When, Why, And How To Game Body Weight For The Results You Want.
I hear it all the time. An athlete is committing to run a new longest distance, or chasing a better performance at their next big race than ever before. The first thing they want to do in order to achieve that performance: lose ten pounds.
A large percentage of athletes fall victim to a misconception that reducing their body weight is the first step towards being the athlete they hope to be. The truth is not as simple, and more times than not I push back against this notion when athletes suggest it alongside their main goal of performing better in their next event.
Weight loss in sport is pretty much the opposite of a one-size-fits-all solution. There are athletes that should make weight loss their first goal, there are others who should stop thinking about their weight at all, and there are athletes who, in fact, would benefit from gaining a few pounds.
To complicate things further, there are a few different reasons that could be driving an athlete's desire to lose weight. The most common ones are to improve their overall health, to improve their running performance, and to change the way they look (aesthetics). The path forward looks very different depending on which of these is the true, underlying goal.
In this post we will cover it all, so that no matter what camp you fall into, you've got a better idea of how much weight loss should be a focus for you (if it even should be at all).
What's in this post:
Run Training Is Not The Key To An Idealized Vision of Fitness
It is a large misconception that losing weight through running is sufficient to yield a stereotypical, idealized image of what a "fit person" should look like.
This day and age, marketing teams across the globe have created this ideal image of what fitness or health looks like. Even as more attention has been brought to the dangers associated with such an image, most of us have nevertheless been influenced into believing that there's a certain aesthetic we should have as athletes. The idealized appearance is characteristically small (for women) and lean (for men), meaning a person looks either like they weigh very little, or that their muscles must be vividly defined. Some even associate this "image of fitness" with performance, when the reality is that performance and physical appearance are distinct from one another.
Running can do a lot for weight loss, but it does not lead to this appearance-- at least not in isolation. There are aggressive dietary and strength regimen interventions required as well in order to create these appearances, many of which will prove detrimental to performance not just in running, but across endurance sports.
Well trained endurance athletes are strong and lean up to a point, but hyper-focusing on aesthetics can stand in the way of being properly fueled to perform. The goal, behind the goal of weight loss, must be chosen wisely. More on this below.
What Weight Loss Does To Your Body (and how it can cause problems)
The requirements for losing weight are well understood by most: consume less calories than you burn over a period of time. The mathematical difference between the number of calories consumed, and the number of calories used as energy by the body, will come from energy stores within the body. Those energy stores can be fat, protein (including muscle mass), and carbohydrates. When humans aim to lose weight, what they are almost always really aiming to do, is loss fat mass specifically, rather than muscle mass.
Here's the catch: the human body has evolved over millions of years to be really good at surviving, even when calories are scarce. Large swaths of research have clarified some of the ways that the body compensates for issues like calorie restriction, though we're still a ways from fully understanding the implication of calorie restriction in both the short and long term. Regardless, if we're cutting calories, we can be quite sure the body will undergo the following major changes.
Loss of Muscle Mass
One particularly clear adaptation to reduced calorie intake is that the body will attempt to conserve the calories it has. Part of what sets our base metabolism (the number of calories our body burns per day to sustain life through breathing, blood circulation, cognitive function, etc.) is skeletal muscle mass. The muscle in our arms, legs, and just about everywhere else in the body, require calories to exist even while resting. When resources (calories) become scarce, the body is going to start reducing muscle mass in an attempt to conserve energy for the much more important activities in the heart and brain. By reducing muscle mass, the body reduces its base metabolism. Whereas yesterday a person burnt 2,000 calories at rest, today they only burn 1,995 because they have lost some muscle mass.
The problem here is twofold. First, instead of burning the fat mass we aspire to lose, we have burnt calories partially from fat mass but also partially from muscle mass, so we might not be any leaner since muscle mass is crucial to being lean. Second, by eliminating muscle mass, we have reduced our daily calorie burn rate, making it that much harder to continue losing weight without reducing calorie consumption further.
Reduced Cognitive Function
When the body is tight on resources, it reduces energy consumption in places beyond just muscle. The brain and nervous system perform functions essential to life (like telling the heart to beat), but they also perform some nice-to-haves, like allowing you to run very fast in an all-out sprint, or to thoroughly solve a complex math problem. Athletes will struggle to perform their best in challenging workouts when the brain senses the fuel gauge is low (this isn't just true for those trying to lose weight; a marathoner bonking at Mile 21 will know too well how true this, is as they are slowed to a weak jog or a walk by low energy availability in the body).
