Does running change your shape?

[Pickingmyselfup]

I've been running consistently for about a year now and haven't noticed much difference in the way I look even with eating less and lifting weights.

This year I'm really hitting the running, I have 2 half marathons, 2x10Ks, a 20 mile and a full marathon booked between now and November. I'm trying to eat a bit less but it's really difficult to fuel my runs and stick to a calorie deficit. I'm eating about 300 less than I need to for maintenance but on long run days I end up eating the full amount because I need the fuel during my runs. Trying to hit the gym as much as possible to get those weights lifted but between runs, work, inury and life it's pretty hard.

I have an event planned after my marathon in October and I was really hoping to lose weight so that I would look better in the dress I'm planning to wear but it might not be possible. Can I look better with the running even if I don't lose weight??

No. You'll need to strength train. I was a runner for about 20 years, now been strength training for around 10 and it's had far better effects.

That’s interesting, it was the opposite for me, 20 years of strength training and cycled everywhere but it was the running that really leaned me out and changed my shape.

I'm not dropping a run but I do strength training 3 days a week and yoga twice a week.

I might start putting this in bold...

If you can lose weight you'll find running a lot easier. I can feel the difference even half a stone makes to my running

This is so true. After having each of my DC I found running much harder until I'd shifted all the baby weight. I definitely felt I was plodding, and as if I was carrying a large weight around with me (which to be fair, I was!)

Being slimmer went hand in hand with becoming faster and fitter for me. But obviously only to a certain point - if zip was starving myself, I couldn't run well. I basically eat what I like when I'm running high mileage but pare it back outside of marathon training blocks.

Strength training has helped with my running too, particularly on hills.

I am in a very similar situation to you, @Pickingmyselfup, although I am a couple of years older and BMI is 26.

I run three times a week (I've run for years but never more than three times a week) and around 30km a week - will hopefully build up to 40/45k weeks in my half marathon prep, but no more. I have hypermobile Ehlers Danlos so never want to push too hard for fear of injury.

I couldn't do more days with sacrificing something else - I like to do a swim and a bike ride as cross-training and do three strength session. I do a short yoga workout at least three times. I don't have kids but I do have horses and spend a lot of time running around after them, plus there's the high needs elderly dog! But I'm happier doing a bit of everything, it works for me.

Over the years, I've never been able to a lot of cardio and lose weight - I used to cycle to and from work for a total of 150 km a week and actually put on weight ... The woman I share an office with got very thin at point (as she said to me herself, I definitely wasn't judging) when she was running five or six days a week, but she is very slim anyway.

I probably run at a similar speed as you (our 10k PBs sound the same) and I'm not sure whether people really realise that this means that long runs can easily get over an hour and a half and everything I've seen on running nutrition indicates that runs over 1.5 hours should be fuelled. It's especially important for women and, ahem, women nearing peri age for bone health.

I have been - at last - gradually but successfully losing weight since October despite training by drastically cutting sugar, i.e., cutting out stuff that's over four per cent fructose sugars (easy enough to check the label), with the exceptions of birthdays, Christmas and New Year's Day to not offend anyone. I take glucose gels on long runs as you don't metabolize glucose the same as with fructose sugars and they don't taste to sweet. It's very hard at first but easy enough once I got into the habit (and broke the addiction - I had a crazy sweet tooth).

Yes, I've only lost 7kg but it's the first time the scales have started going in the other direction in about a decade.

I have a love hate relationships with hills. I can run up an average sized one pretty quick but when I get to the top I'm dead!

I have a hilly race this weekend, no idea what kind of hills, how many but it could be fun or it could be horrible. It's only a 10K so not far but could take a while if the hills are steep but I'm up for the challenge 💪

Ideally I would like to lose half a stone, I don't need to according to my BMI but I was carrying a few extra lbs over Christmas, still within range but it's really obvious because I'm short with a small build on my upper half and I always gain on the heavier bottom half and lose from the lighter top half 🙄

So I think it's this podcast that talks about how our bodies are very efficient at adapting to our lifestyle so we don't burn too many calories.

open.spotify.com/episode/1YCkDZhJcOi0152aQZimcG?si=6Hmu5yVyRVK2iTC7aGZ_xg

I think the example given is a very active hunter/gatherer type of person living in a traditional tribe somewhere and some guy sitting in his office and then on his sofa all day will both burn about the same amount of calories because each body has adapted for its output.

