Tomorrow night is pizza night in our house! This is meant to be a treat for Orla whose discovery of Dominos has turned her 3 year old world completely on its head. But secretly I might be more excited than she is. I'm 4 months into training and food has played such a big part in this journey so far.
On the 1st Jan I cleaned up my diet new year’s resolution style. Out with the suspicious mystery meat from the corner shop (where the packaging on the meatballs celebrates 'contains real pork' triumphantly in red capitals) and in with omlettes, salmon and lots of lean protein. For a long time the only exception was using the local burger van to lure Munya out into the cold to do a January 10k like some kind of carnivorous pied piper.
However, as the distances and HIT sessions have increased so has the need to take in more and more calories. On Saturday I had to take in 4000 calories which resulted in me being defeated by my final portion of scrambled eggs in a way that made the Ben Askren fight look competitive. On my 2019 Northern diet this would have been easy - a couple of pork pies, a beer and a deep fried Mars Bar and I’d be sorted. That was the European Super League of diets - sounded great, but by the next day you realised nobody really wanted it.
As a side note, Fiona at work was telling me that a vegan athlete recently trained for a marathon on nothing but beans. Because I now know exactly how many calories are in a tin of beans and I would have needed 18 and a half tins of them last Saturday ..... that can’t be good for the human body or for global warming.
But because I have stuck with it my diet is largely very healthy Coming up to May and I have good habits and routines. I have loads more energy. I’m nearly 20kg lighter than I was in December and look less like a badly packed boerewors fitting into my jeans and T shirt. All while getting to eat more than I ever have before?? The phrase ‘winner winner chicken dinner’ comes to mind. There is something to this training malarkey. I’m also finding I don’t crave junk food any more but I’m not beating myself up when I scoff the odd chocolate biscuit at a virtual team meeting. I’m going to have to get creative when the distances have doubled or tripled but for now I’m off to bed to dream about my mighty meat feast with extra cheese and a thick crust.
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