How To Maintain Muscle Mass While Running Long Distances

00:00You have to be strength training. You're not going to build muscle through cardio. What's up, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkie Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. And here on this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodology, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkie Stott, and welcome you guys to episode number 32.

00:30Let's go. So the other day, this woman popped up in my DMs on Instagram, and she was like, I would love for you to bring an episode to the podcast that explains how to maintain muscle mass while running long distances. And I was like, amen, lady. Amen, babe. Appreciate you. I appreciate you guys to show up in my DMs telling me what y'all want to hear. Because guess what? I'm here to deliver that. I know that there's probably a plethora of other women listening to this podcast that run long distances,

01:05but also want to have an amazing physique and build muscle and change your body composition. So like, how do you maintain that mass while doing the activity that you enjoy doing? It's a great question. And that's what I'm going to elaborate on today. But first, back in episode number 10, I spoke about how strength training burns more calories than cardio. And I like, I broke it down, the science and the proof. This, in that episode, I talked about like, you're either doing one or the other, right?

01:39And your body adapts to the type of training that you're putting it through. Your body will adapt to strength training. Your body will adapt to cardio. They use different aspects of your body to burn the calories and to get different types of results, right? So today, I'm going to talk about how you can combine the both of them because you truly can. You can combine both strength training, both cardio, and you can still, the ultimate outcome here, it's not necessarily burning the calories. It's like you're looking for an ultimate result, right? You want to know how to maintain the muscle mass you have to your body and or build more of it.

02:13Also, while enjoying the things that you do enjoy, like running long distances. And you can do both, guys. It's just, it's literally science. And it's like, it's literally putting into action what I'm going to talk about today. So let's just get right into it. First and foremost, like in order to achieve that outcome, you have to be strength training. It is, and like point blank, I mean, it's like a basic, but like, I just want to drill that into your head. Like if you want to maintain muscle mass or build muscle mass, you have to be strength training. You're not going to build muscle through cardio, okay?

02:45And so, you know, it's an effective way to maintain muscle mass while you're running long distances. Strength training. And also too, like when you squat, when you deadlift, when you do leg exercises in your strength training routine, that's only going to help you to do better in your runs, okay? So, you know, we know that running is a form of cardiovascular exercise.

03:15It primarily burns calories and fat. But like I just mentioned, it doesn't build muscle mass, okay? Like cardio is a form of activity, really good for your heart, really good for cardiovascular health and your overall health. But it doesn't build muscle. You're not going to build better arms and better shoulders by running cardio, by doing cardio. Like first and foremost, like I just want to drill that at home because I literally thought that at the beginning of my journey.

03:46I'm like, the more cardio I do, the more toned I'm going to be. Guys, it doesn't, like it doesn't get you those results that you want with changing your body composition and building more muscle. Because in order to change your body composition, you had to build more muscle. In order to be toned, you had to build more muscle, okay? So to preserve muscle mass, meaning to hold on. Let's say that you've done the years of strength training. You've done the work and you built some muscle, right? Now you're getting in and you want to. I'm going to talk about how if you're not there yet, how to do both.

04:16But let's say you've done the years and you put on some muscle. Now you're wanting to get into long distance running. So in order to preserve and hold on to it, you have to incorporate resistance, training, exercise, a challenge of muscles to grow stronger and bigger and just to maintain what you've already built. But you can do both. Like I said at the beginning of the podcast, you can build muscle. You can run long distances. But like it literally comes down to like what you're eating. And I'm going to get to that in a little bit here. But even the basics of you got to get enough protein.

04:47So you got to eat your body weight and protein maybe a little bit more depending on how much you are running. It's very unique. Like how long are your long runs? Like are we doing marathons? Are we doing eight miles? Are we doing 18 miles? Like that could make a totally significant difference in the type of intake of food that you are taking in on a daily basis. It's very individual. But you want to make sure you're eating enough protein. Point blank. Okay. No matter what. Protein is king. Protein is going to help you to preserve that lean muscle. It's going to help you from not tapping into while you're doing all these long distance runs.

