I've been running for enough years to know that nutrition is a huge deal for performance, endurance, etc. And yet, the constant battle of daily life can get in the way. After a summer of success that included running R2R2R and shooting a point of view documentary, Ouray 100, Mid Mountain Marathon, and numerous adventure runs in Rocky Mountain National Park, my body decided to simply shut down. First I thought I was sick. Then I thought I was stressed (probably part of the equation). After more reflection I've realized that I didn't want to let go of what I call 100 mile fitness (another post). So part of my genius thinking and overall error was that I would simply cut calories out of my diet since I wouldn't be training as much. But it didn't take long for the stress, full time job, start up company, kids, etc to overload my underfed systems.
Have you ever run out of gas in your car? The car starts to choke, stutter, so you hit the accelerator a bit harder thinking by opening up the throttle the extra gas will rev the starving engine to life. That's a bit what I felt like. Stuttering, struggling, open the throttle up a bit, train more.
No dice.
I've since been doing a lot of research and talking to the "pros" about nutrition. An interesting article on TNation about metabolic damage has a great explanation why the "eat less, train more" mentality isn't the best.
So i'm swinging the pendulum the other way. Despite wanting to cut a few unwanted pounds that resulted from the crash, i'm upping my calories. My adviser/nutritional coaches are basically adding nearly 1000 calories on top of what I thought was my high end for a normal day.
Here's the problem though. What's normal for us? People who run, crossfit, lift, train, ride every day? We have a skewed perception that what we do really isn't a big deal. When you are used to huge training days, scaling back feels easy, but the reality is you are still stressing your body pretty heavily. Without the right amount/kind of calories, it won't work, or allow you to get into the type of fitness you would want, even scaled back.
Anyone struggle with this? Interested in the result.
