I’ll start by saying this isn’t about drafting or doping or whatever silliness some do to get an upper hand. I consider myself a triathlete, but as recent threads have pointed out, what does that really mean anyway. Just as well, i consider myself one. I live the life, have/getting the gear, plan races for the next 2-3 years, etc. There’s one aspect of all this I can’t seem to get a grip on - or more correctly I once did and now I am losing that grip.
I’m talking about eating in excess. I’m 26, 6’1", 176-178 and got the desired sixpack, good muscle mass, and so forth. However that 6pak is fading. This is due to my eating I thought was a ‘challenge’ at first, eat crap but still look lean. Now I train and eat as most of you all do, 12-15 hrs/wk, 5-6 good solid, meals of 40-30-30 or whatever but its that last ‘meal’ which is more of a snack that kills everything. I usually am up late studying (grad school) and run to the store for about 1500 kcal of stuff I know I don’t need, but either crave or sounds good at that particular moment. This has become a frighteningly bad habit for several months, and I’d say about 6 out of the 7 nights of the week. Sure I train hard but I bet I have a net caloric intake of +500-1000 kcal of not nutritous stuff, but empty calories. I live by myself currently, not with my SO.
I know I’m still young and I have a good metabolism to thank but I know it won’t last forever if I keep eating this way. Can you all relate?
Here is what I plan to do to deter myself, so please comment:
Investment of time and money. I train and family travels with/to see me and enjoy the exp, but I think I will be cheating them and myself by not performing my best. Why train so much, hurt so much, spend so much $ on things like race entry/hotel stay/airfare if I can’t control my nutrition.
Obviously looks isn’t the best indicator for health. I am fortunate to have grown up active, but if I keep this up, my cholestrol, blood pressure, levels of whats good and bad in the blood will go out of whack
I’m taking a healthy approach to this, its not like I’m fretting about adding a pound or two, its about the mental side of this - satisfying cravings, beating them, and stop JUSTIFYING them by the training volume.
When I first got into the sport, I used to keep a strict diet and never waver, but no longer have that conviction.
I’m a fan of my electronic log for training, but hate the ones for eating. I can’t seem to keep one for very long.
Just how I feel in general and maybe just writing this was theraputic enough to get my butt in gear.
This isn’t inteneded to be as smart ass of a reply as it sounds, but just stop doing it. Commit to stopping for 30 days. After 30 days, treat yourself to a bag of chips or some other forbidden fruit. Substitute baby carrots, oranges, apples, bagels, oatmeal cookies, etc to fill you up when you’re starving.
I had the same problem with beer. A couple every night for as long as I could remember. Not a good diet and not necessary and I stopped doing it. After 30 days with 0 beers, I now allow myself a six pack per month and drink it whenever I want during the month.
I am 43. As someone who allowed himself over the past few years to get, well, fat, I can relate. I’m now in the process of taking the weight off and it sucks. But it’s going well. I keep this quote in my wallet:
“The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want in the moment.”
When I feel the desire to eat something I shouldn’t, I take that piece of paper out and read it, and it helps.
For me, what I “want most” is health. I want to be healthy and active for my daughter, who is nine. So maybe, just maybe, if you figure out what you want most, that might help. I can’t claim that this works for me until I get the weight off. But if I do, then determining what I “want most” will have helped.
The most interesting weight loss article I read in years studied the affect of sleep on weight gain and loss. The bottom line is that sleep deprived people would reach for the carbs to give them a boost when they were sagging.
This sounds exactly like what you are doing.
Wind down at night. Get to bed on a regular schedule. Get up on a regular schedule. Quite cutting corners on the sleep. It might fix the night time munchie problem.
I know I’m still young and I have a good metabolism to thank but I know it won’t last forever if I keep eating this way. Can you all relate?
Warning: my metabolism slowed down quite a bit at age 25 (I ran (or more accurately jumped) track through college). I had to seriously cut down on caloric intake after I realized this.
Today is day 52 of my planned 90 day hiatus from all ice cream. If I can do that, you can suck it up and just not eat the crap. If you need the snack, eat fruit. Applesauce is satisfying and filling, and has at least some nutrition, and without the fat calories.
The older you get, the harder it is to keep those pounds off. I’m 46 and I think I have to eat 1500-1800 cal per day to lose and around 2000 just to maintain, and that is working out 1 - 2 hrs nearly every day. Avoiding wine and beer and nightime snacks works the best for me. Just like your training and most everything else in life it is about discipline.
aj’s advice is good. The late-night munchies are part and parcel of graduate study, so is not sleeping enough. How much longer will you be studying ? Basically what you have now is a habit of eating to ward off boredom/fatigue when late-night studying, so change something… either get up early to study instead of staying up late, switch to carrots/apples instead of junk: or just figure it to be a phase that you’ll endure until the studying is over…
I can relate a bit. I am 29, 6’0’’ and about 155 lbs (as of this morning.) A year ago I weighed about 175-180 lbs, lost 25 lbs through chemotherapy to go down to 150 and have gained a bit since. But before all of this I really ate and ate a lot like you…I would eat anything and on donut days, I would 4 and then have these huge cookies and a soda and then a calorie laden coffee drink. I would usually drink a soda once a day. But after losing all of that weight and seeing how great it felt and easily I could run up hills, I was determined to keep the weight off. During treatment, I weighed myself every day, just to see how my weight would fluctuate and I still do and it keeps me motivated to keep it low. I do watch what I eat but do let myself go for the sake of old times, but I find that snacking on healthy crap will keep you from eating all the sweet stuff. I rarely have soda or any of those fufucoffee drinks that are not only caolorically high but expensive as hell and it helps.
