Calories and Running?

I see a lot of people here are doing marathons, half marathons, and triathalons. Can I take a kind of survey/poll? All of the "calories needed when running" articles are aimed toward people losing weight. I'm not. I'm training for a halfer and am getting different answers as to how many calories I should eat.

How many miles per week do you run, and how much cardio do you do?

What is your calorie recommendation (either for weight maintenance, gain, or loss) and what do you aim for?

I really want to have a better idea of this. My doctor says 2,000 and she recommended I gain weight!!!! That seems low - I run 25-38 miles a week!

Hi bsh0611, I ran my first marathon in May and a half marathon two weeks ago. I wear a heart rate monitor and have been tracking callories expended and consumed over the training period.  Firstly it depends on your sex, size as well as your activity level. I'm , male 6ft4" , 220lbs and I burn through about a 1000cal an hour when running, where as my wife is less than half my size and burns through about 500 in the same period. When in fat - weight loss mode I eat about 2700cal a day and maintainance is about 3200cal. To get an idea enter your details into calorie count and see what they recommend as a maintainance level and then adjust from there depending on how your body is recovering after each run. You'll need enough fuel to allow recovery and to build strength.

I'm trying to maintain, wouldn't mind losing a few pounds though. I run about 6-7 hours a week, swim 2-3 hours, and lift weights 3x a week. I think I eat around 3000 calories a day and I'm still losing weight slowly. I'm female, 5'6", 20 years old.

You definitely need more than 2000 calories. That's how much you would need if you were sedentary and trying to maintain.

RIght now I am training for a half in November. I am running (now) about 20-25 miles a week. My mileage goes up 1-2 miles a week. (I am on a 16 week training program).

My trainer says not to up my calories until I'm running more around 30-40 miles a week. So, I haven't yet. But I am hungrier now that I'm on a training routine. I just make sure to eat more complex carbs and protein.

I cross train 2 days a week and rest one day (but I do yoga). On the cross train days I either bike or do Jillian Michaels' workouts.

Good luck!

Original Post by girl4moon:

My trainer says not to up my calories until I'm running more around 30-40 miles a week.

 

girl4moon, how many calories do you eat?

It depends on the week for me. Recently, I wasn't logging a whole lot because of some severe blistering on my feet. Thankfully, that is taken care of. If I only get about 20-25 miles per week, I try to eat about 1,500-2,000. Enough to feel full and no fatigue.

As of right now, I try to get about 5-6.5 miles per day...at least 5 times a week. Slowly plan on adding .25-.5 miles per week. I eat prob. around 2,000 calories a day. I'm 19, 5'1 and about 110.

I do weights at least 3 times a week with core training and streching at the end.

I'm not sure if I should eat more. I'm not the biggest calorie counter right now. Homemade food is hard to count calorie so I just go by nutrition. I find I just have to play with the food amounts. So if I'm doing a six miler, I know I need to eat enough. If during my run I hit my wall too early, it's prob. bc I was an idiot and thought I should only eat 1,200 calories or something equally stupid. :)

I try to keep my calories between 2400 and 2700 a day.  I swim, bike, or run at least an hour a day except on weekends, when its more like two hours day (currently).  I eat five times a day.  400-500 calories for breakfast, 200 calorie snack, then lunch, then a 200 calorie snack then dinner.

You don't need to eat when running a half marathon, but some people find it beneficial to do so, especially those that run longer than 2.5 hours.  When training for longer events, you have to eat while training, that is why it is hard to lose weight training for marathons, half ironmans, and Ironmans...