Trigger warning: eating disorders, weight loss goals, nutrition tracking apps

This is something I’ve had in mind for some time to work on, and it’s rather ironic how this has become a thing just in the past year. I’ve had times when I’ve been very busy and just forgotten to eat or just had a lot of coffee in the morning until I could figure out what to eat (and when), but those were short durations of a few days each.

I’m a recovering binge eater, so my attitude toward food has been problematic for decades. I was a boredom eater, grazer, AND grew up with “clean plate club” thinking. I ate even when NOT hungry because food was there and “would go to waste”, (and often became ill because of it). Then because my eating was so off, or I’d wait too long to eat something and become hungry for “anything,” cue the junk food cravings and my weight would jump up even higher.

Now, I’ve done far better keeping myself busy and just don’t think about food much at all. It’s strange to think of myself as just gorging on whatever was around and now I’ve gotten back into exercise and made goals for myself, so food is not a high priority. However, it NEEDS to be a priority again, just on equal footing with sleep and exercise.

My marathon training is going to ramp up in the next few weeks. I’ve been walking and slow jogging as a start to get me back into the exercise routine & prepare to work harder and harder sessions, and this will require more food intake so I don’t hurt myself or my weight loss efforts.

It’s kinda funny: I’m gonna have to work on eating more in order to lose weight and gain health. That was definitely FAR from the case before last year.

So, there is going to be a LOT of trial and error the next few weeks as I create an eating schedule around my workouts and sleep. It will need adjusting again by August when I’m sure the meat in my house will be gone & I can become fully vegetarian.

I have a good start with batch-made smoothies that’ll keep for about a month or so in the freezer. Pull out a bag to thaw overnight and in the morning after my workout, drink it down. That’s one meal taken care of, at least in the summer. The fun part is figuring out the rest of the day when I will definitely need more calories, and more and more to build muscle and take care of myself.

I’m operating on multiple fronts here with this change. For one thing, I’m iron-deficiency anemic, so once I get away from the meats in my freezer, I’ll have to have some good recipes and ideas that will make sure I keep my iron levels up. I already take supplements, but I’ve also realized that when I wait too long to eat after exercise (or don’t eat enough just because I wasn’t hungry), I’m prone to headaches or light-headedness. Or if I wait too long to eat in general (that’s my cue to eat more than any stomach rumbling has ever been).

My eating has been a see-saw for so many years and thrived on ignorance. If I don’t wanna pass out in the middle of the marathon or work myself into injury during training, I’m going to have to resort to tracking my food with the Cronometer app again. I haven’t used it in a while just because much of what I was eating could NOT be tracked (my expenses have been so tight my main meal has come from work on nights when I’m an assistant manager, which earns me a free meal).

When I did track my food and micronutrients (probably the best part of it) for a few weeks, my progress was steady and working. As my exercise frequency and difficulty level change, the need to make sure I’m getting enough nutrients is gonna be more important than ever. And it adjusts my daily goals for those “rest days” I promised myself I’d take.

I like that I can put in my goals for weight loss (because that STILL is a big part of what I want, and also, getting rid of some of that tire around my middle means less weight for my legs to have to carry across the finish line. Win-win… or is that win-win-win?) and it takes the info from my FitBit into account when I sync it up.

This week I’ll be going through my pantry, my fridge, and my cookbooks to see what will work best in June and onward. I’m looking forward to being my healthiest for race day (in 227 days & change) and ensuring proper nutrition for my goals will make me feel like I can move mountains. Even the little bit I’ve done so far to address my goal had changed my attitude… I just wanna keep the train rolling.