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On Saturday I ran for twelve miles and then biked for 29. In the middle of the ride, I suddenly became very very hungry. We stopped at a country store so that I could load up on calories. I bought a Hershey bar with almonds and a bottle of Propel fitness water.
“This candy bar is awful,” I said to Paul and Susan, my riding companions. “It tastes like chocolate wax.” The water tasted fine, but then I noticed that it only contained 25 calories. “That sort of defeats the purpose,” I said. “I wanted a lot of calories.”
We got back on our bikes and returned to the trail. My mind was still on food. “What I really want,” I said, “are Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings from Pok Pok.”
“What are those?” asked Paul.
“They’re normal chicken wings that have been marinated in fish sauce and palm sugar, deep fried, and then I think they’re baked with more fish sauce and garlic,” I said. “They’re awesome.” (I’m not the only one to think so. They were recently named one of the ten best dishes in the United States.)
“Whatever they are,” I said, “I feel like I could eat a hundred of them.”
Susan laughed. “That’s one of the best parts about exercising heavily,” she said. “Fantasizing about all the food you can eat afterward.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can see that. I will have done five hours of aerobic exercise today. I can basically eat anything I want.”
Our conversation devolved into hallucinatory food fantasies. We talked about the big meals we’d eaten after past workouts, and about the things we were hungry for at that moment.
When we finally reached home, Kris greeted us at the door. “How was your ride?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “We’re leaving for Pok Pok in half an hour.” She laughed. “I’m serious,” I said. “I just need to shower.”
And so I had my fantasy meal: Ike’s Vietnamese Fish Sauce Wings and a tamarind whiskey sour, along with laap khwai neua (a spicy buffalo salad with shallots, thai chilies, and fresh herbs). For dessert, we stopped by Papa Hayden. Normally I would have ordered a piece of German chocolate cake, but this time I opted for berry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.
After five hours of exercise, it was sheer heaven to indulge in my food fantasy…
Mac
13 responses so far ↓
1 Tina Vaziri // May 13, 2008 at 8:04 am
This post is really motivating! A perfect reward system!
2 Healthy Amelia // May 13, 2008 at 8:21 am
JD, Talk about the benefits of exercise! I remember when I first trained for a marathon a few years ago. The day of my first 10 mile run, my friend and I got steak and eggs afterwards! I had never eaten that before (or since)!
My only caution is that it’s easy to overcompensate with the calories without realizing it. At first when I was training, I didn’t lose any weight because I was making up for all that effort with lots of extra “healthy” food. I thought I’d earned it and needed it because I was genuinely hungry. All this is true but I really wanted to lose a bit of weight (slowly, but at least going in that direction). So, I started monitoring my calories again (I use WW points, but any system will work). I got all the nutrition I needed and was never hungry, I just had a handle on the calories in/calories out so I could create a minor deficit and lose weight.
I’m starting over now by training for a half marathon this time, but I will be mindful of my intake from the start. Have fun with the rest of your training! You are doing a fantastic job.
3 Red // May 13, 2008 at 8:54 am
I shall have to visit Oregon. Do you happen to have a link to the rest of this list?
4 metroknow - AlmostFit.com // May 13, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I say throw caution to the wind…if you just ran 12 miles and biked 29? You can eat whatever the hell you want!
5 at // May 13, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Great job with the exercise, as someone who also trains for long distances, I can definitely share the feelings of success after that kind of accomplishment.
That being said, your nutrition habits don’t seem incredibly healthy.
If you are going to be exercising longer than 2 hours or so, I would advise eating and drinking during that time. Your body has enough stored glycogen for 1hr+, but when you’re working out for 5 hours, you need some fuel during, not just after. You can get calories from drinks, like Gatorade, Powerade, etc, or GU, which you should be familiar with as a cyclist. Your choice of a Hershey bar probably wasn’t ideal.
Also, if I read the two previous posts correctly, you ate two cheeseburgers after your run, and then deep fried chicken wings, ice cream, etc after your bike. While exercising does give you some license to indulge, you should still be making an effort to eat healthy foods.
That being said, I understand the need to gorge after a long hard workout. This is one of the reasons why training for such long distances can be frustrating for people trying to lose weight (Which is why you see people completing an Ironman triathlon while still being very overweight). It’s not ideal because you need a lot of calories to fuel the workouts. So while you will continue to become more fit, don’t be frustrated if the weight doesn’t come off too fast.
Keep up the good work.
