Background (11/15): Focus on Diet, "Racing Weight"

A simple, incredibly challenging decision, the foundations of which I took from reading Matt Fitzgerald’s “Racing Weight,” stood at the center of dropping weight so quickly – I took active and complete control of my diet in a healthy manner for the first time in my life. I had complained to Mary that my running times had not improved quickly enough for my tastes, and she recommended that I read that book. She told me it had helped her understand many basic truths about food, and imparted powerful advice about diet improvement, while tying its lessons to endurance exercise.

Instead of controlling one’s diet for the sake of weight loss, Fitzgerald posed active mindfulness toward one’s diet as an absolutely necessary step toward improving one’s performance in endurance sports. “Racing Weight” posed improving the diet and getting in shape as the means to the end of kicking ass in races, instead of its own sake. I had never so clearly considered the link between food intake and racing potential before.

Laid out in very understandable, layman’s terms, the lessons from “Racing Weight” completely changed my outlook on food and diet, and helped me begin to get back on a successful weight-loss track. Certain ideas rocked me and informed how to correctly think about food: the necessity of tracking what one eats; the need to focus on diet quality, not quantity; that some foods could be considered higher quality compared to others; that the body took energy differently from different types of food; that timing of food was indeed important, but not how I believed; and that managing appetite was not the same as controlling it.

I began tracking my food intake, as well as measurable body changes, immediately. I soon recorded everything I ate on a daily basis to the best of my ability – but did not include calorie amounts, which felt like a step too far, still. When I wrote down what I ate and drank, I had a better handle and comprehension of really how much I had eaten. To that point, remembering and figuring out what I’d done so far that day felt like a shot in the dark. I could have eaten several larger meals daily and would have barely recalled. Seeing my intake recorded drove me to eat less, and better. Documenting that I had ingested a full page’s worth of empty-calorie crap felt like failure, and I strove to do better. Further, I started weighing-in twice daily, within minutes of both going to sleep and waking up. I soon started tracking my body fat percentage with a second scale, and started thinking of my progress in terms of body fat loss as opposed to weight loss. Having a consistent record of weight, what I ate, and extraordinary aberrations from my normal route – significant time off running for a pulled hamstring, sleeping 18 hours in a day or sleeping during the daytime – helped me figure out what specifically correlated to weight loss or gain. At the end of every month, I wrote up my monthly weighing results, tracking how far along I’d come. As a very visual person, writing everything down helped me beyond words.

For the first time, I found myself ready and able to consider the quality of the foods I ate along the guidelines found in the book, and thus able to make wiser decisions in choosing what to eat. I began trying to incorporate more fruits into my diet, whereas before I had eaten very few. I began transitioning my most frequently eaten meats away from beef, eating fewer cheap, near-instant-made hamburgers from McDonalds or Burger King and hot dogs from convenience stores. Luckily, I had never eaten pork. I ate more chicken, which thankfully I also loved, and grudgingly tried to eat more turkey, usually in (hopefully) lower-sodium, deli-slice form. I ate some more lamb in gyros, too, from a great local diner. I hoped that was leaner protein, but I didn’t really know where that fell on the map… and didn’t care all that much. Not a huge fan of dairy to begin with, I cut out most occasions where I’d eat higher-fat dairy, unfortunately including ice cream. Instead, I maintained my utter dependence on peach and apple Chobani Greek yogurt, skim milk, and lighter cheeses. After some time, I realized that since I hated cold fish, I probably didn’t get enough Omega-3 fatty acids, and the potential benefits of having more seemed too good to ignore. I began taking such a supplement twice daily after mulling it through for some time. Until this point, I had (errantly) considered most carbohydrate as a negative. I had cut out a good deal of bread from my diet, which had been difficult, but still maintained a noted weakness for large servings of pasta, bagels, and pizza. I now tried to replace most, ideally all, refined and white grains with whole grain, or 100% wheat, versions. That proved surprisingly easier than I had expected at the grocery store and I enjoyed them about as much, but making the right choice and choosing whole grain pancakes with berries, in place of double chocolate chip or Dutch apple versions at restaurants, was a struggle. Vegetables were more or less a lost cause, as I had never eaten many of them, and didn’t feel like eating many more now. Adding some in sauces and pizza occasionally seemed better than nothing.

I also tried to cut a good deal of the waste in which I’d been indulging. As I had already eliminated drinking pop, I didn’t have to strike that then. I had tried to limit fried foods from the start, but now I actively avoided them if possible. I still allowed for an occasional plate of fries, but only in the wake of significant exercise. I went several months without almost any obviously-fried foods, to my true satisfaction, a far cry from the McChicken sandwiches and fries three times a week of old. Limiting sweets, of course, continued to be a major struggle. I had cut out most sugar-loaded candies some time ago, but indulged once in a while. I still did so, just tried to keep it under control. Walking through the candy aisle at Target or Walgreens tortured me. In the past, I would've killed a pack of my favorite candy, Peach-Os, in 30 seconds. Now, when I read the package and realized they had more than 650 calories, I almost always fought off the urge. I had a great love for 7-11 Slurpees – that I couldn’t combat so easily. Instead of 32-oz sizes, I drank 8-oz, which was only about 150 calories, not horrifying. After some time, I realized that these sweets, and particularly Slurpees, to my intense disappointment, would consistently trigger cravings for other terrible, sugar-packed items. Even Special K Fruit and Yogurt cereal could do it. Instead, I tried to satiate urges with healthier trail-mixes, but didn’t always succeed. On those days when I completely fell off the wagon – and there were more than one or two – I’d get seriously discouraged and stop documenting altogether. The next day, I’d try to get myself under control and do my best to eat smarter.

