I'm going to talk about how to donate your "big clothes" to charity.

Running burns calories like few other sports. While the stats are dependent on a number of factors including a runner's weight, speed and altitude, here is a basic formula. Take your weight and multiple it by .75 in pounds to find out how many calories you burn each and every mile (thanks, Runner's World).

So if you're a 170lb runner, you burn about 127 calories a mile. Multiple that for a pre-Marathon 5-mile training run, and you're burning over 600 calories on each of your training runs for the big race. Wow! This means if you're currently wearing your "Big Clothes", keep your routine up and pretty soon you'll be sizing down and getting race-ready. So you have a little context, each pound of fat has about 3,500 calories.

Let me tell you my story.

A few years ago (before I was a runner),  I had ballooned up to 209lbs on my 5'11'' frame. I didn't have much muscle to blame it on. I was just well, overweight. I was wearing my "big clothes". My size large shirts were pulling at the sides when I tried to tuck them in. My 36'' jeans felt uncomfortable as I sucked in to button up. I wasn't obese, but I knew I needed to lose weight. Luckily, two things happened that dramatically changed my figure.

1. Life Event First, I had to have double jaw surgery to address chronic pain that I had been suffering from for years. As part of the recovery I had to limit my diet to liquid-only foods. Despite my best attempt to keep my calories up (milk shakes, fruit and protein mixes), my weight started to drop into the sub-200 lb range within a few weeks. This, combined with making smarter food choices, started me on my path towards my prime weight.
2. Running What really made the difference for me, and took a temporary drop in weight and made it permanent, was running. I talk about how I "discovered" running in this post, but basically just fell into it as I healed from jaw surgery. By slowly increasing the distance and frequency of runs, I started to make a major dent in my weight. First losing five pounds... ten pounds... and later twenty pounds. I was finally moving closer to my target weight and was the fittest I'd been in over a decade.

How did I celebrate? I went through my closet and drawers, and pulled out my "big clothes", the same shirts, shorts and pants that were pulling at my frame just a year before.. After I had a sizable pile, I delivered the clothes to a local Goodwill. On the same trip I even picked up a few new shirts and shorts as I felt proud to wear sizes I hadn't fit into in years.

If you are struggling with your weight, I hope you can find a path towards your target weight and eventually, to getting rid of your "big clothes".