Tag: weigh ins

Weigh In / Long Run 12-21

I’m not going to call this week good, but it also wasn’t bad.  Let’s just go with “not bad”.

Weight:  273.8

Weekly Gain / (Loss):  (0.4 pounds)

Total Gain / (Loss):  (53.6 pounds)

Weekly Mileage:  20.3

I’m going to start posting mileage now, too.  Part of the point of all of this is to generate a touch of accountability to the 5 of you that are regularly seeing this (also – hi!), and that should extend to the mileage as well.

This week involved work travel for me, which is always a very dangerous thing.  For whatever reason, leaving for a trip has always felt like “no rules” time for me, and I struggle to turn that off even for very short business trips.  Also, on these trips I’m not always in control of food selection, so that hurts, too.

And this week was Cincinnati, so … Skyline Chili, yes.  Montgomery Inn, yes.  (Pro-tip – when they come around and offer to put the bib on you, let them.)  Unobstructed access to chocolate in the meeting room, yes.  BUT – salad in the airport coming back, also yes.  Running my miles (even though I had to use a treadmill), yes.  And generally not screwing up too badly – yes.

So I lost a touch of weight this week, which was good.  This upcoming week, which of course includes Christmas, will also be challenging, but I’m not going to be too hard on myself.  One of the reasons that we do all of this is so that we can enjoy ourselves on Christmas.  And I intend to enjoy myself, and re-double efforts with food after the holiday.

12-mile run for the long run, and overall it felt very good.  I was in a good mental place for the distance, which helps – because after awhile that just becomes a mental exercise.   If you’ve done a swift burst of math, you’ll notice that this week I only ran 8 miles outside of my long run – and those would have been the treadmill sessions.  Thursday and Friday, when I was scheduled to do another 3 or 4 miles, just didn’t happen.  I’ve got to stop letting those fall through the cracks.

Mileage is ramping now – 14 miles scheduled for next weekend, 15 the weekend after that.  So it begins.

Weigh In / Long Run 12-14

Another good week.  Numbers:

Weight:  274.2

One Week Gain / (Loss):  (2.4 pounds)

Total Gain / (Loss):  (53.2  pounds)

It is amazing how getting back at it makes a huge and immediate difference.  In the last two weeks I’ve gotten back almost everything I had lost … and if this upcoming week is simply the exact same as this one then I’ll be at my low weight again and right back on track.

So … this is going to be another good week.  Traveling for work this week, which is typically difficult for me to manage, particularly with food.  But there is no time like now to figure it out, is there?

Long run this week was a race, the Ted Corbitt Classic 15K in Central Park.  The short version is that it was a snowy race and the park was beautiful.  I’ll post a race report at some point this week.

Onward!

Weigh In / Long Run 12.7.13

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!

Weigh In / Long Run 11.30.13

Though I hoped otherwise, I knew this was coming.  I didn’t dread it as much as I did last time, though, because I know what is about to happen.  The numbers:

Weight:  283.0

Two Week Gain / (Loss):  5 pounds

Total Gain / (Loss):  (44.4 pounds)

No way around this except to say that I’ve had a very rough month.  What I am convinced happened is that a series of bad choices around food finally caught up with me when my body forced a rest period from running.

So I’ve lost all of this weight with Weight Watchers.  There are good and bad things about any diet or system that you use, and overall I’m a fan of how WW handles this – eat what you want, but we’re going to teach you how much of what is appropriate, and if you can’t handle that, you’ll be hungry.  It’s helped me an awful lot.

Back in late summer, heading into (or maybe just coming out of) the last of the half marathon training, I decided that I was going to see if I could make it without tracking points.  The goal is to be able to eventually not need a system that I pay for – to be able to handle myself with food and exercise in such a way that I can maintain my weight.  And I think when I’m in maintenance mode, that’s probably going to be doable.  In weight loss mode, however, I find I struggle.

I’ve been eating badly now for weeks.  Pretty much whatever I wanted.  But since my mileage has been consistently high, I’ve been able to maintain my weight.  I’ve been frustrated with a several week plateau, but I haven’t been gaining weight.

And then a whole bunch of stuff happened all at once that has dramatically dropped my mileage for the last 3 – 4 weeks.  I’ve been traveling, for both work and personal trips, which shouldn’t matter but does.  I got a nasty cold that required me to back way off.  And then I did one of my boneheaded things and injured my toe.  So I’m way behind where I need to be in my mileage.

And this graph demonstrates clearly how out-of-whack I let it get.  Of course, Thanksgiving was in there, but that’s just an excuse.  This should not be happening.

Here and now, though, it stops.  I did a 6 mile run this afternoon (instead of my scheduled 9, but I went), and I’ve tracked my WW points for the day.  WW tracking is back on – no bite passes my lips until it has been logged.  And the mileage starts back up … now.

There was a time that this kind of blip would cause me to throw up my hands and quit.  This was a clear demonstration that I couldn’t do this and might as well quit now.  And go eat a bag of Oreos or something.  But not this time.

Not this time.

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