I work out alot compared to other folks. And I don’t eat much food compared to other folks. My body is like a frickin Prius – i get great gas mileage. For a car, this is awesome. For a body, this sucks. I want to eat more food. But if I do, I gain weight super fast. And it’s sooooo hard to lose.
Something I have been wondering about for quite some time is whether endurance sports makes one’s metabolism more efficient? It’s probably an advantage during a long race if your body doesn’t require as many calories as the next guy to keep on going. Maybe this even helped me in my past races.
Or maybe it’s just my age making my body require less and less calories. I am almost 49 years old, and each year I need less and less food.
True, I have been working out less because I have been throwing myself into my career. Certainly that is a big factor. Still, I have to wonder – if I switched up my workout plan to do something like P90x instead of all the swimming and biking and running, maybe that would rev up my metabolism. My weight has been gradually creeping up this year and I am way beyond good racing weight. 🙁
Here is my Loseit.com log for Christmas day (click to enlarge):
Endurance training ABSOLUTELY makes you more metabolically efficient. I’m focusing on aerobic base training right now, which teaches your body to burn fat for fuel. Check out Phil Maffetone’s writings. (I recently read the Big Book of Endurance Training.) Also, are you training to eat or eating to train? I’m not a huge believer in specifically the glycemic index, but I wholeheartedly believe in eating clean. Check out Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Diet.
Interesting… losing weight is tough! I pretty much continue to work out 6, sometimes 7 days a week and can hold my weight steady. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. 🙂 Come and train with me!!
Hey, you are not alone in this. I can gain weight by looking at a cookie. I have discovered I was eating too much of the wrong thing. I figured that since I worked out a lot I needed a lot of pasta and bread ect. I started looking into Glycemic Index and what that means for me and weight gain/loss. To put it simply, I quick eating sugar, bread, pasta and potatoes. I get my carbs from beans and veggies….whala! The weight dropped! And I have plenty of energy from the “slow carbs” found in beans. Sorry if I am on a tangent but I love to share what I found!! You can google Slow-Carb and read about it, see if is something that might work for you!!!
Good luck!