Feed Me
It is possible to find some form of reference to justify almost any nutritional guideline. A lot of these will even appear to be good science. Throw in all the opinion pieces and ideologies on the topic of what food you should be eating there is no end to contradictions. In my view nutrition is important. Day to day nutrition won't win you a race, but poor nutrition can cost you a race.
Amongst other things, I believe a less than adequate approach to my food contributed to my hamstring injuries. Why? A combination of laziness and an over emphasis of hitting a certain race weight. I had falling into the habit of not planning ahead with my food, and often grabbing what was faster and easier. This isn't an ideal approach and becomes magnified when work shifts encompass two meals. On top of this I tried to keep a limit on my intake in order to shed a couple of kilograms to be lighter for the marathon. As the time went on I found I had to eat less and less to lose a small amount of weight. Looking back my diet was fairly haphazard. Despite a reasonable amount of fruit and vegetables, it was far from the volume of diverse nutrition an athlete in training requires. Importantly I was very low on fat and protein intake. The end effect is that I was getting in enough calories to function, but not the enough for my body to build or restore properly. This may have contributed over time to the deterioration in my proximal hamstring tendons. At the very least, my nutrition wasn't providing an optimal environment to regenerate and strengthen the tissues.
When what you are doing hasn't been working, change what you are doing. Initially the changes were simple and about ensuring I provided the building blocks to assist in my rehabilitation. For the first few weeks I made sure I ate a lot. No counting calories, but a focus on a large amount of real food, staying clear from food like products. This included various meats, eggs, full fat diary and plenty of vegetables some fruit plus rice, pasta and similar. If it was any more than basic processing I tended not to eat it. With this approach I expected some weight gain and that has happened, but over the month nothing crazy. Generally speaking weight gain and loss is strongly influenced by calories in versus calories out, but it isn't exactly that simple. At the moment my body is readjusting to eating bigger, but better. Once comfortable with that I'll assess what is working for me and fine tune the details from there.
Amongst other things, I believe a less than adequate approach to my food contributed to my hamstring injuries. Why? A combination of laziness and an over emphasis of hitting a certain race weight. I had falling into the habit of not planning ahead with my food, and often grabbing what was faster and easier. This isn't an ideal approach and becomes magnified when work shifts encompass two meals. On top of this I tried to keep a limit on my intake in order to shed a couple of kilograms to be lighter for the marathon. As the time went on I found I had to eat less and less to lose a small amount of weight. Looking back my diet was fairly haphazard. Despite a reasonable amount of fruit and vegetables, it was far from the volume of diverse nutrition an athlete in training requires. Importantly I was very low on fat and protein intake. The end effect is that I was getting in enough calories to function, but not the enough for my body to build or restore properly. This may have contributed over time to the deterioration in my proximal hamstring tendons. At the very least, my nutrition wasn't providing an optimal environment to regenerate and strengthen the tissues.
When what you are doing hasn't been working, change what you are doing. Initially the changes were simple and about ensuring I provided the building blocks to assist in my rehabilitation. For the first few weeks I made sure I ate a lot. No counting calories, but a focus on a large amount of real food, staying clear from food like products. This included various meats, eggs, full fat diary and plenty of vegetables some fruit plus rice, pasta and similar. If it was any more than basic processing I tended not to eat it. With this approach I expected some weight gain and that has happened, but over the month nothing crazy. Generally speaking weight gain and loss is strongly influenced by calories in versus calories out, but it isn't exactly that simple. At the moment my body is readjusting to eating bigger, but better. Once comfortable with that I'll assess what is working for me and fine tune the details from there.
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