05:19So you want to make sure that you're getting at least your body weight in grams of protein per day. So for example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you want to be eating 150 grams of protein per day. And then another basic. Like you just want to make sure that you're incorporating enough rest from your long runs, your strength training. You got to make sure that you're incorporating at least like six to eight hours of sleep a night. Like I talked about that in an earlier podcast, how important sleep is when you're wanting to build muscle, maintain muscle, change your body composition. It's so important. You guys, you have to get enough rest.

05:50You can't just be someone who's training six to seven days a week and expect to have the optimal results that you want to have. It's not going to happen. You got to incorporate rest. You got to take rest time. You got to take it. And like you're doing your body a service by taking that rest. You're going to get more results by taking that rest. Those are just some of the basics, right? You got to strength train. You got to eat enough protein. You got to get enough rest. But this one I want to really, really drill home before I dive into like the tactics of what you can do on a daily basis with what you're eating and how you're eating and the timeline that you're eating.

06:22And like I want to dive into that so that you can feel you can see the immediate effects of like making sure that you're fueled up properly for your long run, that you're maintaining your muscle mass during your long run. I'm going to get into those tactics. But really quick, I want to just drill this home. There are so many women out there that, again, think that cardio is the way, think that running long distances is the way that's going to achieve a result. And then on top of that, a lot of people aren't because they're just not aware of this yet. They're not eating enough. They're not eating enough to fuel that type of exercise. I mean, if you guys want to know how more aware of the food that you may be eating on a daily basis and see how much you truly are not eating, yet you're doing all of these ridiculous runs and long distance runs.

07:05Log your food to MyFitnessPal for literally seven days on top of you doing your long distance runs and see how much you really are consuming. I guarantee you're not eating enough because it's challenging to have to support the nutrition that you need to have in order to support these long distance runs. You need to avoid calorie deficits here. I just want to just let that sink in for a second. People think that I'm going to go do long distance runs, but I want to lean up and tone up.

07:38So I know people think in order to do that, you have to be in a calorie deficit. And while, yes, you do, a lot of people that are in calorie deficits going towards that goal aren't incorporating long distance runs. So if you are incorporating long distance runs and you still want to tone up, dude, you are already naturally putting yourself in a calorie deficit by doing those long distance runs. So please avoid being in a calorie deficit. Avoid being in like a cut phase or a fat loss phase when you're doing long distance runs. Please, please, for the sake of me sharing this information to you on this podcast, if you are a long distance runner.

08:12And like I'm imagining I'm just speaking right to this individual that asked me this question because it could be that she's not eating enough. Maybe she is. It's awesome. But somebody else out there may not be eating enough. They may be in a caloric deficit. Dude, running long distances puts your body in a caloric deficit, which means that the body is burning more calories than it's consuming. Okay. And so if that is the case, which is probably the majority of people that are doing long distance runs aren't paying attention and really putting in the effort and the work that is required to eat a lot when you're doing this.

08:43Because eating a lot is challenging. Nutrition is like it's challenging, guys. Right. Like knowing how much and what to eat is challenging. And like I said earlier, it's very individual to the person. So I can't be like here on this podcast being like, oh, you're running 16 miles a couple days a week. This is what your nutrition needs to look like. This is where I recommend getting a coach. We talk about this inside of our Warrior Bay Blueprint program. This is literally a module that I'm taking today and sharing it with you on this podcast. Okay. So if you're doing a caloric deficit and you're running long distances, this can cause a body to turn to its own muscle tissue as a source of energy.

09:28Okay. Leading to muscle breakdown, leading to the loss of muscle mass, which is counterproductive to the results that you want to see. Right. So think about like the people that do run long distances. Think about how like they look fit, but like they're frail. Right. They look in shape. They have their state look defined. Right. But like they could have more muscle mass to their body if they ate in alignment with that activity. So to maintain muscle mass while running long distances, it is important to avoid calorie deficits and to give your body enough energy to support your training and recovery needs.

10:07So what I tell women to do when they're in this phase or what I tell women to be in the phase of when they're doing these activities is maintenance or even like a little bit of a lean bulk. Dude, so like this is talking about depending on where you're at in your journey. This is just an example. I'll put it towards me. If I was to be running and this could be an extreme, but like if I was to be running long distances while strength training, I'm going to be at like 2,600 calories in a day.

