Nutrition 101: How “Dirty Eating” Was Making Me Crazy

When it comes to nutrition, it’s consistency that matters, not 100%

Consistently doing the thing that gets you closer to your nutrition goals – and that’s overall in every aspect of life.

I am a fighter. I compete in national, and soon-to-be international levels of competition in kickboxing and Muay Thai. There is a preparation phase called, “Fight Camp”, which is the weeks of training before a fight. This Fight Camp ranges anywhere from 6-12 weeks of intensive training – 4 hours a day of exercise per day, 6 days a week.

In order to support my body during this intense bout of training, my nutrition HAS to be on point. I feed myself a high quality diet of chicken, turkey, yogurt, rice, fruits and veggies. My body is such a well-oiled machine during this time, I am laser-focused on the upcoming fight. My brain feels like a Ferrari, no brain fog, no anxiety, no depression. Would you also believe me that I am injured less, despite the heavy workout routine? (thank you functional fitness programming!)

However, AFTER fight camp, when I can ‘live a little’, this is when things get interesting.

I eat whatever I want. (hello pizza)

I sleep more. (9+ hours)

I workout only 2 days a week for strength training, still 1 hour of kickboxing training 5 days a week to keep my skills up.

You could say that I am living life to my fullest, doing whatever I want.

BUT…

… 3 months off of training sick with pneumonia

I started journaling through fight camps, in order to track these seemingly out-of-the-blue mood swings. I wanted to just get it all down on paper and out of my head. After a few fight camps, I started to notice a pattern.

One day, I was having a rough go at life. Everything was stressing me out, and I was FEELING it. I splurged and decided to get a fried chicken sandwich, with fries and an alcoholic drink for lunch (hey, it’s 5 o’ clock somewhere). I pouted at home, watching some mind-numbing TV show that I can’t even remember the plot for.

I demolished the food, finished my drink and fell into a nap. When I woke up, I felt like I was living life on mute- everyone of my senses had become dulled, and at the time I was okay with it. I didn’t care for it to be turned up anyways.

I dutifully got packed up and went to kickboxing training, knowing that a bad day of training is better than no training at all. We were doing some VERY basic, VERY SLOW movement drills – working on our straight punches and setting up kicks.

Easy stuff.

BUT…

My brain was as FRIED as that chicken sandwich I just ate. My BodyMind connection was not talking to each other. My brain would say ‘jab cross hook’ and my body would say ‘…..(long pause)… cross uppercut kick’.

I shrugged it off and just accepted that practice today was going to be more of an exercise in showing up, not in the actual reps.

When I got home that night, this got me thinking… was my clean diet and strict exercise routine making it so my body was functioning properly? Was the “dirty food” I was eating outside of fight camps causing all these side effects? I HAD to experiment with this information!

So, I kept journaling, now tracking my food choices for the day as well as my emotions and feelings. On days I decided to eat whatever I wanted, my food intake looked like this:

Breakfast: whole eggs, bread or bagel with cream cheese, cup of coffee w/ milk and sugar

Snack: processed snack bar i.e. Lara bar, protein bar, cup of coffee, candy or chocolate

Lunch: chicken or turkey, mac n’ cheese, deli sandwich, or take-out i.e. teriyaki, sushi

Snack: coffee, processed snack i.e. rice cakes, stroopwaffels, crackers and peanut butter

Dinner: chicken or turkey, pasta or rice w/ candy dessert

When eating like this, I experienced ALL THE SYMPTOMS of brain fog, fatigue, food cravings, uncontrolled anxiety, severe depression, paranoia, decision fatigue, bloating, constipation, oversleeping, uncontrolled anger and outbursts, inability to stop overwhelming thoughts, insomnia AND oversleeping (yes, both of them), inability to wake up on time in the morning, lack of motivation, and despairing thoughts…

These “pits” as I call them are brutal. I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.

So I bet you’re wondering what I did when I started the experiment?

On my “experiment” days, I aimed to eat minimally processed foods, meal prep foods before I was hungry (if I hadn’t already), eat more fruits and veggies, measure quantity for portion sizes, drink 1 gallon of water throughout the day, take my vitamins, and workout. I focused on being disciplined, not being perfect.

My meals would look something like this:

Breakfast: 2 egg whites and 1 full egg, oatmeal w/ maple syrup & a banana, cup of coffee

Snack: yogurt w/ peanut butter and fruit, 2 rice cakes and a protein shake

Lunch: chicken breast, veggies, sweet potatoes, cup of coffee

Snack: yogurt w/ chocolate chips and banana, granola, and protein shake

Dinner: chicken, veggies, rice or sweet potatoes

after workout snack: yogurt w/ maple syrup

When eating like this, my brain was firing on all cylinders, I had minimal (and ignorable) fatigue and food cravings.

I was able to fight off that ‘feeling right before getting sick’. I had better feedback from my body, and could tell if something I ate before training was a help or a hindrance.

I still felt waves of anxiety and sadness (as is life) at different points of the day, but it was comparable to looking at the waves in the ocean from the beach, instead of being caught in the under toe and swept out under them. The perfectionism, paranoia, decision fatigue, bloating, constipation, and oversleeping DISAPPEARED.

My emotional outbursts were controllable and few and far between. I could wake up on time with my alarm in the morning and even felt good running again. I felt like I had my mind and my body back under control…

All just by eating nutrient-dense food and drinking water.

So with that being said… Aren’t you curious was this experiment could do for YOU??

If you would like to get kickstarted on this journey together, let’s make a plan for it 🙂 Grab your spot on our 5-week Kickstart challenge, and let’s get mindful about our eating! Schedule your consult here.

Talk soon-

Amanda