I am no serious athlete.  I was on my college’s crew team. I like to exercise sometimes. That’s where it ends. I have no physically competitive nature. However (as you might have noticed), I’m dating the exact opposite. Until I met Josh, I never realized how many different roles food has outside of entertainment and pleasure.

I hate when anyone says food is merely sustenance, but for Josh (and other athletes), it really is. Eating is a science; a formula that has to be correct in order for his body and mind to function properly together to allow him to achieve what he wants, even sometimes this just means getting through a normal work day.

I’m not saying athletes eat like robots. Josh eats what he wants. He rarely deprives himself of anything (except ice cream and cake frosting), but he is left pumping himself full of things he doesn’t always want to eat. Josh often lies there and complains “I haven’t eaten enough calories today, I don’t feel like eating anymore!!!”. He has spreadsheets to make sure he’s eating enough calories, taking in enough sodium to prevent hyponatremia, and eating enough carbs to keep himself alive and going. Have you ever seen the Quaker commercial with the bent over humans (go humans, go!)? That is Josh without his daily 3+ bowls of oatmeal. Can you imagine?

Continue reading An Athlete’s (strange) Relationship with Food