I don’t need to lose weight and I’m not pounding for Snickers bars or cookies every day. This is less about input (diet) and more about focus and attitude:
1 – Checking my own discipline
I’m already persnickety about my diet, yet I know I’ve been a little loose recently. Last Wednesday at the Farmer’s Market, I plowed through a plate of samosas and Naan. In the morning, I’m hovering over Benjamin’s plate for leftover pancakes and in the evening, I’ve been chowing the extra pasta or mac ’n cheese from his dinner. Throughout the day, I rely on fruit and nuts as snacks – apples, bananas, cashews, walnuts and sunflower seeds. I suspect I’m ingesting more calories than I need.
Work’s been busy of late, and often I consume calories as a way to address anxiety. I’m also eating haphazardly throughout the day. This leads to surprise calories and carbs that serve as short-term solutions for immediate appetite or mental apertures.
2 – Evening out my mood and energy levels
The local Whole Foods closed last month. It was two blocks from my office and I relied on it for lunch and snacks every day. There aren’t any good options for fresh salads downtown and I haven’t gotten into a flow of bringing food to last all day at my office. This leaves me collecting calories however I can – protein bars, fruit and nuts. I’m eating okay, but not getting the right nutritional balance.
Then when I get home, I’m usually hungry for dinner, which means I’m moody and impatient which is unfair to Lena and Benjamin, and then I devour whatever quick fixes I can find in the fridge before dinner – usually cheese. This stems my appetite right away, but the dairy has lactose, which is a sugar, so in effect I’m injecting carbohydrates into my system on an empty stomach, exasperating the problem.
3 – Improving my sleep
I’ve been cutting back on caffeine during the day the past few weeks. I wake up with a coffee at home, then grab another downtown – a coffee with a shot of espresso in the early AM. I drink about a third to a half right away, and the rest lasts me into the early afternoon. At times, I’ll go back for a half-caff refill in the afternoon, and other days I don’t. For context, I was drinking a full coffee in the afternoon, sometimes as late as 4pm, which had to affect to my sleep.
In early March, I battled insomnia for a stretch. I’d get to sleep okay, but then would wake up around 1am and be unable to get back to sleep for a couple of hours. This happened 4-5 days a week for a couple of weeks. Even with a solid training regimen, I wasn’t sleeping through the night. I was in Laguna Beach a couple weeks ago and knocked out a two-hour, 10-mile trail run with some gnarly hills, and still couldn’t sleep that night. Really frustrating.
My sleep is back to normal, and even better than before, and I want to keep it that way.
4 – Addressing stiffness and soreness
Since first injuring my hamstring in mid-January, I’ve been unable to recapture the fluidity and flow from early in the year. I had worked up to a 15-mile run with pickups and felt I was on my way to at last toeing the line at the Badger Mountain 100. Since then, I injured the same hamstring twice more – once a week later, and again two weeks after that, so recovering took me into March. I used the injury as an opportunity to focus on upper body weight-training and Cross-Fit conditioning.
But… I’ve been feeling stiff and sore across various body parts – calves, hamstrings, knees, ankles and shoulders. I using the diet as addition by subtraction to see if there’s anything in my diet that might be affected my recovery time.
5 – Changing my mindset
This is the most important reason.
Along with the injuries and general stiffness, I’ve been lacking intensity in my weekly workout schedule. We’re in the middle of a home remodel, with our the house now completely torn apart for two weeks. Boxes and plastic are everywhere.
I’m out of my evening mobility routine because I don’t have a place to stretch… The contractors are using the garage so I can’t work out there.
Bzzzzt… That’s a lie. I could easily go out to the garage, and instead I’ve been opting to use the house as a excuse for why I can’t put in the time.
Same with work. The past 4-5 weeks have been incredibility busy with travel, day trips to San Francisco and bringing aboard new clients. More excuses. One of my basic rules is to “Put your Self first,” and I haven’t been doing this.
Changing my diet means that I’m doing more to plan out my days and weeks, and it’s a focus on my entire body. In fact, I just paused from this post to book an appointment with my sports chiropractor to evaluate the aches and pain. Next, I requested an appointment with my family doctor to talk about my ongoing left leg tendon issues and some weirdness in my right ear.
See? Mindset changes behavior.
Right now, I’m midday of Day Two, and feeling okay. I knocked out a seven-mile run and have some acceptable snacks to keep me rolling through the day. Next goal is to get to dinner without breaking, then I can make it through the second day.
I’ll keep you posted.