Executing the Endurance Diet
First Progress Report
Knowing the theory and operational details of the Endurance Diet and its Diet Quality Score (DQS) system is great, but it means nothing unless well executed. After almost 2 weeks of tracking my nutrition and tweaking my diet, this is where I am at and what I have learned.
Baseline
My baseline DQS from the week before I started on the Endurance Diet averaged 10.6 on a scale of -73 to +35, starting with 0 each day. This low average was mostly due to those small McValue meals at McDonald’s being so devastating on the DQS! They were a -9 each (refined grains is -2, processed meats x 2 is -4, fried foods is -2, low quality beverage is -2, burger cheese is actually +1, not enough veggies to tally). A score of -9 requires a lot of servings of the good foods to make up, if you recall from my previous post listing points distributions. But not only was there the negative score, it also kept me from an opportunity in that meal to gain positive points. They call that “opportunity cost” in economics, so potentially double the damage, but probably at least 1.5X the damage! I could easily have 13 more points for that meal subbing out that -9 with 2 servings of most other good foods for +4, provided they were not excessively consumed on the day when they’d be worth less, nothing, or even be penalties. With that in mind, McDonald’s whole meals will largely be in my past as long as I am tracking and it counts towards my stats, and also on my mind when I won’t have the hard earned stats to ruin. Just maybe cheap Coke that I will work to reduce later, and free fries when I have enough points for one since they are the most overpriced item on the McDonald’s menu.
Starting Out
I started out with a score of 20.5 for my first day on June 1st. Not bad, given it would be a good stretch to get 35, if not even just 30, as the Endurance Diet author mentioned. I have managed to hit 30.5 on a day when I was rather hungry to be eating lots, and diversified what I ate well, but that won’t be happening often as I am usually not as hungry as on that day to be consuming so much. A lot of elite athletes average in the 20s, though you don’t need to be an elite athlete to eat like one for volume, so long as you eat mindfully to get what you need. Your optimum might be in the teens if you don’t need to eat as many servings of food as the scale allows for. That’s partly why I like the Endurance Diet and its DQS. It meets you where you are, not judge you there.
Consistency
Of course, it’s easy to start out with a good day, maybe even a good few days, before reverting back to old habits. Consistency will be the key to success. At time of posting of 12 days completed in June, I have averaged 24.6 in the 11 days after June 1st! I am ecstatic about that as I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up that first day score coming in, never mind averaging above it! That’s despite me being “easy” on myself to have allowed myself some Cokes, my only pleasure drink (-2 each), a double dose of a delicious dessert a woman brought to a sewing class (-4), a large fries at McDonald’s (-4), so I am not obsessive about the daily DQS, as I had worried I might become. But that average is sustained because of some decisions I made to improve my diet once I saw a few gaping gaps. Or rather, I finally decided to act upon them once I had data staring at me in the face and threatening to ruin my “performance” ratings.
My Dietary Changes
Having a good, but not great, current diet, and having learned what I did about the Endurance Diet, including some “super foods” for endurance training (rather than in the sense of being most nutrient dense), it was expected there were going to be changes to my diet. Almost two weeks, these are the changes I have made that I foresee being long-term, if not permanent, or at least until my next major diet review in another handful of years.
Re-introduction of Dairy
The first was to bring back dairy to my diet. I became a plant-based milk consumer about a decade ago largely from concerns about what was being fed cows that might get into their milk that wasn’t healthy, like growth hormones. The plant-based milks got me the calcium and protein I wanted, more in some cases, so it was an easy decision. I was missing out on whey and casein proteins that I didn’t care for as much. It was also cheaper and lasted much longer than cow’s milk so I wouldn’t have to worry about spoiled milk. And I could keep my lactose tolerance with cheese in burgers periodically, and the occasional ice cream. That was my rationale bundle for plant-based milk switch. Fast forward to now, I have more affordable organic milk options that’s still a bit more than plant-based milk, but I am OK with that. The cow’s milk how has a lot more protein added (18g vs 7g), and I could consume enough of it in almost daily smoothies after running to not worry about throwing out milk past best due date. I was also going to basically stop getting burgers so no more cheese that was the main dairy source from before. I also added Greek yogurt with extra protein and no sugar added (-2 sweets score if so instead of + score for dairy), and got cottage cheese for select sandwich bread besides peanut butter (nuts), depending on which group I needed to counterbalance more pending what else I ate on the day, or planned to eat if early on. Dairy now regularly accounts for 3-4 points of my daily average in the low 20s so definitely a notable contribution, and daily as well rather than missing out on days without a burger that I often didn’t do like before.
Introduction of Oily Fish
Another change I made was to add more oily fish to my diet. I was just generally lazy and unmotivated about cooking fish before. But working through options to suit my needs, I can now do filets and canned sardines regularly, including the latter in pasta salad instead of salty soya sauce. This also helps diversify and regulate my meats intake with the processed beef from periodic burgers now gone, and only leaving cooking of unprocessed chicken thighs and some pork at home. I have also added beef to that home cooking since. I will rotate my fish consumption with filets on sale each week to keep costs down and not have to think about what to buy, stocking up on some favourites as they come around. I will also time my meats and seafood consumption such that I will still be able to keep up my 2 periods a week of at least 24 hours without meat, with eggs helping some of the time as they count for unprocessed meats.
Intangibles like Micro Biome Diversity and Protein
Other changes I have made to my diet so far don’t really get counted in the DQS, but are those intangibles that will be beneficial nonetheless, like diversity for gut bacteria micro biome. These include:
Adding mini-potatoes to my bases, expanding on various whole grains bread by weekly sales, basmati rice, organic whole grain pasta, eight types of organic noodles, and organic quinoa.
