I knew I was having a good week, but this is ridiculous – and teaches me a lesson. First, as always, the numbers:
Weight: 276.6
One Week Gain / (Loss): (6.4 pounds)
Total Gain / (Loss): (50.8 pounds)
Holy crap.
As I wrote in last week’s weigh-in, I rededicated myself to tracking my Weight Watcher’s points this week – and I was able to do that. Didn’t even use my “bonus” 49 weekly points. But then I also hit the streets hard running again this week, too. I did miss one little 2 mile run, on the cold and rainy Friday morning, but I’m not going to beat myself up about that.
This morning I officially got right back on the marathon training schedule and did my scheduled 10-miler. This was only the third time I’ve gone at least this far – and the other two were the half-marathon and the long run in preparation for the half-marathon. My run overall was strong-ish, especially considering that I’ve basically taken a month off. There is no way I can expect to come back and run these miles fast – I just have to be prepared to ease into them. And that, in general happened today. I did not negative split this one like I have some of my long runs in the past, but my two strongest miles based on time (as well as perception as I was running) were mile 4 and mile 8. So … I’ll absolutely take it.
So here’s what I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks: be skeptical about the scale. I just don’t think I lost over 6 legitimate pounds of fat this week. This was about water retention primarily, with some timing thrown in. Not that I hadn’t gained weight, just that if I can knock 6 pounds off all at once then it wasn’t exactly hard-to-reach fat, was it?
That also means that I really hadn’t gained 10 pounds over the last 4 weeks, either. Yes, if I hadn’t taken the right steps, then that would have become permanent. But if I just went by the scale, I’d have thought I was failing miserably and been tempted to give it up … at least until after the holidays. Instead, I put my head back down and had an amazing week. There is a lesson in that. If only I could articulate it.
Next weekend is the 15K in Central Park, which I’m now much more optimistic about. In the meantime – 6 pounds! Yay!
A Constant State of Hunger 