fiddle-on

My weight had been sitting immovably around 157 for the last two weeks. It FINALLY started dropping again. I went from 156.8 to 155.4 in one day. Dieting has been up and down. I felt like crap from Thursday to Sunday and ate accordingly, especially on Sunday. But even on the worst day, I was still less than 1,000 calories over maintenence. I was just feeling really down, and when I feel like that, I tend to overeat junk food because it makes me feel physically ill, so I feel better about feeling emotionally ill. But I only did that 1 day out of 4, and even though I still felt depressed on Monday, I ate well, and now I'm starting to feel better. Exercise: Last week my gym was closed. I was supposed to do an hour long strength session one day, but it didn't happen. I did do shorter sessions on 3 days, and ran 5 days. I'll be starting week 3 of Zombies Run 5K tomorrow, and I'm happy enough with my running that I'm going to contact a local running club again. I e-mailed them last month, but since I couldn't run for several weeks, I didn't actually go to their Monday Fun Run. Cleaning: When I was depressed, I wasn't really doing anything more than dishes every other day. I've picked up my bedroom a bit, but I'm not really doing well at reestablishing the habit. Writing: No.

Work is crazy, and it's starting to wear me down. My boss is getting a lot of pressure for our main project, which means I'm getting a lot of pressure. A month ago, we had 3 people doing basically what I'm doing, but one of them is on a 2 month trip to India, and the other just left for a new job. I'm not doing 3 people's work, but I would be if I was doing everything that should be getting done. Diet: I ate too much yesterday. I started out fine, but then when random pastries appeared at work, I had 2. I'm estimating at around 700-800 calories, and I had a large lunch (salmon salad with feta and bread on the side, ~700 calories.) Breakfast was normal, and dinner was just a couple ounces of chicken to keep me from waking up in the middle of the night, and I was still well over my calorie count. Exercise: I was supposed to do a long strength workout yesterday, but I ended up doing Simple and Sinister kettlebell workout instead because I was so tired. The great thing was that I did 10x10 2 handed swings with a 12 kg bell in 4:58, so I'm going to start working towards that with 1 handed swings. I'm using a 20 pound dumbbell for the getups, but I think I'll up that to 22.5 because I did 5 per side in about 8 minutes even, and it was pretty easy. I was using the 12kg bell back in June, and I think I'll be back to that sometime next week. This morning I did ZombiesRun 5K workout 3, the last run of week 1. I was able to run nonstop the entire final 10 minutes. Cleaning. Playing catch-up here, but the living room is looking livable again.

I started ZombiesRun 5K this week. I just did Day 2 this morning. I'm walking/running fast on the short intervals, and then jogging for most of the 10 minutes free-form at the end. I haven't been able to do the full 10 minutes as jogging yet. Today I ran 3 minutes, walked 2, changed my shoes, and ran the last 5 minutes non-stop. My slow run ranged between 10 and 12 minutes per mile, my sprints 7 -8 mpm. I'm signed up for a 5K on September 17th. I may do it walk-run, because the original plan involved training in July, so I'm about 6 weeks behind where I wanted to be. But if I can average better than 12 minute miles, I'll be very, very happy. I'd like to do a 5K with 10 minute miles by the end of the year.

Day 1: Weight: I'm currently at 157.4 by the scale, but it's been rising fast for the past few days. I think it's closer to 156.4 without bloating. I'll find out later this week . Exercise: The problem with a small studio gym is that the owners occasionally take time off. They're on their annual vacation this week, so it's closed. Instead, I'll be doing Zombies Run on 4 days, and the hour long workout I'd normally be doing in the gym on 1 day. I'm giving Simple and Sinister a try on my run days and see how it goes. I ran Day 1 yesterday, and Day 2 today. These are fairly easy for me, but it should be a good way to build up slowly and avoid shin splints. Tomorrow I'll be doing a kettlebell workout. Cleaning: My desk is still only half clean, but the rest of the apartment looks better. Writing: I still can't reach my laptop, so I haven't .

