Good Times, Bad Times

(In case reading about eating specific foods bothers you, maybe you'll want to skip this post.)

Ugh. My eating has been up and down lately. I had a good day yesterday, and a pretty bad one today.

It's funny. I mean, I generally allow myself Fridays to be off the wall a bit, but I generally don't go too crazy. I have weigh-in at Fleet Feet in late morning and then grab lunch right after (because by then I am starving), and lately my sort of "treat" lunch has been from Subway: I'll get a diet soda (!!!), a bag of Doritos, a 12" roast beef sub with all the veggies and some vinaigrette, and... three M&M chocolate chip cookies. It's a big splurge and it's very filling, as you can imagine, but I make my way through it and I enjoy it quite a lot. Usually.

Today I had brought in some leftover pizza from dinner last night and was going to have that for lunch instead, but I got Subway anyway. This time I decided to get ham with mustard instead of my usual, and I tell you what... it wasn't that great. The mustard got all over everything and the bread didn't really do it for me and... it felt SO excessive. Because it is.

*sigh* Somehow by the time I got home I was pretty hungry and ended up having some of the leftover pizza. And then I had some Cheetos. And then I had some gelato. And more Cheetos.

I don't have too many episodes like this anymore. It pisses me off when it does, but at the same time I must be forgiving of myself. I must also realize that this is not the end of the world, and it doesn't negate everything else that I've done so far. It's easy for the thoughts of worry about what will show up on the scale to mount, but what's done is done. Onward.

Part of "onward" is exercise. Tomorrow is the Saturday morning group workout with my running group, and a killer one is slated – back to the hills of Chestnut Ridge, with intervals of 3 minutes walking and 4 minutes running. It's the first time we're doing longer running intervals than walking. Nervous! Nervous about what, I don't know. I'll go and I'll get it done, but no doubt it is going to be hard. It'll also burn some calories, maybe mitigate some of what I did today with my eating.

While I have kept up with my running practice, my yoga practice has gone to the wayside a bit since I went on vacation. I'm not sure why, but I do know that I miss it and this weekend I want to be sure to fit it in. The nice thing is, though, that I do try to use what I have learned doing yoga into everyday things – measured and mindful breathing when I need it comes in handy, some light stretching and balance snuck in here and there. Yoga is certainly on my mind a lot.

I've also been thinking about strength training, which I haven't been doing. I do consider much of the yoga I practice to be strengthening, but sometimes I miss going to the gym and working with weights, or doing lunges and squats. One of the things I need to figure out is how to fit everything I want to in my schedule. That might well be my biggest challenge.

Looking ahead: my 5K training group finishes up with its last group run on April 28th, and our graduation race is on May 3rd. That gives me four more weeks to work on my 5K goals: 1) Finish the distance without walking and 2) Finish in 45 minutes or under. Right now I'm able to do the distance in around 50 minutes, give or take a minute or two. Whether I can shave five minutes from my time in a month, I don't know, but I do know that I've made a lot of progress since the middle of February. I think if I work hard, I can make it happen. I mean, the times I am making now still include quite a lot of walking, so I would imagine that running the whole time would help. (Unless, that is, I actually walk faster than I run, which is a possibility!)

Anyway, as always, I am trying to focus on the positives. For instance, last night I noticed for the first time that my fingers are deflating! At my heaviest weight they had become really puffy, almost comically so. Not so anymore! How cool is that? So when things like that happen – or when I can fit into pants I haven't fit into for over ten years, I am not discouraged by the often stubborn scale reading. How could I be?