Women often start running because they want to lose weight. If the weight doesn’t come off as quickly as they’d like they often start dieting. This is a dangerous practice. Your body needs a certain amount of fat to simply survive. In women this amount, called essential fat, is 4% of your total body weight.
Your body also has 6-15% of storage fat. This is the fat you can put on or take off depending on your activity level and diet. Women also have sex-specific fat, which makes up 9-16% of their body weight. Sex-specific fat is stored in your pelvis, breasts, hips and thighs. It’s needed for normal reproductive functions.
When women start exercising to lose weight and then begin dieting to lose weight even faster, they can sometimes get caught up in a dangerous cycle of under-eating. It takes a lot of energy (fuel) to run four or five times a week, or to race on occasion.
If you’re restricting your food intake while you’re working out regularly, you’ll eventually begin to lose fat that you don’t want to lose, the sex-specific fat. If you’re depriving yourself of foods simply to lose weight faster, or if you think you’ll run even better if you’re thinner, you’re making a mistake.
Think of your body as a car. Cars don’t run without the proper fuel. If the gas in your car is a low-grade fuel that isn’t the proper type for the engine, the car won’t run right. Your body is the same. Keep it fueled with the right type and amounts of food (50-60% carbohydrates, 15-20% fat, 10-20% protein) and you’ll run strong for a long, long time!
