Too Much of Anything (originally published January 2013)

Binge. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see the word? Slob. Lack of control. Glutton. One type of binge is sitting on your ass all day. You go from work to home and your heart rate never goes much higher than your average resting rate. But I am guessing you did not think about exercise. Is it really possible to binge on exercise? I believe so.

My husband started running last year, not just a few times a week but every single day. He’s not the only one. I know a few of these runners; they call themselves “streakers”. Some of these runners have been running every single day for 20 or more years. The rules my husband has given himself require that he run at least 1 mile without stopping every 24 hours. So, minimum mileage for a week could be as little as 7 miles. That hardly seems like much, I could run 7 miles at one clip!But I don’t, at least not on a regular basis. His daily runs don’t take much time, but they do take commitment. However, he works in Iraq and has what I imagine to be a lot  more free timethan me, as a stay-at-home, which isn’t a great title by any means but it’s hard to explain that I also write every single day (and this is only ever seen as a career when you publish a best-seller) and occasional publish for very little money or just practice, I guess. Truth is, he doesn’t likely have more time but he has found that this daily commitment keeps him from bingeing on food or diets. I can’t imagine climbing aboard any diet craze. The Master Cleanse sounds horrible! Lemon Juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper for three or four days, no way! But my husband has done it as long as 40 days! He’s also done the juice cleanse and about every other diet out there without any real success. He reminisces about the year he spent in Kyrgyzstan when he took up running for the first time in his life, he also walked five miles round-trip to school. He will easily confess that he was in the best shape in his life at that time.

My own life has certainly been a little more fitness focused. However in the year after giving birth, I took up ultra running. I am giving it that name because prior to running races of 30 miles or more I was just a runner. I ran most days of the week; it was part of my routine. Run and then work, or work and then run. Average runs were 5 to 6 miles with long runs between 10 and 14. Sometimes I took Sunday off. I had a pretty healthy well-balance eating habit. Granted, I didn’t have healthy relationships in fact they might be considered “binge love”.

Pregnancy might have tweaked my inability to rationalize balance. In the last few months I was doing power yoga up to 3 hours a day. I ran/walked a 5K (39.40) just a week and a day before labor started. I gave up working to stay home with Sayla. I waited the full six weeks to resume exercise beyond walking. I started slow with cycling, walking and some ab strengthening. It took nearly a year for me to get my head together, but I was also newly married and alone with a baby while my husband worked in Kuwait. The expectation of regaining the old body permeated the air. My husband, foolishly, mentioned that he believed I could regain it twice as fast as anyone else. I realize now that his intention was good but to a new mom this was possibly the worst thing he could have said.

I ran my first 10K after pregnancy just a few weeks before Sayla’s first birthday. But it was only a few weeks before that that I was able to run four straight miles without stopping to cry. The crying was related to relationship tension and the inadequacies I was feeling as a wife (a whole other conversation likely to be saved for never). I finished the 10K the same day my half-marathon training group started (I ran my first half when I was 21). Within one month I completed my first 20 miler, the Peterson Ridge Rumble. One month later, The McDonald Forest 50K. Two months later, Mt Hood 50 miler and a week after that my first marathon, Haulin’ Aspen. I felt amazing! I wanted more, so I started training for a 126.2 mile race, Rouge Orleans. I trained through January before realizing that I could not do the race a single mom. I simply didn’t have the crew and I would have to leave Sayla somewhere. Somewhere. I was really considering running for nearly two days and leaving my not quite 2 year-old child. I watched other people complete the race. I looked at their times knowing I could have done well. I was running through snowstorms on a daily basis with average temperatures never warming past 40. My training was perfect for the cold weather they experienced along the river levee.

There I was, my child turning two and I felt like I traded too much time running when I could have easily been fit with daily gym commitment and been rewarded with hours more a day in her presence. Parenting fail? Probably. But I did learn from the experience.

The next year I ran less frequently but I found I could make up the weekly mileage by running 20 to 30 miles over the weekend, sometimes all at one time. I was also taking 18 to 19 credits a quarter at OSU, to add to my already 342 credits. Binge education! Binge Running! And I was easily migrating into a place of ill fitness. I started staying up until 2am or 3am in order to finish homework, sleeping until 7 or getting up at 2am or 3 in order to finish the homework I was too tired to finish the night before. I was running at best once or twice a week and cycling at best once a week. I ate to keep myself awake. I drank coffee to power through reading sessions or paper writing. My running shorts were shrinking. I bought new bras. We started thinking about adding to our family. Everyday I said to myself,soon, we want another baby, and then I’ll have the same extra 20 pounds to lose, no need to rush. Baby and then weight loss. You’ve done it before. Just be patient. Then it was summer and we still were not pregnant. I weighed the question of when to truly make the effort. I started lifting again. I was feeling strong but big – bigger than feels good on my frame. I think this is important because different sized frames can carry different weights, it’s not all about how one looks but what is healthy. Sure, I could keep buying larger bras and running shorts but I am tired, I don’t sleep so well and as such I am still not the best parent or wife I could be. It’s a slippery slope for sure.

As the New Year came around, my husband maintains his daily minimum with an effort toward 60 minutes of exercise each day. He maintains a 50-pound weight loss and is watching his eating habits a little more carefully. If he eats too much late at night he runs a danger of missing a run. His plan works for him because the alternative is a return to the binge diets and eating of his past. Is a daily commitment to exercise a binge, it could be. But I don’t think seeking 30 to 60 minutes a day should be considered a binge. I do think getting 4 or 5 hours once a week is a binge. For weight loss and health it is much easier to cut 250 calories a day and get 30 minutes of exercise to lose about a pound a week. The kind of running I was doing once a week wasn’t asking my body to dig deep and build on anything other than the ability to keep moving. I wasn’t improving as a runner. I was just making myself tired and hungry. Running 25 miles one day does not warrant eating like you’ve run 25 miles everyday, but the truth is that is you feel like you have. Getting 30 to 60 minutes everyday would give me the reward of health while also rewarding my family with getting the best me than can.

I’ve slowing been working on what this looks like, even though the last three weeks have sucked due to being ill prepared for a snowshoe run and sporting raw wounds at my heels. These weeks have certainly made me dig deep and think about balancing out my binge tendency. There is nothing wrong with having healthy eating habits, saying no to the extra slice of pizza because it’s better left in the box then sitting in the back of your mind as you tell yourself I’ll burn it off tomorrow on my run. What happens if you also eat a chocolate chip cookie? Which one is your run going to burn? Oh, fail! You miss your run because you have a dentist appointment. Don’t eat something you have to burn off; you are only setting yourself up to be padding your backside. There have been a few people I consider to be instrumental in my discovery of balance. I hope they know who they are but if not they surely will in the coming weeks. Sure, it’s a work in progress but so am I. I’d rather spend time learning something new instead of having to learn the same hard lessons over and over again.

When I am not participating in binge exercise and focusing instead on being active every day I am getting more family time. But my next line of focus is dedicated exercise for the sole purpose of improving my fitness.

*Moving some of my blog articles over here to Squarespace. I've been blogging since 2004 and have writing scattered in many place. Photos below are in chronological order.