I'm hungry

I had an email conversation with my bro-in-law (in a roundabout sort of way) Spencer about running 6 marathons and he mentioned something about eating. Of course, Michael Phelps was mentioned and his 12,000 calorie a day diet. I told him I’ve been following counsel from Chris Carmichael (Eat Right to Train Right; friend/coach of Lance, founder of Carmichael Training Systems) who breaks down the year into 4 periods. For my size/weight during Race season I should eat 3400-3900 calories per day. Yeah, sounds like fun getting to eat whatever you want, right? Well, he spells out to eat 70% carbs, 16% protein, and 14% fat. He also ranks what are good carbs and bad on 4 levels. Pretzels are on level 3, where level 1 is the best. So you can imagine where twinkies and those triangular Bavarian crème-filled chocolate covered doughnuts rank which are my personal fave. In a side note to this side note, I once had apple fritters on the top of my list (which were one of the only foods Lance Armstrong felt like eating when he was going through chemo), but Em said once that anything with a fruit name can’t be considered truly treat-worthy.

hhhhhmmmmmm, forbidden doughnut.

Marge: Homer, stop picking at it!

Homer: Oh, but I'm so sweet and tasty.

Ok, back to calories. 3000 is a lot. I know Em says I eat like a girl, which is partly because I eat 6 or 7 times a day so I get full pretty quick. But eating so often (every 2 or 3 hours) it’s tough to feel hungry most times. Interestingly though, and I mentioned this to a counselor in my stake presidency that ran about 8 miles of Deseret News with me, when it comes to fast Sunday…the typical fast for 2 meals isn’t so bad. I get to eat at 11:00 in the morning! Of course, when I fast until when everyone else eats dinner, I’ve gone 5 meals.
Em can probably vouch for this conversation, though she hates (sorry, dislikes, we’re trying to teach Spence not to say the “h” word) to have the actual conversation. I’m referring to the fact (entering stereotypes now so –well, you’ll see why) of how women are usually trying to cut calories and men are trying to add calories. So at meal times both spouses can be scanning boxes and doing math in their head or on paper to keep track. The reason some wives (I know one in particular) dislike this “group math” effort is because the one doing subtraction wants to add, and the one doing addition normally wouldn’t care. It’s funny to witness, but the part that a wife can get “up-in-arms” over is that husband and wife are trying to go different directions. Again, I’m not speaking to anyone in particular, haven’t witnessed this first-hand, no names can be inserted, completely generalized Men-Mars Women-Venus stereotypes being referred to. J
It’s funny that this has taken me a couple of days to put together. Anyway, I was wondering how many calories the pioneers burned each day crossing the plains, especially those pushing handcarts? Bet they would have fallen in love with Powerbars and Gatorade, maybe it would have been called Pioneerade if it was around back then.

Funny Office quote: From “the convention”
Jan: Michael, I am impressed, I completely under-estimated you.
Michael: Yeah, maybe it’s about time you start to estimate me.