General Fitness & Nutrition: What should I be eating in general?

There is lots of info on other thread on this site, however you seem to have somewhat of a very similar diet to me. I'm not a big carnavor at all, I mainly have about 2-3 servings of meat per week, usually chicken or very small amount of meat. I mainly eat a lot of beans and leafy veggies and carbs. I used to eat a lot of tofu until my GF got me off of that because of GMO's. The little amount of protein that I do eat seems to be plenty good for me. I also go vegan for a couple of months a year, just for kicks (I know I have problems, but sometimes I have moral and mental issues eating meat). I have continued to get faster and stronger with no muscle "development" issues, even during my vegan periods. I roughly look at the calories I burn up in a week and figure what my average daily burn is plus 2500, and look at what I consume on a typical day. If my daily consumption is higher then that I adjust my intake. I hate counting cal's so I do this about once a week. I generally know when I've gone over my limit. The 2500 is based off of the fact I think my metabolism is about that, I've been running about 50 miles a week. Personally I only avoid fats, I eat lots of carbs, that's your energy for your running, and I don't eat big meals (if I do it's lunch) and have small snacks when I'm hungry. Leading up to the race make sure not to eat to much during your taper, your metabolism stays the same but the calories your burn go down. And I would have no reservations eating mainly carbs in the week to two weeks prior to the half. I've heard of skinny people "fat" loading prior to half and full marathon distances, but I've got enough of that on me to burn I don't need to build that up ;) Good luck, John

personally, if you are marathon training, then your goal entails the marathon.  what I mean is you should NOT be focusing on losign weight or employing a calorie deficient diet.  I've been guilty before of trying to reach 2 goals simultaneously, and i get a little closer to each, but if i focus on ONE goal then I attain much more gains.  Being calorie deficient in your food intake is obv the best (if not only) way to lose weight, but my BEST runs occured when I was consuming MORE or AT LEAST ENOUGH calories.  Specifically carbs.  A general rule of thumb is avoid sat fats and sugars(except for post training)  but NEVER EVER consume sat fats and sugars at the same time. If youre dedicated enough to lose that much weight then you can do this

 

Other than that:

double up on vitamins (equate brand at wal-mart are cheap and basically centrum)

figure how many calories you burn a day (try) and add in calories for exercise and EAT that amount or around

SLEEP

Read alot of marathon articles, not all are super helpful but it will get you very motivated and excited

 

wow, that is a pretty broad question lol. I think you will get a lot of different answers from different people. I will give you the general guidelines I would go by if my diet wasn't a mess (Taco Bell at least 3x a week, pop every day, blah blah blah)

In order to lose weight, you eat less calories than you burn...simple. Your body uses X amount of calories just to keep you alive every day, for you I would guess that is somewhere between 1800 and 2200 (I am just going off of what I know from your post). On top of that when you run or do anything else you burn calories, the intensity and duration of the exercise determines how many calories you burn. Its like this

If calories consumed > basal metabolic caloric expenditure + calories used during exercise you gain weight.

If calories consumed < basal metabolic caloric expenditure + calories used during exercise you lose weight. 

People will tell you that you need to eat [insert food here] in order to lose weight...thats not true, unless said food boosts your metabolic rate, which most foods without caffeine do not. Taking in caffeine to lose weight is a whole different debate...I won't go into it

Of course, what I have described above is the watered down version of weight gain/loss...so if there are any dietitians on the forums, don't call me out for leaving out some mundane detail. 

Carb intake vs protein intake? Well that really depends (like everything else, lol). Naturally if you are carbo loading for something, then you want a lot more carbs, but carbo loading is only used for special occasions. So what to eat the rest of the time? Well, I've read in a few running related nutritional books that distance runners need one gram of protein (others say .8 grams...I am going on the more protein side, since protein itself isn't bad) for every kilogram of body weight they have. This is probably much more protein than you (or most other runners) probably consume. The reasoning behind this is that when you run or strength train or kickbox or anything else you are actually tearing down your muscle fibers. When your body rebuilds these fibers, they become stronger. However, without the amino acids that protein provides, then your body is unable to effectively rebuild the muscles. I'd tend to agree with bhbrtn's 60/20/20 suggestion. As you get closer to race day, perhaps up carbs to around 70 and then lower protein and fat by 5% apiece. 

As far as eating little and often, I tend to agree with those who say that you should eat little and often. The reasoning behind this is that when you eat, your body must use energy (calories) to digest that food, which in turns aids weight loss and also that if you "starve" yourself by waiting for long periods in between meals, then your body goes into survival mode and slows your metabolism down, which causes less natural calorie burn which obviously inhibits weight loss. I find myself eating something at least every two hours, unless I am gearing up to go for a run, then I give myself a little more time. 

I will echo what ianianian said. It is probably a bad idea to try to lose weight and to try and perform your body at the same time. However, by this I mean, if you are gearing up for a half marathon, then do not try and cut your weight during a period when you are doing quality workout sessions (tempo runs, intervals, reps, etc) - your body needs all of the energy it can get to recover from these taxing workouts. However, if you are just running easy mileage, then it is okay to combine cutting weight and trying to gain fitness. Since you just run easily, your body does not need as much to recover from your runs. But it is still important to eat an adequate amount in order to give your body at least a minimal amount of nutrients. 

thats a lot of typing, haha