that can be countered by weight training.
Reaburn’s views marry with those of a range of experts. As Parry states, ‘a higher lean muscle mass is associated with a higher basal metabolic rate, which means you are burning more energy.’43
Importantly, Reaburn provides the insight that although a mature aged athlete’s RMR is higher than non-athletes, an increased RMR is particularly evident in older weight trained athletes and/or endurance athletes that train hard.44
- Afterburn Effect aka EPOC
EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Known as the afterburn effect, it is the increased use of oxygen and calories after exercise, the burning of energy/fuel as your body recovers. This effect is variously cited as lasting anywhere from 15 minutes to 48 hours. and has been described as a contributor to weight loss. The EPOC effect appears greatest after high intensity anaerobic exercise (that can include running and weights).45
Essentially, HIIT burns more calories, using up more energy and oxygen than your body can provide so you create an energy deficit where you continue to burn calories (sourced from fat) after your workout. Your body keeps burning fuel to make up for the deficit. Specifically, Reaburn46 cites studies comparing the weight and fat loss outcomes from low intensity and high intensity endurance programs for young athletes. Though the overall energy used in exercise by the high intensity group was much lower than the low intensity group, the reduction in skinfold thickness was ninefold greater in the high intensity group. In addition to increasing muscle mass, high intensity training uses fat as a fuel during recovery, and recovery from HIIT takes much longer than low intensity training, so the metabolic aftereffect on fat reduction is more significant.
But we do have to be careful. While young runners can cope with greater levels of HIIT sessions, it is recommended that mature competitors limit the volume and frequency of such sessions. Some quote that one in five sessions should be HIIT, or no more than 5% of total running volume should be high intensity. If the mature athlete is in heavy training extra HIIT sessions can put undue stress on bodily systems, with the risk of increasing the production of cortisol, resulting in insulin resistance, lower levels of thyroid stimulating hormones and a decrease in the production of testosterone in men and progesterone in women. This mix of biological responses actually impairs weight loss.
- Sleep
It is undeniable that sleep is the best form of rest, that enables training adaptation, muscle repair and maximises the growth and repair of tissues. Reaburn47 advises that major HGHs are released at peak levels 30 to 60 minutes after falling asleep. So, naturally, you would expect the intake of protein prior to sleep to capitalise on the muscle building action of such hormones.
There is universal agreement that, depending on the individual, sleep in the range of 6 to10 hours (some prefer 7 to 9 hours) is required to allow sufficient recovery from high intensity training. If sleep is inadequate this may cause chronic inflammation and hormonal disruption (such as less release of human growth hormone), both of which can adversely affect your ability to lose weight.48
Interestingly, a research study of 201049 indicates that when caloric intake is restricted, a lack of sleep results in increased hunger, higher concentrations of ghrelin and lower levels of leptin. However, this did not apply when study volunteers were in positive energy balance.
Ghrelin can cause a retention of fat and a concomitant increase in hunger, undermining dietary interventions involving caloric restriction.
Lack of sleep also raises cortisol levels, and as indicated previously, too much of this aptly named ‘stress hormone’ can adversely affect the body’s ability to lose weight.50
- Factors to Consider
Body weight includes fat and muscle. The trick is to maximise appropriate athletic muscular development for your preferred event while reducing the potential to gain unwanted body fat. Muscle provides power and strength to perform, lean muscle being preferred for a middle to long distance runner. Though, as you may expect, middle distance athletes typically carry more muscle than long distance runners.
The astute reader may have noticed that I use the descriptor unwanted body fat. This choice of words is deliberate because we need fat, some fat is good and necessary for our bodily function. It is an evidenced based truth that loss of body fat can be achieved by consistently eating less kilojoules than your body expends, thus creating an energy loss situation.’51 However, while weight loss in its simplest terms is a ‘calories in calories out’ equation, we have to be careful about the extent to which we focus on the reduction of fat as the vehicle for weight loss.
There is always the rider that in our efforts to achieve sporting excellence, any reduction in fat has to occur as a result of a healthy sustainable weight loss. Excessive and/or quick weight loss can affect our immune systems, raising our susceptibility to infection and disease. In sport the syndrome of relative energy deficiency (REDs) is commonly used to describe the downwards spiral of poor health and declining performance when athletes do not get enough fuel (from food) to meet the energy demands of daily life and training ie a significant calorie deficit exists.
Exercise generates increased food consumption, so weight loss diets that focus purely on calorie counting are not sustainable. To achieve longer term healthy weight loss outcomes, the mature runner needs to properly fuel his/her body with wholesome foodstuffs that meet the energy demands of training and allow for effective recovery, not skimp on calories. It is a long-term outlook. As Reaburn states52, ‘the best way to lose body fat is to combine a diet with exercise – we lose fat and gain or maintain muscle mass that long term will help us lose more fat by increasing our RMR.’ And as Friel has indicated, proper fuelling, balanced meals and informed food choice that support fat loss at your particular stage of life are paramount, whether it is lean proteins, complex carbohydrates (includes fruit and some vegetables), or healthy fats.
