Fuel enough to go

"Runger", a phrase I had never heard of, until recently.  But it's a phenomenon, that I am very familiar with.  You know the feeling, you've just had a tough run, you're done with your cool down and walk into your house.  And INSTANLY, you need to eat, NOW!!!  Doesn't matter what you eat, you just want it now and LOTS of it!!   You can't believe how hungry you are!!  I've had that happen after a run, and now, have the happy experience of having it happen after swimming.  And, I hate to admit, I don't always make the best choices when I'm that hungry.

Now, I have dropped a lot of weight in the past 2 years, almost 80 lbs.  And I still want to drop another 25.  However, I can not fuel my workouts on the calories I was taking in to lose weight.   It was too little calories for my current workouts.   I was out of energy and eating just anything.   But I was scared to increase my calories because I "just knew", I'd gain weight!  And carbs were evil!!  But I had "just enough" knowledge about nutrition to know carbs were my fuel, and somehow I had to figure out a way to live with them.

So, of course, I turned to my coach.   And she recommended someone she works with, as part of  T2 Coaching, Cindy Dallow.  I contacted Cindy and was shocked by what she said.  I had been eating around 2000 calories/day (which I thought was a lot, considering I had been doing 1500 for the past year).  She proceeded to tell me, that based on my activity level, I should be in the range of 2400-2700!!  I have to admit, the few days that I "cheated" and ate ~2500, I felt good.  But I was convinced I would just, instantly, gain all that weight back.  Cindy reassured me, that while many folks do gain weight back after a big loss, as long as I was educated about it, I'd be fine.  And with my current activity level, not to worry too much.  She also, as Kris, my previous trainer and Wendy both said, don't worry so much about "losing" weight right now.  Focus more on fueling my workouts, the weight will drop.

So, Cindy has agreed to take a look at my food log for a couple weeks and give me recommendations.  In the meantime, my macro's are running 55-60% carbs, fat is 25% and protein 15-20%.  Calories seem to be working when I stick to Cindy's guidelines of 2400-2700.  

And my weight?  Well, I got on the scale the other day and you know what?  It's not going up.  It's pretty much staying where it was two weeks ago.  I did have a recovery week last week and therefore, my training volume was reduced.  However, as I look ahead at the workouts, they are getting longer.  And I have no doubt that the weight "issue" will resolve itself.   Right now, my top focus needs to be how best to fuel the workouts I'm doing.  And just like I turned my training plan over to Wendy, to trust her expertise in all my training, I've decided to do the same with Cindy.  I trust Wendy, she's my coach and I plan on keeping her around a long time, at least through my standing on that Ironman start line.  And Wendy trust's Cindy.  And I've decided, that's all it takes for me.

I have no doubt Cindy will help me find a way to prevent "runger" from being a common term in my life

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