When I only lifted my diet was clean.
Whole foods. High protein. Low fat. Moderate carbs. I tracked my calories and my protein religiously.
Carbs I never really paid attention to I figured I didn't need them.
The diet worked. I made progress and I felt good.
Then I added running.
And something felt off. Not dramatically wrong. Just flat. Lifting sessions that used to feel strong started feeling heavy. Runs felt harder than they should.
Recovery between sessions was slower. I was doing everything right in my training but my body felt like it was running on empty.
I wasn't unfit. I was underfueled.
I had updated my training for two sports but my nutrition was still built for one. Running burns through carbohydrates.
Combined with lifting your body needs much more fuel than it did before.
But I was still eating like a lifter so high protein, low carbs, low fat. Exactly the wrong setup for what I was now asking my body to do.
The fix was simple once I saw it.
Add carbs. Specifically on the days I was running. The flat feeling disappeared within days.
This taught me something every lifter adding running needs to understand:
You are now doing two sports. Your nutrition needs to reflect that.
If you don't update your fuel your body will keep telling you something is wrong and you'll keep blaming your fitness.
Three things to change in your nutrition this week:
Aim for 3 to 5 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of bodyweight per day. For most people that means getting above 300 grams of carbs daily. That number will feel high if you've been avoiding carbs. It shouldn't. Carbs are fuel and you are now burning significantly more of it.
Drink at least 2 to 3 litres of water per day. Most recovery problems that feel like a training problem are actually a hydration problem. Get a 1 liter bottle and finish it three times a day minimum.
Keep your protein high and stop worrying about fat. You are training more than you ever have. Staying lean becomes easier not harder when you add running. Eat more calories, keep protein high, let the extra training do its job. You don't need to be in a deficit to stay lean anymore ,you need to be fueled enough to train well in both
The flat feeling isn't a fitness problem. It's a fuel problem.
One more email to go.
It's not about programming or nutrition or scheduling. It's about who you're becoming by doing all of this and why that matters more than any single session.
Talk soon,
Paco
PS: You can't out-train bad fuel. But you also don't need to eat perfectly. You just need to eat enough.