10:38Maybe even pushing 28 to 3,000. Okay. So like and for maybe like some people I can think of in the warrior baby community that I've coached or that women have coached you. Some people are probably sitting around like 22, 24. They're doing like 100 calories that are doing long distance runs. And guys, it's it takes work to get in that many calories in a day. So I know that a lot of people are without recognizing how important their nutrition is when it comes to doing this type of thing that you want to do with maintaining muscle mass and running long distances.

11:09I know the majority of you guys are probably in calorie deficits and not eating enough. And so therefore, you're not maintaining the muscle mass, you're not getting the results that you want to see because your nutrition isn't where it needs to be. So that's kind of what I want to dive into in terms of the tactics. Like I want to share the tactics, like I said, to help you feel and to see the immediate effects of making sure that you're fueled up properly, that you're doing the right things, that you're eating the right things, and that you're maintaining your muscle mass during this. Like if you take what I'm about to share with you and you start implementing it, again, it's very individual.

11:42So if you want a little bit more handholding here, definitely check out Warrior Babe. Check out VIP, one-on-one coaching, or Blueprint, which gives you this module and you can have our coaches on the back end. But if you want more of, you know, that individualized touch, that's where you're going to get it from. Because here, like I'm going to share some tactics that I would recommend, you know, people that like just like you, that may be doing long distance running, that you need to have some idea. And then you can put these to test for yourself and to see what kind of results they're coming that you're getting from this type of advice.

12:13So a rule of thumb, let's just dive into it. The rule of thumb, like in terms of tactics, when you're doing like three, over three hours of activity, let's say you have a really long, like you're doing a half marathon or you're training for a full marathon. And like your training days consist of, you know, three plus hours of activity. And like you're, so you're spending three plus hours of activity doing this out, doing this cardio, doing this long distance run.

12:43So personally, the recommendation that I would have for you is that this day would be like, like a refuel, like I call it like a cheat meal or a refeed day where like, you're eating like 70 more carbs to your full day. And you're eating like 15 more fats to your full day. Your protein stays the same no matter what. Right. So you're just giving yourself a refuel day because, you know, you want to, you have to maintain in order to maintain muscle mass.

13:14You have to be eating around the same levels of what you're burning in a day or even a little bit more if you want to build. OK, so that would be my rule of thumb of like your long distance or really long distances. A rule of thumb for like every 50 plus minutes of activity doing long distance runs. So if you're outside for like less than three hours, but more than like 50 minutes, then for like every hour that you're outside doing a particular activity, I want you to refuel your body with like 25 extra grams of carbohydrates.

13:48So, for example, if you're doing one hour of activity that's doing the long distance running for every hour that you're doing that, add 25 grams of carbohydrates to your overall day. So two hours, 50 grams of carbs. Right. Three hours, like I just mentioned, the three hour activity, 75 grams of carbs, 70, 75 grams of carbs. Guys, this is so freaking important for you to understand. Like these are tactics that if you implement this, I promise you, you're going to have more fuel during your run.

14:20You're going to have more fuel for your lifting sessions. You're going to have more results within your body composition that you weren't getting if you weren't focusing primarily on the nutrition piece. It's easy to strength train. It's easy to set a training program up weekly that supports both. Right. You do four days of strength training and then you factor in your runs like two or three days. Some of them will consist of falling on the same days of strength training and and and running.

14:50But you definitely make sure you have rest days in there, too, as well. And a lot of people hire like marathon training coaches for this if you're doing long distance running. But like this is something that I would recommend, have recommended for women inside of our programs and women that I've coached. I've coached women that have ran marathons and I have helped them get ready for that marathon. And these are the exact strategies that I've done it. So those are some rules of thumb for like, again, 50 plus minutes. If you're spending an hour, you know, you're tacking on 25 grams of carbs per every hour that you're doing. And then anywhere of like super long runs, you know, it's a very intense long distance.

15:28Then like you're you're focusing on like a refeed or refuel day or like a cheap meal or like, you know, adding in the fats and the carbs that I recommended. Hey, hey, just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it and there's so much more to come with it. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons. And also it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages, too. Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show. Now, I want to speak to like the placement of those carbs, right?

