Saturday, November 21, 2015

Weekly Recap



 
Last week, you will recall, my scale told me I was up.  I did the math, however, and so long as the body fat % is somewhat accurate on the Aria scale, then I was up about .8 lb in muscle and the rest was most likely water retention as I increased my daily water intake by 20 oz earlier last week.  So, I didn’t worry about the gain at all.  Someone on Instagram commented in response to me saying that just shy of a pound was muscle gain.  They said “just a tidbit, it’s extremely hard for a girl to put on a lb of muscle a week, especially when you are cutting calories and running.  At most, eating a crazy amount of protein, with an excess of calories, and no cardio, girls can put on maybe .25 lb of muscle…”  I responded to this comment by saying that I have a background in bodybuilding and powerlifting and that I disagree with what they say, at least in regards to me.  They conceded that only I know my body, which is true.  I know that I can pack on muscle super fast.  It happens every time I start working out and lifting weights on a regular basis.  It helps that I lift heavy when I do lift.  I don’t lift “girl weights” (ha, sorry I honestly hope no one takes that as offensive as I don’t mean it that way).  I have held my own in the past with “the boys” and the amount of weight I regularly lift, if I use free weights, usually only men can “spot” me, for everyone’s safety.  But, that all sounds like bragging, so I’ll stop.

Let’s get onto this week in exercise.

Friday: if you’ll remember, I posted on Friday last week, so there was no Friday exercise update.  I didn’t do any actual workout, but I did walk a lot and explore around South Padre Island a little and walked about 8.5 miles total!

Saturday: ran my 4th marathon!!!  (keep an eye out for the recap, which should be posted in the next couple weeks, just waiting for my official photos) 

Sunday: I just focused on recovery this day.  Went for a 5.8 mile walk to stretch the legs and ease swelling and soreness.

Monday: went to the gym and was going to do 65 minutes on the elliptical followed by my machines workout, but decided to let my muscles rest and just did the elliptical and ended up with 5.75 miles on it.
Tuesday: went to the gym for the Body Attack class followed by 65 minutes on the elliptical for 5.5 miles.  I tweaked the ligament I sprained in my right ankle while we were doing sprints in the class, but after a few minutes it was fine.
Wednesday: okay, I had been seriously itching to run again since Sunday.  Yea, I’m a weirdo, but I’m okay with that fact.  I made myself wait until this day to head out for a nice, short run.  Just my 3.25 mile loop was on the schedule.  I had some brand new shoes to take out for a test run as well, so figured this was the perfect time for that.  I was very cranky on Tuesday due to not allowing myself to run, so I really needed this run.  It was worth the wait, though!  I ran an average of 10:33 min/mi…wow!  This was just at my “comfortably hard” effort, so I really wasn’t pushing myself, just going with what my body wanted to do.  Also, my first run this season in THUMBHOLES!!!  The new Hoka One One Huakas did fantastic!  My feet felt great while running.  The sole is a little “stiffer” than the Clifton, so not as cushy, but still highly supportive.  I will probably replace the slidelock shoelaces that came “installed” in the shoes with the regular laces that were in the box loose.  I don’t like the slidelock.
Thursday: ended up working overtime on the night shift Wednesday night, so no workout this day.

Friday: worked overtime again on Thursday night, so again no workout.

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I don’t count calories the day before or the day of a marathon.  I just focus on fueling my body and not stressing over those numbers.  I was back on track when Sunday rolled around.  This week was twofold as far as what I was eating for lunch.  I still had 3 servings of my salmon jerky, so I ate that Monday thru Wednesday, then I switched to crockpot salsa chicken that I made for Thursday and Friday.  And I have enough of that to last me Monday thru Wednesday next week and then I have another 4 day weekend!  Woohoo!

My eating was less than stellar this week.  I’m currently battling urges to binge and eat junk.  I won’t even be hungry, I’ll just be wanting to stuff my face with things I really shouldn’t be eating.  There were a bunch of cookies and a 7-11 hotdog one night, and gourmet kolaches one morning.  Ugh.  Don’t worry, though, I’ll get it together.  It’ll take a “minute” for me to get a handle on it completely, but I will get a handle on it.  For the most part I’m eating the way I want to eat, so that’s good.  There’s just little “splurges” here and there.  I said last week or the week before that I wanted to start cutting what is currently a weekly cheat meal/day down to just once a month or bi-weekly.  I want to get rid of the once a week thing.  I think that’s just too frequent and can be a recipe for setting myself up for failure.  I really would like to get down to 160 by the end of 2015 so I can make my big 2016 goal “maintain my weight loss!” instead of “lose a couple/few more pounds and then maintain it.”  But either way it works out is really fine with me.  I’m just hot to get to the maintenance phase of this whole journey and figure out what works for me there.

I really wanted to focus this week and make last week’s gain this week’s loss.  Let’s go step on the scale and see how I did with that.
Honestly, I’m relieved.  I thought that, even with the running of a marathon this past week, that the way I was eating the rest of the week was going to spell disaster for me on the scale today.  I’m going to make sure to talk to my therapist about my bingey feelings when I have my appointment on Tuesday.  Hopefully we can work it out and figure it out.  But, the good news is that I’m catching myself and not just letting it happen all willy-nilly.

Also, even though I'm only down .3 of a pound, check it out, I finally broke the 34% mark in body fat and am in the 33%!!!  Woohoo!!!

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