Always the first leg to the cookie table. The gluttonous gam.
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Winning!
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11/14/25
3.01 miles. 31:06. Average pace 10:20. Average heart rate 153. Max heart rate 176.
Pretty good run this morning. Was only planning 2 but when I got to my 2 mile turn I decided to go for 3. I think by thanksgiving I should be able to push hard for a good (for me) race pace. I hope to live up to the example that my boys have set and make them proud. I want to be a mom that they are proud of. I think I’m getting there. Maybe.
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No, that’s a definitely.
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Can never be sure. Those little bastards have impossibly high standards. 
Well, I may have spoken too soon. I have been having issues in the evening. I feel like I have an endless appetite in the evening. I’m not sure if I need to readjust what I’m eating or when I’m eating. Or if I’m just slipping into old bad habits. Tomorrow starts my second cycle of 5/3/1. I need to figure out if I am eating to support the work I’m doing or eating because I lack self control. The one good thing is that we don’t really have any junk food in the house for me to binge on. But mixed nuts can be pretty bad when you eat enough of them. Anyway. Today is a new day.
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I perpetually struggle with the same question.
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I first started 5/3/1 after coming off something like 3 years of yo-yo dieting, an obsession with the scale, and detrimental calorie-tracking habits.
It was hard to eat to support the work, but that’s what was required. I was really worried about all of the calories I was now ingesting—they were good calories, because I learned that much at least in the obsessive behavior leading up to the change—but there were still way more of them than I thought I needed.
But my body figured out what to do with them: It converted them into fuel for kick-ass workouts—day after day, week after week, cycle after cycle—and it used them to build a solid base of muscle to give me a physique at 43 or 44 years of age that I didn’t even have at 23.
It was awesome.
My point here is: Trust the process. Trust yourself.
If you keep the calories clean and put in the work, your body will do the rest.
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So this is where my problem is. I can’t figure out I I’m actually doing enough work to require the calories or if I just think I need more food and am therefore giving myself an excuse. Arhg. So frustrating. I’m sure it will sort itself out.
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This was wildly satisfying to read!
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I totally understand. I was there, too. For me, I had to realize food was not the enemy. And it really did boil down to trusting myself.
And because physique was my primary concern, trusting the mirror.
If you like what you’re seeing, if your strength is holding (or better yet, increasing), and if you’re feeling as good as any adult with real responsibilities can expect to feel, I’d say you’re in the sweet spot.
But I really do understand: It is not easy!
Luckily, this community is here for exactly this reason.
Here’s an early thread I posted shortly after joining the forums; I haven’t re-read it, to be honest, and I don’t think I will, given where I am. But it might help:
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Thank you!
I’ll be honest: It’s wildly satisfying to write.
So this next little bit of information is something I am extremely uncomfortable admitting to and equally uncomfortable talking about, but here is goes.
I am fully aware that I have an unhealthy relationship with food. You can ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I am either in complete control of my diet or I am 100% off the rails. I have never managed to find a healthy balance and maintain it for any length of time. I have spent enough time being obese and miserable to know that I don’t want to be that again. So this is why I have such a hard time with small indiscretions. Small very quickly rolls into large. My desire is to be strong and healthy. To be able to eat properly to fuel my body and my brain. I want to avoid returning to misery. My brain knows that those goals run parallel to each other. My brain also has a very hard time forgiving and forgetting my failures in the past. My current fear is that I am slipping. At the exact same moment I am afraid that I am being obsessive and possibly not fueling properly, either in what or how much I am eating. I tell myself that the scale doesn’t matter and yet can’t seem to step away from it. I am riding the line between being obsessive to the point of unhealthy and falling down the slippery slope into lack of control. I know I just need to course correct. I know that I’m probably doing ok. But what I know and what I know aren’t necessarily the same thing.
So, I’m working on my poor food relationship. Writing it out here helps. Reflection and admitting to my issues and insecurities is helpful. I actually feel a bit better after that bit of word vomit. And I think I will actually post this instead of writing it out and then deleting it as I usually do. Thank you for sharing with me. It’s helpful to know I am in good company. 
Today is a new day. Tomorrow will be even better.
