How to rebound from a bad eating week (or two) in Italy

I know I have been slacking and I have lots of excuses you don't really want to hear about.  But the one that is central to this blog, you are going to hear about.  I was lucky enough to help the US 24 hour Running Team at the World Championships in Turin, Italy and ended up spending two weeks in Italy at the start of April.  What does this have to do with OFM?  A few of you might have guessed. Stick with me  for a few paragraphs on this one...

For the first few days in Italy, I had some time by myself so I decide to get a room at an AirBnB out in the countryside and unplug for a few days.  It turned out to be an awesome old house (like 1700s old) with a great small family.  Going in to this trip my plan was to eat cheeses, meats, olives and all those great high fat/low carb Italian foods. That lasted right up until the Mom of the house invited me to join them for dinner.  It smelled so amazing when they were cooking lunch earlier I could not say no.  I did go to the store and got some great meats and cheeses so I was 'prepared'.  What I was not prepared for was sitting down with an Italian version of my Grandmother.  Needless to say I ate, ate, and ate some more.  Every meal starts with pasta and ends with dessert, so you can now see where this is going.  

Calzones I helped make Day 2

In my defense I did pretty well while at the house because I was able to go and run the hillsides and vineyards all morning while staying there.  My stomach was not in a happy place eating all those carbs, but other than feeling over-full all the time, I wasn't really feeling the ill-effect (yet).

Since I was only there a few days, I hit up a 24 hour fast when I left and stuck to some OFM meals for the next few days through the World Championships (where Team USA rocked! Our ladies took home team gold and individual gold and silver; men took home team 4th).  Then I had a full vacation to Cinque Terre lined up with my girlfriend, Traci Falbo, her husband Mike, and Coach Nippert and his wife Karen joined us for the first few days. I did pretty well the first meal but intentionally fell off the wagon for the next 6 days. I just couldn't see being in such a beautiful place and NOT experiencing all the food it had to offer. 

I know this is not a travel blog...but seriously...how could I NOT eat pasta and bread here? Note the meat/cheese effort- other than the fact I destroyed that bread with our hand-made pesto!

Anyway what followed was days of pasta, bread, wine, gelato...you get the idea. The location was amazing, we had an amazing time, but I started to feel and see some serious ill effects of my sudden diet switch. Low energy, unhappy tummy, and I was getting 'fluffy' (fat).  So how do you recover from something like this?

Keep in mind I have been on OFM solid for over 2 years, so usually my body snaps back pretty quick like it did after those two days in the countryside house.  But after a solid week of pure sugar, my body was pissed. To get back on track, I fasted the flight home and the night I got home. Probably about a 30+ hour fast and I was hurting. My stomach, brain, everything was in serious sugar withdraw.  Then I got back on the strict OFM diet and got the running shoes back on.

My first few runs were bad.  You remember those first few runs when you started OFM?  Couldn't breath, had no motivation, and lasted about 30 minutes total...the run was total of 30 min :( .  But after about a week of struggling along, the running turned around and I probably had my first solid run today two weeks later.  I'm still carrying a few extra lbs I picked up on the Italian coast, but I'm confident they will melt away over the next month if I keep at it.   

This is the last carb pic, I swear

World Silver Medalist Traci Falbo sporting her Destin Ultra shirt right before I hit up some lasagna  (shameless name drop and race advertising together)

That was a long story to get to a simple statement or two: If you have been OFM for a few months and have a sugar day, you will snap back pretty quickly after a fast and run.  No matter how long you have been OFM it will take weeks and a lot of effort to recover from a week of ....

seriously...