Inherently, there is nothing wrong with being heavier if it is the result of appropriate lean muscle development that increases the strength and power of the endurance athlete to perform to a high level. If you weigh more (muscle being dense) and are strong, with minimal but healthy levels of body fat you will surely outperform those who are the same weight and height with less lean muscular development and higher levels of unwanted body fat – the latter being the natural consequence of an unbridled ageing process. Now I don’t want to get into discussion about the supposed ideal body fat level for men and women. Suffice to say that men are inherently more muscular and carry much less body fat than women, generally up to 10% less. And for the mature man and woman, changes to hormone levels can have a direct effect on the level of unwanted fat if left unchecked.
Friel, primarily a triathlete, describes how ageing endurance athletes may need to adjust their diets over time to respond to physiological changes, reduce body fat, and thereby optimise performance. While emphasising that ‘personalised nutrition is the key’53 he cites his own experience of changing his diet at 50 years of age and again at age 68. At 50, he reduced his intake of refined carbohydrates and increased his consumption of fruit, vegetables and animal products, more vitamin and mineral-dense foods. After a few weeks transition, this resulted in better recovery from high intensity sessions, and an improved immune system – an ability to perform to a high level while remaining healthy. However, at age 68 in response to discernible increases in weight and belly fat that developed during his mid-sixties, Friel transitioned to a form of low-carb high-fat diet. He significantly reduced his five daily servings of fruit and introduced more high-fat foods such as avocado, coconut cream and milk, nuts, nut butters, bacon, eggs, olive oil and fish. He avoided human made trans-fats and omega-6 oils. Friel maintains that during a 12 weeks period his weight returned to his past training weight level and his belly fat disappeared.
Reaburn54 states that the most effective exercise modality to lose weight or fat is running, rather than cycling or swimming, as running appears to increase energy expenditure post exercise (due to higher body temperatures created by running). And when comparing weight training with aerobic activity, longer term weight training that builds muscle may be more beneficial because increased muscle mass is the largest contributor to RMR (that helps burn energy without doing any exercise) and total daily energy expenditure.55 In essence, more muscle supports a faster metabolism, which burns more fat.
- Concluding Comments
For a variety of reasons, body composition definitely changes with age. I apologise if I have laboured the point, but I can’t emphasise it enough, that in simple terms, the three most significant changes are an increase in unwanted body fat, a loss of skeletal muscle mass and a decrease in bone density and bone strength. Strategies that increase the ageing athletes resting metabolism rate and the afterburn effect can reduce the negative effects of these changes. Though I am personally sceptical that the ongoing decrease in an ageing body’s metabolic slowdown can be totally overcome.
However, sifting through much of the available literature, there are four key activities that I would emphasise to improve my body composition and manage my racing weight: nutrition including the type and optimal timing of food consumption for recovery and muscle building, strength training (primarily heavy free weights), adequate aerobic running combined with small bouts of targeted high intensity exercise, and sufficient sleep.
The other thing I would say is, if you want to improve your power to weight ratio for racing performance, weight reduction per se may not be what you need. Examine the extent to which you actually require additional activity in the fields of muscular development, weight loss, weight gain, or fat loss.
And whatever you decide, do it in a balanced way, gradually not quickly. Plot your progress, but do not calorie count. If you do pursue an energy-restricted diet, maintain a healthy relationship with food and liquid consumption, and eventually the results will come, and you will arrive at the optimal weight for you, of your age, for your racing distance. Quoting from a Runners World publication of 53 years ago this should be a ‘level representing maximum strength with minimum extra baggage.’56
It has taken many years, but I have come to understand that there is no magic formula, only a balanced diet that is right for you, at your age and state of fitness, that can only be found through trial and error. There are no quick fixes to wicked problems.
As I indicated earlier, today’s topic was purely a taster for future detailed articles about nutrition, changes in hormones and sleep for the mature endurance runner. There is a lot of ground yet to be covered as we delve into these topics. I trust that I have whetted your appetite for upcoming instalments.
References:
1 Henderson, J, editor, The Runner’s Diet, Runner’s World Booklet of the Month No. 14, 1972, p72
2 Reinhold, R, An Interview With Kenneth Cooper, The New York Times Magazine, 29 March 1987
3 Reaburn, P, The Masters Athlete, 2009, p278
4 Maughan, R, Running and body fat – walking the tightrope of optimum performance, Sports Performance Bulletin, cited by A Hamilton, no date: https://www.sportsperformancebulletin.com/nutrition/weight-management/running-and-body-fat-walking-the-tightrope-of-optimum-performance
5 Anderson, O, Running Science, 2013, p519
6 Luhtala, S, ed, Top Distance Runners of the Century, 2002, p240
7 Burke, L, The Complete Guide to Food for Sports Performance, second edition, 1995, p61
8 Reaburn, 2009, p21
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https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/how-brown-fat-improves-metabolism
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48 Fee, E, The Complete Guide to Running: How to Become a Champion, from 9 to 90, 2005, p33
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