Markedly increased protein in my diet, from more regular unprocessed meat and seafood consumption, including quality canned sardines with minimal other ingredients, to more protein in cottage cheese, enhanced Greek yogurt, and fortified cow’s milk that’s over double what I got in my plant-based milk that I still keep as beverages for diversity.
Addition of “super foods” for endurance like beets, and garlic sprouts (close enough to garlic). Then there’s just more greens from what’s available for summer at my local Asian grocers, like on choy and chun ho. They’re not as good as bok choy and its sprouts, or watercress, yu choy, and gai lan, for nutrient density, though. But you can’t get everything in any one or handful of food, and the diversity is good for the appetite as well.
No More McDonald’s Meals
The McDonald’s meals I consume were mostly a coping mechanism of low cost meals as I escape my living situation in living with and helping take care of my elderly Aunt. She’s a sweet lady with a lot of annoying habits, including those of being nosey and judgmental of my life that I hate to deal with and be around. I have found some new ways to deal with it regarding timing of certain activities like cooking and eating, and minimizing exposure like wearing noise cancelling headphones so she would have to intentionally bother me to interact at times, rather than constantly throwing unsolicited comments, questions, and worst, judgments, at me. As demonstrated earlier in this post, those meals are devastating to the DQS, and I intend to keep them out of my diet now knowing their impact in this method of measuring nutrition, at least. I will resort to them for the Eat Enough principle, when most needed, so as not to starve myself, but I will make a lot harder effort now not to end up in those situations unlike before when I just left the house on a whim to go elsewhere to read, learn, write, think, shop, or eat at the end of runs while bundling in one or more of those other tasks.
Reactive Impact So Far
Only 12 days in, it’s way too early to get any real long- or medium-term impact assessed. However, there has been no short-term impacts like upset stomach, allergies, sleeplessness, or other reactions. I am thankful I am healthy enough in that regard given all the food allergies I constantly hear about people having. The worst I might have is pimples from too much spice and chocolate, and I will gladly take that any time I crave or have a chance to consume some of either, which is rare.
Unexpected Minor Weight Loss
The Endurance Diet, as I have executed it, is not a weight loss diet, and was not meant to be. Yet, strangely enough, or perhaps not, my morning weight average has decreased by about 2% since I have taken up the Endurance Diet. Maybe as good evidence as any that I am not stuffing myself for DQS points. I am not finding myself short of energy, and have had a handful of great running workouts, even carb-fasted easy runs in the morning that are helpful to training, since I started. Those runs also help extend my intermittent fasting to or above 14 hours on select days when I choose to do it (3 or 4 days a week) because I don’t have to eat late after late workouts to refuel properly, or eat early to fuel properly before morning workouts rather than just casual runs. I guess the McDonald’s has some weight impact after all, unlike what I had thought for myself with all the exercise I do. I am not overweight, by any means, which was why I was never too concerned about consuming McDonald’s, but I didn’t think I’d be losing weight in mostly cutting it out, either. What’s reassuring, though, is that I have been having good to great workouts at the lower weight. Where my weight has been post workouts in June, I should not be feeling good, and I should not have been able to run some times and paces that I did during workouts. That, I think, is what ultimately matters regarding weight, so I will just accept the numbers as they are without worry knowing the things just mentioned.
Getting a Cold
I’m not connecting the issues here, but I woke up yesterday (June 12th) with what felt like a cold. I had taken Wednesday off running and had been tapering for a race today that I won’t be running, so I am not sure why my body was weakened to have been more vulnerable. Headache, slight fever, everything aching, some coughing and runny nose but not much of either. Seems to be mostly internal. I don’t think the morning weight decline has anything to do with it, but I can’t say definitively one way or another. How could I as a layperson without labs and such testing resources? The morning weight has flattened out to a stable range about 2% lower than what it was before I got on this diet more serious and was doing the occasional McDonald’s (103.9 vs 105.7 lbs). Only time will tell. Right now, I won’t do anything like even jog that 5k race while overdressed just to do it, having paid for it, to make my recovery harder. All I can tell you is that I was hungry as heck yesterday and consumed my way to a 30.0 score, with everything being healthy and diversified a bit more than than usual. I gamed my choices, yes, but my body was saying it wanted to eat and drink it all. Morning weight this morning was 103.9 lbs, within half a pound of where it’s been for a week, so definitely did not overstuff. Let’s see what the next few weeks will bring, including with disruption of having my family visiting for the last third of the month and us traveling around rather than being at home with all of my resources.
Conclusions
I am super excited to be on the Endurance Diet, and to be able to do it so well already in ways I deem to be sustainable, which is the key to its success. I also don’t think it will break my annual goal to spend less than $10 per day, on average, for all my food and drink. I might if I do more social dining out, but that’s a different story. I’m not sure dining out is all that great on the DQS unless you get very specific about what and where you dine out, though. Regardless, the thing I will be most excited about to come is to see if there will be any detectable medium- and long-term impacts. There might not be, as there are many other things going on in life that can affect health, training, training outcomes, and so on, that isolating it to diet causality might be impossible. But if I can find something to be just plausible enough to be believable in my mind, then I will take it and make it part of my story. I’m not need to publish a scientific journal article here, after all, or even have social media influencer credibility that’s often controversial. So regardless of how things go, I will post over the next few months, if not the rest of 2025, regarding my journey on this Endurance Diet. I don’t plan to keep track of things beyond that time, if even for that time, once I get familiar with the DQS outcomes for what I eat daily and am comfortable that I am doing well without tallying everything everyday. Just check in once in a while. But until then, I will get this thing entrenched permanently in my life and see what medium and long-term good it might bring!