The weight loss lessons I have to learn every time I want to lose weight.

Today I did Cathe's Total Body Giant Sets, and finally got a chance to use my beloved barbell this week.  Please excuse my laundry hamper in the background; for once it was not guarded against large dog's pilfering because I have been home all week.  And I was too lazy to take a different picture.

Barbell: DEEElicious!

While you don't use the barbell for upper body in this particular Cathe workout (she has others where you do), the upper body portion of this workout is nice because it gives you a set of these:

kerBLAM kerBLAM

Large dog was very surprised to see those guns, because they've been hidden since fall began.

He's not really surprised.  He just wants treats.

Female cat, as usual, was unimpressed.

Hyooman. Take your guns and leave.  Sleeping here.

What you should be impressed with is my eating today; it was good all around and I didn't succumb to any of the crap in the hubbs' junk food stash today.  That's because I was too busy working on work stuff today to even go downstairs near it or even think (fantasize) about what chocolately or salty goodness was in there.  And that's a lesson I've learned--and had to re-learn--over and over again concerning weight loss: if it's in the house, I'll eat it.  So what are some other lessons I've learned, you ask?  Well, below are a few of my favorite weight-loss lessons I have to learn every time I realize my pants aren't fitting anymore:

• If I stop weighing myself, my weight loss stops too.  I know they say you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, but if I don't get that daily feedback (with an understanding that it's the trend over time you need to look at, not the day-to-day fluctuations) I tend to be all, "Hey! I lost weight!  I'm good!" and then slowly begin adding back junky food bit by sneaky bit.
• For me, "I can eat out all I want as long as I watch my calorie counts" is a complete and total lie.  Most of the take-out stuff is junk, and I eat too much of it, and then the weight creeps back on.
• Eating 30 health bars a day doesn't mean you'll lose weight.  I have a tendency to overdo it on the health bars, especially now that I'm in a more sedentary job.  I have to switch out "health" bars for carrot sticks (VEGGIES BUH) so I can mindlessly snack the day away without guilt.  
• "I can eat what I want as long as I work out every day" is another complete and total lie.  I worked out every single day for 45 minutes for an entire year, didn't change my eating habits, and consequently didn't lose a single damn pound.  Only when I started eating right did the pounds start coming off.  Exercise makes me feel good; eating right makes me look good.
• If you have a bad eating day, just start again tomorrow.  If you don't give yourself another chance, you'll start spiraling down into the vortex of "I CAN'T DO THIS" and then, you know, you won't because you've told yourself you can't.  And then you will lose no weight whatsoever due to mental self-sabotage.
• View food as fuel, not a reward.  About every 3 nanoseconds I have to remind myself that I eat food to fuel my workouts (and, you know, live), not to give myself a nice hit of sugary crack to make myself feel good every hour.
• Know that your weight doesn't define you.  I grew up with a very warped "if you're skinny you're happy and liked and accepted" idea.  Now that I'm in my 40s and have tons more life experience that the teenager that used to think that, I realize that skinny is nice, having awesome guns and muscles is even better, and knowing who you are no matter what you weigh is literally the best.  Oh, and winning the women's race at an Olympic distance duathlon a full 30 pounds heavier than you were at a size 2 helps you remember that, too.

OK, before this post gets way too serious, here are today's learnings:

• Man did I miss using my barbell.  If I start talking about how much I missed it this post is gonna get way too weird.  Well, weirder than it already is, at least.
• Another lesson I learned today is to keep my hands busy with work (ugh) so they will not reach for food.  
• Or at least check my email a few times a day, because that always makes me want to pull my hair out and my hands will be busy doing that rather than picking up bad things to eat.
• As long as you chart your daily weight over time and see a downward sloping best-fit line, it's all good to weight yourself every day.  If you obsess over normal day-to-day fluctuations, you should weigh yourself once a week to retain your sanity.
• Nothing tastes as good as lifting a heavy barbell feels.
• kerBLAM....whoops.  One of my guns must have misfired.  Sorry.

Tomorrow's workout: 13 mile run.  Seeing as it's going to be a high of 7, looks like the treadmill for me.

Today's tempo run rating: Buh. And some pictures of food.

I had to do my tempo run (2 miles @ 8:30 pace) on the treadmill and my nose kept running the entire time.  And nature called right in the middle of the 2 miles at tempo pace, so it turned into mile repeats.  Oh well.  It was better than nothing.  Methinks I'm going to just suck it up, brave the cold, and do these outside from now on.

Today's tempo run rating: Buh.

The only good thing about that run was I got to try out a new pair of Feetures! socks that I got at the Dallas Marathon Expo.  How fun are these?  Very fun, that's how much fun.

