Chutes and ladders

This week has been frustrating, not gonna lie.

Mondays always start with rosy intentions. I enjoyed my personal trainer appointment at lunch and had a kickass workout, had great food intake right around 1200 calories without going nuts, did all my recovery, and slept amazingly. I woke up the next day and rode the trainer. My weight was trending in a nice direction. Everything was going so well!

We were hosting an anniversary celebration that day at work, but we planned to have one small piece of cake and bow out of any other festivities. Instead, in the early afternoon I had to take Joel home because he had a kidney stone (ouch!!) and ended up at urgent care and we had a bit of a pity party together. I also got my consultation for the minor surgery I’m having in a few days, and the instructions said to stop alcohol for 7 days beforehand. Since that’s kind of forever for me, I had one last unplanned evening of whiskey, and of course now I’m eating my nerves a bit – which is more than 1200 calories per day. I’m hanging out at 1515/day average, though a few of those days I wasn’t as diligent at tracking my random snacks right away, so it’s probably higher.

And of course, because my body is a drama queen, I had the highest weight yesterday since like, January and then my lowest weight since travel after I worked out today.

And here’s the whine to go with the slightly-too-much-cheese this week: my tracked calories haven’t exceeded what My Fitness Pal thinks I should be eating daily with my activity (not even close). I just know that what seems to work for every other damn body on the planet doesn’t work for me. I lost weight last time when I stopped getting hung up on what I thought was fair and followed the metrics. The truth is I have to do more to lose weight than the average able-bodied human being and it is absolutely NOT FAIR. And yet, I still need to do it anyway because I am unhappy right now with my athletic capabilities/injuries and also how I look in my clothes.

I’ve been walking a bit more this week since Joel (for good reason) hasn’t really wanted to get on the bike and the company and weather during some mild activity has been pleasant. It’s not burning as many calories as other efforts, but it’s helping establish a habit and the goal is to eventually ADD these to my training, not have them BE my training. But we’ll get there. Since my Garmin calendar doesn’t show walks, here’s this week!

• Monday: 30 min chest and shoulders trainer session, 30 mins elliptical
• Tuesday: 30 min bike trainer
• Wednesday: 30 min leg workout
• Thursday: off
• Friday: 1.5h walk
• Saturday: 40 min walk
• Sunday: 1h bike, quick 20 min back/bicep workout

It’s not nothing, it’s just… not what I had planned.

So, yeah, I didn’t make it to the pool this week. I *almost* switched the elliptical for a swim Monday, but it was cold and rainy, and I couldn’t be arsed. “I’ll do it later in the week.” SPOILER: she did not do it later in the week. Next week is definitely not the week for it either, but soon after I need to figure out where this fits in my schedule as it’s good for switching up cardio, loosening up my tight legs, and my sanity.

However, all is not lost. Let me give myself some props to end this missive:

I have rolled every day! I think it’s working, I’m feeling the tension and layers of knots in my calves, hammies, and IT bands slowly unravel. Rolling spots on my body that used to feel like I was bruising or injuring myself now just feels mildly uncomfortable or even satisfying. I still need to work stretching into my life as well, but baby steps.

These habits are still going well: tracking food, weighing myself, using the massage boots, icing, doing some physical activity 5x week, returning to weights 2x week, meditating, doing some sort of hobby most days, and now rolling. I was doing almost none of this when I returned from Europe. I have to admit that in 6 weeks, this is pretty solid work.

I also did this while losing a boss I really enjoyed working with and assuming more responsibility. In the face of this, over the last 6 weeks, I’ve been able to work back towards a fairly contiguous 40h week with some wiggle room and I even have time to actually get some deep work done. My triumph last week was that even through a very unpredictable and interrupted week (I think I lost the totality of an entire workday to one life circumstance or another), I was able to get all my work done, even including three tasks that included significant thought, not just execution.

I know it’s a slow path and I just need to stay the course. Next week, due to the fact I have to go get put to sleep and poked a bit (how’s that for describing minor surgery as awkwardly as possible?) my goals are a little bit modified:

1. Recover as needed. Take the ENTIRETY of the surgery day off even if you feel “fine”, and the next day too if needed. Eat good healthy food if you can stand it, but remember you have (lower calorie) comfort food on standby if the healthy stuff sounds nauseating.
2. Get back to every habit as quickly as possible while adhering to goal #1. Don’t let a day or two of abnormality screw with the good habits you’ve been building.
3. The end of the week has some social stuff. Again, don’t let this screw with your good habits. Plan for a larger meal with friends before the theater but don’t go crazy. Stop by the Halloween party for a bit to say hi and catch up with people but stick to lower calorie drinks and not too many, and ignore the food.

Next week, we’ll get back to building, with this one, I just don’t want to backslide. It’s all about chutes and ladders right now and I need to stay on the up and up.