Nutrition 101

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s finally, finally, finally time to work with a nutritionist again.  I’ve been at this for years.  Obviously I’m not where I want to be.  I NEED HELP.

I’ve talked to a few candidates – the one at my gym, some other local folks, and someone in blogland who I respect.  I’m narrowing down who I want to work with by the scientific process of putting it in the back of my mind and seeing what feels right vs the cost.

There are the 2 parts of me debating the approach.

Quix #1: FUCK IT LETS DO THIS RIGHT NOW I WANNA MAKE PROGRESSSSS!!!!

Quix #2: Ok, let’s finish out season and not try anything drastic to upset the part of my life that’s actually been working out quite well, thanks!

However, I knew that one thing for sure – any nutritionist/RD was definitely going to have me log my food.  That was a good start, getting back to that. Oddly enough, I made this choice on a Thursday.  Usually I would wait until Monday to do something like that, but I decided that there is no time like the present.  And after four days of logging, one thing smacked me in the face.

I am making no progress right now because I eat like utter crap about half the week.  I’m completely failing Nutrition 101 right now.

It’s a lot less apparent when you look at it at the start of a week, because I’m usually pretty good then, but looking at the back half isolated… yeah.  It’s not befitting of an endurance athlete doing any sort of proper fueling, and I’m pretty surprised everything is going as well as it is right now.  Hello, wakeup call.

I cannot justify spending money to go to a nutritionist with my diet this way.  I need to get rid of the obvious stuff first.  Things like wings and fried pickles and vodka are not appropriate for your main calorie intake on Saturday.  Also – 1200 calories of dinner on a day off workouts is inappropriate.  What’s worse is where it came from: 600 calories for the healthy meal I meant to eat, and then 600 calories of bread and butter, eating leftovers from my husband’s wedge salad, and then over half of the dessert he ordered because it was there and I was hungry.

So, I’m going to take the “let’s wait until after season” approach, which actually gives me a chance to get things under control myself and let the nutritionist fine tune.  Even if I do lose a little weight in the next few weeks, I actually still want to work with a professional to see what I can do better.  I think it will help me stick with it longer than making a little progress, then backpeddaling, then getting depressed that I have to lose the same damn 20-30 lbs again like I have been the last 5 years.  But, I don’t want to pay someone to tell me that I should probably cut out the fried food and simple carbs.  I know that.  I need help with the harder stuff that you get degrees for.

Paying attention to both my intake and how I felt physically and emotionally over the last 4 days, I think I’ve realized a few things.

• I suspect that I’m not drinking enough water.  It’s easy to overlook something so simple, but very often I’m finding myself only on bottle 2 at the end of the workday, when I’ve worked out at lunch or in the AM.  My lips have been chapped a lot lately, and I’m pretty sure that’s why.
• Eating shit I don’t need because it’s there is a HUGE issue for me.  I have to get better at this.  My husband is NOT on board with making significant diet changes right now, so crap is going to be around.  I need to remember he’s actually trying to be nice when he offers me stuff and not trying to be super mean and completely sabotage my efforts.  Also, I work at an office where people leave cupcakes and chips and candy and junk around.  I go to a game night where everyone brings snacks to share.  I just have to figure out strategies on how to not eat food that’s *right there* without it becoming a huge stressor and obsession.  Hell, right now, I’ll take the ability to endure it while being miserable about it and giving in.  Baby steps.  Someday I’ll be able to not give the bowl of chips at a party a second thought, but for now, I’d take winning the war over it in my head after a hard battle instead of giving in.
• I think one of my problems is being so goddamn hungry all the time.  I brought a healthy dinner to game night, but it wasn’t filling, so I ate 5000 calories of chips and cheese too.  Same with Friday’s dinner – it was healthy but not 100% filling, so all the other stuff I ate added up to another dinner.  Why am I so hungry?  Why am I crashing into 6pm wanting to eat a whole cow covered in cheese?  What needs to change about my eating habits so I can be reasonably comfortable and not obsessed with where I’m getting my next fix?
• Chips/fried food need to be dialed back like whoa.  I counted SEVEN different instances of eating them in four days.  This is madness.
• Justifying rewards – just because I crushed a long/hard workout does not mean I automatically deserve junk food and booze, and my body would probably appreciate that I didn’t, thank you.  Not to say that can’t happen sometimes, but as my training has gotten a little more intense (instead of just easy and long most of the time) this spring, I’ve been definitely making this happen more often.  Not every workout needs to end in this…

So my goals for this week are:

1. Track all my food.  Every bite.  On the same day in which I eat it.
2. Track water and make sure I’m getting 64+ oz INDEPENDENT of workouts.
3. Weighing daily and logging it.  Lets get it back to metrics land instead of emotional make-my-day-crappy-ville when I can force myself to get on the scale.  It is what it is, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go down.
4. Make it a goal to not go into a meal RAVENOUS.  Bring adequate pre- and post- workout snacks with me.
5. Identify any time I am either about to or have gone off the rails and analyze why and what I can do better.  No judgies, just figuring out strategies not to have it happen again.

Next week this time, I’d like to have a good, solid, 7 days of normal healthy eating under my belt and then see what I can continue to improve.  After that, I can start tackling the harder stuff and perhaps graduate to Nutrition 102.