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Welcome to my blog. The purpose here is simple: to chronicle my thoughts, actions, plans, and goals in getting healthy in the year 2017. Feel free to look around and offer encouragement or suggestions.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

June in Summary

I'll be honest. I don't want to write this one. I am pretty much totally disgusted with myself this month, mostly because I can't pinpoint exactly what went wrong. I began June at 279 and ended at 280. That's right. Not only did I not lose, I gained. What makes it worse is the fact that I did lose. About mid-month I weighed myself at 272. Exciting, right? Not when you stop and consider that that means I didn't just gain one pound. I gained 8 pounds. In two weeks. Perversely, I've been getting more complements than ever. 


I can't bring myself to attributing this solely to eating wretchedly. The reason being that I didn't eat any differently than I had before I started this mission. If eating that way alone caused 8 pounds of gain every two weeks can you imagine how huge I would have been? I would have been my own planet. Don't get me wrong. Eating poorly sure helped this phenomenal backslide along. I have no doubt about that. I'm even okay with it. I wouldn't have traded anything I ate or drank over my birthday weekend or father's day because it brought me joy and I never deny my joy. But if it isn't just the eating, then what was the difference this week? Because, frankly, we're looking at six days, at most, where I threw my good habits out the window. In the grand scheme of things, I've screwed up more often and more seriously in previous months without the same results. Here's the difference as I see it: I hurt myself. A lot. On three separate instances in the last couple of months I strained a few muscle groups, some more severely than others, but all notable. You may recall in one of my recent blogs that I mentioned returning to the weights. Well I did that. The trouble is that I tried to pick up where I left off and improve on that. It was not a high quality plan. So I killed my legs, particularly my adductors and gluts. I was walking funny for about three days. Then I got on the ab machine, lost count, and decided I'd just go until I felt the burn and then do about 25 more. Let's just say I never got to 25. Turns out, the burn means "I'm done." But the most severe injury I inflicted on myself was with my arms. I made the mistake of working my arms after having seen that horrible flappy fat swing around. I can't remember what I did, but I think I probably pointed at something and my arm waved at whoever I was talking to all on its own. So I had a little devil telling me to handle that. Long story short, I couldn't straighten either of my arms for four days. That was when I first noticed a difference where the scale was concerned. So I wonder if the muscle gained from my little misadventures may have made the difference. I know it's cliched, saying it's muscle gain and not fat, but that is honestly the only thing I can think of that really set June apart from all the months that came before. Of course, it could just be denial talking. Occam's Razor pretty much says the simplest explanation is most likely the truest. The simplest explanation is that I ate horribly and now I'm paying for it on the scale. Frankly, as disappointing as it is, it really doesn't matter. I'm not letting this setback get in my way. 


As it is July, I'm beginning a new quarter, and thus raising the stakes. I'm adding more water. It will be hard, as I just got into the habit, really, of drinking my two liters. I'll definitely need to incorporate water into my work meals in order to get it all in. My portion sizes need to decrease. Honestly I don't feel like I did that at all last quarter, but this quarter might actually be easier. I should be eating half of what I used to, so if I have to I'll take what I normally would and put half back. I'm adding Thursday as a vegetarian day. I admit to being reluctant to give up my third meat day, but there can be no success without sacrifice. Sorry, meat, I love you, but I have goals. I'm supposed to do 30 minutes of weights daily and an hour of the gym daily. The gym I've already been doing, but we all know I struggle with weight lifting. I understand that it is important, but I still really really really dislike it. My restaurant outings should be reduced to once a week. I admit, I've been lacking diligence on this point. It was something I thought I'd be better at, but now that I recognize my weakness, I can build upon it. As for soda, it's down to once every other week. I really don't see this as a challenge. Giving up the soda has been a lot easier than I anticipated. But really, with all the water, who has time to drink soda?


So that is where I am. I'm a little lost, admittedly, but I have faith that I'll find my way back to the right road. 

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