But in the last year or so, [things have changed]. So I ran the 100K on Saturday, and after I do a big event, I usually give myself a couple days of just eating like shit, because I burned 9,000 calories on this race or something like that and I’m starving. I had a burrito, and at first I was like, Oh man, burrito, so good. But then I immediately just felt like garbage.
I think as we get older, we develop—not so much allergies, but sensitivities to foods in ways that we didn’t before. Either they affect our bodies differently or we’re just old enough to feel that we don’t feel great, if that makes sense. When you’re young, you’re just like, Fuck it, Cheetos! Funyuns? Who cares? Your body can just process anything. And then as you get older, your body starts to rebel against you a bit.
So [after that post-race burrito], I was like, “Nope, I’m done. I’ve got to get back [to eating healthy]. I don’t like feeling like this.” There are certain foods where the satisfaction that they give you going in do not outweigh how they make you feel when they’re in you or—God forbid—when they’re coming out of you. That was a good check in and reminder that I’m doing the right thing for my body. This is what works best for me.
That’s great. So are there paleo meals specifically that you do look forward to now though?
My go-to that I could eat for the rest of my life is this: I go to the co-op and buy a bunch of broccoli and Brussels sprouts, potatoes, onions, carrots, whatever, any kind of combination of this kind of stuff, and get it all chopped up, put it in a bowl of olive oil, salt and pepper, and then throw it on a baking sheet with some dukkah. I make my own dukkah, which is a kind of Middle Eastern condiment of nuts and seeds and spices—it’s a flavor and texture bomb. So I’ll put all these vegetables on a baking sheet, throw a bunch of dukkah all over it, roast it for a half hour at 400, and then either do some chicken thighs in a skillet on the stove, make a steak, or barbecue chicken or pork or something like that out on the grill. And that to me, strangely, is the meal that I crave the most when I’m away from home. Just after being gone this weekend down at the race, I was like, man, I cannot wait to just throw some vegetables in the fucking oven and roast them and make a salad.
It’s so good. It’s filling, but it’s the good kind of filling. And yeah, I don’t have that same feeling of just being weighed down or the GI issues that I had when I was eating a lot of wheat. I’m not one those people who’s like, “Gluten is terrible. Bread’s terrible.” I’m not gluten intolerant, I don’t have celiac, it’s nothing like that. You just realize some things work better for you sometimes. There are days where I really miss eating pizza, but I don’t miss how I felt after I ate it.
Totally. As someone who just ate half a pizza last night for dinner, I completely understand what you mean.
Yeah. It’s so good going in and then you’re like, “Oh my God, why did I do that?”
I’ve been struggling today for sure. Do you ever listen to music while you run or do you, for lack of a better term, raw dog them?
I do both. Oftentimes if I’m out by myself, usually I’ll cue up a bunch of podcasts—a lot of just nerdy baseball podcasts or whatever. But music I sometimes find is hard. The short answer is yes, I do listen to music, but oftentimes—especially when I’m on training runs—music just marks time in too clear of a way. If a song is three minutes long or four minutes long and you know it, you know how much time you’ve been running. And when I’m out on the trail, more times than not, I don’t like to be reminded of how long I’ve gone or how far I have to go.
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