Thanks. I actually lost a little extra because I had no appetite. Glad to finally be better.

Right now, I'm 92% of June-me. I'm using weights that are significantly lighter that I used in June, I'm running shorter distances, and I lost 8% of my bodyweight since June. This is all due to a combination of ill-health, good tracking, and a resolve to not binge on junk food. By the end of this challenge, I want to weigh less and be more fit than I was at the end of June. The details: Exercise: Get back to doing 2 kettlebell strength classes a week. This is my ongoing challenge for the year. I had to take July off for health reasons, although I was still doing 1 easy class after the first really bad week. Zombies Run 5K. I did the tutorial/introduction yesterday, and plan to do the first run either tonight or Monday. Ideally, I run 3 times a week, but I'll be satisfied with 2. I'm going to try to do this in the mornings. Find places for other exercise. It's easy to bike or walk to work, the park, the grocery store, etc. If a trip is under 3 miles, I want to at least think about walking or biking it instead of driving. Diet: Track what I eat. Eat 1500-1800 calories per day, with more for when I'm burning over 500 calories in workouts. Max of 300 calories total desserts. Less is better, fruit only is best. Other Cleaning: I got out of the habit last challenge. That needs to change. First thing when I get home from work, I need to spend 10-15 minutes cleaning every day. First to do: Clean off my desk so I can use it again! Self-enrichment: I want get back to writing more. Clean my desk so I can use it again. Yes, I know I've mentioned this twice. Find some software to deny myself the internet for a set period of time. After cleaning, sit down and write for 30 minutes.

Huh. This ended a week ago, and I didn't even notice. Guess I'm on to the next one now. Wrap up: cleaning: F. I just wasn't partly because I felt like shit through so much of the challenge, I got out of he habit, then didn't get back to it even whenI felt better. Oh well. Something to do better next time. Exercise: Acceptable. I started out weak, as in hospitalized. It's now been a solid week since I've felt any pain, and over two weeks since it was enough to stop me doing most things. I went to a gym class yesterday, and I'm doing another tomorrow. First time I've done that since before this challenge! I did 100 kettlebell swings with a 12kg bell. It wasn't east, partly because it was part of a squat ladder (work up to 5, then back down, with 10 swings in between each) It's an exercise I'd been avoiding because it hurt. I also started Zombies Run! 5K. I did the intro, and will be doing day 1 either today or Sunday. Diet: Excellent I've been losing weight steadily. I lost 12 pounds in July because I had 3 weeks with very little appetite, and I think my body was using extra energy to heal. Now that I'm better, I'm still recording what I eat, and Aiming for a defecit between 200 and 500 calories a day. I've lost just over 2 pounds this month so far, which is a little disappointing after July's loss, but is something I can realistically keep up.

I just bought 2 new kettlebells. Perform Better is having an excellent sale, and their bells have a very good reputation. My plan was to own a bell one weight ahead of what I can swing now. I'm just starting to be able to do swings with a 16 kg bell, so I've been window shopping 20 kg bells for a month now. The Perform Better bells were 30% off, and I could pick up the kettlebells at the company's warehouse and avoid shipping. So I bought 20kg and 24 kg because who knows when that kind of price will come again, and even if it is an annual thing, the warehouse is an hour away. End result: 2 top quality kettlebells for a tiny bit more than the cheapest brands would have cost. And it's likely to be at least a year or two before I outgrow the 24 kg. Yay!

Thanks! My goal for the Spartan is to finish as many obstacles as possible (and have fun doing it). Then sign up for another and finish more :-). I'm still working towards doing my first pullup, so there will be obstacles I either can't finish, or need assistance/easier versions of.

In good news, I lost a 0.8 pounds yesterday, and another 1.5 today. So that's 0.4 from last Friday, and the extra pound and a half I woke up with on Sunday is gone. About what I'd expect from how I've been eating. I've had about 700 calories this morning and I'm still feeling half starved. No idea why, I'm usually good with half that. I think I'll go out for Turkish food for lunch and just have a snack at dinnertime. I need a small bribe today to not eat all my snacks now.

