The Food
With my virtual marathon training coming into the peak weeks of ramping up the mileage and doing speed work and a strength and conditioning program seemingly all at once, the hunger levels are on ten right now as my body wants calories, calories and more calories! I don’t typically have a big sweet tooth. But what I do crave is salty, fatty junk food. It’s easy to want to give in to all the chips and fries that are within the pantry’s reach or a short drive down the street, but I’m trying to be better with not caving in this time around and save the extra indulgences for after the race.
Over the years, I’ve had bad cravings, almost addictions to junk food. I would joke with some of my run buds that I was powered by Jumbo Jacks as I passed them up on our group runs. For all you east coasters, it’s a fast food chain loosely close to Hardees in menu options. But in my heart of hearts, I knew it’s not what I should have been eating if I wanted to really improve my fitness and more importantly, not keel over from a heart attack at forty. Since then, I’ve dialed back the pizza and burgers a bunch, but I still have the occasional meal. Key word is occasional. In trying to eat healthier, it got me wondering about trying to retrain my taste buds to want better quality food. So I dug around and did a little research. All the salty, sweet goodness we typically like to snack on triggers the pleasure centers of our brain, which just compounds upon itself and gets us wanting more of it. The good thing is that we can retrain our taste buds to lay off the Quarter Pounders and Tasty Kakes.
As with starting a new exercise program, the first few days is going to suck if you’re going from zero to one hundred and as such, will likely prevent you from keeping it going long term. So what’s a more reasonable, doable option that’ll keep you on the wagon? Can you switch out one bad snack for a healthy one and stick to it for a week? Maybe it’s choosing the skinny version of your morning double pump mocha lattechino with whip cream. Or some hipster avocado toast instead of a bag of chips. The goal isn’t to restrict yourself from eating and enjoying food, but making small tweaks to the quality and/or quantity of what you’re enjoying and making it stick long term, then replicating it with another healthier choice and so on and so forth. It’ll take discipline on your part, for sure but, let’s be honest, if you have kids, you wouldn’t let them gorge on soda and candy all day. So if you wouldn’t do that for your kids, why do that for yourself? Lead by example and have that self-discipline for everyone’s benefit. As your body makes those adaptations toward better choices, you’ll notice that those taste buds will find your previous salty and sweet faves too salty and too sweet and craving more natural, less preserved, whole food options.
Never indulging in a burger and fries isn’t what I’m suggesting, because best believe I’ll still zip out to In-N-Out and wait in line for a Double Double, but that isn’t the norm for me anymore. Rather the key is to eat quality, healthy amounts of salt, sweet and fat. I know I’m getting older and with that, I know the metabolism doesn’t incinerate everything I eat as much as it used to. I know that my dedication to fitness has probably helped me dodge high cholesterol and sugar levels in my blood to point over the years. Likewise, I also know that I can’t keep playing Russian roulette with a bad diet and just run it off or work it out like so many of us endurance athletes and fitness fanatics want to believe. At some point, a bad diet will catch up with you regardless of how active you are. If I want to keep performing my best during race day (whenever that might be) or if I just want to simply feel better throughout my typical day to day, I know opting for fresher, less preserved, healthier foods is the way to go. The science is there to back it up, likewise my own journey in working to eat healthier proves it. If you need help in finding good healthy alternatives to what you’ve been eating with a doable workout plan to match, please reach out.
I’m doing what I can to change the adage of saying, “I’m not here for a long time, but here for a good time” to “I’m here for a good, long time.” Let’s work to help you make that same transition.
For a deeper dive in how to retrain those buds of yours, check out: https://www.rallyhealth.com
📸: Ready Made