Reduced Rates of Healing and Stunted Ability to Adapt to Training Stress
Run training is inherently destructive to the body. The whole point of training is that by exposing the body to a large stress (hard training session), we push it beyond its current capacities. We improve, adapt, get stronger and faster only after we have recovered from the stress of the session. A well fueled body that is receiving an abundance of nutrients and resources from a person's diet has the necessary building blocks available to recover quickly and adapt to the stress effectively.
Calorie restriction stunts this process by depriving the body of the building blocks it needs in order to become stronger. Recovery slows, and true adaptation to a stress stimulus may not happen at all depending on the degree of nutrient restriction. The problem isn't just to do with our primary energy sources though (i.e. carbohydrates, fats, and proteins). In restricting calories, we may also deprive ourselves of the vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes that we would have gotten from a food source along with the calories. These micronutrients play a large role in growth and fitness as well.
Performance Risks Associated with Weight Loss
When you consider the three major physiological changes above, along with some other side effects of calorie restriction, runners face the following drawbacks:
reduced bone density (increasing bone injury risk, such as stress fractures)
reduced workout recovery rate (increasing risk of muscle/tendon/ligament overuse injury)
chronically elevated risk of injury, due to excessively low body weight after a period of weight loss has concluded, is possible
staleness and risk of training without adapting improved performance (performance plateau)
risk for weight gain, following the period of aggressive weight loss, due to reduced muscle mass
poor workout performance
loss of interest in training
general fatigue/mood changes
Despite the risks, we know that many people, athlete or not, will benefit from some weight loss. The list of risks above simply underscore how important it is to undergo a weight loss protocol thoughtfully and strategically. Otherwise, we face substantial repercussions.
How To Do Weight Loss The Right Way
The forward elements of a weight loss protocol differ depending on the ultimate goal. Losing weight is never the goal itself; it is a means to one of these other ends. Below are guidelines on how to do weight loss for longer term success depending on those goals.
For Overall Health
Weight loss for overall health is usually reserved to those who have been told by a healthcare professional that it would benefit them to lose weight. These individuals may be overweight or obese, or treating some related health complication like Type II diabetes, high blood pressure, early stage liver conditions, etc.
The protocols for success in this goal may require the least precision of the three end goal categories discussed here. With regard to how quickly weight can be lost successfully, it may be reasonable to lose 1-1.5 pounds (0.75-1kg). That's aggressive compared to the rates of weight loss in other categories. Still, any more than 1 pound per week, we'd recommend only be attempted under direct medical supervision.
Calorie restriction alone may be effective in itself for someone with this goal. If a person is overweight or obese, then it's possible they will burn large amounts of stored body fat with little loss of muscle (highly dependent on the person's age). Even with other lifestyle interventions, calorie restriction is almost certain to be a large component in the success of a person with this goal.
Hand-in-hand with that, a focus on diet quality will be important. Simply eliminating highly processed foods from the diet and substituting some whole food alternatives may be enough to create the substantial calorie restriction needed, while also improving nutrient density so that a person doesn't become deficient in critical micronutrients.
Physical training of any sort (whether running/endurance activity or strength training) will be a strong aid in improving the health of most people. Unlike in the other two categories, there is less need to distinguish between types of physical activity here.
Large improvements in athletic performance is common, as the type of person going after this goal may be developing routines of nutrition and physical activity that they never had before. Way to uncover that hidden potential!
For Aesthetic (Appearance) Changes
The goal to lose weight in order to improve appearance alone, can be a touchy subject, but is not inherently bad. Trouble develops when body image and eating habits move from disciplined to disordered. Here, we'll assume the athlete is not at risk of taking things to an extreme and/or disordered level.
The people that would pursue this goal are already deemed to be a somewhat healthy weight by a medical professional. This is also distinct from performance goals, as these athletes will insist on pursuing the weight loss even if their coach suggests they have no need to lose weight in order to enhance their running performance.*
Typically weight loss is not the best or only solution for athletes with this goal. Aesthetic changes are less about how many calories the athlete consumes and more about what the athlete consumes, as well as their training regimen.
