Dina’s Food Journal: The Home Stretch

Perhaps today isn’t the best day for me to write my first post about working with nutritionist and fellow 2010 Featured Athlete Aimee Gallo. I made myself chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. And have continued eating them through lunch as I’ve blown off an 80-mile bike ride to sit in front of the television and have a Harry Potter marathon. Last week was just one of those weeks. But that’s why I love Aimee. Not that I’ve talked to her or emailed her today, but I know she won’t judge. She’s not a diet drill sergeant, but rather a nutrition nanny. She doesn’t expect me to be perfect, and when I’m not, she wants to help me understand why.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A better place to start is why I emailed Aimee asking for help. Despite a lifetime of sports and vigilantly training for sports, I’ve been neglecting a key aspect of wellness: good nutrition. Yes, despite my lapse into a batch of cookie dough today, I am eating better now than I was, say, four years ago (when I’d make several batches of cookie dough a week rather than a batch every several months). But four years ago 1) I didn’t mind working out four to six hours a day to compensate for my poor food choices and 2) (as silly as this may sound) I had no idea how much better (or worse) food could make my body feel.

I’ve come a long way on my own, working tons of stuff like fresh veggies, grass-fed beef, wild salmon, fruit, and tempeh into my diet and taking a lot of sugar and simple carbohydrates out.

Still, I feel I need a professional’s help to take me down the homestretch — to help me adjust my attitude towards food and understand why I sometimes have the urge to make (and eat) much of a batch of cookie dough and to help me figure out which foods work best for my body.

Last year I started eating eggs by themselves for the first time in my life. For six months I had two every day for breakfast. I couldn’t believe I had stayed away from them for so long. Why had I ever thought something so tasty was gross? Over that same time period—not that I realized there was any correlation/causation at the time—I began to develop muscle weakness and my balance began to get funky. By October I couldn’t even bike 20 miles at a time. And I had been able to do 200! To say I was confused and unhappy is an understatement. Then a basic food allergy test showed I was allergic to eggs. Within weeks of stopping eating eggs for breakfast and snacks, my legs and balance were normal. I hadn’t felt so good in ages. (NOTE: Mine wasn’t a usual allergic reaction to eggs. I had this reaction because I have Multiple Sclerosis; exposing myself to allergens can trigger MS symptoms, of which muscle weakness and balance problems are usual.)

And eggs are only one of five food groups generally considered inflammatory. (FYI the others are gluten, red meat—especially corn-fed beef—dairy, and sugar.) I began to wonder whether I could feel even better. Maybe my occasional bad moods weren’t some inner bitch-iness revealing itself, but an allergic reaction? And maybe the lethargy I sometimes get for a few days is because of food? Talking to Aimee about this, she says both are possible.

So over the next few months, I’m going to journal my experience working with Aimee and hopefully also some progress in using food to feel mentally and physically better.

Next up: Are you ever so excited about something you have to remind yourself to eat? Aimee teaches me that that “something”—or more likely, somethings—are called primary foods and can be just as nourishing as the foods you chew. And guess what? Having a full plate of primary foods can prevent heeding the call of cookie dough.

Photo Source: mckaysavage

DINA MISHEV is a randonee skier, cyclist and hiker who, in February 2009, set the world record for the most vertical feet skied uphill by a woman in 24 hours. She is a category-3 road cyclist who consistently places top 5 in the longest single-day road race in the country… {more »}