Raw Food Journal 5: Racing Raw
April 16, 2011
I ran the 1500m and the 800m today. My races were pitiful to say the least.
I felt drained. I don’t think it’s from the food–I’ve gotten very little sleep throughout the week, I stood for hours in the cold Thursday night at the high school track meet, I’ve been stressed with projects and homework, and I’ve increased my mileage quickly on top of cross training.
It was cold, windy, and rainy outside—nothing too surprising for spring in Michigan. But the weather reflected my mood and my day–which was just as miserable as my eating habits.
Breakfast: fruit again and a few raw food bars. I felt especially hungry and ate more once we arrived at the outdoor track meet at Northwood. I felt guilty eating these Larabars though because they were a lot of calories and I’m sure I wasn’t truly hungry—I was probably just too tired.
After my races I ate an avocado, some fruit, and then I still felt hungry but I was sick of fruit. I didn’t have any vegetables with me and of course there weren’t any provided for the team, so I gave in to the Jimmy Johns sandwiches.
I don’t think the whole team knows that I’m doing the raw food diet but I still feel self-conscious eating in front of everyone. I feel awkward no matter what I am eating—whether it is fruit or a sandwich I just can’t do it in front of others sometimes. So I had to go find a “secretive” place to eat alone. I went to the end of the hallway in the school but I still felt scared someone was going to find me eating so I ate fast. At first I tried to just eat the sprouts and tomatoes, then I had another sub and ended up eating the whole thing. I felt so hungry. I guess I feel like if people were watching me they would think I was overeating or looked like a pig. I have always felt like I eat too much. I want raw food to help me eat less and feel satisfied. I want to feel good about myself.
I came back to the team and took a few granola bars. I didn’t want to keep sneaking off somewhere so I ate them in front of my teammates. I pretended I was just grabbing them to eat like it was no problem, like I wasn’t thinking about it or concerned, but in my head everything was screaming at me—this was wrong, this was bad, just because you look calm on the outside doesn’t mean you’re fine on the inside. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, and out of control. I haven’t binged like this in a long time and here I was doing it in front of everyone, acting like it was nothing.
I thought raw food was supposed to help this problem. I guess I just didn’t get enough nutrients from enough raw food today, since it was hard to bring any good food with me to the meet.
Everything went downhill from there. I ended up having three small chocolate-chip cookies while everyone went outside to watch the meet. I felt like a jerk for staying inside. I felt like this obsession—this addiction?—was controlling me. I was cold, wet, tired, and my mind was racing to get more sugar. I was on a sweet-tooth binge from the moment I had a sugary granola bar. I didn’t crave the fruit anymore because the sugar in the snacks were so overpowering.
I had some sushi and melon at the restaurant we stopped at on the way home but just felt so heavy and drained. It makes me realize how much I really do love the raw food diet because this is what the cooked, processed food does to me. I’m frustrated with what I did to myself, but I learned my lesson.
Yikes bikes. I wish someone on the team would’ve shoveled 3 jimmy subs into their mouth right next you so you wouldn’t have felt so bad. But in all seriousness, my heart goes out to you for feeling the need to hide your hunger. I understand what it’s like to be so self-aware and uncomfortable around the people that you would normally have no problem being around otherwise. It’s hard to get out of your head sometimes, especially when you’re craving sugar. It’s a demon.