by SARunner » Thu Apr 17, 2014 3:00 pm
This is a new concept for me, journaling. I've never kept any kind of journal or diary ever, so writing down my thoughts and progress is going to be a challenge,. But I come into this with Einstein's quote in mind, "Insanity is going the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" and this quote, "If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got" -Henry Ford (some cite Mark Twain, can you tell I'm a university student,? Reference people!) It's time to try something new.
I decided to attempt McDougalling in Oct/Nov last year when I signed up on these forums. I had just started university and it quickly became a mess. I have a bad habit of picking on food when I'm stressed and not realising how much I've eaten. Its something I'd like to be rid of, and since last year I've made great strides in reducing my picking and and mindless snacking. Believe it or not, this habit is relatively new. I used to be very disciplined about my eating habits. I moved to the UK in 2007 and picked up running in late ' 08 in order to lose about 20lbs of "puberty weight", I lost it pretty quickly(being young, 16yo) and became very strict with my eating, to the point where I developed near anorexia type obsessions with weighing my food, eating at certain times of the day, and crying over missing my ' eating deadline' (which meant I had to go without).
Fortunately my faith, born again Christian, meant that I was able to identify the destructive nature of my obsessions and break down a lot of this behaviour soon after a passing out indident,. I decided I'd rather be fast than thin, and with the help of my newly found running friends as well as my family learned to relax around food and focus on fuelling my body. I ate more food after that (Feb 2010). I ate more after that and grew stronger, I started racing regularly and sometimes won my age group. The problem was that my relationship with food after my bout with disordered eating never normalised and I still thought of food as the enemy, or something I had to limit in order to stay thin (I weighed 115-120 depending on running seasons).
I also had a bit of a body dysmorphia issue, I still thought I was heavy and never called myself thin, always 'stocky' or 'chunky'. People would tell me I was slim but I never believed them.
I ran a lot, usually 40-50 miles a week, about 55 mpw during endurance racing season. I loved running so much I couldn't bear to take a break, I thought I would lose all my fitness and hard built foundation of training, i also dreaded weight gain. I'd done well in the local running scene, I ran my first half marathon at 17, in 1rh51 in 2009. By 2011, aged 19, I placed fourth in a half in 1hr29. I won U20 county cross-country title in early 2012 and my success surprised many people who had initially seen me as a mere jogger from the beginning of my running career.
Just a month after my cross country success I was crippled by an ongoing foot injury I had been in denial about for months. I ignored advice to take a break and it came back to bite me. This turned into a two year period of injury, physio, and lots and lots of tears. I don't remember what happened (blocked it out). But my eating habits went haywire, I binged, I ate mindlessly, I definitely didn't eat out of hunger, just emotional trigger after trigger. I now believe it would have benefited me to have seen a therapist, but my parents would never have gone for that. To make matters worse I was finishing off studies and applying to university, so my stress levels were through the roof.
I am now injury free, building back my foundation, but about 40 lbs heavier, and it's killing me. I can run, my fitness is good, but I can't be happy about it because I feel like a hippo. None of my clothes fit, I don't hang around and socialise with my running friends because I'm embarrassed about my weight gain. They all knew me as 'springbok' or 'mazbomb' because I could run like nobody's business. Now I feel like a part a of me has died because I know I'm strong, and lean inside, but I'm too heavy to actually run that way.
Anyway, here I will try to deal with my demons head on, and really change my relationship with food by eating the best food group ever! Plants!
I'll stop writing now, but I'm glad I got that out of my system!!
- SARunner (S.A. stands for South Africa, my home)
I'm typing this on a touchscreen tablet, so apologies for typos.