Food for Fuel – a body conscious middle aged triathlete’s journey into healthier nutrition

Week 1 – Background

Like most of us, when I was younger (significantly……) I could eat what I liked and remain slender or ‘skinny’ as friends put it, such that I recall wanting to get up to a particular weight at age 17 🤷‍♀️

Fast forward just over 30 years, two children, too much work and food laziness meant I was tipping the scales at an uncomfortable weight and creeping into size 16 clothing, time for a change.

2017 and an aggressive diet by tracking food on My Fitness Pal shed two and a half stone and started training for a mid-life crisis 140.3 in 2018. Three triathlons in 2018 with Outlaw full being the July culmination, mid life crisis achieved – time to relax?

And the weight went straight back on, it was a sudden realisation in early 2019 that I couldn’t pull my size 16 skirt over my thighs to use the bathroom, unzip and have a little cry – how did I get back to this?

Unfortunately this triggered an unhealthy relationship with food, I was still training but with less commitment and ate less to bring the weight down becoming afraid of putting it back on.

August 2019, and after a disappointing performance at the Lakesman half, I took on a coach and began training more, but not really putting more healthy fuel in, instead I used the following mantra – big training equals big meal, little training means don’t eat much. My coach of the time ‘allowed’ extra calories based on 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours training not related to intensity or over 3 hours and suggested I might be ‘carb sensitive’ so would put weight on if I ate too many carbs.

End result? I became obsessed with not eating too many carbs and not training at times which then allowed regular meals, especially the long bike days, often out over lunch and then not eating. Performance wise I was doing ok, always tired but I thought that was just working and training.

2020 – along comes covid and retirement so plenty of time to train and a change of coach in September……..all of a sudden someone is saying ‘when do you eat if you train over lunchtime?’ you have to think of food as fuel not the enemy!

2021 and after a barren season last year, races are returning and training intensity reflects that after a winter of ‘building’ and the very uncomfortable truth starts to out, I am now heading towards dangerously thin, not through my coach, but through my own fear of getting fat and an unhealthy relationship with carbs. It still took me several months to pluck up enough courage to ask for help, I suppose it is a form of an eating disorder, controlling my weight by consciously under eating (and this is very difficult to write) despite it looking to the outside world as if I eat loads! It’s surprising how easy it is to deceive ourselves 😢

Having faced up to it, in true ‘Helen’ fashion - go hard or go home! So I approached a local nutritionist and logged my food for a week (typical that it was the only week I had champagne and two cream teas 🤣🤣). The feedback was that while my diet was varied and included lots of fresh food, it was at least 1200 calories short a day (on average) and deep down I know the following two weeks were worse. I will now be working with the nutritionist for two months to learn how to structure my food to optimise training and recovery and maybe even gain a few healthy pounds.

I know it will be a challenge, not because of time to cook, but rewiring my mindset from ‘food = fat’ to ‘food = fuel and performance’ – come back next week if you want to see how I get on 🤷‍♀️