Have a plan then stick to the plan.

Oh the demands of the demanded.  I have received several complaints/concerns that I have not kept up with my blog posts in the last two weeks.  What is interesting and ironically enough is that the less I have posted the less I have been successful with both fitness and weight loss.  I am just going to chalk up last week as a loss, kind of like the Redskins do each week.  I overate, I missed workouts, therefore I gained weight.  I did not go to Weight Watchers on Monday night, frankly I did not want to see the damage I had done, I felt it in my body, but I know that I gained.  One week of veering off the path and it affects everything.  My stomach was upset, I felt sluggish and I just generally felt bad, physically and emotionally.  One reason I write this blog is to keep me honest and to keep myself accountable.  If even one person reads this and asks me how's it going I feel like it is working.  I need someone/something to keep me in check or I naturally get lazy.  "The path of least resistance" was once used to describe my actions in life.  While that may be partly true it does not define me.  I am strong but I do have moments of weakness.  Life is hard, even harder at certain times.  For me, last week was hard, very hard.  I was beyond busy and consumed with both work and after work activities.  It all caught up to me on Saturday about mid day when my body just shut down.  I did make it out for a run and I think that only made matters worse, because after the run all I wanted to do was climb in bed and sleep and that is exactly what I did.  I was still feeling off yesterday but today I feel great.  I got my eating in check and went to boot camp last night.  Now I only gave an easy 85% last night in class.  I listened to my body and I feel like it is paying off.  My goals over the next few days are easy, boot camp tonight, Wednesday and Thursday morning.  (Come out and try our Annual Thanksgiving Day Charity Boot Camp, believe me it's worth it, especially on Thanksgiving morning.)  Eating on plan all days except Thursday, I mean let's be honest, there is pretty much no way to eat on plan on Thanksgiving.  I will enjoy dinner, and that is where it ends.  That does not mean that Thanksgiving lasts Thursday through Sunday, which for me it usually does.  I need to enjoy dinner and get back on it after that.  I really don't want to feel the same this coming Monday as I did this past Monday.  The hard part will be getting in workouts Friday through Sunday.  Definitely want to get in another Burke Lake run and maybe even a Saturday morning boot camp class.  Regardless that't the plan and I will do my best to stick to it!

Food, Food, Food.

My focus is food this week.  Last week and this past weekend got a bit out of hand.  Frankly it just got plain stupid.  I pretty much just ate what I wanted when I wanted.  Not the way to lose weight and maintain a healthy lifestyle at all.  Now don't get me wrong, what I ate was fantastic, dim sum, sushi, Szechuan Beef Noodle Soup, Pho, and Italian.  I know kind of went a different direction there at the end, what can you do??  Now that that is out of my system, time to checkity check myself.  I am on point from here on out.  I think the best way to handle this, other than wiring down in weight watchers is just tracking all my meals right here.  I will think on that and try to take pictures of my meals.  I have soup and sandwiches on the books for lunches this week and I am sure some amazing dinners planned and cooked by the brain genius that is Hila DeLong.  I will report back tomorrow.  Focker out.

Most heinous buffoonery indeed.

For a few brief moments yesterday I lost the firm grip of reality that I have been holding to so well.  First part of the downfall were the Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles which were consumed in abundance followed by the homemade icing topped with lemon cake, yes the cake was simply the tool used for consumption of the icing.  I don't feel great about it but it happened and now it's time to move on.  It's been my first major slip up in weeks and it was bound to happen sooner or later.  I have a crazy busy week this week and will probably not be able to make it to Weight Watchers tonight for the weight in so I may not actually see the after effects of this buffoonery.  Regardless, it's time to get back on the horse and make it happen all over again.  I have family in town this week so it should be interesting with getting in workouts/runs since my schedule will be completely out of whack.  May have some early morning runs this week just to make sure I can fit everything in.  We will see how that goes, as I am not a huge fan of very early morning workouts.  For all of you "I don't have to work until 9 AM people" early morning means 5 AM.  I even have a hard time writing 5 AM much less getting up to go and workout at that time.

Alright so back to this weekend, Mud Factor.  This was not a great by any means.  As far as fitness level I felt great.  Felt like I could have run it twice.  There were different fitness level among us but we still ran as group because that's what friends do.  As for the rest of the race there was little to no mud (other than the last obstacle) and only 5 obstacles.  Five.  That is weak.  This was pretty much a trail run after a huge storm knocked over some trees.  I have read over the Facebook page for the race and people are pretty angry with the racing staff.  Now I am not one to berate someone on their Facebook page but I do feel the concern of some of the racers.  We bought this ticket as a Groupon deal for something like $25.  I would be a lot more upset if we had paid more than that.  Actually if you signed up the day of the race it was $100, that is just insane to charge that much for a trail run it the woods.  Either way our group had fun running together so that is all that really matters. I don't think we will be running this race again anytime soon though.  The after/muddy pic was taken by the race staff so once that picture is up I will add it to the blog.

They did hook us up with a bandanna and a medal although I am not sure how we cheated death exactly...

All other photos copied from event page on Facebook.

Last obstacle - low barbed wire crawl

Rope wall

Scaled wall

Barrel jump

Luckily we beat the line for the "showers"!!!!!

Now that's what I'm talking about!

It's days like today that make this incredibly hard weight loss journey all worth it.  Finally a victory on the on the scale.  Down 3.8 pounds!!!  Booyah.  (current weight 216.6 lbs)  That makes me very happy.  One reason so many people give up on weight loss is they don't see the results they are looking for or they don't see them quickly enough.  I would say on average an individual should be losing between .5 and 1 pound a week, tops.  Until last night for the past three weeks I have only been at a total weight loss of .2 lbs, that's nothing, especially not where I wanted to be while writing a weight loss/fitness blog.  But now, on average, I am losing more then a pound a week, I'll take it.  The only real difference this week compared to the others is that there was not a single night where I ate like a buffoon.  I tracked everything and even had some of my weekly points left over.  I am very proud this morning.  This little bit of success has given me even more motivation to push harder to achieve my first goals.

Tuesday means run day so no boot camp tonight and another trip to Burke Lake, hopefully a better run than Sunday, can't be much worse.  I will take the Tom Kalka approach tonight and possibly run in the rain, see what this rain running is all about.