Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare

I've been writing about all the positives lately but not so much about the negatives and that's not really fair. My diet has been pretty bad this past week. I haven't really been eating breakfast, and I've either eaten a lunch or a dinner (but not both) every day. And that resulted in nonsense snacking. For example, yesterday I had a delicious wrap at lunch, and then I came home after working late and had one serving of garlic potato chips, a small bowl of grapes, and 3.5 servings (one bag) of baked snap pea snacks. Which are basically potato chips but made out of snap peas. And I had about 4 sips of water between 7pm and bedtime.

Not surprisingly, I woke up feeling heavy and blah, and almost missed my bus to work because I stopped at the coffee shop to get a muffin.

This by itself wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't see it as a trend that I've been getting into lately. Gotta get out of my food funk!
 
Hi Laura,

I know exactly what you mean. I have been in more than my fair share of food funks.Just a little tidbit about me, I am one of those people that can eat the exact same thing day after day. When I come home from work I have a little trick that works for me. Maybe it will help you. The first thing I do when I come through the door is grab a small amount of protein and eat it. For instance 3 spoons of Cottage cheese, some baby cucs and cherry tomatoes and a couple of glasses of water. Wait about 10 minutes and the "Hell I got to get something in my stomach right now" -lol, goes away with calorie consumption at a minimum. The protein is what my body is craving so I used to stuff potato chips and cookies and anything else I could get in there to satisfy the hunger. That didn't work out so well in the long run. Snacking was my downfall so I had to find ways to stop it from happening. Keep strong and look for alternate things to do or snack on- you will get out of the food funk before you know it.
 
Where'd You go? I'm back and I really love to hear about your runs for encouragement! I hope everything is going well for you.
 
Hi Q!! Thanks for checking in! I actually saw your message right as I came in from a slow and steady four mile run. Tortured myself with a few hills... I've got a route I like that can get me three or more decent (and short) hills, and today I told myself if I stopped to walk on any of them I'd have to jog back down and start over again. The plan was either to run each hill in its entirety or give it three tries before moving on. Knowing I wasn't 'allowed' to just walk to the top definitely helped, as only one of them took me two tries. The others I was running at a snail's pace, but I still felt accomplished afterwards.

Last week I was on vacation so I actually took nine days off of running (whoa!) The boyfriend and I headed up to Canada for some camping and hiking, meaning I was still burning calories. For our first night of camping we backpacked 8.2 kilometers through the woods to a campsite with about thirty pounds of gear on our backs. Then the next day we did it in reverse. I'd call that exercising!

Food during vacation wasn't healthy, not surprisingly. Lots of fried foods at restaurants, gummy bears to fuel our hikes, beer and wine and s'mores around the campfire, and one day I had three hot dogs not because I was hungry for three but because we cooked up the whole package and I didn't want to waste any. Weight stayed about the same, though. After adding up how much we spent on vacation and evaluating how gross we both felt about recent eating and drinking, boyfriend and I agreed on healthier food, less booze, and less eating out for a while. And it is now two months until my relay race, so I've gotta up the training, too!!
 
That run sounds terrible! I am going to run tonight if the weather will cooperate. I have strict orders not to run hills until after the back gets figured out. That's the kind of vacation I need. My wife just isn't into camping unless there are facilities nearby. I have more wilderness and privacy at the house than at a campground so we haven't camped much since we came back to TX. Of course I'm incapable of sleeping on the ground at the moment so it's an academic argument at this point. Good luck on the healthier habits and the training.
 
Hi Laura! I like your diary title a lot :) I have a snack problem too. What I usually do when I get cravings is A: Stuff my face or B: Eat an apple and chew gum
good luck x
 
Q, I've only gotten into camping over the last couple of years or so. I'm a pretty low maintenance girl who loves an excuse to stay a little dirty and avoid makeup, so it works for me, haha. We've done short (1 or 2 night) backpacking trips, but for three or more nights we've always stayed somewhere with washrooms. We've got another two night backpacking trip planned for August, with a mountain climb... Although the boyfriend is trying to back out of that one. I'm not letting him do that without a fight though!
 
Hey CloudyMuffin! Thanks for dropping in! I choose option A way more often then I'd care to admit :) At work I try to have mints on hand to help curb the cravings. At home...well, that's another story!
 
Sounds like you had a great camping trip. I used to love camping too, but haven't been in years. Something to plan on in the near future! :)
 
I love to talk about my running but I hate to talk about my food. Mostly because I never got fully motivated to make positive changes. I weigh 150 pounds, so weight isn't a motivation. It's just that whole "positive decision making" thing that I want. Last night, my boyfriend headed into the shower. The second the water turned on I was in the kitchen grabbing myself 2 cookies. Then I ate a small handful of roasted chick peas. Then on my way back to the living room I got a handful of gummy bears. Why??? What's with the sneaky eating? Boyfriend has never, ever judged my snacking. Neither has my family, but I've been sneaky eating my whole life. I used to make ice cream sundaes with sprinkles and that Hershey's hard shell chocolate topping in the middle of the night. My Mom would always remind me that it was totally fine that I eat that, and that I didn't need to do it secretly.

