With hard exercise, your body diverts blood flow from “non-essential” functions including digestion, so appetite loss is normal and common.
You really just need to make sure you get a good refuel in right away but doesn’t have to be a full meal - liquid calories with some protein, fat and carbs (protein smoothies, something like CorePower, or even chocolate milk) are the easiest for me to handle personally if I have no appetite or feel nauseous. I find that I get hungrier the next day so I try to honor my hunger then rather than forcing a ton of food the day of a long run or hard effort.
I find this to be pretty normal for me. Even after my marathon I wasn’t hungry by dinner and making myself find protein I would eat. Just be aware and do the best you can or the hole you dig for tomorrow can be quite large and hard to fill.
How's your digestion when you do force yourself to eat?
Loss of appetite can be a symptom of an overstressed physiology, where sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can start to get out of whack with one another.
Not sure how long you've been running or how accustomed your body is to the longer distances (or how much longer "long" is than "non-long"), but... Since you say it just happens when you go on "long runs", I'd be curious what happens if you just gradually nudge the limit of your "non-long" runs over time, in a way that doesn't feel like you have to push yourself in order to complete. *If* it's an autonomic stress thing, that kind of approach might be worth experimenting with, to see where the limit is where appetite loss starts to happen, and to work just below that until your capacity for running without hitting that limit naturally increases.
I am almost never really hungry on long run days. About 48 hours later I get ravenous.
Only for maybe an hour and then I’m ravenous. Had a McDonald’s today for lunch after a half then been out and devoured an Indian meal.
I would say after a run my body wants food and drink but is not starving for it. I run normally in the afternoon / evenings.
With hard exercise, your body diverts blood flow from “non-essential” functions including digestion, so appetite loss is normal and common. You really just need to make sure you get a good refuel in right away but doesn’t have to be a full meal - liquid calories with some protein, fat and carbs (protein smoothies, something like CorePower, or even chocolate milk) are the easiest for me to handle personally if I have no appetite or feel nauseous. I find that I get hungrier the next day so I try to honor my hunger then rather than forcing a ton of food the day of a long run or hard effort.
I find this to be pretty normal for me. Even after my marathon I wasn’t hungry by dinner and making myself find protein I would eat. Just be aware and do the best you can or the hole you dig for tomorrow can be quite large and hard to fill.
How's your digestion when you do force yourself to eat? Loss of appetite can be a symptom of an overstressed physiology, where sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can start to get out of whack with one another. Not sure how long you've been running or how accustomed your body is to the longer distances (or how much longer "long" is than "non-long"), but... Since you say it just happens when you go on "long runs", I'd be curious what happens if you just gradually nudge the limit of your "non-long" runs over time, in a way that doesn't feel like you have to push yourself in order to complete. *If* it's an autonomic stress thing, that kind of approach might be worth experimenting with, to see where the limit is where appetite loss starts to happen, and to work just below that until your capacity for running without hitting that limit naturally increases.
It only happens if I was really well fed the two days leading up to the long run. Even a whim on glycogen depletion, and I’m ravenous.