Balance is a Myth

Keeping Score

It took eight days post-race for my quads to cool off. I was still walking the dogs a couple of miles every day and stretching lightly, but I was navigating the stairwell one foot at a time to get down to the first floor. Dad’s electric “stair chair” was beginning to look like a better option to me. This was the turning point where my frustration started to exceed the problem. I really hated this point of inflection that showed up regularly in my life. At 53, didn’t I have an educated guess by now as to what to do next? The thing was, I didn’t. Doing more was what got me into this hole, but how could I do any less? I was as close to that as it stood.

On day four, I decided to take a pilates class, and spin the day after that. My quads felt a bit looser, but I still couldn’t descend stairs like a normal, healthy person. I kept researching my next race; nonetheless, pushing the date further and further back with every enquiry. Maybe November? Then I caught a past episode of Mel Robbins while I was driving the dogs to the park one morning. She interviewed Dr. Amy Shah. Dr. Shah proposes something she calls the “30/30/3 plan.” In a nutshell, she proposes a daily eating routine of thirty grams of protein in your first meal, 30 grams of fiber intake throughout the day, and three probiotic foods. How many diets have we heard about in the last twenty years? There’s the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Ketogenic Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Blood-Type diet, etc, not to mention all the different cleanses and fasting plans.

I tried some of them, but had trouble sticking with them, which isn’t usually a problem when something works well. I think this is where I found this plan—not necessarily a diet—different. There was definitely instant gratification, which helped, but it was also specific and easy to follow. This is usually my winning combination for a successful outcome, no matter what it is that I am doing. Sometimes I vacillate between thinking this is because I might be lazy, and don’t want to think too much, or maybe I just prize efficiency as a vastly important element, especially when it comes without quality being sacrificed.

This is the thing: I thought I generally ate a balanced diet. Sure, I like the occasional banana milkshake, but overall, I was eating square meals. But after 30/30/3, what does “balanced” even mean these days?? I always thought the “30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week” was a bullshit guideline some pale scientist living in a basement-lab made up after studying mice on treadmills into the wee hours. That’s enough exercise to promote good health, or is it the bare minimum before one is ensured a premature demise of some kind? I don’t know, but I smell bullshit.

I’m not saying 30/30/3 is a balanced diet (it’s not calling itself a diet at all, but a “plan”), but it does suggest three very specific goals to hit in a day. Listening to the entire episode and reading more about how to best fuel a middle-aged woman, I realized I have been under-fueling myself. By a lot. I thought 30 grams of protein was enough—that it satisfied the “balanced” diet I was consuming—but for a woman like me, middle-aged, with an active lifestyle, trying to run long distances, I discovered I need anywhere from 120 to 150 grams of protein a day.

How did I not already know this?

I started by tripling my daily protein intake to 90 grams. My first surprise was how much food intake was required to hit those numbers. “Snacking” became replaced with other high-protein food items, instead of pimento cheese scooped from the container on the edge of a cracker. On the third day, I ordered protein powder, because, quite frankly, I wasn’t able to eat my way to a high-protein diet. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried powders in the past, but I didn’t notice any difference in how I felt or my energy levels, so I stopped. I realize now that additional protein still wasn’t nearly enough to help my body out. I was still running at a deficit.

The other nugget I learned from Dr. Shah is that a “high protein” food is easily identifiable by multiplying to protein count by ten and comparing it to the number of calories per serving. For instance, when I checked out the Kodiak Power Waffles, they have 12 grams of protein and are 250 calories per serving. While they are branded as being “protein-packed,” they aren’t actually a high-protein food. When multiplying the protein by ten to get the number 120, it’s far below the number of calories at 250. By definition, this is not a a high in protein food. I find this little “trick” helpful in blowing past all of the hype and slick branding companies use to market their products.

On day 6 of my new nutritional plan, I woke up and walked down the stairs effortlessly. My mind was blown. I thought to myself, “Here today and gone tomorrow.” Honestly, my joints and muscles hadn’t felt this good in a very long time. I understand that correlation is not causation, but I’ll take this improvement as a win that happened to coincide with a big change in daily routines. I can’t believe I’m admitting to this, but now I track my protein intake in my Notes app on my iPhone. I’m turning into my father. The last few years of his life, he kept a log of what he ate, the medications he took, and who he talked to or saw, among other things, in a leather-bound annual planner with the year engraved on the front in gold lettering. I’m halfway there already, Dad, just digitally.

One side note of this experience, so far, is that I feel like I’m not eating for pleasure anymore. Even my beloved Chicken Divan has turned utilitarian. (A stretch, I know.) I no longer consider the question, “What sounds good for dinner?” Now, I think about how to wrap my daily 30/30/3 requirements by the last meal of the day, and as a result, everyone else is subject to what’s on that menu, too. But there have been other benefits, in a short time, besides navigating stairways. My joints feel a lot better; I’ve had less gastric distress, especially after running; I have more consistent energy across the day; and so far, I’m handling the early heat and humidity better than I did last year. I told Russ that I felt like a diesel truck that just figured out it’s been fueling itself with gasoline. (Ask me how I know what happens when you do this, insert eye roll.)

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. While I can’t say I’ve done things exactly the same the last—let’s say, five years—I have felt insane when the result turned out the same: Sidelined. And I have to admit, I feel pretty stupid right now. I calculated my running schedule to precision, but didn’t pay that much attention to the nutrition side. I took it for granted. I’ve been a fairly slim person all of my life who basically ate a balanced diet. Basically.

But the “basic” guidelines for nutrition make as much sense as the guidelines promoting exercise for thirty minutes a day, five days a week. I suppose these recommendations cater to some sort of regression to the mean, although I know not what that might be. I am only sure that these guidelines were never meant for me, especially now. Maybe my insanity will have a chance to take a turn for the better. It hasn’t been that long, but it sure feels like it’s headed in that direction.