So maybe going off food tracking right before the heavy-eating season wasn’t the best idea. After one month I’m a few pounds heavier and feeling like I don’t really have the control to bring myself back down. So, as of today I’m back to tracking. No time to feel sorry for myself. I need to take the reins and get the situation back under control before I end up doing some real damage.
Tag Archive: calories
Life’s too short…
I’m sure the fact that the holiday season is upon us is a factor, but so far the break I’ve taken from tracking calories isn’t going well. I can easily tell that I’ve been going over daily quotas for the past few days. I totally expect that I’m going to end up packing on a few pounds by next week, so some of my hard work will have been for nothing. Am I freaking out about it? Well, I guess you can say that it’s enough of a concern such that I’m actually spending some time writing about it. Go figure. All the same I’m not freaking out too much. I need a break from being ever-vigilant. Besides, when I’m ready I know I can clamp down and steer everything back on track.
Life’s too short to not eat good stuff on occasion, yes?
Cutting loose
You know, I’ve been tracking my food intake since October 2009. It’s what enabled me to lose weight since then. I’ve been diligently entering my stats and weighing/measuring portions to the point where I must seem like some anally-retentive food geek. How can I argue against success, right? Well, more than a year later, I’ve decided to cut the tether. I’m going to try going without food tracking for at least a month. I want to see whether I can still remain accountable and on top of things even without tracking every single detail. In all honesty, I’m not sure I can stay successful without tracking, but at the same time continuing to be attached to tracking on an ongoing basis can’t possibly be something maintainable, know what I mean? I suspect there will be a short adjustment period with some weight fluctuations involved, but ultimately I should be better off. Freedom is a good thing…
Where does the madness end?
So, where does the madness end? I’ve gotten to the point where I can wear size 33 pants. I mean, I remember that it was only a while ago that I was amazed that size 36 worked for me. I have a few friends that wear 33 or 32, and I don’t consider them to be overweight in the least. And yet, here I am, still feeling like I have a lot of progress to make.
All things considered, I’m healthy. I’m currently going through marathon training. I do plyometrics now and then. I’ve only recently taken up Moksha yoga, which is routinely kicking my ass. My resting heart rate is in the 40s. That’s pretty darn good. I feel OK, but there’s still this lingering feeling that there are improvements just within reach. And since they’re within reach why wouldn’t I got for them? Why can’t I just be content? I mean, sure, this is positive in the sense that at least I’m striving for self-improvement. All the same, I’m mildly scared of a few things. First, I’m scared that I might turn this into a completely unhealthy obsession. I admit that it’s starting to get bad. I apologize to anyone that’s had to put up with my angsty whining about progress or lack thereof. Secondly, I’m scared of failure. I’m working hard, and I’ve made tons of progress. Still, I’m petrified of rolling back, or just not getting to a point where I’m content. I’m doing everything right in terms of weight loss. It’s going slow, and I’m not cutting out a lot of what I like eating; everything has its place. As of now, getting back to the heights I was at before would require me to have something of a mental lapse. I don’t know.
I have to put some more thought into the end game. I mean, at the moment it’s just some nebulous concept, like, “at some point I will not need to be so vigilant about cutting back.” I need to define some rules and limits. Though, I suppose in some ways the new consciousness doesn’t really end. I’ve built up some really good habits since the start of last October, and I don’t expect those to just disappear when I’m done. I think I just want a more normal platform from which I can live life.
Normal. Hahahah. *sigh*
The higher target range
Over the past week or so I’ve been complaining about having a week of really piss poor eating. I think at some point, in my Internet food tracking tool I indicated that I was planning on burning a hell of a lot of calories this week. It’s a fair assessment given how far my running distances are becoming, and how much extra stuff I’m starting to incorporate. With that info, the site tweaked my target ranges to be higher. This is supposed to ensure that I have energy to keep my activity levels going at a good level or performance. With the newfound room, I’ve been eating more–no problem there. The danger is that, in eating more it seems like I’ve been sailing over the target all to easily. I might plan to do A and B, but somehow I’d throw in C and D on top of all that. Doing that once in a while isn’t bad. However, doing it multiple times in a week is throwing up red flags in my head. I’ve been bloated several days this week.
The extra food isn’t entirely deadly, if only because I’ve truly been exercising more. Still, it’s an odd feeling considering that I’m on the right track. I have to be careful when people I know tell me “oh, don’t worry, you’re training for a marathon!” That may be, but that doesn’t give me free licence to eat freely. I need to be a bit more judicious with my choices. Yes, today’s stop be the Korean Grill House was awesome, but did I really need to eat all of that meat?