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I think at some point you’re going to have to take off the training wheels and let yourself fall if necessary, then get back on the bike and start the process all over again.
Maybe give yourself a margin of error, with point X being where you return to obsessive control briefly to right any wrongs, then take the wheels off again when you feel ready.
My digital scale arrived yesterday after however many years of the world’s cheapest plastic scale. I opened it and sort of wondered “what am I doing? counting grams now? why?” It’s like I entered a fugue state and ordered it after seeing something here on TN to the effect that you really don’t know what you’re eating until you start measuring minutely. I’m not even tracking currently! But there it is, on the counter.
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Thank you for posting that.
I’m not qualified to offer advice, I can only speak to my own experiences, you are not me, and I am not you, but:
I agree with this.
And it is hard.
Very hard.
But you’ve seen my “then” photos and you’ve seen my “now” photos, I think: I am working back from the failure state even as we speak.
I’ll paraphrase something that @T3hPwnisher has said time and again all across this forum that really helps me frame @EmilyQ’s observation:
You have the tools, and you know you can do it again.
He’s not wrong.
Not about me.
Not about you.
You’ve got this!
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I happen to have handy some of @T3hPwnisher’s excellent words, along with some by @TrainForPain, because I know exactly when they said them to me: it was when I had to ask what I was doing, and why, thinking it was impossible for me as a consistent thing. It was the holiday season two years ago, and I’ve been consistent for that long. @BethB I don’t know if we’re doing a T-ransformation Challenge this year, but it was a lot of fun. (Fun-ish. You know how it is.) I let myself gain weight when I was 6 months in, by the way. I feel FANTASTIC. I felt happy to pick my diet back up after my endoscopy fast- I love my Italian chicken vegetable soup and grapes and dark chocolate. I love not smoking and hydrating and going outside and spending miles on the move.
Here are the excellent words, which I think apply here. You run 3 miles like it’s nothing, Beth. You constitute the exception now. But it doesn’t mean you have to be perfect! We all have to learn to fall off and then get back on. Except for @davemccright, who I believe was joyouly strength training as a toddler. 
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Not a fan. Lol. But I’m sure you are correct.
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My dad first started teaching me basic movements with one of those non Olympic barbells like Bench, curls and deadlifts when I was 8! I wanted to look like Mark McGwire or Brock Lesnar haha
I feel like once you get started training and start to really love it, it all becomes easy. It’s great to get to the point where you look forward to your sessions and once you get there, it’s one of the best parts of your day and training becomes as compulsory as brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
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11/15/25
5/3/1 The Triumvirate Week 4
Squat deload
Unexciting.
I got some much needed yard work done today. Most things are ready for the winter. Probably should have put up the Christmas lights since the weather is so lovely today but that’s not happening. I haven’t been much in the mood for decorating this year. Maybe after Thanksgiving I will be ready for it.
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@EmilyQ I appreciate the callout, and certainly the company in which you place me, but I’ll fight to my dying breath the notion I’ve ever uttered “excellent words.”
@BethB I will double down on the concept, though. I think, maybe, you are staring down conflicting “why’s”. I’m a firm believer in the “commitment sets you free” line of thinking. I’ve certainly run through it myself. I want to live a life just like everyone else, and not have to worry about things, and also be jacked and devastatingly handsome. The thing is, the life everyone leads doesn’t lead to jacked… so I actually end up becoming more food focused because I’ve set it up as this damned if I do, damned if I don’t scenario. When I just commit to one or the other, I’m totally content with that until my goals change.
At the end of all of this, most of us aren’t hitting that Olympia stage. Even if we were, those guys and gals are not that lean and perfect year-round… nor do these minute differences in our physiques show up anywhere but to a trained judge’s eye. So we’re all doing this to improve the quality of our lives. If we’re doing some resistance training, some cardio, and being mindful of the quality of our diet, we’re getting the Pareto principled 80% of the health benefits. After that, I think it becomes which row do you want to hoe? Which activities make you happier?
With all that said, I’m very sympathetic to the food relationship difficulty. It’s a tough path for me as well. I yo-yo a bit between total control and lack thereof, exactly as you mention.
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