Food for Fuel Week 2 – wobbles, ‘poop issues’ and negative self talk, starting was the easy bit!

It would be so easy to say that ‘it’s all going well, problem solved’ and whilst I might wish this was true it is not that smooth a process as this week has shown. As a classic triathlete who equates effort to results this is proving more of a challenge than expected, with Sunday morning giving me my first ‘panic’ moment……….

Long run in TP, nothing unusual in that, but a large bowl of porridge first 😱, following a dreadful experience (having not questioned the nutrition advice given at the time) during the run of a lockdown event resulting in total embarrassment and self disgust and I now dread that ‘feeling’ in my tummy when running and plan routes which allow for this. I know I am not the only runner who needs to ‘poop on route’ but to stop just in case several times out of fear can be crippling (I’m working on it) so the thought of a large bowl of porridge sent my negative self talk into overdrive – ‘there is no way you can eat all of this, you will be pooping everywhere, feeling sick, tummy ache……’. Rationally I knew if I didn’t try I would never know, so forcing it down I then went out after a suitable break to allow it to settle and was pleasantly surprised, I mean I did still need to go, but no more than usual – damn the negative ‘duck’ in my head (which also explains the duck on the rear of my bike, it is to remind me to ‘shut the duck up’)

Heading away in our van for an overnight stay presented planning challenges with food, but this was overcome with pre-prep and maybe a very late lunch on Monday, but followed by a glorious monkfish and king prawn red Thai curry! Tuesdays run was before breakfast and just an hour in zone 2, my second week of a ‘poop’ free hour run, I wonder if this is the change in eating habits or coincidence – time will tell.

Wednesday was a great day, weigh in showed a slight loss, but Adam reassured me that this was likely to just be a blip and I felt full of energy, training went well, really enjoying the food choices and starting to think I might have this thing sorted, then Thursday arrived with a massive head f##k, I was tired and started questioning if I really wanted the potential outcome of weight gain, was I secretly pleased that I was now below 9 stone 10 (even if it was a blip) and I could feel the thoughts of ‘if I reduce the carb content here………..’ was I subconsciously sabotaging the whole thing through my fear of ‘getting fat’?

In hindsight, as I write this, I should probably have spoken to Adam, instead I turned inwards for a bit and over analysed everything meaning I then didn’t sleep well waking grumpy (well grumpier than normal 🤣) and realised I was potentially stopping one form of ‘control’ for another and ‘obsessively weighing’ to ensure I didn’t ‘pile on the pounds’. Possibly, as luck would have it, this coincided with a chapter in the book I am currently reading (The Brave Athlete, Calm the f#ck down!) regarding habits and triggers, walking in the bathroom to use the toilet, triggers my thought to ‘step on the scales’…….obviously I can’t not use the bathroom 😱😱 as we only have one and I have broken too many sets of scales to put them away, instead I am making a conscious decision not to step on them unless it is first thing in the morning and I hope to break that too, interesting that it doesn’t bother me when I am not at home? And I reached out to two of my good friends to help me add perspective and a dose of reality to my ‘grumpiness’ – both fellow triathletes 🤣🤣

To finish on a more positive note, I still haven’t found food I haven’t enjoyed – well maybe one porridge choice, banana and peanut butter – I had to fully force that one down and won’t be eating it again 🤢 and am happy to adapt some of the meals as I love to cook and now feel I have a better understanding of appropriate portion size, I still struggle to eat after a big training session, but get fuel in quickly on returning (today was 4.5 hours…..) then more an hour later by focusing my mind on fuel replacement and recovery food. And I still haven’t hoovered – thank god for husbands 🤣🤣