Hungry Girl

What no one ever tells you when you are beginning an intense training regime (at least no one ever told me) is how HUNGRY you will be ALL THE TIME. I swear, I can never be satiated, especially in and around my days of long runs. This past weekend I had two gatherings with friends Friday and Saturday night that involved tables full of finger foods, like puppy chow (it is a drug), wheat thins and dips (I don't buy wheat thins because I can't keep a box longer than 3 days), shrimp, and breads (hellloooo carbs!). Well, shut the front door, because even if I eat before I go to these events, do not even get me started on what it is like to be in a room with open, easy accessibility to food with my metabolism right now. The good thing about my condo and living alone is that I do not keep a lot of snack foods, because once I pop open a bag of something, it is like I am a scavenging lion from Scar's ruling in The Lion King (yup, movie was on the other night so I had to make a reference). Due to this fact, I typically only buy granola bars, cereal, cheese sticks and waffles (which I do eat frozen...weird habit), so I can't really go to town on any of those items besides the cereal which I feel ok about since at least it is fortified with vitamins and minerals. (Things I tell myself to make myself feel better).

Anyways, the bottom line is, I am a bottomless pit! I finally understand why people cannot lose much weight while training for intense races. Granted, I could make smarter food choices sometimes, since I do have a huge sweet tooth, but I generally, six days of the week, really eat healthy, and I always plan out my meals. The key for me is to make sure I am eating every 2-3 hours so I never get so hungry that I become hANgry, grumpy or lose control. I also have started tracking my training and eating on SparkPeople which allows me to keep track on how much I am eating (so I eat more or less depending on what I have eaten throughout the day) and my mileage and exercise type/time totals. I also keep track of my weight and inches so I know how what I am eating and how my training affects my size. It's been fun to see changes and understand how my energy level, mood and runs are affected by what I am eating. I definitely notice the mind-body-spirit connections. It's pretty incredible. The next time I train, I may try more of an intuitive eating approach so I am more in touch with what my body is telling me it needs, rather than what I think I need, to see if there are any changes when I do that.

What are some of your big food cravings when you are in training mood?! I find that peanut butter ALWAYS tastes good, and I want dinner at about 4 PM!