178.5: The Origin of Disfunctional Eating

I was feeling down a few days ago (just before starting this blog) about my eating habits. My completely amazing wife Jill reminded me of the origins of my eating "pattern," so here it is. Growing up, we were financially underwhelming as a family so if there was food, it wasn't the best. A normal dinner of ramen noodles, mac n cheese, frozen pizza, or canned chili usually sufficed. For a competitive swimmer (I started when I was seven), it wasn't the best. For a homo sapien, it wasn't he best. Actually, I don't think that diet work work for any living creature. I can remember many nights of popcorn for dinner after swim practice and having such envy for "regular people" who ate normal foods, as if I knew what that meant. To me salt is was like water. My brother and I used to PILE sugar on our sugared cereal. It was something to behold. At any rate, that's where I came from, so normal was far from normal.

 
Such a background is a crappy excuse, I know. I've known better for a really long time, and I chose (I chose) not to act on that knowledge. But one thing I know beyond question is that people can do anything. Anything. I can chose to eat Oreos, or I can choose to eat something healthy. Underlying the choice, however, are the feelings of emptiness, which I also have a choice to dismiss. When I exercise those choices, good things happen. It's all pretty simple really.

Yesterday was pretty incredible. I went out on a 3 hour bike ride, but felt so great at the halfway point that I continued on to get in an even 60 miles (3:30:00). Fifty of those were good, but the last 10 were some of the hardest miles I've ever ridden. Not nearly enough nutrition to pull me through (minus over 3,000 calories replaced by only 200 during the ride). Still, it was epic and I loved it. I had an artificial weight of 175.5 (down from 179 in the morning). It looks nice. I managed to replace most some of the calories and resisted the urge to "reward" myself with junk. BUT MAN I WANTED ME SOME MAC N CHEESE LIKE IT WAS MY JOB! The 178.5 may be a little artificial, but I definitely replaced fluids, so we'll see tomorrow. Swimming and running on tap today.

Time to move beyond who I was to who I am. It's a choice.