Running on a diet

As I mentioned in previous posts/instagrams, I'm getting married in April and am right smack in the middle of my 3-month wedding diet. I started back in the beginning of January with the intention of losing about 10-15 lbs before the wedding (for shameless vanity purposes). I wanted to talk a little bit about my experience training for a half marathon while also intentionally losing weight. This is the end of week 7 and at this very point in time I'm down about 9 lbs, although I've been as low as 11 lbs down.

What has my "game plan" been?

For me, my food vice is super simple. Processed carbs. Bread, crackers, pretzels, salty snacks, things of that nature. It's all I ever want, and it was most of what I ate through childhood/high school/college - how I managed to remain relatively thin I guess comes down to luck/genetics. I plan to go into my introduction to eating healthier/running/working out in general in a later post, but for now suffice it to say that my weakness is most certainly carbs. Moreover, I have a complete inability to have "just a little bit" or "one bite" of them. A bite is a gateway drug for me. I would rather have no bites, by far.

That being said, my wedding diet consists of the following rules:

1) NO processed carbs. Literally, no carbohydrate that is not in its original, natural-looking form. No pasta, crackers, chips, etc, no matter how gimmicky "healthy" they appear to be. Pretzels do not grow on trees, sadly.
-This means what I AM eating is quinoa, rice, potatoes/sweet potatoes, beans/legumes, things like that.
-My one exception to this rule is one serving of Fiber One cereal in my yogurt in the morning. This yogurt creation of mine is probably my favorite thing in the universe and I don't care that I'm breaking my own rule for this... Fiber One cereal is pretty nasty on its own anyway, so it's not like I'd go crazy and want to eat the whole box.

2) Try really hard not to eat if I'm not actually hungry, or at least to eat something relatively low-calorie/high-volume (vegetables, usually) if I realize my "mouth is hungry" vs. my stomach.

3) No alcohol unless I WANT it. For instance, if we were out to dinner with friends, I usually would order a drink, just because. If we were watching a football game, I'd have a beer, just because. I realized I generally don't actually care to be drinking a lot of those times-- it's just a habit. So if I really want a glass of wine because I actually WANT a glass of wine, then cool, I'll have one. If not, I won't.

Following those three rules basically results in me eating fewer calories than I would if I was not paying any attention, and a larger percentage of those calories coming from protein/fat than normal. I am not counting calories, but if I wasn't losing weight successfully, I probably would start doing so for a little while.

What does it feel like to run/train while restricting carbs/calories?

LIKE CRAP. In the beginning. (For a long time.)

I started my diet in early January, and it really took until early February for me to feel anywhere close to good again. Based on my two years' worth of medical education in dental school, and a bunch of things I've gleaned from people starting paleo/Atkins/etc, I can attribute a lot of that to the process of acclimating to a MUCH lower carb diet. Add a caloric deficit on top of that and you've got a great recipe for ZERO energy, ZERO exercise tolerance, and a general overall feeling of doom. I expected it, but I didn't expect it to be so intense or to last for so long.

That said, starting in early February, things started to pick up. My energy and endurance gradually returned, and I started to feel good -- and more recently, really good. My 11 mile run yesterday was one of the most enjoyable runs I can remember, and my interval workout this week felt incredible. So it does get better!

My recommendations are:

1) Cut yourself a break in the beginning. If you're not hitting your paces, don't force it. If you need more rest during intervals, take it. If you really can't get out the door, then don't. Your body is working hard to figure out how to efficiently use what it does have (fat/protein), rather than what it was used to and doesn't have as much of (sugar). Luckily, our bodies do adjust, but it takes time.

2) Be realistic about the timing of your diet and what you're training for. I wound up changing my Pittsburgh Marathon registration down to the half marathon because the last thing I wanted to be doing was slogging through 20 mile training runs and hating every step. If I had started this diet a few months earlier, I probably would have been fine. But given the timing of everything, I realized it just wasn't realistic to enjoyably train for a marathon in May.

What about when life gets in the way?

Let's be realistic.. dieting for 3 months prior to my wedding means dieting during my bridal shower, my bachelorette weekend, etc etc. I decided at the very beginning of this process that I wasn't going to miss out on or compromise experiences that only come once in a lifetime just for the sake of a few pounds. So I haven't.

We had a mini-wedding "shower" thrown by my fiance's parents for our local friends who won't be able to make the trip to Massachusetts (thanks to medical residency/essentially slave labor). I had 4 glasses of wine, pasta for dinner, and chocolate mousse for dessert. I came home and ate some crackers. I enjoyed every moment of it (until I got a stomach virus the next day- ha!) Then I went back to my diet.

Superbowl Sunday rolled around. We went to some friends' house for a big dinner of pulled chicken sandwiches, mac and cheese, and snacked on chips/dip and cookies all night. I had two beers. I enjoyed the heck out of it. The next day, I was 2.5 pounds heavier. I went back to my diet. The pounds came back off within a few days.

My bridal shower was this past weekend. Friday night through Sunday night I was a free woman. A ton of sushi on Friday night. Champagne, cupcakes, cheese and crackers at my shower. Multiple flights of red wine and tapas with bridesmaids on Saturday night. A big ol' bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel on Sunday morning. A fabulous Italian dinner in Boston with my parents and my future in-laws on Sunday night. It was INCREDIBLE. I woke up on Monday morning 5 lbs heavier than I was on Friday. I went back to my diet. By yesterday, I was within a pound of my pre-indulgent weight, and still 9 lbs down from where I started in January.

My point being, you CAN indulge while on a diet. Don't be alarmed when your weight skyrockets overnight -- nobody can gain 5 lbs of fat in 24 hours, it's water weight and it WILL normalize again in a few days. The trick is not to feel discouraged and fall off the wagon, just get back to the ol' routine!

Another important point to make is that despite my food indulgences, I made absolutely sure to get out there and get my runs done, NO MATTER WHAT. It kept me from feeling like a couch slug who could just eat cupcakes under a blanket all day. I was not that couch slug! I was a runner, training for a half marathon, who just happened to be having a weekend away from my wedding diet. And holy hell did I feel energized from all those gleaming carbohydrates sitting there in my body just waiting to be burned. But that's a story for another day :)

My weight loss so far

I started on January 2nd at around 135 lbs (I'm 5'7). I don't know exactly because I didn't weigh myself, and THAT was because I didn't care to know. I hover around 133 as my "not trying" set point,  and I had been somewhere between 132-134 for the past year. I'm sure I had gained a few pounds over the holidays/New Years, so I'm estimating 135.

My lowest weight so far has been 124.2. That stomach bug certainly helped me get to that point, but I hovered there for about a week, went up a few pounds after the Super Bowl, then got back down to 124ish right before my bridal shower weekend.

This morning I was 126.2, which is a pound heavier than yesterday, and I'm attributing that to the amount of sodium I ate yesterday (I always crave salt after long runs).

(As a side note, I DO weigh myself every day, because I like to. However, I realize that a pound heavier today doesn't mean I won't be a pound or two lighter tomorrow, so I don't really let it influence my state of mind.)

So currently, with 6 weeks to go before the wedding, I am -9 lbs. I'll be happy if I can lose another 3-4 lbs by April, although if I were to just maintain until the wedding, that'd be okay too. My bachelorette weekend is this coming week, though, and that's another cheat weekend for me, so I'll keep you updated on what that brings!