Fun at the amusement park...
...not so fun on the scale
I’ve had a lot of ups and downs this week. I’d say about 50% of the upswings were within my control. The other 50% was due to my lady parts doing their thing… but that’s out of my control, so I’m going to focus on the half that was in my control…
The good, the bad, and the ugly…
The whole week started out rocky. I didn’t do any meal prep over the weekend which ended up having a ripple effect for the rest of the week.
Typically, I prep breakfast and lunch for the work week on Sunday night. Once I have all my ingredients on hand, I fire up Netflix and get to work. As I’m going, I take note of the volume and/or weight of all the component ingredients so I can enter it accurately into MFPs recipe calculator. Then, when everything is cooked and ready to go, I portion across my containers for the week.
Awesome, right? Unfortunately, I didn’t do that.
Instead of “grab and go” in the morning I scrambled to throw together breakfast/lunch each day. Although I managed to pull together reasonably healthy options, I didn’t have enough for breakfast the first few days. This of course meant that I was hungry again by mid-morning, so I ate my lunch early. Then I was hungry again by mid-afternoon, so I ended up hitting the office candy bowl (I limited myself to 2 pieces) and having a pre-dinner snackle when I got home from work. Some was tracked, some was not, I have little faith that anything was accurate. I was able to make adjustments by midweek, but by then I had gotten used to the idea of having unplanned snacks again. No Bueno.
Lessons Learned
Food prep is your friend. Don’t ignore it. Making healthy eating choices is so much easier when you have a plan.
Also, as annoying as it is, snacking counts and yes, it really adds up. A fun size twix here, a spoonful of peanut butter there, just a few bites of bread and salmon dip *ahem* when no one else is looking… I probably added 200-300 calories/day purely through snacking. They weren't even good calories. Was it really worth it? Did I feel better? More satisfied? No, not really.
These lessons aren’t new. I’ve learned them before, but clearly sometimes a refresher course is necessary.
Silver linings
I’m making it sound sort of like week 4 was an unmitigated disaster, but it wasn’t. Although it was far from perfect, there were definitely some positive aspects.
- Even though my food tracking was inaccurate and inconsistent, I didn’t give up completely. I think that is why I was able to recover somewhat later in the week rather than letting things spiral completely out of control.
- Exercising? CRUSHED IT!!!: Daily Burn 365 on Tues, Thurs, and Fri; Zombies, Run! on Sat (3.5 mi) and Sun (4 mi). I met my daily step goal on all of my exercise days, and came close on Wed.
- Despite battling hormones, poor planning, and an inability to resist snacking, I don’t think I actually gained any weight. In fact, I’m hoping that with resumption of good eating habits and a repeat of last week’s exercise habits, I’ll manage to get off the rollercoaster and finish the week 1-2 lbs closer to my round two goal. ::knock on wood:: ::fingers crossed::
- Even my highest upswing was below this month’s goal weight (if only by less than a pound) and the week average is nearly two pounds under. I’m still feeling good about my round 1 weigh in, although I plan to be extra careful the next two days. PS - I made my Round 1 weigh in this morning and was nearly 3 lbs under the goal weight!!