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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSeeing all the things I can pack into seeing, taking all the pictures, people watching, eating all the food. And that last one is where I probably get myself into major trouble. But I love it. A place must be experienced by all senses, including taste!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, I am a creature of habit as well, and while I love doing all this, it does not seem to love me back. I hear the stories all the time about going to Europe, eating all the food, and losing weight because they walk everywhere. Well, I already walk everywhere, so it’s kinda my baseline (not quite to EU exploration standards, but still, my average steps at home are like 12k vs maybe 20k while traveling). I eat VERY differently when I am at home vs have three meals out per day. That extra 8k does not make up for that difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’d say the big differences are: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- Breakfast is the big one.\n
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- At home its almost always 1 cup greek yogurt, 1\/2 scoop protein powder, .5-1 cup fruit, and a sprinkle of cereal or oats, plus coffee. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- EU breakfasts I could get almost always that… but the bread, meat, cheese, veggies, other goodness there too was just so tempting I ate that as well. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- US breakfasts just have nothing for me and I eat a little junk (a little bit of something with syrup, bacon, bagel, etc) and then rely on a protein bar later for actual nutrition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Salads\/veggies\n
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- I eat a ton of salads and vegetables at home… where I know my dressing is about 50 calories. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
- At a restaurant I hesitate because often the salad is like a million calories because of their dressing and I often do not love restaurant light dressing even if they have it (vinegrette? strawberry poppyseed? UGH).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- EU dressings were generally not something I liked either. And vegetables that weren’t fried potatoes took some major intention to get.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
And then there’s snacks (home, its protein chips, bar, occasionally said salad, turkey pepperoni, etc, out it’s usually whatever sounds good, and often that’s ice cream!), and lunch and dinner. Often if I have the ability to, I’ll do one lighter, one heavier, but in the EU I felt like EVERYTHING was heavy, so that was challenging. Often if I have a fridge, I’ll save leftovers or do some food that way, but nowhere in 3 weeks did we have a fridge except the last night, which didn’t really help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, this made for a messy re-entry. But we back on track. I have finally put my stats back into trendweight. Sept was incredibly noisy (not even worth posting, it was just flat, my trendweight started and ended the same), but October has actually gone the right direction. Trendweight is 2.1 lbs down from Oct 1. That’s what I’m talking about. More of this please.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-1024x940.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nEven with an indulgent anniversary dinner, family day, an indulgent birthday dinner, insane work stress (though I’m pretty sure insane is just a baseline level these days), a work potluck and a Halloween-eve pub crawl, I made it happen. So, we back. I’m happy. Just in time for the holidays to screw everything all up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for reals, I am really really going to try to keep this going. Holidays are days. I made progress this month with a lot of opportunities to stuff my face and I can continue to do that (make progress, not stuff my face). I’m trying to work with my chatGPT(rainer) to continue to help me be sane\/kind to myself but also keep the trajectory going. Seems like 1900-2000 calories average on a week over week basis looks like it’s working slowly without making me go insane (which means for my resting metabolic rate, the activity calories beyond the first mile walk each day create the deficit). 1800-1900 might go faster, and I can do that when I am really really precise, but we’re trying to do this with life involved, not skipping social events and getting adequate protein while not eating diet-y food that makes me cry. I also expect that now that it’s nice outside, activity will ramp a little just because walking everywhere is nice so that 1-2 mile walk per day will stretch a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/adjustedreality.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Nov2026-02-1024x1019.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSpeaking of activity – regarding the 5k project – we’re underway. Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got my recovery in check in Sept and got myself back to some baseline levels of activity without feeling like I was going to die. That was step 1. Then late Sept I added a dash of spice to a run or two a week. It went pretty well, even though the weather was still trying to kill me with feels like 85+ degrees at sunrise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, Oct 17, I decided to do a test 5k around the neighborhood. My brain was being an absolute jerk about it that morning, but I shoveled myself out of the door, finally managing to decouple my entire self-worth from one test event. I covered my watch and made a goal just to run hard. I’d say I gave it about 85-90% of what I would at a race, and maybe a little more at the end because I saw 190 heart rate on the watch and I’m not sure that’s a number you should actually hit at 47 years of age. However, when I saw the finish time, I was reasonably pleased – 29:46 for 3.1 miles. There are times in my life I would have given that result