Marathon eating.. More like competitive eating!

Now I'm going to start this post by saying I'm not a registered dietitian! Everyone has their own ideas and this is not the you should eat this post! There's the disclaimer, here are my thoughts on the total mind f%&k of marathon training, diet. When I first started training I had no clue what I was doing. It is really the worst part. Many people think you can just eat what you want because your running so much and many people adhere to this and are successful. Personally this is not my strategy. Healthy eating and keeping track of my exact input to my output is how I roll. There are a ton of articles on marathon diets and how not to gain weight because unfortunately many people do. You can feel extremely hungry after a grueling long run and feel the need to spend the day sleeping and pigging out but the voice inside knows it will just slow you down.
So what do you do? Every running magazine and book will tell you every two pounds you lose you will shave off about 5 seconds on your split time. The question remains how much is too much. How much weight should you really lose before your under what you should be? Really that's between you, your nutritionist and your doctor. For me, I eat a healthy low fat, high carb and protein diet. I'm not going to post my diet because I don't want anyone to think it's the way to go. I also have celiac disease so no gluten for me. Shit I miss pretzels! Gluten is not bad for runners. Also a low carb diet is bad. You need a good amount of good carbs to run all those extra miles. You really have to get used to eating so much because of the energy your putting out but it really can mess with your mind. It took me a lot of coaching from my nutritionist (who is the shit.org!) and many mornings on the scale to see my weight maintained before I could wrap my head around it. You lose all that weight and then they tell you to eat how much?
The taper which begins right after you take that final last long run three weeks prior. They tell you to still eat just as much and not run as often. Everyone's dream right? No! You freak out and get a pre marathon pooch. They say it's normal to gain about 2-3 pounds prior to the marathon. If you think about it makes total sense but it scares everyone, even the seasoned runner has a rough time at taper. You just try to relax and remember you will burn about 2600 calories that day. The food for me has always been my biggest obstacle because it scares me. I have ran on very little food and know it's not possible. I have also over ate and felt like a sack of bricks on a training run. It's a very delicate balance but you learn your own food regimen and your peronal pre-race supersticious meal. Race day NYC will be a banana, corn tortillas and chicken. Don't ask, just roll with it. 7 weeks to the Big Apple and I can feel the nerves.