Nutrition - the missing link!

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

I eat well...enough.

Really, what I should say is that "I exercise...enough...to maintain a relatively fit/healthy body."

But I don't really eat well enough, for my own standards and my own expectations of where I want to be, what I want to look like and what I want to do, with sports.

I am realizing that it's not so much exercise that makes the difference in that last 10% of what I want to achieve....it's nutrition. Nutrition is the missing link! And I've got it all wrong in some ways in this department!

A couple weeks ago, I went to a personal trainer to talk about nutrition and food. I learned that so much of what I thought was correct, was really way off base! I learned about proper food combining, balanced meals (Mom, um...err...well...you were right about a lot of this) :) and I learned stuff that I really should have known long ago, considering my past races and everything.

In spite of myself, I've done pretty well and have had lots of energy to burn over the years...but if I could only master the nutrition component...maybe then, I really could bottle this energy and sell it, like so many people have asked me to do. haha.

Seriously, today is the day...to step up, make a commitment and really see what I'm made of! The Ironman race is coming up sooner than I'd like it to...and the next 5 weeks are going to be BIG! in every way!

So...here we go!
For the next 30 days, I'm going to eat only healthy things...balanced meals...proper foods...and we'll see what happens! No treats or chocolate - except for once/week. (That "no chocolate" stint I did a few months ago was crazy! Even one treat/week would have been a glorious reward...and would probably have made that little challenge go by a LOT easier!)

Yesterday I read something cool in a book - I can't remember it exactly but it said something like this: There are 6 real doctors in the world...and they are...diet and exercise, clean air and water, sunshine and sleep. It was from a nursery rhyme. I think it's true. If we incorporate all of these things...we will be healthy! I'd add a couple more...something to hope for and someone to love.

Mom, I thought you should know...you were right about that whole, protein, vegetable, carbohydrate thing...carbs really are not bad and apparently all these things should be eaten together at meals. Oh yeah, and about that oatmeal stuff that you used to make that I despised...I'm supposed to learn to like it!

Sorry I missed writing you yesterday!
I love you,
Crystal

“Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been and who we want to be.”
— Molly Wizenberg