In all the marathon hubbub, I neglected to report this week’s results in the family weight-loss contest. Or maybe I was trying to avoid the humiliation of admitting that I posted a slight gain despite having run 26 miles on weigh-in day.
“I’m not mad,” said my teammate Colleen, who’s lost 11 of our contest-leading 12.5 pounds. “I just think it’s kind of funny.”
The truth is, managing my diet was the worst part of the marathon training process. I was hungry all the time, or thought I was, so I had a really hard time controlling myself. I’d hoped to drop a few pounds leading up to the race so I’d have less weight to carry, but in reality I wound up a couple of pounds heavier — especially after tapering, when my mileage went down and my tension level went up.
I will say this: The same mental tools that gave me the discipline to keep going on long training runs are now making it easier for me to zero in on my diet in the days since the big run. (They’d better, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Colleen !)
In second place, my sister Traci and Grandpa have a 10.5 pound loss, with Traci responsible for 8 of those. “I”m still eating my pretzel M&Ms,” she said. “I’m just eating less overall.”
In third place are my brother Brent and niece Madison, who’ve lost a total of 7 pounds between them, while Ben and my nephew Mason are in fourth place with a 5.7 pound loss.
90in9 
Running makes me hungry! To me it’s all about discipline and educated decisions. Going by feel/hunger doesn’t work for me.
You are so right! I’ve got a broken fuel gauge, which is why I needed to lose all that weight in the first place. I’ve worked hard to develop discipline and learn to make good eating decisions, but it obviously wasn’t hard enough this time!