4 Ways to Reach Your Ideal Racing Weight
There is an important relationship between body weight, body composition and running performance. Runners perform best when they are light and lean. While runners tend to be lighter and leaner than non-runners, most runners are at least a few pounds above their optimal racing weight.
Runners struggle to achieve their optimal racing weight for the same reason non-runners struggle to achieve a healthy weight: their appetite is being subverted and sabotaged by our modern “food environment.” The human appetite was not designed to deal with the super-calorie-dense foods we live on today, nor the incredible abundance of cheap food that is both a blessing and a curse of our time.
To reach your optimal racing weight, you must practice effective means of combating these appetite-subverting factors of the modern food environment. Here are four appetite management methods that will enable you to prevent a rumbling stomach from sabotaging your efforts to reach and maintain your optimal racing weight.
Eat a Big Breakfast
Research shows that individuals who eat the most calories before noon actually eat the fewest total calories over the course of the day. It seems that eating a hearty breakfast reduces appetite in the afternoon and evening. In a recent Brazilian study, obese women who ate a large, 610-calorie breakfast every morning lost 21 percent of their body weight over an eight-month period, while obese women on a low-carb small breakfast diet lost only 4.5 percent of their body weight. The women on the big breakfast diet reported less hunger and fewer cravings throughout the day.
As a general rule, try to consume eat least 25 percent of your total calories for the day within an hour of waking up.
Eat Often
Naturally, the longer you go without eating, the hungrier you become. Eating frequently throughout the day is an effective way to prevent your hunger from becoming extreme. Of course, while eating frequently will certainly control your appetite, it will not help you manage your body weight if you end up eating more. However, scientific evidence suggests that people naturally tend to eat less when they eat often.
For example, in a 1999 study by South African researchers, a group of obese men were given 33 percent of their normal daily caloric intake on two occasions: once as a single meal and once as six small snacks eaten at hourly intervals. Five and a half hours after the initial feeding, the men were then allowed to sit down and eat as much as they chose. They consumed 27 percent fewer calories in that meal, on average, after having eaten the six small snacks.
A sensible eating schedule for most athletes that will keep your appetite in check and reduce total eating is as follows:
7:00 AM — Breakfast
10:00 AM — Snack
12:00 PM — Lunch
3:00 PM — Snack
6:00 PM — Dinner
8:30 PM — Snack (optional)
Eat High-Satiety Foods
Some foods provide more satiety per calorie than others. Foods that provide the most satiety per calorie are those with large amounts of specific nutrients known to activate the body’s hunger control signal more effectively than most other nutrients. These “high-satiety” nutrients include fiber, certain proteins, long-chain fatty acids and possibly calcium.
By including plenty of foods that contain these nutrients in your diet, you will be able to keep your appetite satisfied throughout the day with fewer total calories. Good sources of fiber include fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Among the most satisfying proteins are dairy proteins. Dairy products are also great sources of calcium. Among the riches sources of long-chain fatty acids macadamia nuts, almonds, peanuts, olive oil, flaxseed oil and other cold-pressed oils.
The best way to include these foods in your diet for appetite management is in the form of small (150 or fewer calories) pre-meal appetizers consumed 10 minutes before lunch or supper. Good examples are a light, broth-based soup, a garden salad, and whole-wheat crackers with cheese. Research has shown that such appetizers reduce eating in the subsequent meal by as much as 20 percent.
Resist Social Pressure to Gorge
Over the past 30 years, the number of calories in the average American’s diet has increased significantly. This increase is widely believed to have come from increases in portion sizes in restaurant menu items and packaged foods that resulted from substantial decreases in the cost of producing food and competition among food businesses. The combination of this influence and the constant deluge of commercial advertising for food has essentially inflated our appetites–or created a breach between our physical and social appetites for food.
Researchers such as consumer psychologist Brian Wansink of Cornell University have found that the amount of food we consume is strongly influenced by the accessibility of food, how much food is put in front of us, and social pressure to eat more, including the pressure of commercial advertising. A perfect example of the latter influence is Taco Bell’s invention of “fourth meal,” a late night meal of fast food that the television viewer is encouraged to add to his or her daily eating routine.
To reduce the effects of food overabundance on your eating, experts generally recommend that individuals train themselves to pay better attention to the physical signs of appetite, hunger and fullness. The goal is to eat only when physically hungry and, when eating, to eat only until comfortably satisfied, never stuffed. As you get a better sense of how much food you really need to satisfy your physical appetite, you can also train yourself to purchase, prepare, serve and order smaller portions that meet this standard without exceeding it.
Source: Matt Fitzgerald For Active.com
