Metabolic Efficiency for Weight Loss: A Transformation Story

During my time in Miami, I had the pleasure of meeting many amazing athletes from around the world. One who always stood out due to her awesome height and adorable German accent was Gladys. She had some pretty big goals for triathlons, but at the time seemed stuck in a rut {waves hand that sounds familiar!!}.

In the last 9 months, I’ve watched her change physically and grow mentally stronger due to making some sports nutrition changes, which as you know is currently a topic of interest around here…so here is her story.

Active and Overweight

Since I am 6 years old, I have been a very active person, including being an elite swimmer for Eastern Germany. Sure, I took a few breaks from swimming to try other things like ballroom dancing, underwater rugby and running, but I was always active.

Even though I was consistently working out, I struggled badly with my weight.

Moving to the USA 8 years ago did not help! I kept running, even started with triathlons and trained and finished two 70.3 distances (1.2mi swim, 56mi bike and 13.1mi run) last year – but I kept gaining.

I became an unhappy person, and unhappy athlete.

It seemed no matter what I did (diets, workout styles, etc) – nothing changed.

I became worried about achieving my major goal: to complete an Ironman distance triathlon (2.4mi swim, 122mi bike, 26.2mi run) in October of 2014. I knew I needed a change, but what was left?

Working out and still not losing the weight? Read this Click To Tweet

Metabolic Efficiency

In November 2013, I was introduced to my “nutritionist.” I put the term in quotation marks because technically Javiar Diaz is a doctor of Pharmacy with a specialty in metabolic efficiency training, but that’s above my pay grade!

Basically, he helps endurance athletes to succeed with their dreams by training smart and living healthy to get the best possible performance out of their body.

He calls it “metabolic efficiency” — increasing utilization of my own internal body fat for max performance without hitting the wall.

“What puzzles me as a coach and sport nutritionist is that athletes do not put in half as much effort planning their nutrition as they do constructing their training plan.”
– Bob Seebohar

A lot of endurance athletes have metabolic stress, which is found between the gut, immune system and brain. It appears as disrupted sleep, hitting the wall, GI distress, getting sick before races and poor concentration. {How digestion impacts health}

Nevertheless, my goal was weight loss, and I cared less about his “metabolic efficiency”. But I was ready to listen and over the next 6-7 month I made these changes:

• Good Bye to sugar!!!!!! This was hard since I’m a professed sugar addict.
• Good Bye to most of the nutrition products offered in stores in terms of gels, cubes, bars.
  {How to fuel your runs with whole foods}
• Relearning about carbs as a fuel source by eliminating all grains (until training increased and then oats, brown rice, quinoa)
• Adding in vegetable and fruit carbohydrates all the time
• Cooking from scratch
• Prepping meals
• Learning to snack the right way – for hunger, not boredom and on nuts/fruits
• Meals became healthy fuel for my body and not because I was bored. (I never was an overeater but if something tastes good who can resist!!).
• Building a stronger aerobic base that would burn more fat {Low Heart Rate Training details!}
  

Committed Results

I lost 40lbs.

My runs are now sub 10min/mile, which was a goal I’d been chasing for years. My 5k time dropped from 37min to 27 min and I completed a 16 mile training run in the same time as I did 13.1miles a year ago.

Most of all, I became a happier and healthier person.

Of course not all went or is going perfectly. There are always setbacks.

I was diagnosed with a chronic long-term knee damage due to an accident/injury I had 18yrs ago.
I still have cravings, but less than before, and sometimes I lose my mojo and wonder why I do all this??

But then I realize, my knee would probably feel much worse if I wouldn’t have lost the 40lbs.

Cravings will always be there, but I learned in a good way to deal with them.

And my mojo… well that’s why you have friends (IRUN, Wolfpack, Aliens and all my other crazy athlete friends). They are the one’s who continually encourage you, who keep telling you just to suck it up and who always remind you of the bigger picture – a healthy and happy life, and a successful race !!!

Without them, this journey would be much harder.

Thank you to my beautiful friend for sharing her story!! I hope that it helped you in some way to see that change is possible, sometimes you just gotta suck it up and we all need friends who support our goals!

Why is metabolic efficiency important?

For runners, it’s always in the best of our interest to be better fat-burners. Simplified: you burn what you eat. Everything we put into our body, we have to burn off. So teaching our body to use fat as fuel will give us more energy, improve body composition, give you more endurance.

“A runner who can rely more on their fat stores for energy will:

• Reduce their risk of GI distress, because they need not eat so much and not as early in an effort; and,
• Carry less food weight during training sessions and races that are longer than 2-3 hours.” – Andrew Skurka

Most importantly, once your body starts burning fat for energy use, you will notice a huge change in how you feel!

Is there an area where you need to “suck it up” to make a change?  Start now with the little changes and you will see a difference soon.

Do you have a supportive crew? Surround yourself with positive people who will build you up in the best way.

Other ways to connect with Amanda
Instagram Daily Fun: RunToTheFinish

Facebook Community Chatter: RunToTheFinish

Get more running tips: Pinterest

Get new posts via BlogLovin