Though comparatively a minor realization, I also learned that one could ignore those limited foods and drinks designed to improving performance that were consumed during exercise. I had, until this point, all but refused to partake in sports drinks or gels, only drinking water, thinking that would maximize the benefits of the caloric deficit from exercise. Understanding that aids could help enhance performance and power through the limited calories gained on their own, I now felt more comfortable taking carbohydrate gels on long-runs and Gatorade at aid stops.

As I began thinking about differences in macronutrient sources of energy, namely carbohydrate, protein, and fat, my approach toward what major sources of energy I ate changed significantly. Even while running consistently at first, I thought of obvious sources of carbohydrate – bread, pasta, etc – as evil foods that would add to the bodyfat problem, except in racing conditions when eating a ton was necessary. I discovered that, while I would need to eat somewhat significant amounts of carbohydrate on days when I worked out or ran, I would only need a limited amount on off-days. With that in mind, I continued restricting carbohydrate on days when I didn’t exert myself significantly. Yet until that point, I hadn’t understood that attempting to go relatively low-carb on days of aggressive exercise was an absolutely horrible idea, could result in significant injury, and would result in only the most negligible of performance gains. I started incorporating more carbohydrate into my diet on high-energy exertion days, while choosing the sources more wisely. I also tried to be mindful and accurately estimate the amount of carbohydrate necessary to ingest before races and after long-runs, with some success – one particularly major failure down the line.

Along those same lines, I started closely monitoring the timing of my nutrient and water intake. I’d thought nutrients were nutrients, and circumstances did not matter much on how they affected the body, besides eating carbohydrate after endurance exercise, protein after strength training, eating a large meal immediately after waking up, and never eating two hours before sleep. I started eating based off when I felt hungry, not just set to some arbitrary schedule. I ate smaller amounts of food, not intending to kick up my metabolism, but to simply offset hunger, avoiding accidentally eating more than necessary and wasting nutrients. I continued to eat quickly after waking up – which, it should be noted, had always proved extremely easy for me. Eating dinner between 5 and 9PM, when I would wake up, felt natural, and I had a wide variety of choices of restaurants or dinners and events to attend where I’d eat; I felt having a “normal” schedule, where upon waking, I’d have been expected to eat breakfast foods, which I didn’t particularly enjoy, would have made eating quickly much more challenging. Having three dinners daily made my food choices that much easier – but I digress. I learned precisely when to eat in relations to workouts, and the exact timing of the recovery period afterward. Finally, around this time I had aimed to drink four Nalgene bottles, or 128oz, of water on a daily basis, thinking that would help my metabolism. I realized that was pointless and cut my water intake back. I didn't notice any significant impact, besides having to urinate three or four fewer times each day, which I appreciated.

All those lessons certainly helped, but I believe that the techniques suggested to manage appetite contributed to my weight-loss success most. I tried to be as mindful as possible of the moment when I hit the feeling of satisfied from a meal, and worked to not eat beyond that moment – while very often a struggle, I found I didn’t need to eat as much to reach that point as I imagined. I tried not to eat at random or out of boredom, which also sometimes proved difficult. I didn’t particularly enjoy having to think through my eating habits constantly, particularly since I would focus on it and not feel able to deal with much besides that, but I tried as best I could and the results turned out decent. In that vein, eating more high-satiety and low-density foods to want to eat less overall made the most impact of any changes, I believe. I found my secret weapon for weight loss, and eating less: lightly-salted peanuts. I began eating more peanuts than ever before, and found I felt less hungry from just a serving of peanuts a few times a day. Whereas I sometimes wouldn’t feel full from a full plate of food, a handful of peanuts and a yogurt cup could now hold me over for four hours. I also sought out foods with high water- and fiber-content, and all but stopped eating insanely dense foods like granola that I’d eaten constantly before. I also made a point to eat fiber bars occasionally, though their benefits weren’t as certain.

Finally, I took to heart the lesson that so many people had repeated, and one of the key premises of “Racing Weight” – exercise how you would enjoy it most. I realized the exercise I was doing at the gym was probably counterproductive. Spending two or three hours with lifting was idiotic, particularly if I hated it and would quit soon anyway. Additionally, I wasn’t getting THAT much stronger, and the workouts had had a negligible impact on my body fat percentage over several months. I resolved to find more efficient workouts and to focus on running.