Clean Eat BONK

BONK - a technical term in endurance racing for the feeling when you've expended all the glucose in your blood and your body can't pull glycogen fast enough, resulting in sudden weakness, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and falling off whatever piece of training equipment you happen to be on at the time.  To be avoided.

Checking in at Day 10 of my Clean Eating Challenge.  In terms of compliance, I have been quite a good girl.  I even made it through hosting a New Years Brunch drinking seltzer mimosas and crust-less quiche.  A few choice recipes for sweet snacks from my new favorite food blog Cara's Cravings has tamed the sweet tooth. (seriously - you need to go read her blog right now.  Her chocolate mint patties will change your life). I've mastered the art of the gluten-free dinner....

Lemon chicken, tricolor quinoa and veggies veggies veggies

The dairy free lunchbox...

Tuna salad in egg and flax seed wrap with granola, apples and peanut butter

I've even started reading Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD - a truly eye-opening book about the metabolic and physiological impact of modern-day hybridized wheat on the body.  For example, did you know that wheat, in any form - even whole wheat), has a glycemic index significantly higher than that of table sugar?  In other words, eating two slices of bread spikes your blood sugar higher and faster than a candy bar.  That the result of these repeated blood sugar spikes and drops is the deposition of visceral fat, which in turn functions as an endocrine gland, flooding your system with estrogen and other hormones?  That there is a protein in wheat that actually physically damages the lining of your small intestine, allowing materials to pass into your blood stream that have no business being there?  It really is amazing how widespread wheat consumption is, considering the effects on your body.

So based on everything I've read, and everything I'm doing in terms of learning new recipes and planning, preparing, stocking and stuffing I should be feeling great, right?  Turns out.... NO.  Wrong.  Not at all.  Not one little bit.

Which is pretty frustrating.  This morning I tried a smoothie with sweet potato and peanut butter for my preworkout grab.  Halfway through my strength class I almost had to run out to worship the porcelain throne.  My run afterwards was pretty terrible. I was dizzy the whole time and walked the end.  I very nearly became part of this video:

I have been consistently tired, spacey, stupid, and generally loopy since I started this plan.  Plus my stomach problems (both sides) are worse than ever.  What's a girl got to do???

Turns out a girl's got to EAT.  At the urging of the Clean in 2014 group, I went back and tracked my calorie intake over the last few days.  Guess what?  Not even close to enough.  Not with my training load increasing in prep for my longer running races, upping my distances in the pool, and all my other shenanigans.

So I'm adding back in cheese and plain unsweetened yogurt.  Plus milk in my coffee at the office because they don't stock almond milk.  No, I haven't given up coffee yet, but I am down to one cup a day.  A battle in itself.  I'm going to actually track my calories for a while (a practice I hate because it makes me even more obsessive than usual) and try to choke down more calories.  I mean, there are only so many eggs and avocados I can stomach.  Good Lord.  But I am not giving up.  At the same time, I would be very stupid to keep at what I've been doing.  I truly believe that eliminating gluten will have benefits eventually.  Hopefully soon.  Part of training, and life, is constantly re-evaluating what you are doing.  So I'm re-evaluating.

What's your favorite go-to preworkout snack?  Bonus points for it being grab-able in 2 minutes or less and being able to consume while driving.