fatigued, no more weight loss for me!

It took me 6.5 years of dieting, falling off the wagon, gaining most of my weight back, learning from the diet mistakes I'd made, dieting again, falling off the wagon again, learning from the diet mistakes I'd made......

Last year I'd finally got to 177 pounds and maintained that from July until November. After IMAZ in November I decided I'd try to drop a couple more pounds. I've applied all the knowledge I've attained from 7 years of experimenting with my body, nutrition, and exercise routines to no avail. No matter what I've tried I cant seem to drop below 177 pounds. Each time I get even a little bit below 177 I get incredibly hungry, I cant sleep well, and I struggle to to through training workouts. The last couple weeks I've had a lot of people tell me I looked sick and pale. This week was my worst week of training I've had in years! On Friday I completed a 30 mile bike and was only only able to maintain a 12.9 mile per hour pace. I could ride faster than that back when I weighed over 250 pounds.

I'm a very determined type of person, to the point where I have hurt myself pushing to hard for to long in training and races,but I think I've finally come to the realization that I've got to as low of a body weight as I can get without losing speed, endurance, and possibly my health. I should be excited. It took me years of struggle to to get to 177 pounds and %6 body fat, but because of my OCD personality I'm disapointed. I wanted to get to my next IRON distance race weighing 175 pounds or less. Now that I look back at my training and racing I see the signs that should have been obvious. I had the worst race of my life at IMAZ 2011, and it was because of my low body weight.

I've decided I'm going to try and maintain my current weight of 177 pounds until February 27th. If I continue to feel weak, slow, and unable to train long distances after Feb 27th I'll gain a few pounds a re-access how I feel.

Triathlon sure would be easier if everything was in black and white. I struggle being in gray areas.