Weekly Recap

This recap post will cover more than just a week.  If you’ll recall I weighed in and posted my recap on Thursday (thanksgiving) last week because I knew I would be indulging in foods I don’t normally eat over the course of the weekend.  Well, as a result of that, this week I was tasked with making sure that didn’t translate into a gain I couldn’t remedy by today.  I did what I could to try to make sure I didn’t show a gain on the scale today.  Monday started me back on my intermittent fasting schedule with calorie restriction.  So happy to be back to that.  I felt so out of control over the weekend and I didn’t like it.

Also, I'm sorry that I'm posting this on Monday instead of Saturday.  It was a crazy, whirlwind weekend for me.  I was up early on Saturday, had to pack for my trip down to San Antonio for the marathon on Sunday.  I spent Saturday with my San Antonio friend, Jennifer, going to the race expo, to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, to see Santa at the pet store with her doggies, then to her friends' brewery for their can reveal.  Then it was as early to bed as was possible for me Saturday because I had to get up early on Sunday for the marathon, then I attempted to take a nap Sunday afternoon and then met my friend Drew and his wife (she ran the marathon also) for dinner on the Riverwalk.  Then back to the hotel.  I woke up this morning and packed everything up, went and got an Old West photo taken, and then went souvenir shopping.  Then I got home and had some running around to do and then off to see Elf with my friend Amanda.  And now I'm finally posting this!  Whew!

 

Let’s go over my exercise since last Thursday, shall we?

 

• Thursday: this was Thanksgiving, so of course I ran the 25^th annual Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot 5 mile run!  This was my second year running it and it was awesome!  I ran it 6:14 minutes faster than I did last year (for full recap, keep a look out for the race recap.  I’ll be posting it as soon as I get the official photos in my hand).  I ran it in costume…I was dressed as an Indian maiden and got lots of compliments on the costume. 

• Friday: yea…I was going to go to the gym and do the elliptical and some strength training but I had so much stuff and projects and black Friday shopping to do that it was 8pm before I had down time and with a 10 mile run scheduled for the following morning with a friend, I just decided to scrap it and it was my very least active day in a long while.  Barely got 5000 steps for the day.  Ugh.

 

• Saturday: well, I did have a 10 mile run scheduled with my friend’s wife, but she texted me when she got off work Friday night around 10:30pm (after I had gone to bed) saying that she had checked the weather and it was going to be cold (in the 30’s) and rainy and she didn’t want to chance getting sick so close to the San Antonio Marathon (which is now tomorrow, as of this posting) and canceled.  I had a meet up scheduled for 11am at Auditorium Shores at the running trail.  So, at 9 I went and parked my car at Auditorium Shores and headed out for the 7 mile loop around Ladybird Lake and finished that up with minutes to spare before my meet up.  I waited for the person I was supposed to meet with but (I found out later they marked it for the wrong day on their calendar) they never showed up, so I ran another 4.2 miles for a total of 11.2 miles at a 10:18 overall average pace.  That 11.2 was the last of the miles I needed for the virtual installment of The Army Marathon also.

• Sunday: I was at the renaissance festival all day with my friend Sam, so all I did on this day was walking.

 

• Monday: it is taper time, less than a week until my next marathon, so I just had 7 miles scheduled and 7 miles is what I did.  At a 10:32 average pace no less!  I really do love when the temp drops and it’s cooler for my runs!  This run closed out my November running miles at 91.4 miles.  Very nice.  I had started the month hoping to just run at least 75 miles (that’s including the SPI Marathon miles) and I more than met that goal.

• Tuesday: worked overtime on the night shift Monday night, so no workout this day.

 

• Wednesday: there was supposed to be a 3.3 mile run on this day, however, when I got home from work Tuesday there was a note on my door advising of my apartment complex doing their annual inspection on Thursday and Friday so I stayed up until about 1am Tuesday night cleaning and then got up Wednesday morning and finished cleaning.  So, no run.  But by the time I was done cleaning I had enough steps that it was about the same as if I had been able to do the run.  So that’s good.

 

• Thursday: worked overtime again on the night shift Wednesday night, so no workout again.

 

• Friday: since I didn’t get to run Wednesday morning, I wanted to make sure I did get a little pre-marathon short and slow run done to stretch my legs a little, so I did that 3.3 mile run on this morning.  It was a really good run too!  I meant to run it slow and easy, but what felt easy turned out to be a 9:55 average pace.  Oops.

 

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I like it when I tell people that I ran the 5 mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving and then followed that up with stuffing my face and they respond with that it all evened out.  No, no it didn’t.  I burned about 550 calories running the 5 miles but then I went and ate probably 2000 extra calories.  Yea, not exactly evened out there.  But thanks for trying to be positive about it!  I’m not trying to be all defeatist about it, I’m just trying to not lie to myself or mislead myself about how my eating is or isn’t going to affect me. 

 

Something I realized over the long holiday weekend was just exactly how difficult my lifelong battle with food and eating really is going to be.  I mean, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  I knew it was going to be a lifelong struggle, but I really saw just how HARD it is really going to be over the holiday weekend.  It’s so easy to fall into the whole, I already ate a cheeseburger, why not eat half a pizza mindset.  It’s so easy to just skip working out when your day is super busy and you don’t want to make the extra effort to go to the gym for even just 30 minutes on the elliptical.  It’s so easy to make excuses and not do what I “should” be doing.  I get so caught up in things so easily and then it’s really hard for me to regain my focus on what I want overall and cast aside what I want right now.  I have to think of the big picture of my life that I’m trying to paint and quit getting caught up in things that don’t matter and that distract me from my actual goals.

 

Okay, even though I did try to keep it under control with the eating, the first few days of the week were still really hard for me and I ate more than I had planned on eating and it was junk food.  I’m not going to harp on myself about it as it’s done and there’s nothing I can do to go back in time and change it.  So, let’s go to the scale and see how that looks.

My weight is up .5 of a pound from the first Saturday of November, but it's down 1.2 pounds from last week, so I'm happy with it.  Also, the drop in my body fat percentage from last month equals a 1.5 pound loss of body fat and a 2 pound gain in muscle...so, again, I'm happy.  The month of November was a huge struggle for me with food.  And I don't mean holiday treats.  I mean my binge eating disorder.  It was rearing its ugly head almost every day and it was just so hard.  But November is over and hopefully December isn't such a struggle for me.

Another thing, most of last week my legs and feet were swollen.  Apparently I was eating too much salt between adding salt to my eggs in the mornings and then I was eating the roasted turkey for lunch every day and adding salt to that.  But, since I stopped all that, my legs and feet haven't been swollen at all.