I need help with my diet!

[Dawson Hinton]

Can someone please help me out with a question I am having?  Ever since I ran in the St George Marathon almost three weeks ago, I have had the hardest time keeping my diet under control.  Because I started running as part of my wieght-loss plan, it seems counter-productive that I cannot quit eating.  Any comments or tips would be helpful.

[Sasha Pachev]

I never restrict myself on the quantity of what I am eating, but I am exceptionally particular about the quality. In other words, what is more important than how much. Natural foods will regulate your appetite to where you cannot eat more than is healthy. Processed foods (a.k.a junk) have taste enhancers that mess with your natural healthy sense of satiation.

Draw a strict line for yourself of what you are and are not going to eat, and stick to your guns no matter what happens. Do not keep the foods that are a minus in your home. Do not buy them, why support those who fatten America for a profit?

Another thing that helps me is think fitness vs weight loss. I test the foods I eat by how they affect my running performance. For example, long before I knew anything about cholesterol clogging up the veins, or fat being hard on the liver, I knew that fatty foods were not good for a runner - running 1 hour after eating those would produce unbearable side ache at any pace faster than 7:30. Then when a saw a fatty food, I would immediately thing of the excruciating pain that those foods would inflict on my body. I thought of those foods as cords tying me up, and with no knowledge of physiology behind it had no desire to eat them. The key to being able to think like that is taking your run as a given, something that will happen, something you cannot escape, something you cannot talk yourself out of. Once that decision has been made, the brain will adjust to want the foods that help your running performance, which are also the foods that improve your overall health.

[Josse]

Nicely put!

Something that helped me when I fisrt went off sugar is find someone with a similar intrest and make a wager with them.  It has to be hefty like if you eat what ever you have decided not to eat you have to buy the other person a new pair of running shoes.  Once you get use to it it's not so hard,  you just have to stick to it.  When I start eating sugar or fried foods again I always wonder why and feel absloutly gross.  I do it for a while and then decide it's better to not have it.  But I also think it is OK to have a little indulgance once in a while but keep it small and no more than once a week.  Think happy thoughts

[Dawson Hinton]

Thanks for the input.  The "diet" I have been following since January is Weight Watchers, so I TRY to stay away from fatty or empty calorie foods anyway.  Once the Marathon was over, I gave myself one week off from running, and one week off from the diet, and that may have been my downfall.  I feel that the week off of running just made me that much more excited to start up again.  But, when it comes to the eating, I think that I just couldn't quit craving those "treats" I was letting myself have.  I feel like I am doing much better now, but even on days when I am sticking to my food plan, I just feel like I cannot eat enough.  My appetite has just gone through the roof!