Chicken or egg (white)

Due to my lower back muscle sprain/strain/tear/thing, I have been careful to watch my diet over the past week. I typically burn 400-600 calories per training session and this either requires or allows (depending on how you view it!) me to eat more as well as to eat more protein to support muscle growth. This got me to thinking about training and food and how I used to view the relationship and how I view that same relationship now.

Which comes first?

How I used to view food and exercise:

IF I do more exercise, THEN I get to have more food. I used exercise as a motivation, saying that I got to eat more that day if I exercised. Now this is typically true. If you burn off a couple hundred calories running a few miles, maybe you get to enjoy an extra piece of pizza.

This way of viewing food however -- as a "reward" of sorts, turned dangerous when I started restricting further and further. I started seeing exercise as a means to burn extra calories that would just go into "weight loss" if I didn't eat and use them up.

I remember at one point in college I actually tried to burn off more calories than I ate in a given day. So I would say, eat 600 calories (NOT RECOMMENDED) and then burn off at least that many during an hour to hour and a half at the gym. Not only is this method incredibly dangerous, but after a while it just doesn't work mathematically. I saw myself slowly shutting my metabolism off. My body simply was conserving every calorie possible and I was fighting a losing battle.

My relationship with food turned from a "good" reward for exercise, to a "bad", "indulgent", "guilty" type of reward during the throes of my ED.

Needless to say, this mentality is dangerous for me to have when I'm restricting, but even at the beginning I didn't find it motivating. Sure, it's fun being able to eat more pizza if you go for a run, but if that's the only reason to run, or the only reward you get out of it...it's not very sustainable in my opinion.

How I view food and exercise now:

IF I eat more food, I GET to workout harder. I have slightly modified my stance on food and exercise, and now I see better, more fulfilling workouts as the result of eating more and better foods. I have a lot more energy and have been seeing much better gains in strength now that I've added more calories and more nutritious and balanced foods to my diet.

Honestly, I kinda always hate when I read blogs or articles that use those vague phrases "balanced diet", "nutritious, wholesome foods", so let me elaborate a bit more on what I mean by those to be very clear.  I eat more lean protein (chicken, tuna, turkey). I incorporate macro-timing: whole grain carbs + protein pre-workout (like oatmeal) and a balance of protein and carbs (no focus on whole grains) post-workout with more focus on the protein. I eat more veggies...(still not a big fruit fan). I have protein bars, greek yogurt and cottage cheese as snacks. But I still eat chips (the-natural-only-potatoes-and-sunflower-oil-type) and I am trying hard to bake more protein filled "healthier" sweets as alternatives. I still have frozen dinners sometimes, and did I mention I like chips? And ice cream? Balance isn't always about eating all "healthy" foods you see approved on some Pintrest list. Balance includes balancing which type of ice cream you buy that week as well as how many fruits and veggies you get.

...but I've digressed. Now that I view food as fuel, as something I need in order to perform better, I'm a lot happier working out. I've found I love running and lifting and not just general fitness workouts where I try to follow preset magazine workouts for the elliptical, bike, stairmaster or whatever. I do whatever cardio I feel like on any given day (usually running) and then I hit the weights as hard as my body will allow. And the more I eat (within reason), the better it feels.

I don't run an extra mile for pizza anymore, but I do make sure to get something delicious for breakfast so I can do a pull-up, or so I can attempt a 1.75 BW squat. And honestly, I kinda prefer it this way :-).