I would have thought that through all the hours of hard training for my races that dropping some pounds would be a no brainer, but it doesn’t seem to be that easy. I’ve actually put on 6 pounds over the last 5 weeks which takes me to the most i’ve weighed in over 4 years, which is kind of scary. I’ve tried to figure out what i’m not doing right thats causing this .. First, I have to say that I expected to gain 2 pounds or so of added muscle during this journey just due to the intense resistance training and added crosstraining that i’m doing, but 6 pounds??? I should also add that I think I still look and feel better than I did, but for some reason I’m obsessed with the scale and can’t let the way I feel get me over that. So with the help of my nutritionist on Wednesday, I think i’ve decided on some changes to my eating habits … here’s the plan

1. Continue to track my calories using myplate on Livestrongs website watching out for the amount of sodium I take in and empty calories (refined sugar). Fat is never a problem since most everything I eat is lowfat
2. Stop drinking so much Gatorade. Its actually humorous when I take my recycle bin out each week and my bin has probably 20 empty Gatorade containers in it. I hadn’t realized how much sodium and empty calories that adds, even drinking the “low calorie” version of it. I have to learn to just stick to just.
3. Cut back on the carbohydrates a little .. from what i was told, I’m way too carb heavy with my diet, which as an endurance athlete, I thought would be good. She explained to me the reason why 75% of my calories coming from carbs would be contributing to weight gain even during training .. something to do with the way the carbs metabolize in your system. It made sense.. so my goal is to add more protein to my diet by getting high protein snacks instead of the normal carb-loaded snacks that I eat now.
4. Eliminate the empty calories. I did cut ice cream out of my diet, which is all refined sugar and I don’t think I do too bad overall with empty calories in my day although I do have an issue with eating m&m’s at work. I just have to walk by the candy dish and not take anything, its hard though.
5. Hit my required calories each day. I told her that sometimes its a struggle for me to eat 2800 calories a day .. and she said that I have to find a way to do it. The body slips into starvation mode if i’m working off a ton of calories and not fueling myself up, this will slow my metabolism and cause me to gain weight.

I’m happy that i’ve put a plan together, we’ll see how it works.

So it sucks to be awake at the crack of dawn on days when you’re supposed to be sleeping in, but I guess my body is just ready to go at this time of the day and can’t sleep, maybe we’ll catch a quick mile or two run before work. My shin splints seem to have calmed down a bit with the rest i’ve given them, but I have to keep them stretched out so they don’t start to bother me again.

Tomorrow I expect to push the training a bit since Stacey is teaching spin, i’ll probably do my 1.25 mile swim and then try to spin for 40 minutes or so.. Its possible I can get outside on the bike for Saturday at least for a little bit, we’ll have to see.

Well, I guess i’ll get dressed to head out for a run…