Jay’s Story
This article details an interview with Run Free Training’s Jay Stephenson. Jay co-founded Run Free in 2019 with Ryan Hall, and coaches there full time. Together Jay and Ryan have over 60 years of experience in both their own running careers in addition to coaching.
Jay has now tested twice with Calorify. His first test was in the summer of 2023, and the goal was to gain insight into how his body was handling his training. His second test happened more recently in January of 2024. Since his first test, he implemented changes that would affect his metabolism. This is his story.
Having a background in exercise science and bioenergetics, Jay loves to play with nutritional changes in his own diet. He is a great candidate for this type of personal experimentation given his incredibly consistent training and lifestyle. He can be more confident in the effects of the dietary changes he makes because it’s the only change he’s making.
“The reason I think my information, at least to me anyway, is so fun is because I’ve been doing by and large the same thing for the last like 27 years. So I’ve been super consistent with training and while the volume has varied recently compared to like 10 or 15 years ago, um, my last 10 years have been the same. I run between 45 and 55 miles a week. I do two workouts a week. I do a long run. I lift twice a week for about 25 to 30 minutes. I mean it’s really regimented.”
With this training load, Jay’s first Calorify test showed he was burning about 4369 calories a day and his PAL was 2.62, slightly overreaching, but not by much. If he burned about 200 calories less a day, he’d be under 2.5. Jay and Hari discussed these initial results on the Run Free Podcast. Jay revealed that he’s constantly moving. He tested in the summer, so he’s spending time with his kids and they’re very active–playing basketball, going swimming, biking, etc.
This “extra” activity outside of designated workouts still burns calories, and contributes to Jay’s overall high burn. Additionally, to train as hard as he does, and have an active lifestyle, his body is going through background repairs constantly. Together, this extra activity and background noise makes up his NEAT, non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Despite his high burn, he has been able to onboard enough calories to fuel all of this activity.
“When I got the first Calorify test, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m eating a lot more than I thought I was.’” He now had new baseline information for how his body is burning, and started to experiment.
So what were the changes he made?
“The big changes I made were, um, I follow this guy Bill Campbell. He’s a researcher. He’s a weight loss, weight gain, like one of the best… and he’s been doing research on the amount of protein per kilogram of body weight to maximize body composition, lean mass.
“So my thought was I’m going to eat a lot less calories than I was before, and I’m going to increase my protein, somewhere to like 30-38% of my macros, and try to get 3 grams per kilogram body weight.”
Additionally, “I basically have excommunicated processed foods from my diet, like really, really strict on that. So, and granted, I do understand that if you cook eggs, that’s processing. And, you know, bread is processed as well, but just I guess minimally processed would be the way to say it. Zero cookies. No Triscuits. No chips. I mean nothing.”
How did that affect his results the second time around?
“I was 157 the first time, and then I think I was 151 the second time, so I lost like 6 pounds in that time frame, primarily from increasing my protein, eating a little bit less. And I think the protein just gave me more satiety, and I wasn’t hungry as much. I’m sure that’s got a lot to do with losing 6 pounds too. Um, and then from a performance standpoint, this is even cooler.”
His PAL went down, from 2.62 to 2.2. His calories went down, from 4369 to 3613, a 756 calorie difference. “But I did not change my exercise amount really. Yeah I just changed my nutrition.”
So how does that work? How would a diet change cause him to burn 700 less calories? We can’t know for sure, but there are a few possibilities.
First, part of this reduction could be lifestyle change not associated with the diet. Jay talked about how active he was with his kids outside of work during the first test because it was summer. During the second test, the kids were back in school, and even though he was still active with them after school, the type of activity and intensity changed.
Second, and more interestingly, this turn down could be due to metabolic adaptation. Metabolic adaptation is the idea that your body turns your burn up or down depending on your environment. This stems from our bodies wanting to protect us from starvation, and becoming more or less efficient with our energy according to the situation.
