Journey Updates

The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 3

January 30, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

This week we had house guests. Normally that's a dicey thing, but one of them was a friend from California (alma mater) who we get along quite well with. We had a lot of fun. And it was a successful week for him as well (he was here for grad school auditions). And despite having a friend in town which often leads to a variety of dining out or just dining poorly, I still got to cook most meals and eat healthy. Well, for the most part.

I took a few more licenses in the first part of the week than I would have liked. Sunday we had a full day and so I chose to not go to the gym and sort of have a cheat day. But even in my "cheating" I tried to remain faithful to healthy eating and we ended up walking well over 2-3 miles around the city getting from one thing to another. Brunch with friends, then a play written by one of them, then to a bar where I had some nachos but only wine.

Food

Speaking of wine I think my intake has been a little too high in the last week or so. I have no problem having a glass, but more often than not that glass turns into two, or even more. And as we know from before, that's when we have a problem. The booze inhibits leptin and makes me want to eat more. Which leads to another problem - in that I've been grazing a lot more. Or just eating more than I need to (like a whole personal pizza when half would have sufficed). I'm learning. But thank God for small graces - like the fact I'm still consistently eating only real and nutritious foods. Just about the only processed food I've had lately is bread-products, and I make those all myself from scratch (except tortillas) so I know exactly what's in them. And I'm converting most of them to nice whole-wheat and flax recipes.

So aside from eating too much at times, I'm actually pretty satisfied with my eating.

Exercise

Working out has been better. I've been able to step it up a lot more this week, staying longer on the elliptical and just working harder. I didn't really get strength training in this week, but I'm okay with that. I didn't go to the gym on Wednesday, but made up for it with some ... other activity. No comment.

Weight

The hard part was that I wasn't really happy with the numbers on Wednesday, but that may just be some resistance typical of the second full week of training. Subsequent weigh-ins this week have been okay and in a downward direction, so I think if I stick with the program and stay motivated this week, I'll continue to see the results I want to see. Incidentally, my scale says my body fat percentage has rebounded to around 39.8 or so ... so that really low reading on Wednesday may have been a fluke. That's the tricky thing about trying to measure body fat ... it's tricky and easily inconsistent. There isn't, in fact, one good way of doing it (even at the doctor's). Oh well. As long as the indicative trend is downwards I'm happy.

Looking Forward

I feel like this is a critical time. I've been at this for a just about 3 weeks, and typically I give up around 6 weeks. There could be any number of reasons for giving up around week 6. In some cases I was just getting tired. In others I legitimately get interrupted by life (work, vacation, etc). But I may also have been frustrated by limited progress. But right now I'm below 300 lbs in the first 2-3 weeks - which is pretty good progress and by week 6 I could easily be the lowest I've been since starting this blog. If I can make really good progress right now, then I hope that will give me the motivation and the mojo to press on beyond the sixth week and into the many months to come and the dozens of pounds to lose.