Balancing Fat Loss and Running Before Marathon Training
Happy Sunday!
It’s been a busy week – I have 4 runners racing half marathons on Sunday and one doing a 5K Saturday and spent time with each of them creating their race plans. I spent much of Friday mapping out fall marathon plans for my 1:1 athletes who are racing, and in our Run Fueled & Faster community call on Monday evening I gave guidance on how to prepare and fuel when traveling for a race and we chatted about upcoming travel plans.
Balancing Coaching, Travel, and Marathon Planning
I’m very excited to be heading back to Costa Rica in June – first for 8 days with our good family friends (3 days in the jungle, 5 days at an AirBnB in Nosara) and then our family will stay another week in a small beach town called Samara. Costa Rica is definitely our family happy place – we spent a month in Santa Teresa when the girls were 3 and 5 and Mike and I went to Costa Rica on our first ever international trip 9 months after we started dating.
Setting Body Composition Goals Before a Trip
I’m getting excited for my own fall marathon training for the Chicago marathon (training starts in July), but I’m also refocusing on nutrition and body composition goals to feel really great in my bikini in Costa Rica. The last time we went (in 2021), I was carrying some extra pandemic stress eating weight and hadn’t discovered the fueling strategies I teach in Run Fuel yet (that happened in early 2022). While I looked fine – I was more inflamed in my face and didn’t feel as good as I do now.
I want to go back to Costa Rica and feel and look incredible and finally wear that green bikini for Mike that I got for myself before my birthday this year.
Am I Following a Strict Diet? Not Exactly
So does that mean I’m on a strict diet? No, in fact, my grocery list looks nearly identical to how it normally looks (based on my Run Fuel method).
How I’m Adjusting Nutrition for Fat Loss
The main changes I’m making for the sake of losing a little fat and keeping lean muscle, while also building my base mileage for upcoming marathon training – is that I’ve increased fruit & veggie intake as a ratio of my overall diet. I’m still eating carbs at every meal and most snacks and fueling my runs (before & after, and during long runs). I’ve had pizza & a couple glasses of wine and a lemon cake with my mom for her birthday, but overall I’m drinking less alcohol & eating less sugar.
Why Restrictive Dieting Doesn’t Work for Runners Over 40
As a 42 year old runner already in a healthy BMI range, any kind of restrictive diet is just going to backfire on me – I would wake up in the night hungry and my runs would start to feel harder.
Why Slow Fat Loss Is Normal (and Better)
The balanced way of losing weight that I teach in Run Fuel does take more patience – while my waist measurement is down 1 inch & I can physically see a difference in my body, the scale is moving slowly. I know this is normal – the answer is not to do a cleanse or a fast, you’ll just lose water weight. (When I do my fueling journal reviews, there is one trend that often pops up when someone is losing weight a little slower, even with overall high-quality food choices – and I’m watching for that).
Can Fat Loss and Running Performance Coexist?
As you know, this is the place where your summer bathing suit goals and your fall racing goals can co-exist and even support one another. It doesn’t have to be performance fueling vs. aesthetic fueling. There is a world where both exist.
Happy running,
Nicole Dobransky
PS If you have fall marathon or half marathon goals and summer bikini goals and want to get the plan, guidance and support to do both, check out my 1:1 coaching options and then schedule a call so we can discuss a game plan to work toward them together.
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