Developing a leaner physique requires:
Targeted strength training to areas where athletes are looking to be leaner,
A strong ability to metabolize fat which will be developed through low intensity, aerobic running,
A focus on blood sugar control through emphasis on protein consumption, moderate consumption of healthy (unsaturated fats), avoiding consumption of large amounts of carbohydrate all at once, and through lots of non-starchy vegetable consumption
If weight is lost in pursuit of aesthetic changes, it is often only a byproduct to strong nutrition and physical training habits rather than the primary focus.
*It is important to that coaches listen carefully in these situations to the reasons an athlete is giving for their desire of weight loss. Indicators of psychological disorder may be given in the athletes justification, and while most coaches are far from qualified to diagnose or treat these illnesses, we must alter our course and responses accordingly if we suspect possible disorder.
For Athletic Performance
As athletes, the gold standard has nothing to do with weight; it has everything to do with strength-to-weight ratio.
Physical training is about making the body stronger, either literally with strength training, or by improving other elements of fitness through running. Weight loss protocols will weaken the body, and in many cases weight loss is not the best path to improved performance. Instead, the focus is on maintaining weight, but developing our ability to move that weight more effectively by being fitter for our specific sport goal.
Strength-to-weight ratio must continue to lead the protocol even if weight loss is a component. If calories are restricted, we must do everything we can to retain the elements of fitness we have while only losing the fat mass that is weighing us down. Maintaining energy expenditure capabilities (i.e. aerobic fitness) after dropping body weight is not an easy thing to do.
To improve athletic performance through weight loss:
Frequent and rigorous strength training must be emphasized to signal the body to retain, rather than eliminate, metabolically active muscle mass, and to keep the nervous system engaged with those muscles
Reducing weight should be a training block in itself preceding the main training for the event whenever possible.
If in the very rare case where race-specific training is happening simultaneous to a weight loss protocol, running workouts need to be carefully curated depending on the event goal. To run a faster 10K, the athlete must still hit be able to hit workouts at or near 10K goal pace, even if less frequent because of slower workout recovery times. If an athlete is working towards a long and slow aerobic event, training volume needs to be kept as high as is realistic, even if larger sacrifices to speed training need to be made. This protocol also carries a risk of loss of sport-specific performance in the mid-term.
Nutrient timing is critical to optimal results. Speed sessions require carbohydrate availability in order to be performed well, yet carbohydrates are typically in sharply reduced supply under calorie restriction. Therefore, carbohydrate-dense fuel must be consumed shortly before highly demanding training sessions, and protein consumption is especially important in the hours following the session. Fat is an important energy source also but must be consumed sparingly due to its higher calorie density (9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrate and protein).
*A weight reduction protocol with the goal of improved athletic performance is always best undertaken with the assistance of a running performance coach or certified nutrition expert, or both.*
Weight Gain For Performance
Despite all the things so far discussed in this post, there is still some mystery to the human body. It's apparent that not everyone is physically built the same and that there in not one right answer for body weight. The ideal weight for performance will differ between individuals, as well as within an individual depending on their specific event goal and their age.
What has been observed, is that it is possible to be chronically underweight from a performance standpoint even if, by the medical definition, an athlete falls in a healthy weight range. Fatigue, plateau, and frequent injury become risks even when all the training, sleep, and dietary protocols are in place to avoid those issues. It is related to a poorly understood concept in physiology referred to as Low Energy Availability (LEA).
In some cases, the athlete just needs to gain weight, ideally as muscle mass. I have seen athletes with a string of unexplained issues have those issues all but vanish by gaining five or ten pounds and no other changes to their habits. The evidence here underscores the idea we already touched on; that lower weight is not always the best way to improved performance. The best performance will come from a robust strength-to-weight ratio.
To gain weight effectively and reduce nuisance injuries, fatigue, or performance plateaus:
Temporarily reduce running volume by as much as 50% for the weight gain period
Perform hard strength training sessions at least three times per week at near-maximum effort (8 or 9 out of 10 effort by the end of each lifting exercise)
Increase daily calorie consumption with the goal of gaining 0.5 pound per week at most. These extra calories should come from whole, nutritious, unprocessed foods and with substantial emphasis on protein (aiming for 1.5g protein per pound body weight per day)
Maintain the new regimen for 6-12 weeks (including de-load weeks of reduced training stress)
Looking to learn more? Book a consultation to discuss the best option for you and determine a course of action specific to your situation.
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