Much of last year and all of this year, I've been dealing with injuries. I developed stress fractures in both ankles. While dealing with them, I developed an odd pain pattern starting in the right inner thigh and eventually migrating along the brim of the pelvis into the left inner thigh. It was diagnosed as athletic pubalgia, a new condition of aging athletes. Months of PT and chiropractic seems to be helping the condition.

The various maladies affected my ability to run and race. This year I only managed 4 races. All of them marathons in the 4-5 hour range. Plus I did the local 24-hour cancer society relay run. I was my own team, running continuously for 18 hours. In past years I covered 80 miles. This year I could only do 50. These runs were done in constant groin and thigh pain.

The conflation of these injuries and my age (50) has made me think a lot about how my diet could be helping or hindering me. I've put on about 15 pounds over the past year. I really should take off 25 pounds to be at my best running weight.

On top of wanting to lose weight, I have to deal with losing muscle as we all do over time. Right now I'm the weight I was in high school. But back then I was a 1200 pound powerlifter. My best event was the deadlift with my max being 450 pounds. Now I doubt I could lift 300.

For the past few months I've been dividing my time between PT, running and lifting. I've been told I have DJD in both shoulders. So I do a lot of PT in my office, using rubber bands attached to the wall. I don't use a scale so I can only guess my weight. But I can do that fairly accurately just from where I cinch my belt. I've had it for 10 years. It has five holes. At 200 pounds it was tight on hole #1. At 160 pounds the belt was loose on the fifth hole. Right now I'm on the middle hole.

If anything, the lifting has improved my running. Last week I did a total of 50 miles. Sunday I ran 22 miles. Since this is a diet website, I'll say I have kept to a lowcarb, lowfat, high protein diet. No calorie counting and no gorging on meat. Breakfast is either an omelet or oatmeal. Lunch is either canned soup or sandwiches. Dinner is mostly stirfry veggies and fish. Snacks are mostly nuts.

As the title says, I feel like I'm on my way back. For me moderation is an anathema. That's just how I've lived. All diets are immoderate, imo. It's better to live with some hunger rather than live with the self-shame of gorging on any food.

So long guys, gotta run. ;-)

I agree. Good luck with the injuries.