Yes you do get used to the same exercise and as a result you do become less efficient. It's why progressive overload in strength training is highly recommended because you are constantly working the muscles. For running you get faster, you run further, it all results in the same thing.

I guess there comes a point where you can no longer do better, you can't deadlift/squat/bench press more than x kgs and there are only so many reps you can do I guess. Same with running, you have a top speed and you will never outrun it and there is only so much time in the day to dedicate to it. I don't know what happens at that point, I've never reached it. Can a body builder maintain the muscle by lifting the same thing over and over again? Can a runner stay lean by running the same distance/speed over and over?

I thought there wasn’t any need to fuel properly, with specific gels and stuff until after you got past half marathon distance.

I did a 10 mile run last weekend. Toast about an hour before. Sandwich and crisps for lunch when I got home. I have lost a bit of weight now I’m running more. Nothing excessive. I’ve also been weight training, core training, doing a hiit class and circuits on the side. I try and do three runs a week one about 5k, on about 7 or 8k and one about 15k+. I also do a dance class for fun. 40 this year. BMI 21.4.

I don’t have a running coach or anything. Just making it up as I go 😂. Seems to be going well so far.

I think it's more the timing. A 10 mile takes me over 1.30 which is the recommended length to start fueling, a 10K maybe 1.10 so I wouldn't bother. Something over 10K then I start because it's closer to 1.30 but for a training run I might not always want to but always for a race.

I'm not a natural runner so I need a bit more help to get round.

I'm also not naturally skinny and always hungry so toast would never last me for a 10 mile run, I would be chewing my arm off!

It's such a difficult balance for me

Do cycling for the endurance training instead it strips fat and doesn't make you starving like long runs do.

I wonder if everyone responds differently though. I am not a long distance runner and was much better and faster than many others in my age group at 5k. Never got to a marathon as my body just hated long distance running. So went longer on biking to get the aerobic conditioning.

Not always, I do long-distance rides 200km+ at least once a month and never lose weight. However if I do a short sharp high intensity crit then I lose weight.

The trouble is that advice like this is often based on studying athletic men, not women and general population levels of fitness. So an athletic man probably doesn't need fuelling in the 90 minutes that he's running a half marathon.
I'm taking an hour longer. My short legs mean I'm taking more steps. I'm getting closer to lunch time than Athletic Man. My nutritional needs are different to his. Neither of us is absolutely right/ wrong, it's just personal with a lot of variables.

Last year I took 2:45 to race a trail HM in foul weather and ground conditions (including wading knee-deep in mud and flood water!). A few weeks later my nephew raced a road marathon in 2:55!

I recently did a 2:22 trail HM, and battling cold winter wind/ rain will put more strain on the body's systems than an event in milder months in peak distance season.

My event was 11am-2pm plus an hour's drive away, so by the second half of the race, my morning porridge was a distant memory. Very different in need from rolling out of bed at 7am for a fasted 90 min run and eating breakfast by 9am or a 9am start in an early wave of a race.

The length and time of exertion matters more than than absolute distance for fuelling.

While I tend to fuel while running (my recent event was a nakd bar and access to 500ml of tailwind so about a 3rd of the estimated active calories burned), my appetite tends to shut down afterwards so I'm better off grazing. I then get hungrier in the next day or two while I'm in DOMS mode.

The circumstances you describe are very different from 12k or so on the road. I agree there may well be the need to fuel on a trail race taking 2.5 plus hours no matter the distance. That’s going to be a lot of exertion. 12k on the road it would seem unnecessary and the OP is griping that she hasn’t lost the weight she’d hoped to. So just pointing out that she may be over doing it with the fuelling. But also she may need it to feel like she can make it round. Whatever works for her is the right thing.

I think what does help more for active people is paying attention to macros than pure calories (if you're relatively balanced), and varying the carb intake each day according to energy expenditure.

I find this time of year hard because I want to comfort eat on hearty stodge like mashed potato, but when it's BST (British Salad Time) it is easier to focus more on proteins, mediteranean veg and salads, eat in a filling way but manage the carbohydrates.

I'm currently my heaviest, but not my wobbliest. The change is from adding heavier weights to my routine on top of circuits, and running. The tape measure is indicating that it is muscle gain and that's a more useful indicator than weight alone.
It's awkward because weight does matter to your joints, but I'd rather have the muscle mass being there and useful than be lighter for the sake of it. I'm hoping that I'm boosting my peri-menopausal metabolism and will feel the benefits later...

