{"fo" food scale}

I read this on another blog and it made me laugh.  This is exactly what I have done with food since I have started taking my training diet more seriously.  What is an "FO Food Scale" you ask?  Well, first of all, FO is stands for f-off.  Sorry if that offends you, but there is no way to make it pretty for the ears.  As for the "FO Food Scale"  this is how I have started to rank food.  If you make a line graph "Health" on the vertical axis and "F-Off" on the horizontal axis I can easily show you where a food stands with me.  Take spinach.  I know spinich is very healthy for me.  I don't really care for spinach, but I eat it because I know I should.  So this ranks high on the healthy axis and low on the "FO" axis.  Low on my "FO" scale.  Next lets look at sweet potatoes.  Yes, sweet potatoes provide many nutritional benefits, but they don't fit into my training diet because of their glycemic load, more carbs and sugars than I want.  I eat them moderately.  I like them, but know I can choose something better for my diet.  So this ranks right in the middle of "healthy", right in the middle of "FO".  I don't really feel strongly about sweet potatoes either way.  You can stay, you can go.  Now for my favorite group of foods.  I love flavored lattes or tea lattes.  But, I don't want all the sugar so I go with sugar-free which is flavored with Splenda.  A lab made chemical that is sure to eat at my insides and cause cancer in laboratory rats, but you know what I say, "FO".  Desserts, chocoloate is best.  I love baked goods of the chocolate kind.  I really do limit my intake of them, but I will have a small bit of something everyday if it is around.  Again, "FO".  Corona Light or a Diet Coke with Malibu.  Alcohol, not good for the serious training diet,  "FO".  To make this one even more enjoyable, the diet coke is loaded with sweeteners.  All of these fall very low on the "Healthy" scale, but very high on the "FO" scale.  I have decided that I train hard and try to eat well, but for the sake of my sanity and to enjoy life these few things get to tag along on my Zone/Paleo way of eating.  Little hitchhikers on my diet that make me smile when I pick them up. 

So I encourage you to make your own little "FO" scale and decide what doesn't matter and what really matters.  Food should be enjoyed and I intend to enjoy some more than others . . . without the guilt.

{rest when you are done}

There are about seven weeks left until Sectionals in Golden, CO.  My training started with a couple months of sheer anxiety.  What the hell was I thinking?  I can't compete like this, the unknown, the strength required, I can't compete with the women that will be there.   I've competed in other fitness endeavors.  Several half-marathons and a figure competition.  No problem I knew what to expect when I got there.  Run 13.1 miles.  Stand on stage in a bikini and pose.  But the games?  Yikes.  Not knowing what I will have to do until the night before terrifies me.  What if I'm not strong enough?  What if it is one of the couple skills I can't do yet?  What if it is a weight I am just short of moving?  What if it is a skill that I am not quite as skilled at?  I have decided for all of those concerns all I can do is continue to train, eat well and do my best.  Instead, my coach has me working on the weakest part of my game.  It isn't the strength, that is coming along nicely.  It isn't the mastery of skills.  That is repetition and I still have time to improve.  What is holding me back from my potential?  My mental game.  I have to strengthen my mental game.  When the lactic acid has built up in my quads and shoulders and I can't do one more  thruster I have to do five more.  When I can't breathe because I feel like my body is going at my body's version of the speed of light, I push through it and keep going.  Oxygen is overrated.  I have figured out that as bad as it feels when you are on your 13th rep and you can't breathe it feels worse when you stop and it is harder to start again than it is to keep going.  I just now realized that is what I always say about running.  I never stop in the middle of a run because it hurts worse to stop and start than to just keep going.  A slow jog, or slog, is faster than walking.  A slow squat is faster than stopping to catch your breath.  So I am learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable.  I try to imagine my coach or my husband in my ear telling me not to stop.  I try to remember that the fewer times I stop to rest the sooner I will finish and get to rest.  So I try to live by the words of a very wise man . . .

"YOU CAN REST WHEN YOU ARE DONE!"

~Coach Buf