food & nutrition.

Fuel. Calories are burned by movement or converted to thoughts that drive momentum through the trails.

food (noun)

feed feet me

these eats.

2 days 14 hours ago

Being vague hasn’t helped me in the past. Being specific is where it’s at.

A little.

A few more.

Just a bit off the top.

Nah.

It’s Day 1 as I write these words. I had my little week of gluttony and fun and sitting around not getting in quite enough miles on the trails (though just a week ago I was still pretty deep in the throes of a chest infection so I blame that a little bit, too.) And Easter is exactly 50 days away. How’s that for specific.

As usual I have an A goal and a B goal.

My A goal is the harder of the two, and I think it’s achievable if things go ideally and I really get into a groove. My A goal is to drop ten pounds.

But wait, you say, you just wrote that you’re only up 5 pounds from where you ended your weight adjustment challenge last year, right? True…ish. A couple things. I hit my goal weight at the end of the challenge and I had dropped nearly 23 pounds from where I’d started almost exactly one year ago (from right now) to when I finished about eight weeks later. That was five pounds lighter than I was when I weighed in this morning as my new baseline. Following? Okay. But then I kept losing after the challenge because, simply, that’s when my marathon training STARTED. I lost another five pounds after doing that, hitting my lowest weigh in numbers about four weeks after last year’s challenge ended. THAT number was about ten pounds less than I am right now. So, my A goal is to get back to THAT number, which means losing ten pounds from today.

My B goal is simpler, though still a challenge. Drop five pounds and get back to the number I was at when I finished my challenge last year. This means kind of reseting for the spring and summer, and better, reversing the whole upward trend I’ve been seeing on my weight tracking chart (which is a real thing, tracked in my Garmin app, by the way.)

So here were are. It’s Saturday, February 10, 2024 and starting today I am at day 1 of “a few pound more” and I’m gonna start following those rules I followed last year, rule’s I’ll explain in greater detail in a future post, but simply: limited snacking, sweets and seconds unless it’s a weekend or special occasion.

It’s been 0 days and I’m down 0 of the 10 pounds of my goal.

6 days 12 hours ago

Along came Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a cold snap that left me locked in the house for about three weeks eating all the chocolates and treats leftover from the aforementioned sugar-heavy holidays.

The metabolic inertia I’d gathered from my diet and subsequent summer of crazy marathon training meant I was just hungry all the time. And sitting around not training for anything specifically has left me a little flipfloppy when it comes to my everyday diet.

I’m far from having gained all that weight back, but it would be fair to say that on an average day I’m five pounds over where I ended last year’s weight loss effort. And that’s probably normal, natural, and not unexpected.

But like last year when I used the leverage of lent (in a secular way) to motivate myself along a timeline, that season is early this year… just one week away. So, here’s the thing. I’ve got a couple final off-diet meals to take in this week, and then I’m off to the races for a few pounds more.

Meal one. Yes. I’m a sucker. I don’t generally eat a lot of fast food, but I’m intrigued. I’ve never ever in my whole damn life had a McRib. WTF? You reply. Nope. Heck, I haven’t had a Big Mac in about five years. I eat burgers, but I hit up higher class joints than Rotten Ronnies. That said, I’m not above it, I just know that there’s legit better food out there. Yet, the McRib has a hold on me and it’s “back for a limited time” as of right now. So. I’m going for it. Gotta add that notch to my dining table leg.

Meal two. There is an amazing takeout chicken place downtown. When I was still working in our core I would hit it up at least once per month, sometimes more, and it was definitely verbotten when my diet plan came online. It is a cult experience, too. People line up for half an hour for a container of their “crack chicken” a spicy fried popcorn-style dish served over noodles. Yum. And they announced that after thirty-two years in business they are closing at the end of February. Permanently. So, I’m going downtown this week to line up with the white collar crowd to get my last container… then probably take the bus home.

And then. And then I’m going for a few pounds more. I’ll do a weigh in on Saturday morning, the 10th of February, as my official start day. Stay tuned.

9 months ago

It's been over four weeks and basically a month-to-the-day since my last day of the great diet of 2023 and since I recorded a weight loss of almost 23 pounds. I figured that even though I probably won't add this post to the thread over there I should check in and add some notes about how things are going.

First, I've been running a lot. I mean, no really, a lot. I've been averaging 50km a week with my long distances touching close to a half marathon. Plus speed work and hill training and all the other stuff in between.

