How should I eat before the marathon?

Hi Ariane,

I can't tell you how much I've been appreciating and learning from your daily Detox emails. This has been a very valuable experience. I must admit that it's been an up and down journey. I did wonderfully the first 7 days- cutting out all grains, nuts, fruit, and sugar, but from those 7 days on I have been good and bad. Overall, I am at a FAR better place than I was when I last met with you in person. All my clothes are fitting me great again, I feel confident in my body, and I am in good shape (one week to go for the marathon!).

The main thing that I continue to struggle with is the all or nothing "letting go." I have a bad habit of doing that when I am stressed or emotional. I lose sight of the big picture and binge mindlessly. I had not done this in a while until recently when my workload at school significantly increased and I found myself slipping anxiously after trying to be perfect for days at a time (with the marathon in mind) with slip-ups at night when I get ravenous. I have continued to make the green NutriBullet shakes but have failed to keep a stable routine about them, ensuring that I don't get hungry-- this is the problem.

Anyways, the problem now is that I KNOW what the right and wrong things to be doing and eating are, but sometimes my mind works against me and says, forget about it! Enjoy NOW. OF course this works against me and I feel overly guilty and bloated from binges with bread and sugar.

Looking forward to the next 7 days, I want to plan ahead, eat the best that I can, and know how to appropriately "carbo-load" for the marathon. I am getting very anxious about my diet because I know that it can have a huge effect on how I feel on race day. Can you recommend what I should be eating this upcoming week so that I can feel my lightest, most energized self, yet have the necessary carbohydrate and glycogen stores that I will need on Sunday? I'll make sure to drink at least 3 L of water every day, and have a lot of vegetables, but other than that I am loss as to which grains to include or exclude, how much protein, and how much fiber? I have read several different things about increasing the carb intake as the week progresses but not overdoing it the night before. Things I have learned about my body from elimination:
- dairy doesn't seem to have any noticeably bad effects on my body, but is it better to keep out for the next week?

- eating so many fibrous vegetables can make me gassy

- grains make me bloat (hands, fingers, and cheeks)

Thank you!!
All the best, 

Isabella

Isabella, 

thanks for checking in. I'm so psyched to hear how well you've been doing. 

The up and down you describe is perfectly normal. The detox is not about being perfect. In fact, there is no such thing as being perfect. Even if you had the 'perfect' diet, you'd still not be able to account for poor water quality you drink, for the fact that even organic veggies aren't giving you ideal nutrients, the fact that your sleep is probably not ideal or the fact that you have stress in your life, etc. You see, 'perfection' is not a goal ever. In fact that would make you focus merely on a fleeting moment. You really want to ensure that you learn what  works for you and what doesn't because that will give you the flexibility to deal with what life brings you. As long as you know how to handle your body, you have won. 

The emotional piece you describe is something that you'll tackle over time. For now you have learned that you handle stress by eating. You're certainly not alone. Over time you will learn that food does nothing to address your stress - at least not beyond the five minutes it relaxes you. You will find other ways to handle stress and 'see the big picture' as you say. This is probably more deeply rooted and takes time to unlearn. It may have worked for you in the past that you reached for comfort food but now that you're learning that it makes you feel and look bad, you need to come up with other reactions that will help you handle the stress AND keep you feeling good. Be patient with yourself and don't think of yourself as a bad person just because you lose it sometimes and binge or because you haven't figured it out yet. Give it time and continue to be mindful of your actions and connect the clean eating with that good feeling you experience. At the same time also connect the bad after-effects to poor food choices. Those relationships will get stronger over time as you continue to pair them up over and over. 

For your last week before the marathon I do not recommend you add grains back in because they make you feel bad and lethargic. Continue to focus on protein and veggies at every meal, but add a few more starches from either the Mestemacher bread (1 slice a day) or sweet potatoes or squash, so you can load up your glycogen stores. Keep in mind that your glycogen stores in the liver are maxed out at about 100 grams and your muscles anywhere between 250 and 450 grams of carbs, so that's not a lot. That means you only need to add about 30-50 grams of carbs per day in addition to your current carb intake. If you add more carbs, you will get fat and that's not the idea. 

Starting Thursday with dinner I suggest you start adding more carbs to your diet and eat 5 meals a day and hydrate well. The night before the marathon have a balanced meal of protein with some veggies and a starch, such as sweet potato with grilled chicken or salmon with broccoli and butternut squash. The only rule is that you don't try out anything new the day before or day of the marathon. Your digestion doesn't want to be surprised on those days.  

On marathon morning have a decent breakfast at least 1.5-2 hours before the start. During the race you will want to drink the sports drinks or take the gels about 45 minutes into the race and then every 20-30 minutes at least. They will get you through the race, along with your glycogen stores. Carbo-loading is usually done wrong in that people completely overload on pasta without any protein. That results in a huge blood sugar spike, followed by a blood sugar crash overnight. When these runners wake up in the morning, their blood sugar is very low, they're low on energy and they typically load up on a big bagel before the race- another way to spike and crash their blood sugar. Always pair your carbs with protein to keep your blood sugar balanced and energized for hours. 

Kick ass and let me know how it went!

Ariane