Weigh-In

I joined Shape Up Rhode Island this year because a woman from my church set up a team and invited a bunch of us to join. What the heck, right? Well, it's amazing what a little competition will do! I log in every day and record my steps, my exercise minutes, and the fruits and veggies I've eaten. I'm also doing a weekly weigh-in.

After you log everything in, you can go to your team page and little bar graphs will tell you how you're doing compared to the rest of your teammates. This has inspired me to (1) remember to wear my Fitbit every day, and (2) get in some sort of exercise every day that I can. Competition! Love it!

This past weekend, Jason's brother was in town, visiting us before heading up to Boston for a conference. We ate. A lot.

Brandon is all about authentic experiences, so he found a divey Venezuelan place for lunch on Saturday, which was amazing, as divey places often are. Then we drove out to Newport and despite the gale-force winds, we wandered around a bit in the state parks on Ocean Ave past all of the mansions. I've never been that far out on the island and it was gorgeous!

We had a good time, but as I said, we ate a lot. Still, I'm down 2.2 pounds for the week. Woo hoo! Given my recent history of either plateauing or gaining, without any losses, I'm pretty happy about that.

Today I slept in a little (carbs make me sluggish and I definitely ate carbs yesterday), but tomorrow I will swim and Wednesday is strength training. Today's food has been stellar and I got out of the office for a 35 minute walk earlier.

Feeling Like Myself Again

The half cold I've been nursing for the past couple of weeks seems to have moved on. I wound up taking the entire week off of early-morning workouts and slept in every day and I think that did the trick. I did go for a walk at lunch every single day, though, and I'm going to walk the 3 1/2 miles home from work today. I am really antsy today at work and feel like time is c r a w l i n g by, so I think that's my cue that I'm well and ready to work out again.

My eating has been good this week and I've kept my carbs around and below 100 g, with the major carbs coming from potatoes and sweet potatoes from our farm share. Remember my moaning about my weight being up to a horrifying number? Well, the number is still horrifying, but it's 3 pounds less horrifying than it was on Tuesday. 3 pounds in as many days.

Oh, hai, lo-carb. I remember how u werk.

Counting the seconds until I can blow this popsicle stand. Did I mention I'm antsy today?

Siiiiiiigghhhhh

If you can't tell by the subject, I'm exasperated

(And xkcd has given me a great way to think about big long exasperated sighs)

So here's the thing. I've gained weight. Again. I weighed myself a few weeks ago and was horrified by the number I saw there. This morning I weighed myself thinking surely with how I've been working out a bit more and trying to be more intuitive about my eating (ie, only eating when I'm hungry, not always cleaning my plate, etc.), I will be down at least from where I was a few weeks ago.

9 pound gain.

NINE POUNDS.

NINE POUNDS higher than that number that horrified me a few weeks ago.

What is WRONG with me?

I was thinking about it on my way to work and the last time I weighed what I do right now was in 2003. I am just at a loss. I told Jason and he commiserated with me and said he was sorry because he knows I've been working so hard.

The moral of the story that I'm getting from all of this is that the only possible way for me to lose weight is to be absolutely perfect. No, actually, it seems that the only way for me to not GAIN weight is to be absolutely perfect. We're not even talking about losing anymore. I need to stop this weight gain train right this second. I don't know if this is a result of getting older or what, but I'm just all around horrified.

Not to mention really, really uncomfortable in my skin.

Also, I've been nursing a low-lying cold for a couple of weeks now that won't make its way through my system, but just hangs around, making me feel kind of yucky, and making me have kind of a cough and sore throat. I didn't go to Masters last week or this week because of the cough, though last week I did get to one strength training class and one swimming session. Then my throat hurt even more for the rest of the day. It also makes me really, really tired. Seriously, cold, just do your thing and move on, or go away!

Muscles

I've always thought, "My legs are strong! I am a fast kicker! My legs are STRONG!"

You know what strength training has taught me? My legs are WEAK. We do all these isometric exercises where you have to, say, lay on your back, thrust your hips in the air and balance the bulk of your weight on one leg, while doing many varieties of leg lifts with the other leg, and I just cannot do it. I have to keep stopping and readjusting because apparently I now weigh too much for one leg to support me. Lame.

A couple of years ago I could do these things, but I think neglecting any meaningful strength training since then has made me the weakling I am today. My goal is to complete all the leg exercises in my strength training class without stopping. Which is good motivation to keep going.

On the bright side, it turns out my abs are wicked strong. I can do all the ab exercises, no problem. Yay, swimming!

Inconsistency

I realize that I have been inconsistent. I blame vacations, though we don't have another one of those planned, well, at all, in the coming months. I'm sure something will come up - a long weekend somewhere nearby - but for now, we're here in Rhode Island and I can have a routine again.

Judging by the very slightly looser jeans on the plane ride home, apparently eating gourmet pizza and burgers and blackened fish sandwiches (with chips) and fudgey brownies don't really have a negative impact when I'm also snorkeling for a couple hours and treading water in the ocean for the rest of the day. Again, I kick myself for entering a profession that is so very sedentary.

This week is off to a good start. Despite having late meetings at work on Monday and Tuesday nights, I went to Masters swimming on Tuesday morning and made the 6:30 AM strength training class this morning. Tomorrow, I will swim, and Friday I thought I had a meeting in Boston, but I'm going to do it via conference call, which means I can do Friday's class too.

I've been getting to bed early, much to Jason's chagrin. Late meetings plus early bedtimes means I haven't talked to him much over the last couple of days. I know I need to remedy that. On the other hand, getting a full 7-8 hours of sleep is AMAZING.

I have yet to go grocery shopping since we got home (see above re: late meetings) so my eating hasn't been the best, but it hasn't been atrocious either. I am firmly committed to restarting my 8-week challenge next week, this time with no excuses/vacations. As motivation, I like to read the Primal Blueprint Real Life Stories on Mark's Daily Apple. I sent this one to Jason a couple of weeks ago because it blew me away. I really want to be one of those people who sticks to the paleo/primal lifestyle and have my own amazing transformation.