I'm signed up for the Spartan race at Fenway park! I'm on a team with my gym, so we'll have a modest crowd, and we're doing it non-competitively. I've added stairs into my day to prepare. I don't normally do more than half a flight a day because I live and work on the first floor, but both my apartment and my office have more than one floor. I'm starting out with 5 flights of 10-12 stairs, 2 times a day, and I figure I'll build that until it's more like 10-20 flights 2 or 3 times a day. More at home than at work, since I prefer not to get to sweaty in the office . I'll get back to running and regular kettlebell workouts as I can for the rest of the prep.

Did a strength training class on Saturday, with the same easy workout as last week, and instead of feeling not too bad, I actually felt good. So that's nice. Then I rode my bike and hiked a bit on Sunday, and had no pain. Finally feel like I'm really healing! I went to my cousin's wedding on Saturday. I ate lightly in the morning so I wouldn't have to be too concerned if I ate too much in the evening. So I estimate that I came out with around 2500-3000 calories on the day, which is kind of high, but it's not like I have weddings every week. I did eat too much on Sunday, probably because I only slept about 4 hours on Saturday night. I ended up taking my bike to a local park just to get away from my kitchen! I did a short round of mostly bodyweight exercises this morning. I figure squats with 12 pounds are my bodyweight from the start of the challenge. I'll start building that up over the week, as long as it doesn't hurt.

After not losing any weight last week, the scale just dropped a pound and a half in 3 days. Not so coincidentally, I haven't been very thirsty the last couple days. Gotta love hormones and water weight.

Thanks! I'm really happy that I chose to eat well, because I've made the opposite choice so, so many times.

Feeling much better again. I went to a small group training class on Saturday, and it went well with a very reduced workout. Ended up lying down for a while afterwards, but I wasn't excessively wiped out. I went shopping in the afternoon, and bought material to make a small blanket for my newborn niece (born last Tuesday!). Sunday I went for a 2 or 3 mile walk in the woods in the morning, then another 2 mile walk in the afternoon. I needed to lie down for a while after the second, but it wasn't too bad. I ate very well on Saturday, then on Sunday, I had a bowl of ice cream for lunch and went out to dinner, where I got fetucinne alfredo. They don't sell a version with brocolli, but other than that major drawback it was good. I should have asked for a to go box when I ordered, though, because I ate too much. Ended up with about 2500 calories for the day. Since every other day was closer to 1400-1600, that's acceptable. I've been completely failing on the cleaning. I've barely even kept up in the kitchen, which I usually keep moderately neat. I've also still been spending too much time on Reddit. Seriously, the internet just needs to go away for a while.

Welcome back, and nice work getting restarted!

I haven't updated in a couple of days because I've just been feeling terrible, both physically and mentally. A lot more pain than last week, plus I've been very ... backed up internally, to give a little TMI. Lately I'd made physical activity my go-to for when I was bored and needed an outlet. That's clearly failed me badly this month, and I need to reprioritize. What I've been doing instead is laying in bed reading reddit and playing Candy Crush and wishing moving fast didn't hurt so much. I'm thinking I'll either take up cake-decorating, cartoons, or writing. I took a cake decorating class last year, and I've got a half finished story. Any of these would beat the status quo. New Goal: If I spend more than 30 minutes at a stretch lying around browsing the internet, or lose all my lives in Candy Crush, I need to get up and do something more productive. If any position but lying down hurts, I can skip the get up part, but I still need to do something more productive, and not on the computer. Things to keep in mind: Just because you feel like crap doesn't mean you need to binge to justify feeling like crap. It's perfectly fine to feel like crap for really crappy reasons.

Yeah, that's great. Good luck with finding a position at least near Prague!

Now you've got the habit of paying attention to how much you eat, learning what to eat to be healthiest is only going to be a small step. And I bet you're closer than you think to it. I'm a big fan of biking. I'm hoping to start doing some bike touring next year, or even later this year if circumstances allow. For a student, used bikes area good way to get started for cheap. If it's comfortable and not rusted, it'll get you started while you learn more.

