Clean eating

This is a long post, but I'm affording myself the luxury of a wordy entry...because I can't give up everything in one season.

Clean eating...it sounds like something an addict does in rehab. Typing the very words has me shaking for a Cinotti's apple fritter. Clean eating has been a fitting focus during this time of Lent because it's about giving up. It's a diet that gives up foods void of nutritional value for foods dense in vitamins and minerals. My particular clean eating plan is tailored to my running goals and omits most sugars, alcohol, and processed carbs (all micro obstacles to running fast...yes, even the little things matter). I haven't decided whether to view this regimen as performance based or penance based, but either way there's a lesson learned about sacrifice. There's also nothing like a day with out sugar, fat, and wine to bring you closer to God! On my not-so-springy runs this week ( I think I'm still in the detox phase and not yet benefiting from all the good, clean energy that is sure to come) I've had two thoughts about sacrifice:

One. Sacrifice should be done quietly.

It occurred to me that everyone knows running, dieting, or any sacrifice for that matter, can be hard...so why complain out loud? We risk pulling someone down onto the slippery rock of negativity where its easy to lose footing and fall off course. I'm not knocking the occasional bitch session to a friend...we all need to let it out sometimes, that thick, sludgy build-up of self pity, but overall, I couldn't find one valuable thing about complaining in the midst of sacrifice. As I was running through some of my own muck this week, complaining became my third leg, another dragging appendage that just slowed things down. In my seven short years of running, I've had the good fortune of running with some very positive women – women who can tell a “slap-your-momma” funny story at mile 20 and render painful knees powerless (that one's for you LL!). One run in particular stands out in my mind. On a cold December morning, I was meeting “my girls,” as I affectionately call them, for a 22 mile run, the last of three long runs before our eminent race. Months of training had beaten up our feet, toes and shins and we hobbled out of the Publix parking lot like bloody fighters pushed into the ring for one last whooping. There was about three minutes of “ahhhh,” “ouch,” “sh*t, that hurts,” and then there was silence. Even before the stiffness and soreness dissipated, we hit the highway and it was down to business...the business of keeping pace up the bridge, the business of making it through the miles, the business of having some fun. There was no option of turning back, so all of us just kept quiet (about the complaining that is) and left the expletives behind us, way behind before there was momentum. Momentum is a beautiful thing in running, and it's silent pull is ever so sensitive to whining.

Two. The self-denial of sacrifice is good and is all around us.

There's nothing harder than loving someone when you have the right to be mad at them, keeping quiet when you want to share your opinion, eating a brown rice cake when you really want a neon orange Dorito (I don't even normally like junk like this, but I think the fake cheese would quiet the processed-food-deprived voice in my head), or writing when you have nothing to say (this week, I remembered a college professor telling my to stare at a white page until drops of blood appeared). Denying ourselves builds muscle though...enlarging the heart muscle for a greater capacity to love, stretching the mind muscles to learn someone else's story instead of telling our own, and strengthening the leg muscles for enduring the pace. Practicing clean eating has precipitated a new appreciation of self-denial. Even more than physical and mental well being, clean eating has given me an awareness of something other than my desires and cravings. To be successful in clean eating, you have to learn to turn off the “self”, and that is exactly the moment when you become open to “otherness”. I don't think it coincidence, but in the last few weeks of turning myself off, I've noticed the sacrifices of others, so many times on my behalf. Self-denial is closer to home than the remote Buddhist monastery, and it didn't die out after St. Augustine. In the way you notice everyone driving your new car once you purchase the “limited edition”, I'm seeing self-denial all around me. My mom babysitting the boys when she probably needed a quiet moment to herself, my sister taking her kids to get new shoes when she could have used a night off, my friends waking up in the 4 o'clock hour to run so as not to disturb the household's morning routine...this is the stuff good people are made of. In fact, this is why I love my family, my friends and the girls I run with...because they know just as much about self denial, thoughtfulness, and doing something for the greater good as the monk who spends days on his knees. Not all of them know it, but this week I've been drawing from their steam. I can't honestly say I'm good at self-denial (my closet is full of Prada and Louboutin to prove it) and I'm too self-aware as a runner, but I'm gaining momentum from not giving into the donuts, from not whining out loud, and from mimicking the beautiful sacrifice I see in others.