I promise we will get to running but I think a lot of people just jump right into it and forget their back story or how they even got there. I am not a world class runner, I’m not even really a middle of the pack runner, I came to running kinda by accident, so in the spirit of Bob Ross I want to share my happy accidents with you.
I am a huge nerd. I love history, so that in part has shaped how I eat and how I work out. My two favorite time periods are WW2 and the civil war. Both of these time periods really shaped how people eat, so what do I do with that bit of knowledge, I try out the ration diet. So if you don’t know Ration happening during WW2 in order to make sure the military had enough food to feed the soldiers and especially in England rationing hit hard because the Germans wouldn’t let supplies in. What a lot of people didn’t know was that rationing actually made for a healthier society, it cut down on sugar and processed candies. People ate local and more fresh vegetables. So I decided since I was weighing and measuring everything anyway I would give it a go.
Here is what rationing looked like for an adult by the week:
Bacon & Ham 4 oz
Other meat value of 1 shilling and 2 pence (equivalent to 2 chops)
Butter 2 oz
Cheese 2 oz
Margarine 4 oz
Cooking fat 4 oz
Milk 3 pints
Sugar 8 oz
Preserves 1 lb every 2 months
Tea 2 oz
Eggs 1 fresh egg (plus allowance of dried egg)
Sweets 12 oz every 4 weeks
Now this isn’t all you get, you get fresh veg, some fruit in season, bread potatoes etc. So, I went ahead and portioned it all out every week. The crazy part was I wasn’t hungry and I was still losing weight. DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!! I lost 60 pds. Just with portions and walking, then a coworker who I would consider a crazy runner says “you could totally run a 5k”.
No, I can’t that’s nuts, and I moved on with my day but she wore me down and I was feeling pretty good about my health and figured I’ll do this one 5k and never run again……