Nice! It's always good when the doctor says you are doing something right.

I like this picture. It's kind of hypnotic. Oh, nice job on the goals too. It's funny how easy it is to look at the quick goals (like 10 min sprinting), and miss them because even if it's short, you still have to start. I missed my housecleaning goal for the same reason. "Oh, I can do that later. Oops, it's bedtime!"[Quickly put away a few items so I've done something]

Thanks! Turning food into trash is my go to method. I feel a little bad about throwing it out, but I just tell myself I'd feel worse if I ate it. Of course, for this it helps that I live alone, and don't have to worry about how anyone else feels about it. A friend of mine had a weeklong fight with her husband when he brought the Easter candy in to work to avoid eating it, while she is much better at portioning treats out slowly and had been looking forward to having a piece a day for the next month.

I just weighed myself on my shiny new bathroom scale this morning, and it said 159 lbs! It's been about 2 years since I was last at this weight. I've been working out consistently since February, but had been ignoring my diet until I weighed myself at the end of June, and weighed 171. That's almost obese, so I decided to get my weight back under control and started recording all my food in MyFitnessPal. What makes it extra exciting is that for the second half of June, I've been too sick/hurt to work out significantly, so I was able to eat less despite being much less active than usual. Though the one week where I was sickest and barely ate at all is definitely what pushed it over the 2 lbs a week mark. Next up: below 150, when I will no longer have an overweight BMI. I'm hoping to reach that by mid September or early October.

Update: Under 160 lbs! I just bought a new bathroom scale, so I can now weigh myself at home in the morning, rather than at work in the evening after most people are gone (I seriously have no idea why there are scales in half the break rooms). I was 171 pounds on June 27th, when I weighed myself and said "Too much!", and 159 this morning. Illness is highly effective for rapid weight loss :-P. I'm going to try to stick with 1-2 pounds a week in the future. I was eating too much junk food this weekend, although I was close to my calorie goals. I had a small binge on Saturday (half a pack of thin mints plus 2 other big cookies), but then I just left the house to stop myself. I still ended up around 2000 calories, so I didn't even seriously overeat. Sunday I went out for ice cream with a friend because I'd been thinking about it and then she asked. I got a "tiny tots", which is their smallest size. It was still about a cup of ice cream. I ate half of it because after all the junk on Saturday, I wanted to stick to my max 300 cals of junk food rule. I really wish their small was smaller, because it's fabulous ice cream, and I hate throwing it out. I ended up putting my napkin in the bowl when I kept nibbling on the second half. I went to a strength training class on Saturday, and took it pretty easy. I ended up sore after doing very little for two weeks, but more worrying was that the injury site hurt enough that I didn't want to walk at all the rest of the day. So I canceled the class I'd signed up for on Monday, and will take it easy until Thursday, when I'll try again. I'm hoping that next week, I can go back to 2 classes a week. Right now I'm starting week 3 since the day in the hospital, so I'm not doing too badly even if it feels like I am. Been failing badly on the cleaning goal. I've been keeping up with the basics, but no further progress on anything else.

Activity: Yesterday I took a nap when I got home from work, then did 60 kettlebell swings in 10 minutes and did a 1 mile walk in 20 minutes. I also ran about 30 seconds, but that was enough to decide I need at least one more week before I can run again. I kept to 2 handed swings at 12 kg, and I didn't try pushing for speed. Diet: I did OK on diet. I ended up with a little more junk food than I like (that muffin + a few pieces of chocolate, when it should have been one or the other), but I was still under 2000 calories. Cleaning: I still haven't finished the corner of my bedroom, but I washed all my dishes and put away a bunch of random stuff. Sleep: I was asleep by 11. My evening nap meant I didn't get tired so early. I'm going to do another 10-20 minutes of strength exercises today. Tomorrow I've got the personal training class. We'll see how it goes.