Where am I? Volume 11 (Alternate title: There was a little girl …)

It’s Tuesday – time to take a step back and get a feel for where I am in my weight loss health and fitness journey.

Weeelll … do any of you remember the poem:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good*
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Basically, I’m that little girl.

Well, minus the curl … my hair is straight as a board.

But “very good” and “horrid” describe the past week for me, when it comes to health and fitness.

Let’s get the “horrid” unpleasantness out of the way first. My eating. Ugh! The past week was horrid, at least until yesterday. I ate junk and crap, and then some more junk. I stress-ate on Friday and mindlessly ate socially on Saturday and Sunday.

Friday I pigged out on cookies and indulged in fried goodies food; Saturday I ate too many pancakes with full-calorie syrup and butter and later drank lots of beer and ate fried chicken strips; and Sunday I had lasagna, then went to a hockey game and ate (I kid you not) a couple cups of popcorn, a small plate of tortilla chips and salsa, 1 beer, 2 Dr. Peppers, part of a cookie, some cotton candy, and part of piece of cake. My stomach ached Sunday night, not surprisingly.

And also not surprisingly, the scale reading isn’t looking the way I’d like it to look at the moment. It’s above the maintenance range I’d set for myself. I’m over my 134 “stay below this weight” target, and my past-week average is over 133. The numbers did drop today vs. yesterday, and I’m back on track now so I expect it to get back down into my goal range in the next few days. But MAN! I lost it there for a few days.

Thank goodness that a few bad days don’t undo months and months worth of work.

And, from a health and fitness perspective, the past week was not all bad. Despite my complete lack of being on-plan from an eating perspective and slightly over goal, I had a very, very good week when it came to exercise.

In fact, I even earned my exercise badge:


My goal last week was to do two couch-to-5k runs during the week, and run an official 5k on Saturday. I also wanted to do one full-body strength training workout and, later in the week, an upper-body strength training workout. I did it! I did all of it!

And in running the 5k, I beat my goal in terms of time. I’d walked a 5k in the past (with an occasional jog thrown in) at around 45 minutes. That time was without any real training – I was doing step aerobics so I wasn’t completely out of shape, but I wasn’t training to run or walk at all. I decided I’d try to beat that by 10 minutes, and aimed to come in at or around 35 minutes. When I did my test run on Wednesday I hit just over 35 minutes, and when I actually ran the 5k on Saturday my chip time was 32:08.

Not only did I meet my goal, I beat it! Woo hoo! And I officially graduated from the couch to 5k program – Hooray!

So, looking back at the past week, it wasn’t a bad week, but it wasn’t a good week either. My goal for this week is to be able to look back and say it was a good week.

Goals for the week:
- Eat on plan from Monday-Friday (Monday went well – yay!)
- Go to Mexico for vacation on Saturday and eat reasonably (but not perfectly)
- Do cardio and strength training Monday (done), and then run 30 minutes on Wednesday and Friday (or Saturday in Mexico … I’m aiming for Friday, though). I want to get an upper body workout in before the end of the week, too.

I’ll be away next week on Tuesday “where am I” check-in day, since my husband and I are going to Mexico for vacation for a week to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We leave Saturday and return the next Saturday. I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing week. I’m actually excited to be going to a place that I can wear a bikini. My body is by no means perfect (far from it!), but I’ve worked really hard on it, and it looks better than it’s looked in a long, long, long time.

My plan for the week of vacation is to eat reasonably (but I have no delusions that I’ll be perfect), and to do 3x cardio and 2x strength training (with one strength session being only upper body if my cardio is a 30+ minute run). There’s a fitness center, but I’m hoping there’s also a place for me to run outside. Cross your fingers for me.

I’ll post a couple times before I leave, but for those of you who are Healthy You Challenge Tuesday-only check-in-ers, have a great couple weeks!



* Apparently this line should actually be “She was very good indeed,” but that’s not how I learned the poem. I’m mis-quoting it the way I learned it. Also, this poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Who knew!?!