
WanderingEng  ·  309 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Let’s Talk About Disordered Eating and Male Athletes

I watched Ironman Wisconsin yesterday (and if anyone wants to talk newbie triathlons OMG hit me up), and I noticed a huge variety in body types. There were a lot of men hitting the run stage around 7.5 hours in (a pretty good time in my book) with an obvious paunch and large but round and soft arms.

    As a coach, I see it all the time behind the scenes, often framed as wanting to get an extra one or two percent out of performance through eating less (or even eating “cleaner”)

I sort of wonder if the "cleaner" reference describes me. My diet isn't perfect; I had a mocha and scone for breakfast (but increasingly I swap the scone for hard boiled eggs or bagel thins with peanut butter and the mocha for coffee). Dinner tonight will be chicken breast with fresh spinach and red pepper on a wrap. No mayo or ranch or cheese but I will put hot sauce on it.

I think I binge sometimes. It isn't one burger with friends, it's half of a large pizza or all five bratwurst in a package. It's possible I need to eat slightly less healthy more often rather than too "clean" too regularly and then a binge of something awful.

I do weigh myself most nights (same time of day, same clothes). Before I was so active, I was around 190 to 200 pounds. It might fluctuate as low as 182 in the summer when I was somewhat active, but I'd easily hit 195 in winter. I hit a minimum of 165, and then it gradually crept up from there with 176-178 common now. I try to not let it bother me. I think I'm faster and stronger (caveat: when I'm not recovering from an injury). I tell myself the 165 was losing fat but before I'd gained muscle, and now 178 is still with that fat gone but a lot of muscle added. It might even be somewhat true.