ten days to go!

Ten days to go!  I don’t really have any training triumphs or failures to share today, but was in the mood to say something, so I thought I’d go on a tangent about something else.  Enjoy :)

In the two weeks leading up to race day, I have been trying to be extra healthy and conscious of what I eat (limiting the junk, no booze, things like that).  My goal is to do this for a month leading up to the full tri.  We will see how that works for me.  While it’s never easy to really watch what you eat, I do notice a difference in my performance on days where I haven’t just been eating junk, so I am trying to give it a go.  Last Saturday was my last day for booze, which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but so many great drinking opportunities have kept coming up the past couple of days – World Cup viewing, happy hours…I’ve stayed strong, though!

Something else that I have tried to mostly eliminate from my consumption is soda (and not just for the races).  For those of you that know me (probably not even that well) you know I love my Coke.  In the summer, especially, I am a constant fountain drink guzzler (hello, Polar Pops for 79 cents).  When I started at Groupon and we had refrigerators full of drinks (literally those cooler fridges full – Coke, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Gatorade, Powerade, Vitamin Water, La Croix Water in a dozen flavors, Root Beer, Ginger Ale, Sunkist, Fresca, and pretty much anything else you could ever want), I was in Heaven.  I would drink a can of Coke a day at work, and then whatever I drank at home as well. 

Not the most health conscious decision, but I didn’t really care because it was delicious.  I mean, I did care because I care about my health, but at the same time, like I said I didn’t.  So last year (as in 2013) for Lent I decided I would give it up, hopefully for good, but at least for Lent.  On Fat Tuesday I had my final Coke and lasted all the way until Good Friday (we went to NYC that weekend and I didn’t last on vacation, what a day to give into temptation – amirite?).  Surprisingly with no caffeine headaches throughout the almost 40 days and I felt great, like really great.  After we got back from NYC I managed to continue to not drink soda, at least for the summer.  Then eventually I slipped back into my old habits, and out of them, and back in again. 

By this point, I’ve decided I can’t give up soda completely; I just like it too much!  But I can significantly limit my intake.  Now I just try to have it in ‘special’ situations (like vacations and such) or in non-special situations only once a week (which I have termed Soda Sundays, and surprisingly I didn’t even have any this Sunday).  So far this has gone well for me.  Luckily I’ve never used soda for the caffeine (and no I am not a coffee drinker, that stuff is disgusting), so despite getting up at 5am or earlier a lot of days, I still manage to be fully functional (no, I don’t really drink tea either, if you were wondering, and I won’t do anything with artificial sweeteners in them either, because, well, the aftertaste is horrific in my opinion).

The real kicker for me wanting to get off the soda were the studies I started to notice about added sugar (which seem to be everywhere now), which pretty much scared the crap out of me.  It’s so so so bad for you, like really bad (just look it up! artificial sweeteners too!).  And now that I know about added sugar I see that it is in everything (processed, that is).  By the way – have you seen these pictures floating around showing how much sugar is actually in things you eat/drink?  Crazyness!

So I have definitely become an avid nutrition label reader, which I never thought I would do, but I do try to eliminate what I can.  Especially since it is hiding in things you would not expect.  Of course I still eat desserts and such, but at least now I am aware of at least some of what is in the stuff I’m eating.  I wouldn’t call myself a health nut and can’t judge what anyone else chooses to eat (especially since I’ve spent the better part of a decade with regular visits to any and all fast food joints and that won’t change overnight…mmmmmmmm), but I can say that now that I am aware I’m excited to try to change my habits and find other healthy alternates to eat.

End tangent.