Week 9 – Makin’ It

This week started out a little rough – after a stepback week, you’re supposed to be rarin’ to go because you got so much damn rest.  Well, instead, I did a shit ton of Scuba that weekend, and then partied for my birthday on Sunday night with decadent food and drinks.  So, Monday, I woke up to a body and brain that was not sure it was really ready for another 3 week build, but… spoilers… I handled Week 1 just fine.

Food:

I said a lot of what would go here last week.  I did go a little overboard on Saturday night with food (another 3000 calorie day), but I definitely earned it with what I burned that day.  All the other days were pretty much the picture of clockwork.

Last week we sorta did the “leftovers of the batch cook” thing and threw together meals and ate out a few times (at healthy approved places).  Calorie counts and DQ score seemed about on par with last week, but activity was way up, so in theory, I should be losing weight.  I hopped on the scale very sporadically so I don’t have a great reference point (the highest was Monday with the triple whammy of bloated from TOM, bloated from Scuba, and a 2000 calorie birthdayfest for dinner, and the lowest was Thursday – but I think that may have been the only scale hopping I did this week).

This week we have a menu and schedule and have batch cooked for the week so lets see how things go.  Two planned splurges: birthday Brazillian Steakhouse for Zliten on Thursday, and catered pasta lunch out with the company.  Thursday, I plan to just enjoy and make that the majority of my food that day.  Friday, I plan to have a big breakfast so that I’m not super hungry and overeat on refined grains and fatty sauce.  Saturday, we are celebrating our birthday with friends at the bar, but will have a 3.5 hour training session and healthy lunch that day, so I’ll have earned it.

That being said – 3 days in a row where I won’t be eating completely clean.  So I don’t have high hopes for the scale, but who knows, miracles could happen.

Last week, by the numbers…

Monday: 28 DQ score – 1726 calories
Tuesday: 26 DQ score – 1724 calories
Wednesday: 26 DQ score – 1744 calories
Thursday: 21 DQ score – 1982 calories
Friday: 22 DQ score – 1641 calories
Saturday: 15 DQ score  – 2971 calories
Sunday: 24 DQ score – 1405 calories

Avg DQ Score: 23

Avg Calories: 1884 calories consumed.  Don’t have great burn stats because I lost my fitbit. 🙁 (Average from this time last month was 2261).  So, average deficit was 377, so about .75 lbs I should have lost.

Weight: fluctuated from 184.2 to 189.0 (triple whammy day).

I really really may need to do some daily weighing and charting to see any sort of pattern here that might make me not want to tear my hair out, when my deficit is about 25% or less of the fluctuations I see during each week.  From my tracking here, it looks as if I’m scratching and clawing to get a small deficit and it will take me weeks if not months to see meaningful progress even if the numbers are indeed matching up with what I’m doing.  I’ve been starting to play around with Training Peaks, and I’ll track my weight there.

Training:

Like I said, I went into the week a little unsure, but I feel pretty great about rocking out the first week of Build 2.

Weights: Back to heavy weights – Monday was rough and I didn’t increase any weights (frankly, had trouble with some of them I was doing 2 weeks ago), but I set either weight or rep PRs on each thing on Wednesday.  Two more weeks of the heavy stuff until I move onto maintenance weights for the rest of the year.

Swim: Swim is my favorite this week.  I had an easy swim Monday that just felt like butter.  Scuba definitely was the equivalent of drills in the water and I just felt long and lean and awesome.  Wednesday, I did my first speedwork in a while – 6x300m, aiming for as close to 2 min/100m as possible with 75m recovery in the  middles.  I am really finding some love with hurting myself looking at that black line.  Then, on Saturday, after swim, bike, and lunch, we did our March swim test.  After a warm up, I got going and am finding that with swimming fast, the pain comes in 3 stages – 1) I start going fast, I feel great. 2) I keep going fast, I feel like I’m going to die and OMG I have about 9/10ths of the workout left, how am I going to do this.  3) About halfway through, the pain dulls to a sustainable level of uncomfortable, my stroke really settles in, and I FEEL like I’m going slower because it’s easier, but it’s not.

