Worst part of marathon training

[noisemaker2]

OK, so the actual worst part for me might be chafing.  I am so not sad to wave goodbye to the chafing! 

But, the second worst part and the point of this random rant is that marathon training makes me eat all.the.time.  And sadly, now that I'm weeks past the marathon, my body still wants to eat all the time.  I'm having trouble reigning it in and already gaining weight.  Any tips for me?  How do the rest of you endurance people get out of this loop? 

[enfuego23]

I'm interested in reading the responses to this...I've been injured for 2 months = zero running and I'm up 7 pounds, ugh.

[runaways]

I'll throw in my 2c. For context, I gained about 5 pounds from June to October training for Chicago. Between Chicago and Houston I lost about 3, I think from the increased mileage plus a little bit of my body just getting more efficient and requiring less fuel. Since I started my taper for Houston, I gained about 5 more pounds. It's been 1.5 months since Houston at this point.

I felt really out of control for at least a month. I just ate and ate and couldn't stop myself. I think some of that is inevitable because it'll take some time for everything to adjust to lower mileage again. Just in the past couple weeks I feel like I'm finally reaching an equilibrium again. I'm running about 30 miles a week, lifting and cross training 2x/week, and eating 1500 calories a day with the goal of only doing 45% carbs (in training I was doing at least 55%) and higher protein. I've stopped eating most carbs after lunch, which so far seems to be allowing me to run just fine. Of course I'm also eating back all my exercise calories.

It's really really hard though, after you've been running like you do in marathon training. I think it's even harder if you are still trying to run significant mileage. Try to eat plenty of protein and fat to fill you up, since you don't need the carbs quite like you did before, and focus on making smart choices, and eventually things should level off a bit.

[runaways]

I will add - I'm really trying to focus on some weight and fat loss post-marathon, and it helped me a lot to view my diet as sort of a work in progress just like my workouts in the gym are. You don't nail it every day, but if you get up every morning and keep on trying, you'll get somewhere eventually.

[Wines Not Whines]

I have the same problem. 95% of the time I think it's from habit, not true hunger, for me. I'm so used to eating everything all the time while marathon training, and it's hard to scale back when it's over. So far, my solution has been to run a fall marathon every year, so I can eat and get away with it. This probably isn't helpful.

[skwcm80]

I've never run a marathon so I have no advice, but eating anything and everything I want is one of the parts I'm looking forward to when I start training.