Walls.

Loyal readers, you may have noticed something amiss. Something askew. Basically, I’ve been slacking about as hard as I’m capable.  Really, I’ve wasted the entire last month and it’s time to stop.

It started around Christmas. I didn’t have a great Christmas, diet and exercise-wise, which by itself is not a particularly big deal.  I lost the weight I had gained fairly quickly, and in the week after the new year I was back on track.  Then last weekend happened.  I went down to Anaheim for a work conference and I just went off the rails.  Pizza and chips and beer and liquor and all manner of other unhealthy things, along with workouts that could be described generously as cursory, led to a large gain that I haven’t even figured yet. 

Once I got home, the problems continued.  I got stuck in a deep funk, and those who know me know that I’m prone to bouts with depression.  I wasn’t in a dangerous place, just one where I wanted to hide away from the world and everyone in it.  This usually is in conjunction with unhealthy eating and a lack of any motivation.  To be fair, I did a decent job of keeping things in range, but I haven’t undone the damage yet.

Finally, my body spent the last two days holding the line before giving in this morning and letting loose a nasty chest cold/flu that has just sapped every bit of energy, except for the part of me that wants to eat.  For some reason, when I’m sick, my body either has no interest in eating or I want to eat everything in sight.  This one is unfortunately the latter.  Luckily, I have lots of good foods around that will keep me full.  A couple of recommendations: La Tortilla Factory’s high-fiber tortillas (I know, I’ve talked about these before) have only 80 calories with 12 grams of fiber and 8 grams of protein each.  And All-Bran Buds, in 1/3 of a cup, have 13 grams of fiber and 3 grams of protein.  These are the foods you want to eat to get full and stay full.

Finally, I’ve decided that I’m officially stopping the daily weigh-ins.  I’ve been weighing in every day for eight months now and I’ve gotten to the point that I know what I need to do to lose weight. I may not do those things all the time, but I know what they are.  Also, I’m getting to the weight where weight loss is going to be a slower process, and I still get frustrated when I see a gain.  Those are going to happen more now, and weekly weigh-ins will keep me more sane. 

I’ve come a long way, but now comes the hard part.  I’ve hit my first wall, and if Warrior Dash taught me anything, it’s that I need help getting over walls. 

Bad, no and further.

Another holiday season has come to an end, and the question that a large number of people ask (or at least ask themselves) is, how did you do?  Did you make healthy choices?  Are you closer to or further (farther?  I never know) from your weight-loss goals?

The answer:  Bad, no, and further (farther?  Damn!).

I didn’t go off the deep end or anything, and I have some things that I can point to as successes, but by and large, I failed this holiday season.  Over the last seven months, I’ve had a fairly iron will, and my slip-ups have been isolated and short-lived.  Not this time.  I ate badly.  Not just a few bad foods, but I really just threw out every rule that I had.  I ate candy and Mexican dip and cookies and all manner of treats that I usually can resist, and my workouts were spotty to say the least.  I did work out, probably five or six times since I left for my break on the 21^st, but I can’t say that I did my best.

The most surprising thing wasn’t that I had a fall-off-the-wagon moment – those are a nearly-universal occurrence for people trying to lose weight.  What was shocking is how easily I fell back into all my bad habits.  Luckily, this time binging wasn’t a huge concern.  Eating 1500-2000 calories a day has shrunk my stomach enough that I can’t binge very effectively.  However, mindless eating was a huge problem, and eating when I had the slightest urge was an issue.  When I started adding up the calories that I was eating, it was just shocking.  Eating 3000, 4000, even 5000 calories in a day is not that difficult when you eat without thinking.  The worst part is, I know that I wasn’t eating as badly as I did when I was a fat fatty.  Then again, it takes a lot of calories to support a 400-pound body at rest, and even more to gain weight at that size. 

In the end, though, I’m not that bad off.  Despite my best efforts, I’m only 2.2 pounds heavier than I was on the 21^st, from 279.2 to 281.4.  And my terrible terrible eating means that this week should be quite fruitful on the weight-loss front.  Also, my running accomplishments have continued over the break, beginning with Christmas Eve.  As many of my readers will recall, until Thanksgiving of this year, I had never run more than a mile at any point in my life.  In addition to that, the one full mile I’d run in ten years, back in the summer, was over 11 minutes.  And I hadn’t been burning up the track.  The work is finally starting to pay off, though.  On Christmas Eve, I ran six miles in a row, and I did it in 58:58.  Not breaking any records, but that’s six miles in less than 10 minutes each. And yesterday morning, I ran my first sub-30 minute 5K, in 29:07. 

So it’s back on the horse!  The Hop Hop Half Marathon is March 24^th and I want to run the whole thing.  I know that I have some runners that read this blog, so if you have any advice on a training plan, let me know.

But now, I’m back at work, which is incredibly helpful.  I can’t say I’m happy to be back, but a scheduled workday is a hell of a silver lining.