But, my super happy was: I finally broke the 2 min/100m barrier (1:51/100m).  My swim test: 19:30 for 1050m.  Beat my time last month by 1 min 15 seconds.  I know these increases are going to stop being so epic each month, but for now, I love it.

Bike: Trainer rides are trainer-ific.  I’m liking using oranges for fuel instead of jelly beans (at least at home).  Having trouble getting my HR up on the trainer.  I’ll try it next week.  My happy is I DID get to ride outside.  Confession: if you gave me the opportunity and if it would properly prepare me for the race, 99 out of 100 times I’ll chose the trainer.  There are no cars, no weather, no stoplights, no clipping and unclipping pedals… and I don’t get a chance to watch awesome action movies.  However, we are going to do two metrics this spring, and the trainer doesn’t really do much for preparing one for hills, so it’s back to braving the outdoors.  But I did enjoy it.

Run: Now that I have been cleared to do some zone 3 running, it’s ALL I want to do.  We did two runs with a 15 min tempo in the middle.  Then, Saturday’s run was supposed to be an easy Zone 1/2 run, but we were both feeling good, and my HR monitor was not really working properly, so I definitely was running at the top of zone 2/a little into zone 3.  This week, my goal is to cool it on the easy runs.  One fully easy, one with a 20 min tempo, and one with some hill repeats.  Although, it’s nice to have finished with a total pace in the 10s.

Monday: Weights: MS Phase – Day 3 + Stretching 00:40Swim: Magical Fishie Day 1590 m/35:00.
Tuesday: Bike: Trainer + Hellboy 16.1 mi/45:00. Lunch Run + Tempo 3.25 mi/37:15
Wednesday: Weights: MS Phase Day 4 – 45:00. Swim: Speedwork 3×6 min sets 1350 m 00:32
Thursday: Bike: Trainer w/Tempo: Futurama: Be… 17.72 mi/45:00.  Run: Lunch Run + Tempo 3.1 mi 33:05.
Friday: off
Saturday: Bike: Shoal Creek Loop 14.24 mi/1:00. Run: Neighborhood Loops 5.17 mi/01:00. Swim: 1050m Speed Test 1050 m/19:30.
Sunday: off

Other things:

We got to fulfill our monthly allotment of gaming by playing games with the ‘rents early in the day Saturday, and games with the neighbors that evening.  I only won one game.  Sadface. 🙁

We may have already signed up for Advanced Scuba class on March’s stepback week.  Because we are addicted and also insane.  This time we get to go down to 85 feet and also go diving at night! Fun!

Sunday was an awesomely productive day, while also being relaxing because I was home all day.    These are the things I did:

• Laundry
• Batch cooked
• Gave myself a pedicure and manicure
• Shopped for Zliten’s presents (and myself – 2 for him, 3 for me is about right, yeah?)
• Made necklaces (see the pictures in this post…)
• Started this blog post
• Watched a bunch of Downton Abbey

I did not get around to doing any sewing yet, but I will (I just ended up finding my beads again and getting enamoured with them this weekend).  Zliten also got through organizing the DVDs mostly, but we have to finish the center console and the mantle to call the living room done.

This week, I want to do these things:

• Finish the living room.  Also, start thinking about what to do with all the bedroom stuff and when that gets done…
• Try to get that dang pillow made.  It can’t be rocket science to do.  I think I’m pavlovianl
• Read a few chapters in my diving book so I’m not cramming the week before the class.
• Sign up for the two century rides I keep putting off.
• Do some pre-cruise planning and do the online check in if I can.
• Pre-track my food again.  That seemed to work awesomely.
• And now, I’m going to check off thing #1 on this week’s to do – make a blog post.

Questions of the Week: What’s on your to do list?

Also, I’ve considered in the past doing a shop on Etsy with the necklaces.  Would you buy them?  If so, which one is your favorite and how much theoretically would you pay? (Not looking to sell anything right now, just data gathering)