Depressing news flash:

You can run 20 miles a week and STILL gain weight!

It seems hard to believe that you can expend 1800-2000 calories a week running (and a pile more walking dogs for 1-2 hours 7 days a week!) and gain weight, but it is possible.

The scale, she don't lie.

When I first started running a year ago, I wanted to lose some weight--11.3 pounds, to be exact. I took a measured approach, trying to maximize the quality of my food rather than obsessively counting calories. I still allowed myself some decadence, but I even got pickier about my junk food--only the best stuff was good enough to cheat with. Two spoonfuls of Ben and Jerry's ice cream was more satisfying than a big bowl of some cut-rate brand full of corn syrup and ick. If I was going to have a little chocolate, Hershey's was totally unacceptable. If I needed a chocolate cookie, I had to have a Petit Ecolier or a TLC dark chocolate oatmeal cookie. "Only the best food, even if it's junk food" was my new mantra.

And the weight came off--not quickly, and not at all until I'd been running for almost 3 weeks, but it did come off: two ounces here, a half-pound there, like drips from a melting icicle, until the magic day when I hit my weight-loss goal.

It took me 139 days to lose 11.3 pounds. That comes out to a little less than a tenth of a pound per day, on average.

Since then, I consider my goal weight to be the upper limit and am happiest at a pound or two below that line. I was a little above it after my trip to Germany, but the weight came off again within a week of my return.

Things went along swimmingly until a week or two ago. I had noticed a few times when I seemed to be toeing the line, but I wrote it off as "retaining water" or "overindulged a little yesterday" or "I'm up and down all the time, it'll come right back off." And then I was .2 above, .8 above, and yesterday, a full pound above the maximum I want to weigh.

Time to stop being sloppy and pull myself together. I need to go back to the habits that helped me be successful before:

• Get on the scale every morning. Not once a week or whenever I feel like it.
• Focus on quality. Try and include a fruit and/or vegetable as part of every meal or snack. And if you're going to have junk food, make it really high-quality junk food.
  
• Pay attention to portions. As a runner, you tend to think, "I need fuel. I'll just go ahead and have that snack/finish these last few bites." I think this point has been my downfall more than anything else.

Between your pre-run meal, the pre-run snack, mid-run fueling (gels, 100 calories each), and post-run recovery snack and meal, it is waaaay too easy to take in more calories than you expended on the run! Just to give you an example, on Thursday I ran 6 miles. I expended about 550-600 calories to cover those 6 miles. However, before I set out on the run, I had half a Clif bar--125 calories. Then after 3 miles, I had a gel (100 calories). At the end of the run, I ate the other half of the Clif bar (125 calories). That's 350 calories right there! So I only created a 200-calorie deficit with that run....not that impressive. And then if you go have a huge meal when you're done, you probably erase the deficit entirely.

This is a good thing to keep in mind during this month's high-mileage weeks.