16:00So you're adding in carbs throughout your day, whether you're doing the cheat meal or the refeed or you're doing you're just attacking on these every hour for what you're doing for that day. Like, you know, going into your day, what your run is going to look like. You have an idea of how many hours you're going to be spending doing that type of run, how many how long the distance is and how long that takes you. You should be pretty much aware of that. So with the carbohydrates, what I would recommend to do is either distribute them throughout your entire day worth of meals or place them in the meals around your activity.

16:32And even so much, if you're doing those long distance runs that you're out there for more than three hours, you have like little snacks with you, like little gooey like packets. Like I see marathon runners squeeze those things in the mouth that they got like any type of immediate type of sugar candy. You know, not the best choice, but it works for the glucose and restoring that and making sure you have enough energy to fulfill the longevity of your run. But so for the placement of carbs, like I said, you're going to distribute them either throughout your entire day worth of meals or you're going to place them around your activities.

17:08So let's say it's a strength training day and a run day. Then I would just distribute the carbs throughout all of your meals for the whole day so that you have enough energy to sustain for the whole day. But let's say you're just doing your run, then I would place the carbs around your run as many carbs before as many carbs after. So therefore, you're giving your fuel, your body the fuel that it needs prior to your run. And then you're rejuvenating your body with the fuel afterwards coming from this carbohydrates.

17:38So these are some tactics for you guys that I would recommend, you know, in order to maintain muscle mass. And in order to do long distance runs that you want to do, you know, I know you guys, there's people that love to run and you can do both. But do like the most important part that you're going to need to focus on when doing this and when working towards this goal or like incorporating what you love to do so much into your and not giving it up is nutrition. Like you have to be eating enough to fuel for this exercise and also to maintain the muscle mass.

18:14Your muscle mass is active tissue. It's always running. It's always active. It needs energy to sustain. If you're doing these long distance running, you're not giving your body that energy to make it sustain, to make it sustain, then you're going to tap into it and you're going to start using that muscle tissue as a source of energy to get through your long runs. And therefore, that could be the result of why you're not seeing the results you want with having like a full muscular body or toned body while you're doing this exercise.

18:49So, again, you can do both, my friends. You can totally do both. It just comes down to, again, this is very individual. So it's very individual to the person. How much are you running? What does your running schedule look like on a weekly basis? Man, I remember I worked with a client. She was training for a half marathon. And I had her getting ready almost eight, ten weeks before. And every week was increasing different miles. It's like five miles and six miles. And then it was like six, eight, three, right?

19:20So it was like, what does that look like for you? And then you want to make sure that you're incorporating the strength training in with those run days. So, and you want to like, you know, obviously, here's another pointer. It's like you're not going to put a leg day around your one of your long runs because you're going to feel so fatigued with that. And you're going to be so sore running with the running in your long distance run when you're just had a leg day before. So that's the way that I would structure it. Like I would think about, okay, I'm training four days a week.

19:51This is what my training schedule looks like. Strategically put the muscle groups in alignment with like, where are your long distance run? Put legs earlier. Maybe do shoulders a day before a long distance run. You know, it comes down to finagling that. Um, and then just using those tactics that I said, like, uh, adding in a refeed day so that you're eating at the same amount that you're burning in a day. That's the way you're going to maintain that muscle mass, guys. So it's really important. Like if I can't drill at home enough, you got to avoid calorie deficits while being a long distance runner and wanting to maintain muscle mass because you're naturally putting your body into a caloric deficit.

20:29So make sure you're eating at a maintenance threshold for yourself, whatever your maintenance, uh, calories and macros will be. And they are following through on that on a daily basis. And I promise you, you're going to be able to maintain that muscle mass and you're going to be able to enjoy your, your long distance runs. All right, guys. So I hope that helps. You know, that was a really, really good question that I got asked. Um, any other questions that you guys have, please DM. Like I am so active on Instagram at Nikki Stott. And I'm so happy to hear what you guys want to learn here on this podcast.

20:59Cause I will for sure bring it to you. If it's an alignment with what I know all of you guys are going to, um, all of you guys are going to, you know, gain knowledge from. So, all right, y'all hope you enjoyed it. And I'll see you in the next podcast. Peace. Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask for you to do is if you could leave a review, it will take you 10 seconds and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

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