Rest day, and I'm thinking about food. I originally said I wanted to get closer to 110 than 120 before real training started, but I'm at 117. I've only gotten there by recently (past 2 weeks) formally vowing to cut out junk food and candy, and eliminating my normal glass of wine/beer on weeknights. Everyone says "don't diet while marathon training," which makes sense, and I mostly want to focus on eating extra-nutritious food as opposed to *not* eating stuff. Junk food can be a real temptation for me, and I also fall into that stupid trap where I think it doesn't "count" if I'm on the road/on my own etc. So if I'm with Jonathan, I need real meals, but by myself a candy bar & bag of chips is fine. I want to treat my body better than that!

Going through a number of the running blogs that Mark's collected, I was struck how many of the first ones I checked out referred to having had eating disorders. Scary! I've never gotten near that unbalanced about food, but there are things I need to look out for. Reading and eating are tied together: if I'm eating something delicious I particularly want something fun to read, and vice-versa. So I'm trying to keep a few principles in mind (eat slowly and avoid fake food--emphasized by Will Clower's great The Fat Fallacy--focus on enjoying the food, choose good food even if it takes longer/costs more, etc.)

I've been a vegetarian (lacto-ovo) for more than 20 years, by the way, and normally I don't worry about protein at all, but I'll have to keep that in mind a little more. We have a good source of free-range eggs, so that will be easy (especially since I love eggs). Through another blog I found this page on what to eat after a long run. Slim-Fast? No thanks, that spells "fake food" to me, but what seems just perfect is Cheerios with milk & fruit. I love love love them but normally avoid them most of the time because I tend to not be able to stop at one bowl. A legitimate reason to down 2 bowls after a long run? Hurray! "My advice is to find something that you really love to eat and use it as a celebration of your hard work from your training." Exactly. A reason to look forward to long runs! I just better check the Cheerios box again--I remember them as being basically pretty healthy without too many additives, but...
- posted by Hilary @ 8:25 PM