For the past few weeks, I have been eating more food. I’ve been eating according to hunger, rather than counting calories and controlling my food intake. I’ve had so much energy for my workouts and afterwards, and many of my nagging aches and pains have nearly faded away.
During my entire tri journey thus far, I have been losing fat and gaining muscle. To accomplish this, I underate…by about 200 calories per day. I lost about 50 pounds using this strategy, over the past two years.
I feel like I could lose 5 or 10 more pounds. However, I was feeling very tired after workouts, so much so that I would have to lay down and take a nap. I was also waking up in the middle of the night extremely hungry. I’d try to fall back asleep, but couldn’t, so would get up and have a snack. I took this as sign that I wasn’t eating enough.
My workouts have been going great since eating more. Before, my workouts were rather mediocre (I’d often return from a workout saying “I suck!”).? And, I always amazed myself in races going much faster.? I had thought that I was able to race better because of ‘race day magic’, or adrenaline. Now I wonder if my racing was faster because I had always eaten more during my pre-race tapering.
Last food for thought for today’s blog: as someone who has lost a lot of weight (i lost a bunch before becoming a tri-addict), it’s kind of scarey to eat according to my hunger. I’m a little afraid that I’ll gain it all back.