a major side-eye, but for right now? I beat my garmin predictor by 10 seconds, which almost never happens, and I’m pleased with it as a starting point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took a stepback week after mostly because LIFE got in the way (work was needy and I let it be, vaccine recovery knocked me around a bit, other various and sundry stresses) but my recovery stats were fine, and my three easy runs that week were also fine. I just didn’t do anything intense and skipped the bikes that week. That helped me get back to it. Sometimes discretion is indeed the better part of valor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This last week we’ve returned to a bit of volume and spice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- Monday – 1h bike, weights, walkies<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Tuesday – 10 min warmup, 2×8 min tempo (last one 9:22 pace), 10 min cooldown, walkies<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Wedensday – glorious 4 mile easy run, walkies<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Thursday – walk and weights<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Friday – 5 mile long run with .2 of a mile faster (usually high 8s-low 9s) at the top of each mile, legs at the gym, walk<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Saturday – just walked<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Sunday – 1h easy bike, walkies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
My VO2 max stats are still in the toilet, but it really seems like garmin is super quick to dump them and super slow to raise them. It’s ok. We building. Numbers are just numbers (at least that’s what I’m telling myself to sleep at night, hah). I feel physically good, mentally I am reaaaaaaaally needing that camping vacation, but we’re a few weeks away and I am confident I will arrive there with all my faculties intact. Hopefully. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I’ll schedule one more of these 5k tests for mid-November before I leave to see if I can improve. I was going to do official races but around the house just seems so much EASIER. Plus, my better half is dealing with some stuff where he’s not able to race race a 5k right now, so it’s nicer not to drag him along to walk or wog it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I kinda want to try to see if adding some spice on the bike helps me do a little more intensity without taxing me too much. If that works, this is the general weekly plan for November<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- Monday – walk, 45-60 min bike workout (short intervals), weights<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Tuesday – walk, easy 3-4 mile run<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Wednesday – walk, tempo run day, weights<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Thursday – walk only<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Friday – walk, easy 45-60 min bike, weights<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Saturday or Sunday – long run day (about 5-ish miles until I have a reason to go longer) or a 5k test, walk<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- the other weekend day – walk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSpookywalks didn’t quite have the impact they did in previous years on my walk stats. See the note above – we usually like to tromp around everywhere but the foot thing my husband has going on means 2-3 hour walks are not really on the menu right now. Also, becoming a morning person means that waiting until dark to walk is LATE, yo. We’ve enjoyed what we’ve done but a lot of it was checking out decorations in the daytime and we missed some of the neighborhoods that are a little hike to get to already. Ah, well. Next year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am going to skip the adulting accounting this month, we did quite a lot of it and there’s also quite a bit that’s just not going to get touched until the holidays when we have more time. I’m looking at you, shelf cleaning, garage cleaning, and house painting! This month, really focusing on just doing all the changes our financial planners have suggested and trying to continue to absorb the rest of life well without going mental is the plan. I kinda had a meltdown about needing to fill out ONE MORE thing and put it off for 3 weeks… and found it took less than 5 minutes. Yeah. Project: just get to holiday break is in full effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The “make content that anyone cares about on instagram” project is still going. For now I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall with different types of content and having ChatGPT help me aim a little with ideas and stuff. My numbers are absolute crap but I’m learning things, and making stuff is fun, so I guess it’s worth it. I’d like to figure out the algorithm though. How to promote something is something I really would like to learn. It’s not easy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am editing EU trip photos (on day 2 of the Cotswolds!) and have a little bit of a groove with the writing going on, so that’s good. Again, not holding myself to any sort of schedule here, I don’t need a bunch of part time jobs in my free time when the job job is a lot right now. The one thing I found is that sorting photos is great in the morning before I have decision fatigue kick in – so I’ve been going day by day for my EU trip, doing one per morning. It’s the perfect task with coffee and before my workout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, we watched the Borderlands movie, both enjoying it and kinda not understanding the story, so we searched out the Tales from the Borderlands games and are ripping through them. I’m not a first-person shooter girlie, but the story games are perfectly my size to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On that note, I’m off to enjoy a productive and relaxing Sunday (with a combo of hobby time, workouts, and playing more games, a great balance!).<\/p>\n