6 Healthy Amelia // May 13, 2008 at 12:54 pm
metroknow – I feel you, I do. I guess you just have to have some sort of mindfulness to it. Maybe just indulge on that one day only. I am only speaking for myself, really. I just didn’t have the internal gage to just do it on that one day. It totally bled over to other times. I was “marathon training”, why did I have to watch what I ate? Don’t get me wrong – even after I started back on an eating program, I still indulged more than I would normally, I just knew how far I could reasonably go without undoing all the hard work.
7 J.D. // May 13, 2008 at 1:25 pm
You readers are ahead of me!
Yes, my food choices are poor. And that’s something I need to continue working on. I’m getting better about eating before and during workouts, but my reward foods still tend toward crap. To some extent, that’s okay. The problem is that allowing myself too much of that spills over into normal life, and I begin to want the food all the time. I need to find compromises: rewards that I like but which don’t encourage me down the path of darkness…
8 Laen // May 13, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Just remember, you exercise for your heart, not to lose weight.
To lose 300 calories exercising is a lot of work. To lose 300 calories by not eating a snickers bar is much, much easier.
9 metroknow - AlmostFit.com // May 13, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Incidentally J.D., seriously - what you just said epitomizes why I don’t subscribe to extreme exercise as a long term means of weight control (and in turn, health improvement). All it takes is an injury or a lapse, and if you haven’t changed eating patterns away from the things you know are gonna’ get ya, the increased activity method will fail miserably. I know this first hand. It was glorious when I was running 11 miles on a weekend and could eat anything and everything (and still lose weight), but one slight injury and it turned into the same old ugly beast it was before I started.
10 KC // May 13, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hi JW,
This comment is somewhat redundant, but it came to mind when reading your entry and before I saw the other comments. To lose weight (and keep it off!!) long-term, you are going to have to change your eating habits. I’ve read your entire fitness blog (and parts of your financial blog) and a common these is all of the unhealthy food you eat, how often you indulge in eating out (usually unhealthy food) and your dislike of most vegetables. You’ve proven before and now that you are capable of making exercise a part of your life. But, the weight will come back (and you’ll remain unhealthy in other ways that might not be reflected in your weight) if you keep eating so much meat, fat, sugar, and processed food. I don’t mean to lecture, and sorry if this reads like I have.
Also, I ran a marathon once, and one of my favorite aspects of the process was that I really got in tune with what my body craved and needed. And I don’t mean junk food — I mean real nutrients. I would get intense cravings for a cucumber or broccoli or a sweet potato or an apple. It was exciting to think that my body was telling me exactly what it needed in terms of real nutrition.
Good luck!
11 Samantha // May 14, 2008 at 10:32 am
y’know…. i first started reading this blog because i could really relate to it…. i had just kinda slowly packed on the pounds over the years and was just starting to get motivated to be healthier. but lately, posts like this are just ….. unrelatable. there’s no way i would ever have the time or motivation to do anything like this (as i’m sure is the case for a lot of folks). i am just trying to get in better shape and lose a few pounds. and yes, of course i’m happy that you’ve found this great thing to work toward, but i gotta say, i find myself reading the blog less and less because it is not inspirational anymore, it has kind of become one of those exercise fanatic sites that i could never relate to to begin with.
but still, best of luck w/ all this!
i’ll still be keeping tabs from time to time, but i just thought i needed to put that out there. wondering if anyone else feels the same?
12 Yinna // May 16, 2008 at 9:48 am
Samantha, I agree! Programs like The Biggest Loser seem to tell you that exercise, exercise, exercise is the way to lose weight, but nutrition and life style changes are the way to go. Exercising like crazy is in a way just a quick and easy solution (”If I lose the weight first, I can change my habits once I see the results”) while changing your eating habits is just harder.
Guys, I applaud your progress and you certainly deserve the occasional bad-food reward, but when are you going to look into replacing your bad choices with slightly better ones? You don’t need to go from Hershey to granola, but how about an apple first and then a smaller piece of chocolate? Why even eat the whole bar if you don’t like it?
13 Cynthia // May 29, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I subscribe to the exercise more, eat more theory… but within reason. I have no problem with grabbing an extra serving of fruit or grains after a long hard workout, or even a treat like some chocolate or ice cream, but going and scarfing down McDonalds is definitely out for me if I want to see weight loss progress. It’s just too easy for me to overeat on calories.
Ultimately, everyone has to find compromises between treats and regular eating. It’s OK to go for poor food choices on occasion, but make too many occasions and it’s hard to overcome.
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