Y’all, I need a week off. Not a week off being healthy. Not a week off exercising. A week off running, yeah, but that’s just to rest my (#$*%&ing heel. Just a week off numbers, tracking, being neurotic, etc etc and so forth.
Last week was just one of those weeks – I didn’t go OVER my daily burn totals, but I certainly didn’t eat UNDER or at the low end like I have been. The net result was maintaining from last week, which considering I’m careening right into that time of the month where I feel like a bag of water, but ultimately frustrating because it’s nearing the end of month 2 here, and I’m still hanging out right under 160. That 3.3 lbs DB says I should be losing per month? Notsomuch.
So I’m going to take a week off tracking formally. I’m going to eat lots of veggies and fruits and healthy-feel-good-food and pay attention to how I feel. I’m going to go for a lot of low impact swimming, biking, arc trainer, and other such similar things. I rarely lose weight during this week of the month, so maybe it’s a clue from my body to just take a chill pill and relax a bit.
But without further ado, let’s crunch last week’s numbers:
Monday: 1820 in – 829 out (12 mile bike, 5k run) = 991
Tuesday: 1914 – 432 (30 mins DDR and abs) = 1482
Wednesday: 1913 – 532 (1 hour volleyball) = 1381
Thursday: 1634 – 381 (800m swim) = 1253
Friday: 1447 – 0 (rest) = 1447
Saturday: 2119 – 729 (5k race, obstacle course, abs) = 1390
Sunday: about 1400 – 0 (rest) = 1400
Avg calories in per day: 1749
Avg calories out per day: 414
Avg net calories per day: 1335
Avg deficit per day: 477, or just under 1 lb loss this week
Weight Monday morning: 159.8 (+0.2 from last week, -3.2 overall)
Let’s call it water weight and move on, shall we?
This week:
So I’m kinda playing it by ear. I am taking the week off running, and I just haven’t had time/mindshare/desire to swim a lot, and I want to take it easy on the DDR as it is just a *little* aggravating on my heel, so I’m having a very bike heavy and arc trainer heavy week. Here is the general plan, which I’ve already completed through Wed morning:
Monday: 11.5 mile bike ride
Tuesday: 14.5 mile bike ride (5 miles to work, 9.5 miles the long way home)
Wednesday: 40 mins arc trainer morning, abs/back tonight.
Thursday: no cardio, arms and legs, yoga.
Friday: bike commute, abs/back
Saturday: 30 mins arc trainer/DDR/walking adventure, arms and legs.
Sunday: morning bike ride, yoga.
Yeah, I’m gonna get flack for no days completely off. But I am really really really enjoying this mellow moving a bit every day, especially when it’s part of my commute. When I run and do crazy stuff I *need* my days off. When I ride my bike and get to enjoy the outdoors I just want to do it more. Even today’s wakeup session on the arc trainer was nice. I really really really need to get back into weights and yoga, I’m having a feeling some of the heel issues I’m starting to see is from the lack of stretching, which sucks, because I should do that. And…even if I PLAN to workout both weekend days I usually end up ditching one. So there.
As for eating, I’m not tracking. Dailyburn keeps yelling at me for it but I will not repent. I’m guessing that I’ve kept it around 1500 calories per day so far, give or take 100 either way. I’ve consumed food if I was hungry, attempting to identify what my body needed (aka, last night, after a very meatless day and fairly light eating, I had a dinner of two turkey sausage patties, one grilled fish filet (not to be confused with the not-so-healthy filet o’ fish), a little leftover fiber spaghetti and marinara, a bagel thin and cream cheese, and a metric buttload of normandy veggies. ‘Bout 600 calories in retrospect (which is normal for dinner), but who’s counting? Apparently, I seem to not need to.
I did dip into the chocolate over the last few days. One especially PMS-y day I think I might have consumed over 100 calories in chocolate. Oops. But honestly? What I needed. And considering most days I either abstain or maybe have ONE chocolate kiss? Think I’m doing ok. This weekend shouldn’t be too bad, minus our BBQ. But I’m figuring on a nice bike ride that morning to pre-pay for my alcoholic transgressions, and then just be a reasonable human with the food. A plan, I has it.
It will be interesting to see what the scale says next week. Besides the whole water balloon thing going on around my belly, I’m feeling better. Haven’t had the courage to try on the skinny jeans lately, but once I’m through zee week o bloat, I might get some moxie and do it and see.
Also, I signed up for the volleyball league at work. It starts next week. I couldn’t pass up how fun it was last week at the company fun day, plus how many calories it torched in an hour. So I’ve got that, a potential mini-triathlon I’d like to do June 20th, an urban assault ride sometime in June I *probably* won’t do but was mentioned to me by a coworker that sounds like a blast, and I’m sure more stuff that will come across my radar here before I know it.
It seems that I am definitely having too much fun to regret not marathon training. And I am so totally ok with that. I’ve got 40 or so years until I *might* be too old to consider that as an option (though this is encouraging), so there’s time.
What are you having too much fun to not regret not doing this week?
EDIT: photos from the gladiator games are up! Check it out if you’re interested – there is even one of me in there!
Tricia
enjoy your week off!
physician assistant
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!