2006 - February

[marathondan]

Andy, well done on finishing Wokingham, a thoughtful write-up and a positive note to end on.

But your weight loss sounds dramatic. A few years ago I did 1500 cals for a month or so and lost about 8 pounds. I was permanently hungry, and got through cubic metres of rice cakes between meals. But I put it back on within six months, it just wasn't sustainable.

And that was before I took up running. You must be burning around 150 cals/mile; I don't know your weekly mileage but you must be seeing off 3000 cals a week through running. We large-framed chaps should require over 2000 cals/day to maintain a stable weight. Hmm, let's see, (1500-2000)*7-3000 = -6500 cals/wk. They say 3000 cals = 1lb of fat (I think), so that gives around 2.2lb/week weight loss, 15lb in 6 weeks = 2.5 lb/wk. There you go!

Well, what I was going to say before I went stat-crazy, was that I can't imagine being able to do any running when I felt as hungry as I did on 1500 cals/day. I am completely inexpert, but it sounds to me like you should adjust your calorie intake upwards towards a more sustainable long-term weight loss target (e.g. 0.5-1lb/wk). Especially now that you are on the run-in to Zurich. I don't think you should be aiming for significant weight loss now.

Feel free to ignore. But you ain't gonna get those glycogen levels up on 1500 cals/day. Start taking on some more licit calories so you don't need to resort to the illicit ones.