The past couple weeks…
Let’s just say I haven’t exactly been eating like someone who cares about his training.
I’ve been forgetting to eat breakfast, which leads to me doubling up on the caffeine in order to get through my morning.
Then, since I also wasn’t taking the time to pack a lunch, I’d slam a Builder’s bar into my face between clients.
Which is fine.
I have nothing against a protein bar.
They’re in the office for a reason.
But I have them there as a quick source of protein in case the end of my workout is a little too close to my next session.
They’re not supposed to be the only source of calories I have throughout an entire day…
Then, since I was starving and tired, I would buy two big burritos on the way home and eat them like a Labrador retriever who’d just come across a piece of steak.
And that was just the first course.
I’d often follow that with either a mini pizza or some chicken nuggets.
And then some sort of dessert.
And then I’d collapse into bed in a food coma.
This is not how someone should eat if they care about their training.
Or even just if they care about not feeling like shit.
To be clear, I’m pretty sure I was in “caloric maintenance” by the end of the day because of how much I was eating at night.
But that’s not really sufficient when you’re trying to do athlete things.
If you care about limiting your injury risk, you also have to get enough consistent calories throughout the day, which I absolutely wasn’t.
And eating like that also just makes you feel like garbage because you spend the entire day low on energy before stuffing yourself to the brim right before going to bed.
Which is a pretty great way to get shit sleep.
Which makes you tired.
Which starts the whole cycle over again the next day…
There are also some other effects of a high-fat, low fiber diet that aren’t too pleasant either… but I’m not gonna get into that.
Suffice to say, I haven’t been feeling great for the past few weeks.
Training has been going fine.
I’ve been hitting my targets, both in terms of speed and weights.
I haven’t been injured – or at least nothing new has popped up.
But I haven’t felt great and I’m kinda running on fumes.
While this eating pattern would have been intentional a decade ago in a misguided effort to “lose weight,” now it’s just what happens when I don’t take the time to meal prep.
I forget to eat.
If I don’t have some “fallback” options – like a tub of oatmeal or a bunch of meat and veggies covered in taco seasoning – I’m more likely to just… forget.
Now, when I tell most people about my food patterns, they often think it’s crazy that I can just “forget to eat.”
And admittedly, I’m an extreme example borne out of a couple decades of disordered eating and a few different versions of neurodivergence.
Yet the general pattern is pretty common.
When I’m working with people, they often undereat early in the day, leading to some sort of compensation at night.
And oftentimes that compensation isn’t intentional.
It’s just what your body does when you haven’t been feeding it enough.
If it goes on long enough, then the injuries start to arise or we begin to battle gut issues.
Or we just stay tired and start to see a drop in performance.
It happens all the time.
And if you find yourself in this trap, you don’t have to do anything special to get out of it.
You just have to eat.
Eat breakfast.
Eat lunch.
Eat dinner.
Eat a snack.
Eat.
On Saturday, while doing laundry and vacuuming, I also did some meal prep.
I took an hour to make some oatmeal, a bunch of rice, and a “taco combo” – and now I don’t really have an excuse to forget.
And thus far… I haven’t.
I didn’t punish myself or berate myself or try to “start over.”
I just moved on.
When things go wrong, it doesn’t have to be a huge deal.
You can just… move on and make a choice to do a little better.
You’re not starting over.
You’re just course correcting.