Vegan Til Nats

I recently came to a realization: my nutrition sucks.

I realized this when, in one day, and not as a substitute for any meals, I finished 8 Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.  That's over 1000 extra calories, in addition to the regular 3 meals (including 3 sodas) that I was having over the course of the day.  Not OK!

So, I basically decided to take the most stringent anti-Reeses approach possible: until Nats, I'm going vegan.  As some of you may know, I used to be vegan, and I've tossed around the idea of going vegan again.  The next 6 weeks will be sort of my testing ground, so to speak, to see if it's a feasibility.  This will also make me cut the junk out of my diet, eat more fruit and vegetables, and hopefully shed those few pounds that have not wanted to come off since Ironman.  I have faith!  It's been a couple of days and I feel better, maybe from a psychological standpoint, but I think in general, I feel healthier.  I felt better as a vegan before, but I enjoy being vegetarian more, and it works better in Robbie and my lifestyle.  At the moment though, I spend my weekends with the team instead of at Robbie's parents, an half of the team is vegan, so weekends aren't an issue during the season.  So it's a tossup, really.  Happier with how I feel or happier with what I get to eat?  We'll see.  I'm expecting to see some major changes in my training because of it though.  I'm going to start watching my weight- literally- and weighing myself every day or two on my good body fat composition scale, just to see what happens on a vegan diet.  Of course, it's not just a vegan diet, I'm trying to make sure that it's a healthy one: little/no vegan junkfood for me!  Of course, I'm still drinking 2-3 soft drinks per day (can't give that up just yet) and eating junk food on occasion, but the focus is on being a healthy vegan, not just substituting the bad vegetarian stuff for bad vegan stuff.  That would be what we call counter-intuitive. 

To catch everyone up to speed, this weekend was a 12th place at Beacon CX and a 13th place at HPCX.  I'm getting better, and I'm beating more women who used to easily beat me, so I'm happy about that. 

More later, but right now I'm busy reading a sports nutrition guidebook from 1990 that advocates, when at restaurants and dealing with pasta, to, quote, "PILE IT ON."  Also, order extra rice with Chinese food.  This author is my hero!  She's also really into muffins.  I could live with this diet.

Oh yeah- the title of this post!  It looks like Pat, Charlie, Matt and I will be representing Rutgers out in Bend, Oregon this December at Cyclocross Nationals.  We still have to get final approval and book everything, but it's looking good!  I'm beyond excited, we're going to have a blast!