Zip. Nada. Nilch. No weight lost, but no weight gained - I’m still sitting at 168.2. I will say that I probably slacked a bit this past week in terms of being good with my diet. With my sour attitude toward things as of late, I’m also finding it hard to adhere to the terms that I set out for myself initially. I’m not eating terribly, but it could be better. I grab a handful of Pringles here or there and in my worst of moods this past week, I succumbed to the power of a Chipotle(-like) burrito. Even so, I still do think I made progress this past week, even if Tanita won’t confirm it. I’m down another notch on my belt and I think I’m solidly in between my winter and summer jeans. I haven’t yet tried on the summer jeans, but the winter ones no longer stay up with my belly alone providing back pressure. Belts are a requirement these days, so I guess that’s good!

Thanks for the feedback on my last post. I know it was a bit crummy, but ehh… it needed to get said. I’ve pretty much decided that I won’t be doing the 1/2 IM that I signed up for in a couple months. More than likely, I’ll try either converting my entry into the Olympic category, or finding some other folks doing the race to do a relay. Just doing that helped my attitude towards things a bit. I don’t feel as much pressure to make weight by June. I don’t feel as much pressure to get my running volume (while nursing sore Achilles) up to 1/2 IM levels. I don’t have to worry about posting an all time worst 1/2 IM time. Training can now resume at a slower pace and we can see later where this season takes us.

The temperatures have finally gotten up a bit and hopefully the rain stays away long enough this weekend to get a nice longer ride in on Sunday. Ironmomjenny is putting together a ride this weekend. I think it’s a secret goal of hers to try and get a Guiness World Record for longest paceline ever. For any of you locals, I think the plan is 2-4 hours @ 18-20 MPH on Sunday afternoon. I’ll probably be at the smaller end of both of those, myself. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

For those looking for their daily dose of inspiration and motivation, this isn’t the post for you. If you want to continue, be my guest but don’t say I didn’t warn you…

(more…)

So… I weighed myself this morning - 168.2. Not terrible for a little over a week. I have the feeling that I was a little more dehydrated than normal when I weighed in, but it should be close. I had a decent week last week of eating. I did splurge a little last Saturday utilizing my optional “special occasion” card (if you must know, was my birthday this past weekend. :) ). And I may have eaten slightly more than I was allotted on Easter, although if I did it wasn’t by much.

Three pounds in a week and a half or so is right on target, I’d say. I will say that I don’t strict calorie count so much as I sort of ballpark estimate everything. I think my guesstimates now doing this for a few years are pretty accurate though. And when I watch what I eat, I tend to eat the same things over and over and over again. Lunches are comprised of either a 6″ Subway Club (no cheese or mayo), or maybe a Quiznos small Sierra Smoked Turkey. Fruit I usually classify as 100 calories a piece. And I’m pretty in tune with my portion control. It’s amazing how little 1/2 a cup, or even a whole cup is for that matter! I still get very hungry at times, but this week seems to be better in terms of dealing with cravings and what not. I find that if I can ween myself off foods that I really like, I usually lose the desire to eat them in the second or third week.

I had forgotten how working out feels when you’re trying to lose weight, though. There have been a couple runs these past couple weeks where I just ran out of gas and had to cut my runs to walk/runs. Not so much because I was out of shape (although there is some of that), but more so because I was just completely out of energy. It comes with the territory I suppose. And probably better to have workouts suffer now in the early season than when the brunt of the training is supposed to come.

That’s it on the weight front. Everything else is going well. Training is slow going, but I think I managed 8-9 hours last week? I’m slow as molasses at running, I have no muscular endurance on the bike, and I feel like I’m swimming through jello in the pool. At least I don’t have one glaring weakness - I’m bad in all three! :)

The weather here continues to suck. We have a winter advisory here today until 7 PM and are expecting 3-5 inches of snow. :( Which just strengthens my case that I have to get out of this state sooner than later. I hate the weather here. It drives me absolutely nuts.

So… with race season that’s going to be here before I know it, I’ve decided that it’s about time that I start doing the whole weight loss thang. And as I’ve been in contact with Wil and some others about this, I wonder if starting some kind of virtual “fat camp” wouldn’t be fun. You know… we all sort of keep each other accountable and maybe have a weekly weigh in or something? And a place to bitch about how bad dropping weight sucks. Misery loves company after all, right? :)

Anyway, I’m planning on keeping track of my progress here. I started out this week tipping the scales at 171 and change - about 20 pounds heavier than I really should be. My (drastic) plan is going to be the same as last year. My own personal guidelines are as follows:

• By being a living member of the planet Earth, I am entitled to eating 1,000 calories a day.
• For every hour I workout, I get to eat an extra 500 calories (yeah, I know that’s not exact, but it’s easy math).
• When I reach 1,500 calories in exercise, I’m done - regardless of what I did that day. Meaning my hard cap for caloric intake for a day is 2,500 calories. So a 60 mile ride warrants me the same amount of calories as doing a century.
• The calories that I eat should come primarily from good sources - fruits, vegetables, and lean cuts of meat. I can’t get all my calories from chocolate, for example.
• Training calories (i.e. gels, sports drinks, etc.) count towards the overall daily tally so take them wisely and only as necessary.
• Optional: Special occasions (i.e. birthdays, anniversaries, etc.) are granted some relief from this diet, so long as the occasion is truly special and I’m not gorging myself because it’s Friday or something silly like that.
• Optional: Every five pound milestone, I’ll give myself the option to take one “free” meal as a reward for hitting that next level.

I did this last year and I seem to be able to drop 2+ pounds a week while training. Sometimes the training days are rough and I need to just gut through them on pure will alone. That’s the price I pay for living the good life for eight months - suck it up. :) Caloricly sure, it’s probably on the low side and I’m sure some nutritionist out there will tell me that it’s way too little and that I need to eat more. Starving my body, eating away at muscle mass, slowing down my metabolism and all that stuff. But it’s pretty much the way I’ve done things every time I’ve needed to cut weight and it always works. And the more I read what the diets of elite athletes look like, the more I think that they’re closer to the above than not. Besides, if I were really starving my body that badly, I don’t think it’d allow me to train or anything on top of just existing. So I think it’s enough? Perhaps a topic for discussion, though?

In any case, I’m in. If anyone else wants to join in the fun, the more the merrier. You don’t have to abide by my rules above. I only posted mine so others could see how I would be working towards my goal. Any takers? :)

Inspired by Flatman’s recent Engineering problem, I dug up this image of my own that I meant to posted ages ago.