I too suffer from bouts of weaknesses (last week one afternoon I ate 3 chocolate bars, seriously, how bad is that? Or a month ago the day I polished off a box of girl guide cookies? nasty stuff). I wrote the word “Discipline” on a sticky and put it on my laptop screen edge, so I see it all the time. To me it means have a few cookies, not all of them, keep the discipline to see yourself to the goal. I also have a printout of the IMWA (my goal race) home page on the wall right in front of me. It has helped a lot, I used to binge a lot more than I still do. One day, food will not be used to make me feel better.
Well if all goes well I should be done with the MS by this time next year or late summer. Then I’ll be working, which was when I was able to get where I am today, 176lbs 5-7% body fat (I worked for several yrs after undergrad). I think it was the regular schedule and planning that helped.
All good ideas, I really appreciate the time people have put forth to support. I’m glad I’m not alone. Today I packed a bunch of apples and oranges - I know its gonna be a late night tonight.
Sleep, ah the old advisary. Thats another can of worms, but I love to cheat myself of that too. I know its not right, but frankly I hate it, and minimize it as much as possible. I realize its also what could be spurring my eating. I don’t consider myself too much of the alpha-lifestyle, but I can’t stand sleeping when I can be getting work done.
I crave crave crave food that is crappy for me. I love pepperoni pizza with Coke, choclate bars, lots of HaggenDaz ice cream, the list goes on and on.
Ideally I know that the best thing to do would be to do without that stuff but I find that food very satisfying. What I do is moderate it and make sure I get one or two really decent meals a day along with some fruits and veggies.
I have also decided that instead of limiting calories I would rather just exercise more to balance it out. Perhaps not the most rational decision but it works.
Beware - I noticed that when I hit 30 the metabolism slowed and I really had to crank up the exercise. Most of my friends metabolism noticeably slowed even earlier.
I do like to eat, but I have made real changes in what I eat (not so much the “how much” part). Refined sugar is almost gone (except for my binges as mentioned above), high GI carbs are only for during or post-workouts, I eat way more veggies than I used to… I have made huge changes, but am not all the way there yet!
first of all, if you think you can’t control it, then guess what. you can’t control it.
my advice to you is to get Dr. Phil’s 7 keys to weight loss so that you can re-program the way you think, and how you physchologically handle it.
honestly, it sounds like you feel as though you’re freaked out by all of this and have language that suggests you are acting and feeling out of control with no avail. your issues are totally psychological, and it’s true for most of us.
so, go to the grocery store and read the book in the isle for 10 or 15 minutes. if it speaks to you, buy it and read it every night. it will reshape your thoughts and help you identify your current behavior, and give you ways to change.
most importantly–don’t freak out. if i had anything that resembled a 6 pack of abs i’d be jumping for joy up and down the street. you’re not far gone, you just need to improve.
Stop taking a bong hit at 8:00 PM. That worked for me
It’s tough. I have same problem with eating late. I think it’s just a habit. For me it signifies the end of the (work) day, and I rationalize it by telling myself that I worked hard and I deserve to “live life” a little bit. Not good, I know, but luckily I need the calories.
If you’re training a lot and studying it’s possible that your cortisol levels are elevated, which can make you crave sweets. Tank up on calcium and Vitamin C and make certain you’re well-hydrated. I know my appetite goes crazy when I’m dehydrated.
I’m not sure what is worse…your eating or your guilt.
If you are going to eat like crap, admit it. Enjoy it and burn it off. Make it count…don’t eat cheetos…rather eat the triple scoop sundae. Before you stick the crap in your mouth, figure out how many miles of running is going to burn it off and write down when you are going to do it. Once again, plan your poison and enjoy it.
My spinning class instructor (perhaps the hottest woman on the planet) is hilarious. She’ll make comments like "Don’t waste your time fatass…Do you want to have a flabby ass?..Do you want your ass to drag on the ground?. Since I’m there for fitness, not fat burning…I find the comments hilarious. It seems to work for most of the class though. I almost pee’d my shorts last week.
As for me…I am basically bi-polar. I’ll eat good 6 days a week and will pretty much eat like a cow on day 7…which usually comes the day after a race. My training is such that I don’t really gain weight (+/- 5lbs a week), but eating like crap impacts (negatively) my workouts. Sunday night I ate the entire bucket of Kemps (no sugar/no fat) Frozen Yogurt with chocolate/caramel/heath bar syrups…with chopped peanuts.
I have been consciously losing weight for about 2 years now since I stopped playing varsity college football. Was 5’11" 215lbs inside linebacker, not fat per se but BIG, I had to really restructure my body and have lost about 45 lbs since then. so in 2 years that’s about a half pound a week and I’m getting much closer to where I want to be. I think 10 more pounds and I’ll start to stabilize my weight. I’m 170 now. But what has really worked for me is picking out one thing in my diet that I know isn’t good and focusing on improving it. First thing I did was cut out sodas, after a month or so it wasn’t even an issue anymore, then i focused on late night snacking, then refined sugars, etc. etc. After 2 years my diet is very good, my only vice recently has been 2% milk instead of skim. I will eat ice cream, cookies etc. maybe once a week and in small portions. To me this diet isn’t restrictive in terms of what I eat because my body has just learned to really enjoy healthy foods and i think it is because i focused on one thing at a time and slowly everything came together.