It's taken me a month to go back to eating normally. I think yesterday was only the second time I've eaten french fries since resuming my back-to-normal life and (a) it was a treat for a day off and a bunch of yard work and (b) every crispy bite still felt a little guilty.

All that said, the numbers have not only been holding steady they've continued to drop. If you asked me what my weight change was, as of a weigh-in not even an hour ago as of writing this, I'm down almost 26 pounds from back pre-diet. Yeah, that's another three pounds that I've shed. Some of that continues to be diet, but some of it is an increase in my activity, too. I've been very cautious about resuming normal eating, especially at first and those first couple weeks my numbers went completely flat as a I stopped "dieting" but still ate very healthy. The last couple weeks I've been a bit freer with my food choices, going out for crispy chicken and noodles or a curry box or steak last night on the bbq... but like I said, a bunch of running to supplement all that.

On a side note, folks are not too sympathetic when you grumble about not being able to sustain a certain weight and that "I just keep dropping, I don't get it!" ... "Um... shut up!"

Long story short, it's been a month and in that month I've run nearly 200km, dropped another three pounds, and haven't reversed or reverted or relapsed. May and June are looking to be active months, too, and though I have no idea what direction the scale will flow as summer arrives I can't help but have a lot more confidence that it's going to keep me in a zone that's where I want and need to be to marathon train through October.

10 months ago

My so-called diet ends at midnight tonight and with one last weigh in tomorrow morning I'll have whatever final number goes into my spreadsheet and tracking app and logs into my brain as my starting weight for a summer of marathon training.

All that said, I don't think that number is going to budge much from where it landed this morning and where "officially" still in the boundaries of said diet I'm going to call it and note it and write a short little epilogue to my blogging thread here.

So?

How did it all pan out?

official weight change: -22.8 lbs
compared to original goal: 2.8 lbs better than planned
time spent: 66 days (or 9.4 weeks)
largest gap: -25.6 lbs (unofficial, highest/lowest weigh ins)
change in bmi: -3.2 points
change in body mass: -10.6%
change in pant size: -4 (36 to 32)

Some other subjective food notes worth pointing out...

breakfasts: variations on sourdough toast, jam, natural peanut butter, eggs, coffee, avoiding "dessert for breakfast" except for pancake Saturdays with the family

lunches: whole food approach including beans, fish, salad bowls, or small portion leftovers (when at home) or Subway, rice bowls, light sandwiches (when at the office)

suppers: modest portions of almost anything, including occasionally pizza, fried foods, etc. noting that the key here for me was portion control more than specific restrictions, rarely eating out (but not never eating out)

condiments: no cream-based or oil-based, only vinegar-based mustards or hot sauces
snacking: virtually none
desserts: limited to weekends or "special days"
alcohol: same as desserts, and at most two servings

Of course people who might want to follow this may also be interested to know that while I attribute the loss about 80/20 to food/exercise, I was ramping up to start a marathon training plan for the summer (read the other posts!) which undoubtably factored into the daily caloric calculation needs for my body.

distance run during diet: approximately 290 km
steps walked: approximately 1.2 million (no, really)
other activity: basic cross training, swimming, physiotherapy for my knee

I've false started on serious diet plans a half dozen times in the last ten years. Why this one worked this time, I don't know for sure.

Motivation for my race was definitely a factor, and being in a good place mentally and emotionally at the start of it certainly helped. Heck knows I had some trying days at work and with some personal stuff over the course of things, but I carried on with the momentum I had during those two months to see me through. It also helped that there wasn't much for big family meals or candy-focused holidays (save for Valentine's Day) during that span, and we only went out of town on a vacation once making meal planning at home and work the focus of the effort.

This was never meant to be an advice column for dieters though. Everyone is different. Everyone needs their own plan, but I'll go back to what I wrote in my much earlier posts at the start of this effort: in the end, all of this comes down to one thing... willpower. Every diet plan, every app, every club, every system that you might sign up for, pay for, subscribe to or join all boils down to just making good decisions 98% of the time for the duration of your effort. Those thing can help, if you let them, but in the end it's an agreement with you and your body to make those decisions consistently. Set a plan. Set a goal. Hack you own brain with shortcuts, lists, recipes, and a properly stocked pantry so that when those decisions need to be made they are easy (or already made for you in advance). And set a timeline. Don't diet forever. Set a date and go. And that's as close to advice as I'm going to give.

Thanks for reading.


more feed feet me