But metabolic adaptation isn’t so greatly understood quite yet. In an article titled The Exercise Paradox written by Calorify’s Scientific Advisor, Herman Pontzer, he writes, “I suspect that metabolic adaptation to activity is one of the reasons exercise keeps us healthy, diverting energy away from activities, such as inflammation, that have negative consequences if they go on too long.”
So Jay’s body could have turned down the heat and become more efficient based on his consistent exercise in combination with this altered diet composition and volume. Additionally, he may have just cut down on physiological noise. Less inflammation from processed foods, less extra energy spent to digest processed foods, more protein on board to repair muscles after his workouts, etc.
“There are less interferences with [my energy use] in terms of I feel less inflamed. Like some of my tendons and ligaments that have bugged me in the past have kind of gone away. I don’t feel it anymore… I’m more efficient.”
How did this change his performance?
“So I have run the mile every year, several times per year, since 1996… 28 years in a row. Yeah I run the mile every year. And so there’s another really good data point, like when you do the same thing every year for 28 years, you can measure yourself. So last year, before making those changes, I ran 4:31 for the mile. And this year, just a few days ago, I ran 4:24 for the mile. Which is what I ran for the mile in 1999.” He dropped his mile time by 7 seconds, without changing his training load.
“I’m not losing muscle mass either. I think I actually gained a pound of muscle mass. Lost weight and gained a pound of muscle, which is crazy. But I feel that way too. Like I feel really strong, you know, my pull ups–that’s another thing I’ve done for years–I can do like 16 or 18 pull ups. Previously, I could only do like 6 to 8. And part of that is I weigh 6 pounds less. Yes, that definitely helps. But I don’t feel like my power has decreased at all. Like it’s maintained or improved.
“Yeah, so I man, I just feel really good. Like my cognitive function is higher. I’m more productive, you know, as a coach. I’m more productive as a husband, a dad. And I think it’s primarily due to the nutritional changes that I made.”
Jay’s takeaways:
“So I’m someone who tends to try to avoid getting caught in the weeds, even though I like the weeds, but from a coach and athlete standpoint, satiety is not talked about enough. Like, that is really where we should be pursuing. And the interesting thing about that, when you look at, if you pursue unprocessed foods and high satiety, it is very hard to overeat.” Satiety is the fullness and satisfaction both mentally and physically you get after eating or drinking. This is key because if you eat higher satiety foods, you’ll stay fuller longer, and it’s harder to overeat.
“And the examples I like are how many sweet potatoes could you eat? ... Yeah and like how many avocados? Have you ever sat down and ate three avocados? No, no one does that. But who’s sat down and eaten an entire bag of chips, like 1,500 calories. I’ve done it. Yeah, absolutely. And then you finish it and you could go eat cereal.
“And then you just take something like a chicken breast. You know, who eats four chicken breasts? Yeah like no, you don’t do it, and the thing, I think that’s the unprocessed high satiety foods… you fill up quick. You just don’t want 4 apples.”
This is what we’re seeing in the literature as well. In current obesity research, it’s less about how much exercise you need to drop excess weight and more about mechanisms in your body, revealing why you can’t outrun a bad diet. On the intake side, Tandon et al. stated, “nutrient overload activates inflammatory responses in adipose tissue, skeletal muscles, and other organs”. And on the diet side, San-Cristobal et al. demonstrated that protein and fiber are good for modulating satiety and energy-metabolism related processes. Jay’s experience demonstrated this concept–it’s easier to eat less when you’re satiated.
“In the past when I’ve tried to lose weight and run a caloric deficit without the satiety focus, I’ve failed. I mean I can white knuckle it for a short period of time, but it’s not sustainable. I’d always go back up”
“I’ve done this now over the last year with at least 15 other people, with very similar results. And it’s easy. Like, it’s very easy. A buddy of mine who was 182 is now 158, and he feels really good. And he was like listen, what you told me to do, it’s easy to do it. I’ll never go back. Yeah. He did this, you know, for 6 months. How many people can stick to something for 6 months? It’s gotta be easy, and you’ve gotta feel good when you do it every time.”
For more on Jay’s experience, you can head over to the Run Free Podcast where Jay chats at length about his transformation.
