Taking yourself too seriously

I have a number of friends who are very fit/healthy yet are often talking about needing to lose that last few kilograms or maintain an ideal weight for a certain occasion (soccer season, marathon, beach vacation, etc). In the past I never worried about my weight. Today I realized that since I joined MFP I had become one of those people.

I joined MFP primarily to improve my fitness levels. While at the high end of the healthy range when I joined, my BMI has never been overweight. Since my initial focus became long distance running I looked up the current height/weight of 10 of the top long distance runners in the world on Wikipedia and calculated their average BMI. That BMI became my goal and by the beginning of 2013 I had achieved it. All year I have tracked my weight and my (7 day rolling average) weight never fluctuated more than a few kilograms. My cholesterol, blood sugar, etc is all perfect. Although my diet was not restrictive (I regularly eat pizza, doughnuts, bacon cheeseburgers and ice cream) I carefully tracked all my calories/macro numbers on a weekly basis and remained very close to target every single week.

All along I planned on starting to bulk after my first marathon two weeks ago (less than one year since I started running). However I found myself increasing my running goals every time I achieved my previous goal and using that as an excuse to delay bulking (which would increase my current “ideal running weight”). In September for example I set a 5k goal of 22:00. When I ran the race in 20:16 I set a new goal for 20:00. My reasoning was that it would be silly to gain a lot of weight while being so close (16 seconds) to the 20 minute barrier. Yesterday I was happy about exceeding my 5k goal by running a race in 18:29 less than one year from my first 5k. Unfortunately I learned afterward that according to the race winner the "USATF certified” course measurement was likely off so I did not run quite as fast as I thought. I was pretty upset and ready to delay my bulk once again so I could register for another 5k before gaining weight.

I realized I was being ridiculous. I am not an Olympic athlete or a boxer trying to make my weight class. I could gain 20 pounds (or more) and still be within the healthy BMI range. There is no reason for me to maintain my running weight to within a few kilograms as if I was training to qualify for the 10,000m race in the 2016 Olympics. I need to stop taking myself so seriously and not worry about 16 seconds when I have achieved every other running goal I have set for myself (from every distance from 1 mile to the marathon). Tomorrow I will start bulking and I don't care if I gain 5, 10 or 20 pounds next year. My blood work is perfect, my body fat is around 10% and my weight is and will remain healthy. My Stronglifts 5x5 lifting numbers have been stalled since starting marathon training (while I was eating at maintenance). I look forward to eating at a surplus to better fuel my strength training going forward.

If you are healthy there is no reason to focus on hitting/maintaining your weight within a few kilograms all year like I did. Diet/fitness should be fun not a chore! Unless you are a weight class athlete (wrestler, boxer, etc) don’t take things as seriously as I did. Enjoy your success, move on to your next goal and don’t get hung up on 16 seconds.