A few years back I remember going back to my hometown to visit my dad, and I was eating potato chips at like 9 in the morning while he ran to the store. I heard the car and immediately put the chips in my closet.

I know people eat when they are bored but I didn't have time to get bored last night. I wasn't sad, I wasn't anxious. I just had an urge to stuff my face.

This post was brought on by something I read just this morning in my intuitive eating book. "For some people, the only emotion that triggers overeating is one that is associated with a feeling of guilt about eating itself.... Once they are able to release this guilt, by making peace with food, their overeating vanishes." That's definitely how I feel sometimes!

And yes, I understand that my "binge" last night probably amounted to 500 calories or less, but it's just the act of sneaky eating that's got me all riled up, not the specific details.
 
I had something like this last night. I ate a handful of banana chips ... I'm not proud but I promised myself I would tell if I cheated.
Something that helps me a lot is just simply not buying stuff that I know will be temptation. Or I try :)
Or make a deal with yourself that if you want those sweets you have to walk to the shop. This helps me a bit.
Good luck Laura x
 
Ack, it's been a while! What's been going on the last few weeks?

Running = Awesome
Food = Awful

Thankfully, my awfulness has roughly equalled my awesomeness. So no major damage to report.

Last week the boyfriend was on nights and I lost all control of eating. At one point I took a bag of chips to bed and ate every single one, even though I was feeling disgusting before I was even halfway done. The bag was 3.5 servings. Envisioning myself laying down in the dark halfway asleep with a chip halfway out of my mouth didn't even stop me. Ugh.

There were lots of other instances of too much eating, but that's behind me now. This week has gotten off to a much better start. I'm really excited for my breakfast: Soy milk, oats, chia seeds, raisins, and walnuts with a dash of cinnamon. Oh and a spoonful of Grape Nuts cereal. Everything has been soaking so when I get to work it should be nice and thick.

Oh, Q, if you're still reading this - I thought of you this weekend when I set up my new (but slightly used) heart rate monitor. It was pretty fun to use, and actually got me moving a little faster up a hill once when I realized I was fully capable of exerting myself a little more. Pretty neat!
 
Sweet! I'm happy to hear it's useful still as an established runner.

My back is feeling much better with the steroid injection/pills and I've already found myself thinking about running. I really have to wait until I get my physical therapy going and string together a few more low pain days. Today is day 1 so we will see how tomorrow is. I have a severe herniation in my L5 S1 disc in case you haven't peeked in my diary lately. My powerlifting days are over. I'd be a lot more bummed if I didn't know I could run at some point in the future.

Good luck with your food. I've been ravenous since starting the corticosteroids. I'll have some gains to make up. Not having exercise to make up for dietary indiscretions sucks!
 
Laura! I've totally read the first couple posts and your most frequent ones.

Girl....I know what you go through! I was a sneaky chocolate closet eater and a bunch of other foods to say the least. I even noticed a couple days back at a girl friends house she had made pulled pork (healthy version- kinda its still pork lol) but I served some on a plate, finished and then while she was in the living room ate some from the pot! Like Really, Alta?!? It's almost like I felt it was going to run out!

I hear you! Sorry that you go through these patterns too. Last night sadness got to me, and yesterday and today I've been having to fight thoughts of chugging down a whole pizza to myself.

No good!! The boyfriend (new one) is gone, nostalgia for the old one is here, yet stabbing myself with food isn't what I want to do though its all I'm thinking of! Yikes!!

Camping is SO much fun! Though I went one time and totally binged and gained 11lbs in three days! I wanted to tip over and die when I got home. Lol
 
Laura F said:
Running = Awesome
Food = Awful
Click to expand...

I hear ya.

Went running yesterday, and then went to do my shopping. That was clearly a mistake. Bought all the wrong kinds of food, because I was feeling hungry.
I must show great restrain with all these bad foods around. A mini candybar a day should be fine, right? If I can only muster the strenght to keet ip it at one a day...
 
Well done with the running lovely! Sounds like you're doing well--the eating will catch up with the exercising soon :p
 
I'm glad your exercising is balancing out with the foods you're eating. I know what you mean about eating a whole bag of chips. I can EASILY do that! Especially with Salt & Vinegar chips. Oh, those are so yummy! The one "trick" I use now is that I don't buy that stuff. It's much easier to not eat it when you don't have it in the house. It sucks when you're craving it and don't have it, but it's for the better. :)
 
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