I know as much about the subject as pretty much all of us do. Eat clean, lots of vegetables, not too much, not too little. I personally eat red meat, chicken and fish because they are satisfying foods and seem to keep me healthy when asking a lot of my body. Despite this, I often make the mistake of not adjusting my caloric intake, day to day, to mirror my needs between a workout day, a recovery day, a long run.
I either get overly ambitious, ending the day with a significant deficit or (maybe as a result of those underfed days) I pack in a bunch of food at night and wake up feeling heavy. I think my deficit-surplus range is too wide and causes too much stress. Want to narrow the range to give-or-take 500 calories but I don't really track anything. I just read that, within that range, training doesn't suffer so much.
I was hoping to hear a chronology of a typical day a la Matt Fitzgerald's, "Race Weight" for you guys that is your preferred strategy for ending the day in a mild calorie deficit that does not harm the quality of the next day's training; a day that gradually ticks you down closer to a weight that enables faster running.
How many meals do you prefer a day? Do you snack? Are pre- or post-workout foods a staple for you? When doing doubles, how do you fit meals and snacks in around the 2 runs? And also, after good eating and planning, how much does it sometimes come down to simply sitting through that nigh- time craving and refocusing an "itchy mind" towards the goal of lean (within reason) running weight?
Thanks all.
Detail-oriented responses are much appreciated. Not trying to trigger anyone into having philosophical or psychological debates around eating, just people's effective game plans for reasonable cutting. I'm 5'10, 165. Not bad by any means but I think I would really appreciate how I felt training and racing at around 150.