It was inevitable that my streak of hyper-exercise and my ascetic calorie-cutting was going to end in disaster. It happened over a couple days, though, and not in one fatal blow.

On Tuesday I went for a 5.5-mile run and nearly passed out at mile 3. I had to walk back to my car -- a long, painful, exhausting walk. I came home and stuffed my face with a tub of cottage cheese, two large bowls of cereal, four crackers, two string cheeses and a banana. That was far beyond my typical caloric intake for any one day.

I paid more attention to my diet yesterday, cooking what I thought was a generous bowl of pasta (for the past several weeks pasta has been verboten except on nights before 10+-mile runs). But it didn't turn out to be enough to fuel my 4 miles of speed work today. I had to stop after 1 mile, cursing myself.

When I got back to the apartment (I jogged back, because walking is just torturous when you're feeling that lightheaded) and immediately googled "runner eating enough" and found this page which told me I need to be eating 2000 calories a day. I think I'm currently eating around 900. It all sounds straightforward enough, except for the part that recommends TEN SERVINGS OF WHOLE GRAINS EVERY FUCKING DAY.

How the hell do you do that? My mom suggests Whole Grain Fig Newtons. Yeah, exactly. I'm fine having two servings of cereal, some whole grain rice... but that's all. I can't go back to sandwiches. Bread. Ugh. I just can't do it. Fuckitty fuck.

So to test this new diet, I made a pork chop and had a couple servings of vegetables, and then a couple hours later I had an apple and fulfilled one of my whole grain requirements with a piece of Drew's Weetabix. Then I tried to do my run again, and I clocked a record-setting 6:06 mile.

So I guess I'll be buying some ("Eww, hold your nose when you eat that shit!") Whole Grain Fig Newtons.