Monday, June 9, 2008

Falling off the wagon on race days

I fell off the wagon a few times this weekend. After a racing event, I seem to be particularly vulnerable to all-day caloriefests. I have a few ideas why, but nothing jumps out as being "the one" correct answer.

My first instinct is that I've just put my body through a great deal of stress, and so it rebels by sending me signals to eat. It's a basic, primal, chemical reaction. A malnourished caveman was almost certainly the first one to be outrun by a predator. It's my body's way of saying "fatten up so we don't get eaten by a mountain lion, okay?"

Another possibility is that there's some degree of emotional let-down after a race. Even though I'm usually pleased with my performance, there's always that nagging voice in the back of my head that tells me I could have done better. This could lead to emotional eating.

Finally, it could be that I'm just hungrier than normal because I burned a ton of calories.

Who knows what the answer is... certainly not me. All I know for sure is that today is a new day, and I'm ready to start over.

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