Clean Eating

I am gong to use this blog to keep track of my eating schedule. I'm doing this to keep track of my eating habits and also to share my successes and failures for others also. I am however not a nutritionist or doctor, so don't expect to have the same results or get all the info you may need to figure out if this works for you. Most of my research has been from reading about others journeys and speaking to my doctor or other professionals in the realm such as my coaches.

Since training for Ultra Marathons the last few years I have been trying different things to test the changes in how I feel, my performance and overall health. I eat a pretty healthy and "clean" diet. Clean to me is nothing processed such as fast food, junk food or frozen foods. I eat mostly fresh organic fruits and veggies as well as products that contain ingredrients I can recognize and know are beneficially to me. I try to do low sugar because I have a history of diabetes in my family and have had gestational diabetes myself. I do eat pasta, noodles, rice and flour but its very minimal.

Last year while training for my first 50 mile race, I read Scott Jureks book and was motivated to try something pretty extreme for me. I don't believe in most "diets". I feel like moderation and activity is key to most people and is a healthy way to go so I've never even thought about changing my personal eating habits. I grew up eating meat, I love meat and never plan to give it up, but after reading his book I decided to just try it out and see how it would affect my running. I just took out meat, fish and seafood. I'm not going to lie ... I did have a piece of bacon about 2 times during this trial, but that was all.

I was really excited about this endeavor. I enjoy challenges and that's how I saw it. I had no problem at all giving up meat, knowing it was only a temporary thing, after all I didn't eat much meat to begin with because I am very picky about my meat. I did some research and found ways to add more protein and iron into by diet.

One month into the meatless diet I ran a full marathon. It was my fastest marathon, knocking 10-15 off my average race time. I also felt great the next day, hardly sore at all. Two weeks later I ran a half, also my fastest half marathon time.

I found that I wasn't as sore after long runs, that I felt much lighter even though I actually weighed a few pounds more, I was getting faster on my runs and my energy level was much better. I felt this was quite a success!

After I ran my 50 mile race, which I exceeded my expectations at and truly enjoyed running, I went back to eating meat. I took 2 whole months off from running and I just recently started training and eating meatless again.

I feel like I've started all over again. While I have a good base when it comes to running, I feel heavy again, I don't have the energy I had and I'm just not as strong. I also was sore for almost a whole week after running a half marathon.

I'm slowly getting back into my schedule but this time has been much harder to get into a groove. I don't know why but I miss the meat much more now and the motivation has been hard to find. I'm hoping by keeping track of what I'm eating, it will help me figure what works and what doesn't for me.