Anyway, I’ve readjusted the tracker once more, and that brought the calories back to a lower range. Starting on Sunday I’m going to go back to watching and tracking properly. It’s the only way I’m going to feel good. This week is done and over, and I had fun, but it’s time to focus again.
Conscious, but relaxed
Oh LORD. When piles of food are available, it seems that I don’t have that much discipline to keep myself in check. This trip has been pretty rough. Because of the group mentality, I can’t really refuse food if everyone else is eating and enjoying. First of all, I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Secondly, I don’t want to seem like I’m above everyone. I could cut down, and in fact I’ve tried that. When I did, when I finished people were still eating and going for seconds. Wow. Afterwards, it seemed like every other person that came into office brought some other food source. Donuts greeted us at the beginning this morning. Later someone brought cupcakes. Someone else brought cookies. The other day smoothies were brought in for everyone. How can you say no?
You know, honestly, going into this business trip I knew that I would have to let my guard down a little bit. There’s just so much that’s out of my control at the moment that trying to force the reality around me to fit within my own parameters would be an exercise in futility. It’s pretty bad. I’ve been obsessing over this and feeling like I’m setting myself up for failure. Well…the circumstances are such that the outcome can’t be great anyway. So, I’ve had to change my attitude pretty quickly. In terms of eating, I have to treat this like a vacation and be conscious, but a bit relaxed. My only comfort at the moment is that this trip isn’t lasting for more than a few days. Soon enough I’ll be back in my own environment and from that point I can do my best to stay on track. A few days of poor choices isn’t going to erase the hard work I’ve put in over the past 8 months. Damn right!
Tricky balancing act
I’m in a very odd place on this whole fitness/nutrition thing that I’ve been pursuing over the past few months. After a steady decline my losses have slowed down. I’m not gaining, but I’m not really losing as much as I have been over the past while. I’m quite sure it has to do with the fact that I haven’t been quite as consistent with training. Well, then. The obvious thing to say is that if I want to get back to a point where the weight tumbles off more readily I need to pick up the training again. The thing about that is that I’m not entirely in the mood for that right now. Like I wrote a few days ago, I need a bit of a break from running so much. So, without the running factor I’ve been toying around with my food intake. Since I’m not burning so much I’ve had to cut down on calories. Thing is, that’s been pretty damn tough. I’ve been eating without denying myself much, just as long as I meet my nutrient requirements and limits. Having had a bit more freedom before, trying to find ways to cut back is a bit of an eye opener. At the same time, I know that I can’t go too hardcore on cutting back because I need the food to fuel the runs that I do manage to get done. It really is a tricky balancing act.
Should I stress about all of this? Probably not, right? There needs to be relaxed periods built into whatever endeavours we take on. Yeah, I’m not achieving the most awesome results right now, but I know what’s needed to get back to that point. And I know what my schedule will be like in the next few months. I’ll reach my milestones–maybe later than I originally wanted, but I’ll hit them nonetheless. I swear.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a run tomorrow morning and I’m hungry as heck right now. An oatmeal chocolate chip cookie is calling my name.
Sleep attacks
I’m not even going to scare myself by thinking about worse case scenarios, but I’ve been seriously fatigued as of late. I know, I know, after yesterday’s post which wondered out loud whether I’m doing far too much the reason for the fatigue should be obvious. In the past week, I’ve fallen asleep on the couch four times. I’m not talking about simple napping either. Often, I find myself sitting on the couch…then I find myself needing to get comfortable in a horizontal position while listening to music. Then, after a blink or two I suddenly find that hours have passed and it’s suddenly the middle of the night. I’ve done so in my work clothes and in my running gear. The lights are often on in the kitchen and in the living room.
Yes, I know that it’s a horrible habit.
I need to figure out what to do with myself. Perhaps I’m just not eating enough. Before I was saying that I was eating too much, and now not enough? Well, my current caloric ranges are based on me burning around 2450 calories through exercise per week. Last week I went over 4000. So, it’s possible that I’m under-eating by a little bit. Still, I don’t want to raise my ranges and sabotage my efforts like I did over the holiday period. Then again, I totally am burning way more calories now that I’m late into my training cycle, so it’s a legit concern.
Fatigue isn’t so bad on occasion, but when it starts blocking me from getting some things accomplished, then I know that there are bigger issues afoot. On my way home I was thinking about how I wanted to bake something because it’s been a long time since I’ve done so. Now that I’m here, the fatigue just kind of hit me over the head. It shouldn’t be a struggle to do something that I so obviously want to do.
Anyway, I’m not whining. I just need to get my thoughts in order.
And I need to get a good night’s sleep.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
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