A few months ago, I was chatting with my husband’s cousin at a family dinner. He owns a gym and lifts so I wanted some strength training advice. I told him that I wanted to get faster at running and asked him what I should do. He answered my question in a delicate, but matter-of-fact, way. He basically said that the best way to get faster is to lose weight and the best way to lose weight is by watching what I eat.

Of course, this makes sense. It seems so simple. But this is probably the hardest thing for me to do.

I have a love/hate relationship with food. I struggle with portion control so I often overeat, I don’t eat enough fruits and veggies, and baked goods are my kryptonite. There are others but these are the biggies.

For most of my adult life, I’ve struggled with my weight. With both my kids, I gained 40lbs but only lost 30lbs. People kept telling me that the weight was going to melt away from breastfeeding. It did not. So I had a net gain of 20 lbs. I don’t have a lot of pictures of myself during that time because I avoided the camera. I cringed at the fact that I was buying size 10/12 clothes. 😭😭😭

Around 2013, I discovered the Dukan diet which is a low carb, low fat, high protein diet. Similar to the latest keto fad but low fat. I was pretty good at following all its restrictions and I lost 20lbs over 12 months. It was hard but I felt very accomplished for being able to lose the weight without exercising! At the beginning, the weight really came off fast which was a great motivation and confidence booster. Toward the end, it got harder as my weight stabilized and no matter how much protein or how few carbs I ate, I wasn’t able to lose any more.

Of course, once I started eating normally again and didn’t stick to Dukan’s advice of going back to a protein-only day once a week, I gained back about 10 lbs. Classic yoyo diet story. At least I didn’t gain it all back.

So now, since I’ve started running again 18 months ago, I haven’t really been watching my calorie intake but I’ve obviously significantly increased my calorie output. The thing is, I haven’t lost that much weight during this time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve lost about 6-8lbs which I’m super happy about. My clothes fit better which is amazing. Actually, my size 6 pants are starting to feel loose. I feel way more comfortable in my body because I have gained muscle and firmed up. But at the end of the day, it’s still only 6-8lbs for ~50km/week of running which is 50km more than I did when I managed to lose 20lbs when I was on Dukan.

So back to the question of how can I get faster… One of the best ways is still: lose weight by watching your diet. I was reminded of this again when Jim said the same thing to me yesterday in the most loving and tactful way.

I think it may be easier if the answer was “run 100km a week” or “do 100 burpees, pushups, and sit-ups everyday”. Those things I can do. But eating better is such a struggle. How can something be so simple but so difficult at the same time?

So anyway, there it is. Just thought I would share this openly (to the handful of you who will read this) so I can have some accountability for myself. I’m not going to promise to make any big changes but I’ll try to make better decisions every day, at every meal, and whenever I have a craving. I think it’s more manageable if I just think about it one meal at a time. I need to get this tattoo: Each meal is an opportunity to eat better.

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NB: No, I’m not actually going to get a tattoo. 😂😂😂

This was me in Jamaica in January. Even though I was wearing a one-piece swimming suit, I still had to wear a tank top over it because I’m still so self-conscious about my body. There’s no way I could ever wear a bikini in public and I’m okay with it. No matter how much weight I lose, those stretch marks will never go away. 🙄😩😝😂