http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/art...dio_coffin&cr=

Here's a Rachel Cosgrove article where she talks about this sort of thing.

I read the article -- very interesting -- but it doesn't fully make sense to me. I'm not an expert by any means, but I just don't see how doing only aerobic exercise makes you fat, or keeps you from losing weight. If you are burning more calories than you're taking in, then you lose. I mean, look at marathon runners, they are hardly fat! If the author didn't lose weight or gained while triathlon training, then somewhere, she was eating more than she thought, in my opinion. It's VERY easy to overestimate calories burned and very easy to underestimate calories eaten. I've fallen into that trap myself. If I go out and do a 12 mile run, I only burn maybe 1000 calories, because I'm pretty small and efficient at running. If I have a sports gel, one large bagel with cream cheese, a banana, and a gatorade (typical post-race fare), I've already eaten more than I burned.

I do think resistance training is very important and should be part of a balanced exercise program. Being strong is important, and it helps prevent injury. I think you have to eat enough protein to maintain and build muscle. But to blame cardio exercise for failure to lose weight -- I'm not buyin' it.

I lost my weight with running and calorie counting. I did do longer (8 to 12) mile runs and shorter (3 to 5) mile runs and continue to today.

I still count cals and run and find no major issue with loss or gain. Yes, I will have water retention gain or no loss with those biggies but not consistent gains or total lack of loss.

Good luck!

As her body became more efficient at exercise she burned fewer calories, and therefore was not in enough of a calorie deficit to lose weight. She over-fueled for weight loss. Same issue that many marathon runners face.

One need only look at top Ironman triathletes to see that training for long endurance events does not lead to fat. I'm sure it is a tricky balancing game though -- you need the right amount of quality fuel for training, but not so much as to gain weight because carrying excess body fat is going to slow you down.

I was just hopping on here to say the same thing. I hit a major fitness milestone recently with my average/max heart rate lowering significantly during my 3 mile runs. That means I'm burning less calories (up to 100 calories less per run) as I lose more weight and become more efficient at my running. But that also means that to continue losing weight, I have to either go for longer runs to burn more calories or reduce my calorie intake in general.

To the OP, I have lost the majority of my weight (22 lbs out of 30) and inches from running. But like I said, the more in shape I get and the more I improve my physical fitness, the harder I have to work to burn the same amount of calories that I was burning when I was very out of shape and just started running.

Of course, you're also able to go faster and longer than you were when you started running totally out of shape. (When three or four 10-minute miles feel pretty good, you're not going to be doing 2 miles of run 1 minute/walk 1 minute with 14-minute miles for the run portions.)

Seems like she's very big on interval training, and I probably don't do enough of that. (I'm not doing intervals when I have 17-20 miles to cover!)

Maybe returning to shorter runs at a higher intensity would work better for me re: weight loss. I agree with Cosgrove completely -- it's not a matter of calories in, calories out, if you're doing these long hard runs, writing down what you're eating, and not seeing results!

I can lose weight while running casually, for fun. I can NOT lose weight while training for a marathon or other serious athletic event, or while training with a competitive sporting team. I've just found that eating at loss levels doesn't allow me to have the energy I need to engage in that kind of training - when I've tried, I've ended up crashing halfway through practices.

I find it takes about 3 weeks of suffering through crappy workouts to adjust to the lower eating level. And the deficit has to stay small. And consistant, it only takes a few fully fueled runs for the body to rebel against the underfueled.

On the other hand if I CAN get myself back in to the mode where I am consistantly losing while training hard then when I do purposefully fuel before a major event I get a LOT of energy boost from that.

I've hear some people say that marathon runners are "skinny fat" Not true. I think Deanna Kastor is some ridiculously low body fat like 10%. And Kara Goucher is gorgeous. Gorgeous.

I have found it to be a tricky balancing act - fueling enough for good performance while not OVER-fueling. The other challenge is while seriously training for races, we go through the taper/race/recovery cycles - which means we run less but fuel just as much or more. This is why I gained a few pounds over running season even though I ran 5 half marathons in 5 months and a bunch of shorter races. If I had balanced my fueling better (and hit the post-race food table less), then I wouldn't have gained anything.

I had a much easier time losing that weight after race season was over, because I don't care so much about "optimum" performance, just making it thru the long runs, and my weekly mileage stays more consistent, so it's easier to find the balance.

And for those who say resistance training is where it's at -- I do resistance training and core training all of the time, in or out of race season. So it really still all comes down to calories in and calories out for me ....

For me the quality of calories rather than the number of calories is what really drives my performance. If I'm eating really clean, I find that my energy is sufficient for all of my training also if I make it a point to hydrate well at all times, training or not I don't crash and burn during hard runs. Running 10 miles after eating oreos for breakfast, not a good time.

I think the problem is as people get more efficient at whatever exercise they are doing (in this case running) they aren't adding enough intensity to up the calorie burn if weight loss is their main focus. I remember Jillian from the biggest loser once saying they were putting weighted backpacks on some people to increase the workload/calorie burn... of course the easier solution is to go faster or run intervals.

True one isn't going burn the same at 130 as 230, but as long as your challenging your system and carefully balancing and not over fueling most people can lose weight by running.

Anyway it works well in my case. I lost from 220 down to 185 last year while working with a calorie deficit and running as long as an hour and a half. The first half of my weightloss was from walking... obvious at 185 walking wasn't the same as at 300. At 300 walking was plenty hard. Trust me!

Yeah - a big part comes in the timing of the calories too. I try to use my starchy carbs (even whole grain ones give me blood sugar issues) specifically for meals that will either fuel a long run or recover from one and not so much on meals in between.