Food: In-Depth

4-day weekend over already? Not surprising, plenty of stuff to keep me busy. Not to mention work calling me Friday night making me do work from home. But let's not get into that shall we?

Back in April, I started some "In-Depth" posts (Running & Work), and I had fully planned on keeping them going but wasn't motivated to get more up in May. So I thought I'd try to do one before June is over and then maybe shoot for 2 more in July. Topic for today? Food and eating!

I have a shitty relationship with food, that much is a given. Like so many other things, it is hard for me to enjoy food (and specifically 'bad' food) in moderation. The best I can do is not buy certain things or keep them in my house. That's only one skirmish in the larger battle of staying away from unhealthy food.

There are a few contributing factors to areas of my unhealthy eating, but most of it all boils down to willpower and a lack of pressing need to change my eating habits. Obviously, a large amount of my eating is healthy. I've developed some routines that keep me in check: healthy oatmeal breakfast every day, packed lunch at work every day, and healthy family evening meals. Some of the problems come when I have to break away from the weekly routine. Other areas are controlling my evening meal portions (eating every ones leftovers), not snacking in the evenings, and not eating badly on the weekends.

The stupid part is that with all my running, I can afford to eat unhealthy (from a calorie intake stand point). My laboratory measured resting metabolic rate was 1,886 calories. On any given run, I'm burning between 900-2,200 calories. Running 5 days a week means that on average, I can consume 3,000-3,400 calories daily without breaking a sweat (pun intended). Yikes, do you have any idea how much bad food you can get away with eating with that many spare calories?

The killer part of that whole equation is a form of Catch-22. Am I eating more because my body needs the additional calories from running more? Or am I running more so that I can eat more? Or am I simply eating more because I can? And this is where the willpower part fails, because regardless of the answer, I should still focus on healthy calories. More fruits, vegetables, simple carbs and proteins, and less hot dogs, processed frozen foods, and random snacking on sugary/salty foods.

So what is the answer? Practically every Monday for the last year, I've said to myself, okay today I will make a change and stop snacking on random bad food. And almost every Monday by noon, my resolve has shattered as someone brings in a random left over cake from some weekend celebration (and even I've brought one in before!). I think the only answer is the one I've been unwilling to face: all or nothing. Time to put my money where my mouth is, and own up to my daily decisions and make a change. Wish me luck!