Spring Clean(Eat)ing

It’s time.  I’m about 9 lbs up from the weight where I raced Kerrville last year in September and was feeling pretty good about myself.  I got down ALMOST that low for the Space Coast marathon (more like 175) and then post-marathon and the holidays got me and I’ve never recovered since.  I feel a lot like this right guy right now that we found at the pet store.

Nothing really fits right at the moment, and I got some press pictures taken at work that I’m really not thrilled with (amazing how someone with a good camera that’s not taking pics at selfie angle can reveal all the flaws), and I just don’t feel good.  Last week’s stomach bug, while incredibly awful and inconvenient, actually did me a service of resetting my appetite to real normal human levels from my super insane marathon runger I’ve been rocking lately.  Which is good, because I raced three weeks ago and haven’t strung together more than 20 miles in a week since.

It’s time to do some Spring Clean(eat)ing and go back to what felt good before.  I’ll be quite honest, I tried with a few fits and starts earlier in the year to track my food and clean up what went in my mouth, and failed miserably each time.  Well, if that’s not going to happen with a vague intent, then I need some stricter rules to live by.

So, the next month, I’m going to stick with this and weighing daily.  I’ll let the calories land where they may.  Here’s what’s on tap.

Unlimited servings per day:

• Vegetables (minus corn and non-sweet potatoes)
• Fruits (I know blah blah blah lots of sugar but if I you want to insinuate I’m going to get fat from a bunch of apples you can fuck off and die, I self limit here actually pretty well)
• Meat/protein powder (to a point… if I start having like 200g+ protein per day, I may have to bump this to the category below, but for now…)

2-3 servings each per day (~100 calories each thing per serving):

• Cheese/Dairy
• Nuts
• Olives/olive oil/butter/dressing/high calorie sauce

1 serving per day (150-200 cal):

• Non-sweet potato, corn, corn tortilla thing.  Y’know.  Carby things.  Aiming to put these down the pie hole within an hour or two after my workout (if I run in the AM, for breakfast, after work, for dinner, etc).
• One additional if it’s a double/long/especially difficult training day.

1 per week max (~500-700 calories):

• Junk food/bread/pasta/rice/etc.  Hallo cheat meal.  The goal is to try to not go too crazy and eat a whole large pizza or anything, but a girl needs a burger or sandwich or mexican combo plate every once in a while.

10 per week (~1000-1500 calories per week):

• Alcoholic drinks (1 beer, 1/4th of a wine bottle, 1 booze).  This is where my splurges lie.
• Desert can factor in here, but will take away from my alcoholic bevvies (100-150 calories desert = 1 less drink).

As needed for workouts more than 1 hour:

• Gatorade, gels, chews.  NO subbing in candy for training fuel right now.  This results in me eating 1 serving of jelly beans before I get on the bike for an easy 30 spin sometimes.  Bad, bad, bad.
• If I need a pick me up for a shorter workout – fruit is awesome and unlimited and I hear it also has sugar.

Today, day 1, is shaping up thusly:

• Breakfast: Protein smoothie with tropical fruit, yogurt, protein powder, and water (1 serving dairy)
• Snack: Handful of almonds (1 serving nuts)
• Lunch: Lettuce wrap sandwich bites with turkey, bacon, cheese, tomato, pickle, and onion (1 serving dairy)
• Afternoon snacks: apple, plum, carrots
• Pre-workout fuel: tbsp of sun butter (1 serving nuts)
• PM Workout: 1 hour decent effort trainer ride (so, no workout aides needed)
• Dinner: Greek chicken salad, baked potato (2 servings dressing/oil/olives, 1 serving dairy, 1 serving starch)

Just a quick calorie estimate clocks this in at about 1600 calories, which seems sufficient for maintaining my energy throughout the day and also a decent deficit with what I’m burning.  While I’m not tracking calories, I know I can eat myself into a surplus with a large enough bag of carrots and nothing else, so it’s a good double check that the ratios are pretty solid.

Tomorrow, I’m planning on a two-a-day (run AM, endurance spin PM, which should be about 2 hours total), so I’ll probably have some sort of AM starch as well to back that up and bring a gel/gatorade for the spin class, but continue on this same plan for the food stuff.

I know I owe you a more fun vacation recap post, but I just had to get this one up and out there so I could stay accountable.

What’s your spring clean(eat)ing plan?