This Week's Achievements/ Next Week's Plans

I had a very sneaky pre-weigh-in day weigh-in which was naughty and I told myself I wouldn't do it but I did, and it shows no loss since last week. I'm not really that worried about it though as my new workout regime has been hammering my muscles all week (yesterday being my first day off) and my abs are just killing me at the moment, which means I'm probably retaining quite a lot of water. I'm hoping by tomorrow I'll be showing a loss with the help of my pre-weigh-in day routine as follows -

1. Drink lots and lots of water to flush out the system
2. Eat a large breakfast and a small(ish) dinner, early, so my stomach is as empty as possible when I wake up tomorrow
3. No eating after 7pm
4. Excercise, but no weight training to avoid water retention and heavy muscles

Even if I don't show a loss tomorrow, I'm still proud of my acheievments this week. Again, it has taken all that I am to muster the motivation to go to the gym, proving the whole thing to be a painfull labourious task starting with forcing myself to put my track pants on, right up to getting out of my car at the gym car park. I have done it though! And the harder it is, the more of an accomplishment it is when it's over.


The workouts have been killer; I have learnt my lesson not to be so chatty with my trainer; telling him that I'm enjoying progressing with my running was a big mistake as he has very sneakily (without telling me) included two fifteen minute hill training interval sets on the treadmill into my four day regime. I did the first of them on Tuesday and at fourteen minutes, I honestly thought I was going to throw up there and then in the middle of the gym. I hate to say this, though, I kind of enjoyed it! I have been struggling to get past the twelve minute barrier anyway on the treadmill and I struggle to even powerwalk at gradient six, but I exceeded both of these hurdles on Tuesday and felt great afterwards. I'm also noticing that my recovery time is so quick now. I used to run for five minutes and had to basically have a nap after all the puffing and wheezing and sweating. I still break a sweat, but my breathing is normal after a minute now and no wheezing at all! I'm really glad my trainer pushes me, I'm good at steadily progressing myself, but sometimes it's nice to have a good push, if only to make you realise your full capability. I would never have thought I could have done the fifteen minute hill intervals, but I did.


Foodwise this week, I've not been as completely in control as last week, I've felt like I'm balancing on the verge of a binge all week. I don't know whether this is because the weather has been really cold, or that I'm tired or whatever, but all I've wanted to do is eat chocolate. So far, I haven't binged, and I need to give myself credit for that as It's a good accomplishment. However I won't deny that part of the reason I haven't binged is purely because we don't have any chocolate in the house, although, I have prevented myself from going out and buying it and I guess that is something.


I do honestly believe that if I deny myself chocolate (my most favourite thing to eat) for long enough, I just go mental and throw all my hard work out of the window. Like right now (and for most of this week), I've been thinking to myself when am I ever going to be able to eat a big bar of chocolate ever again? and I know this is the beginnings of binge eating, because I then say to myself, NEVER, if you want to be thin you will just have to put up with the fact that you can't eat large amounts of chocolate ever again! And then I think to myself, well fine then, I'll just put up with being fat and get to eat lots of chocolate, followed by eating of lots of chocolate. The thing is, contrary to the common phrase, I think chocolate IS as good as being thin would feel, but the guilty, fat, sicky feeling I get after eating to much definitely isn't. I don't know whether it's down to my Catholic/Quaker heritage (a guilt ridden combination if ever I saw one) but just having binge related thoughts makes me feel like I'm failing at weight-loss. I need to remind myself that overcoming these thoughts means that I'm actually succeeding at weight-loss! I'm making the right choices and rationalising my options - "every choice is a chance to choose differently and better. Every choice counts. Remember that. You just have to choose as well as possible as often as possible." (Thank you, Bitchcakes)

Success is not perfection, but perseverance

Anyway, those are the things I am most proud of this week.

Plans for next week:
1. My next experiment, in my long quest to conquer weekend overeating - I am going to log and photograph everything that passes my lips on Saturday and Sunday, on this very blog. This is going to be a tricky one to log aswell as I'm eating out for the BF's birthday on Saturday so it will force me into making sensible choices not only all weekend, but at the restaurant too. In doing this, I will have pictoral evidence of the amount of food I have eaten, aswell as having to admit to any bad behaviour on here. I will be held fully accountable!

2. I will not weigh myself! I am getting into a bad habit of weighing everyday, sometimes twice a day! Although I don't let the scale readings effect my behaviour or mood, I still think it's better to just weigh once a week and take that as your weekly reading and if it's good then it makes it a nice surprise!

3. Try and hit my 5-a-day. This has been lagging recently and I used to be really good at it. Aim for 1 portion at breakfast, 2 at lunch and 3 at dinner.

4. STAY WITHIN CALORIES AT THE WEEKEND!! And then spend the week saving up (200-300 per day) as next weekend the BF and I are going on a mini-break and calories will no doubt be eaten in (controlled) ubundance!