There comes a point where you can't do more, but it's tricky trying to work out how to do it smarter (plus resisting the biology of age and sex)

When I started running in my early 30s, I managed to lose the baby weight (assisted by breast feeding) and get to and hold a slightly lower, leaner weight than before for a few years, but once I was established at running in my mid-30s, I lost that benefit and it just seems to be part of holding a sensible weight now. It's hard when your baseline habits are pretty sound to begin with (giving up alcohol is no game-changer when you can easily go 6 weeks without drinking and it mainly involves sacrificing a drink or two on high days and holidays!)

So today I did a 10K race in 1 hr 7. Had breakfast before I left, electrolyte water then lunch when I got back. An extra 2km is starting to take me closer to the 1hr 30 minute mark which is when every running coach I've seen suggests needing something.

I doubt I will ever get my 10K time to an hour or under, I just can't run that fast so I will need more fuel during a long run than someone who can do a 10K in 45 minutes.

I'm adding in fitness pilates as well so that takes me to 4 runs, 3 weight lifting session, 1 fitness pilates and a minimum of 1 yoga session, 2 where possible. Plus my daily schedule of walking the kids to school and being on my feet serving food and drinks.

My weight as it stands is 54.7kg, down from 55kg last week. There is no point in me reducing my calories from 1800, my maintenance is 2000 and my weekly running distance will only get longer/faster and my weights heavier so maybe I'll see a difference.

It is difficult balancing the need for food for runs with wanting to eat less to lose weight and it does mean if I have a gel during my run I have to cut calories from elsewhere or go over my daily allowance. I've only been doing the long distance less than a year so I'm still figuring out what works and what doesn't work.

I’m very similar to you. Takes me just over an hour to run 10k. I try and get out three days a week. The only time I see a difference in my body is when I lose weight, and obviously, as you know, you aren’t going to do that at the moment.

I know you don’t want advice on this, but have you tried doing the run by only having had something to eat a couple of hours before (yoghurt or lunch or whatever) and not bothering with the gels? Do the gels really make a difference to the runs?

What I can't understand, OP, is why you're treating your races the same as your runs. This is probably why you're not progressing in terms of speed.
Your races should be a lot faster than your training runs. Possibly 2 mins per mile quicker for a 10k, as a rough guide.

Most runners will have a gel on a very hard 10k race when they're going all-out and using all their energy reserves, but not in training when they're at comfortable conversational pace, keeping heart rate fairly low. If you're doing both these kinds of runs at the same pace and exertion, either one isn't fast enough or you're running everything too fast, stopping you from adapting, building endurance and progressing to get more comfortable over the longer runs and faster on the short ones.

Your running goals, eg marathon, might well not be compatible with your health/body goals, eg reducing fat and building muscle. I found that to be the case.

My races are faster generally.

This one wasn't supposed to be, it was supposed to be just something to keep me motivated and I was keeping a friend company but I got a bit caught up and went faster than I was supposed to.

What else would you like me to do?

I'm not running far enough/fast enough/not racing/racing.

I didn't actually ask for advice about my running because I have a running coach. What I asked was will running help me lean out and get firmer without being in a big or any calorie deficit.

I feel like a simple question has been turned around and all people are doing is picking apart how I'm running when actually I'm doing a pretty great job considering I've only been doing this properly for less than 2 years.

Every person is different so what suits me might not suit someone else so can we please stop giving me shit about how I run.

Thanks.

That is possible and I might not actually look any different in 9 months but I guess we can only hope.

I have to make my running a priority if I'm ever going to complete my races so that means putting in the calories and going easier on the weights in the lead up to the races.

We will see.

When I first started marathon training, I hsd not long finished breastfeeding so I think the combination of both , made my boob's shrink. I've run regularly for about 18 years (excluding time off for pregnancy/post birth) and my bmi is about 21.5. A usual week, if not marathon training is 25-30 miles/week.

But I'm short so I do not look lean at all. The noticeable difference is that my calves are chunky and toned, and if I marathon train, I usually lose a few pounds (after a few weeks of 40 miles +) I've sadly never acheived a flat belly from running.

Sorry I'm not sure if that really helps!

You have seen no changes in body tone in a yr of consistent running & weights? That seems odd