... which is absolutely the most cliche title I could have given this post, especially considering I don't think any of my 3 supposed followers actually read my blog, and if there a were a real follower, s/he could easily deduce most of it from my posted data. But this needs to be written and analyzed because that Annika Q's Universal Solution to any problem.
My habits are slipping. I've begun drinking too much coffee and smoking pot too often, which you wouldn't know from the data. I also have been exercising only every other day all week. It started out with good reasons - we spent most of the day driving back on Sunday, I knew ahead of time I wouldn't get any more exercise than the bike ride home. Tuesday, I was in some combination of pain or lightheaded hunger most of the day, so I gave myself a pass on that one. But there was really no excuse for Thursday. Today, I really really was going to go out to the track... and then I got a little distracted and got too hungry to go out, had to eat lunch, and then was too full to want to run. I don't know if I'll end up going today, because there's a lot to do. Including reading for Monday, which is of course about to become the biggest time-sink in my life. At least I've eaten low calories on the days I didn't exercise - the diet really hasn't been that hard, calorically anyway. But I did experience some weirdly strong carb cravings this afternoon, and I notice that I've sort of started ignoring the reduced-dairy thing I had started a while ago. Besides, exercise is important not only because it's generally good for me but because it leads to larger deficits. I can eat lower total calories on days I don't exercise, but I can do larger deficits when I do exercise because 500 calories of exercise doesn't make me hungry for 500 extra calories.
Part of this maybe has got to do with the general disturbance this month has been. My job ended so I didn't go somewhere in the morning every day. I went on a bike trip, then was back for a week, then went on a long camping trip and came back. It's hard to re-establish routine after those kinds of things. Also, the intense exercise I did on those excursions was largely fueled by energy bars, which are rewarding and full of sugar. Calorically, they were justified, but they may have left some baggage.
Part of it may be psyching myself out. School's about to start, and I might be using it as an excuse to start failing early, in a way. I also just lost 4 pounds and zoomed past my first goal in a week away, which sends a bit of a "you can be lax" message. And I'm now at the weight I've been for most of my life. It seems a little less pressing to change what I'm used to than it was to undo recent damage.
Part of it is probably what I'm reading. What you read has a tendency to change your head - that's the whole premise of school. What I've lately been reading is PastaQueen (see sidebar). I'm up to a point in her archives where she has been basically stable for I don't know, a year or so at a point about 20 pounds from her goal weight, and isn't really bothered by it. Let me tell you, I felt a lot more energized to go run when I was reading anorexic blogs, and a lot more prone to do push-ups in between clips of Supersize vs. Superskinny. I guess they really are "thinspiring." That was the whole point of the original "obsessional diet" title - I'm so blah about this stuff normally, I have to practically pretend to have an ED to find an effective medium.
Although school will definitely be a time-sink, I think it'll be helpful to an extent by routinizing my life. I'll be on campus with the gym every day, and there's a specific morning window when I can do my exercise. Also, it'll give me stuff to think about besides my stupid weight. This has basically been my project all summer, and it's been particularly thought-consuming in August since my job ended. It's also getting to the point where the results are slowing down and the execution isn't so novel anymore. As long as I can get my exercise out of the way early each day, it'll be easy to go the whole day without thinking about food, then I spend 10 minutes planning tomorrow's and each night I get to look at an effortless deficit. Because I'll have other things to pay attention to, hopefully the next 5-10 pounds will just whiz by even if they're not going away that quickly.
Whatever happens tonight and tomorrow, I'm going on a neighborhood run Monday morning. I'll do 20 minutes of elliptical on Tuesday before yoga, and I'll do a regular 40 minutes before class on Wednesday. Repeat for Thursday and Friday, and go to the track Saturday. That's how I'm kicking off my first week of school. The diet should take care of itself - we planned dinner and breakfast for each day of the week, and whatever I bring to school is all I can eat for lunch and snacks. I've also added some new features to my second spreadsheet, which starts on the 14th, and which will estimate my daily deficit.
No comments:
Post a Comment