They just scream AWESOME

Even though I am really tired of eating raw nature I managed to saute another load of veggies, but I wasn't happy about it.  At all.

Useless fact: My stove is an old home economics stove we bought
from a school district when they remodeled their home econ areas.

Besides dishing up some veggies, I am happy to report I made my first attempt at slow cooking an entire chicken.  I don't know if I've ever talked about this before, but I don't cook.  I'm that person that, when asked to bring something to the office potluck, goes to the store and buys the first thing she sees and hopes like hell it's actually edible and then hopes people will actually eat it and not leave it on the table like the last kid picked to play dodge ball in PE class. Cooking is not what I do, and it's not what I'm good at.  However, I got a slow cooker and found that there are some pretty easy and tasty recipes that can be made in that little miracle of lazy cooking technology.  So...I'm trying out some slow cooker recipes, and this chicken one was very ambitious for me because, you know, entire freaking chicken.  I even rubbed it first, which is not as naughty as it sounds. 

It's still cooking as I write this, so I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.  If I remember, that is.


Speaking of remembering, here are some learnings:

• I did every freaking tempo run during my last training cycle because I did them outside.  It's going to have to happen that way again; today's tempo performance just isn't going to cut it for a 4:05.
• I wish my fun socks could actually be seen while I was running a marathon.  Those need to be shared with the world.
• Veggies.  Buh.  Again.
• That chicken smells wonderful.  I just hope it's actually done cooking so I don't get a nasty infection of some kind that would stop me from running.

Tomorrow's workout: An easy 3 mile run OR this cardio circuit workout I found when I was rooting around in my DVDs...we'll see.

Some weights, some eating wins, and some useless supervisors.

Got my Cathe Ramped Up Upper Body on this morning, and since I haven't done this one in awhile I forgot how challenging it was.  I was struggling a bit on the shoulder presses during the workout.

Literally sucking it up, buttercup.

But it was a good thing I had my workout supervisor there to pull me through it.

What?  I'm sleeping.  You're on your own, Mom.

So my workout went fine, but my eating today could have been better.  Here were my eating wins and "whoops, shouldn't have eaten thats" for the day:

The Wins:

• I ate my veggies.  First round was sauteed veggies, and the second round was some baked veggie tots I found in the freezer section that were basically compressed sweet potato-cauliflower nuggets.  I'm a rabid fan of veggies disguised as something bad for you.  I wasn't so much a fan of the sauteed veggies, though, as is usual.

GAWD VEGGIES

• I ate nuts rather than my usual "health" bars today.  Unlike veggies, I can throw down nuts and legumes all day, especially the NUTrition wholesome nut blend.  You just have to be careful with overeating these little nuggets of nutrition, though, because they are pretty calorie dense.
• I turned my leftover chili into a chili dog for lunch, with a Hebrew National dog and a whole wheat bun.  Because you can only have a bowl of chili so many times this week.

• I really, really, really wanted to go get a Starbucks Refresher full of sugary strawberry goodness.  This was the original plan for the day, seeing as I had to pick up my groceries at Walmart and there is a Starbucks conveniently located right freaking next to it.  But I resisted the urge, especially after checking the grams of sugar in that drink online and being completely shocked by it (40 grams!!  Insanity).

Whoops, shouldn't have eaten thats:

• I located a stash of Xmas chocolate the hubbs had stowed away and I am sorry to report that about 6 Russel Stover candies are no longer with us.  RIP.
• The hubbs also has this ham and cheese and cracker tray thing in the fridge and I have been pilfering the crackers out of it and putting way, way too many in my chili when I have it in a bowl and not on a hot dog.

More wins than whoops-es, but my need to eat all of the carbs I come across if they are sweet or some sort of bread-like substance is still rearing its ugly head.  That's going to have to change if I'm going to lose the 9 pounds I gained during my last training cycle and get faster.

And my blogging supervisor had the best ending for this post, but he fell asleep on the job before he could tell me what it was.  My supervisors are useless, it seems.

Hyooman...you on your own ending this post.  *Snore*

Looks like you'll just have to settle for these learnings:

• I got told today that I shouldn't lift weights if I was serious about running.  I told them I couldn't hear them over the sound of my guns going off in their face.
• I'm off work for the week so it's been hard not to go into "free range eating" mode.  I'm trying.
• However, being off for the week and not driving by Starbucks twice a day is teaching me that I don't need to go there and consume excess calories twice a day.
• Hubbs usually does a better job at hiding junk food in places where I can't find it.  Because if I know it's in the house, rest assured I'm thinking about eating it.
• And, just in case it wasn't clear enough: Veggies.  BUH.

Tomorrow's workout: A little tempo run - just 2 miles @ 8:30 pace.  Let's see if I suck it up and go outside or wimp out and jump on the treadmill.