How To Get Fat On 30 Miles a Week

This is the time of the year, known as the "Offseason", or as others call it, the "Outseason", where workouts taper down, diets come back to normal, and the mind and body have a chance to recover. It's also known to many as "The battle of the bulge". Most experts say it is safe to put back 3%-5% of the weight you lost while peaking for that last "A" race over the course of this period. This is NOT the time of year to to just sit on your A$$ and gain that 3%-5% in the first few weeks though! Let me explain.

The end of October brought Halloween. The beginning of November brought our Anniversary (hooray!). The end of November will bring Thanksgiving. And the end of December will bring about the holidays and New Years. What do all of these holidays have in common? You guessed it, FOOD! And typically, lots of it.

Now, I'm going to be honest here for a second. I COULD be stronger and control my intake of crap. But sometimes, you just have to let it happen. I've learned that if you force yourself to omit something, eventually you will just end up binging and eating more than you would have if you didn't limit it in the first place. So, I let it happen from time to time to keep me sane.

Halloween is annually a weakness for me. There is always an endless supply of candy brought into my office, of which happens to be some of my favorite varieties, such as: Nerds, Laffy Taffy, Tootsie Rolls (I'm a role model for nutrition, I know). Add to that, homemade baked goods that people have left over and you have a recipe for disaster. AND, we haven't even started yet with Thanksgiving (I loves me some Thanksgiving food!).

But before I get ahead of myself, there is also something else. Since Rebecca and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary, we managed the time-honored tradition of eating our wedding cake. The top tier of our cake, which was gluten free so Rebecca could have it, had been wrapped up and stored for the past year. So you can imagine our excitement to celebrate by eating 1 year old cake! It was actually pretty darn tasty and you never would have known it was a year old. However, we believe that the frosting on the cake may not have been gluten free. Well guess what that means? More cake for me!

So let's do the math. Candy from Halloween + a whole wedding cake all to myself = weight gain. However, I'd also like to point out that I have been putting in a solid 30 miles of running a week, so its not as if I am sitting on my rear all day and just eating this stuff. I just find it amazing that I can still gain weight while putting up some decent mileage.

I just know that I've gotta get through these next couple of months and keep up the solid miles, or else I might have to (gasp) watch what I eat...

Anyways - Have a Happy Thanksgiving and be sure to eat well! You can burn it all off by running in your local Turkey Trot. I know we will be ;)