Someone Help Meeeeee!!!

[Sassy69]

Couple thoughts about general goals and specific event goals -- sometimes the two goals will conflict and you end up slowign down your general goals and negating your event goals at the cost of trying to do both. Especially since "fat burning" and endurance training are two sort of diametrically opposed goals. Just like when I train for competition - the goal is to be able to look / perform a certain way at a certain time of day on event day - that priority should override your general goal because once the event is over, then you can go back to your general goal -- in the case of bodyfat loss - a hyuge part of it is just setting up a consistent diet & training program so your body can set up an efficient consumption rate.

For endurance stuff - definitely carb up -- I've worked MANY night-before-the-marathon spaghetti feeds back in the day in my home town for this big local marathon they run up the shore of Lake Superior every spring. My only thought on the ice cream is regarding how your body may handle digesting dairy. If it isn't part of your current diet, you may encounter issues w/ lactose intolerance. To that end I'd just keep in mind that sometimes dairy carbs have a slightly different effect than regular starchy carbs. During competition dieting I've actually been painfully bloated for a day due to getting a chicken salad from Wendy's that had some feta cheese on it that I ate a few chunks of.

 

[toitasatiger]

First things first:
* If the race is Saturday, you're doing the right thing by doing a carb-up 48 hours in advance. I did a 10K in October and I'm doing the Disney 1/2 Marathon in January. I lift and train too, but I have a higher protein diet (50p, 25c, 25f ideally... but most of the time it's more like 40p or 45p, etc.) EXCEPT for the days up to my run.

* Honestly -- I went out for ice cream for dessert two night before my big run! We went to Macaroni grill for dinner and I ordered my usual meal -- pasta with red sauce and extra grilled chicker or shrimp -- but I had some extra bread and then went for ice cream afterward. The bloat up will also help you stay hydrated so that is useful for the run too. I didn't know that the body needed 48 hours though -- Ulter taught me that.

On the other days:

* Are you using fitday? Sounds like you're eating all the right things and you're a veteran around these parts and to the lifestyle as a whole, which is awesome. If you're not using fitday, go for it now.

* Like I said, most days I'm aiming for 50/25/25... but on carb-up days I'm looking more like 40/30/30 with 40 being carbs.

I don't know if that helped! Eat healthfully as you've been doing -- but throw a splurge or two in there of good carbs (wheat pasta, extra whole-grain bread with some EVOO, etc.) pre-race. I felt AWESOME during my 10K, so I know I was ready for some runnin'.

Thanks so much! I did buy some whole wheat pasta the other day so i was planning on cooking that before my next big run and mixing it with tuna and eating that just to see how that works for me as far as a carb up meal. i'm going to try out all of this stuff before the actual marathon so that i can get a feel for what works best for me and then during the race and my long runs i've been using those electrolyte gels for energy and hydration so we'll just see.

Thanks Sassy for your advice as well! I'll definitely keep all of this in mind and i've changed up my workouts as well so that i don't overtrain but i'm still getting a great muscle workout without overexhausting my body at this point. Hopefully the change in weights and number of reps will be a good change for my body and allow me to burn fat and tone up in a different way that way when i start back up with my reg. training after the marathon it'll be a shock to my body further moving my weight loss along. anyway, thanks everyone! you guys are awesome