Sabotage

(You're welcome, 80s children, for that Beastie Boys audio-visual)

I know I've been writing a lot about my fitness routine and weight loss efforts lately, and I hope you're not tired of it. Aside from my children, it's pretty much consuming my life right now. For a plethora of reasons, I'm not in classes this semester, and my "me" time is spent at the gym. This is my life, and this is my blog.

I started my current weight-loss and fitness journey on July 28. Since then I have lost 13 pounds, which boils down to about 4.3 pounds per week. And that sounds great! I keep pulling out my calculator and doing the math to see how much weight I will have lost by "x" date if I keep up this pace. Turns out, I could lose 78 lbs by the beginning of February. BUT, when you consider birthdays, holidays, and slowing metabolism from lower calorie intake and weight, you know a pace like this is hard - nigh on impossible - to maintain. That doesn't stop me from thinking about it.

This weekend, though, I realized that, while the average sounds great, the truth is I have only lost 4 lbs in the past 2 weeks. I had an initial burst of weight loss (probably mostly water weight), and have already slowed down. That hit me hard, psychologically. I decided I'd have to change something. I was already working out 6 days a week (running, kickboxing, and shredding), and eating only about 1000-1200 calories per day, depending. I had the brilliant idea to do maintain my workout program but switch to interval eating, keeping my current diet as an "up day" and adding in a super-low-calorie "down day" where I would consume only 600 calories or so. Yesterday was my "up day" and I ate "normally." Today was supposed to be my "down day."

I ate my shake for breakfast, around 8 am. I ate some grapes around 10:30. At noon I had another shake, for lunch. I was still hungry. An hour later, I was quite hungry. So I ate a 140 calorie, protein-rich snack. An hour later I was hungry. At around 3, I decided to make zucchini bread, since everyone and their brother had been talking about it. I went through the effort, substituting flax for eggs, tossing in some protein powder, waiting an hour for baking and cooling. And yes, I was still hungry. I wolfed THREE pieces of zucchini bread with smart balance (which has - OMG - NINE grams of fat per TABLESPOON).

I thought I was done. I knew I could recover from this, but I truly thought the day was a wash. I've already fucked up the day, I said to myself, I might as well enjoy it and eat some other things I've been denying myself. I planned take-out pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. I was even going to skip kickboxing and go see Thom Hartmann at Frugal Muse in Darien.

Then it started to rain. There was a hail warning. I thought, Maybe I'll skip Thom and go to kickboxing after all. Then I won't feel so bad about having pizza for dinner, anyway. So at 6, I geared up for class, laced up my shoes, and waited for Luke to come home. On the way to the gym, I was thinking of pizza. I was also thinking do I really want to sabotage my whole day because of a few pieces of zucchini bread? I went to my class and kicked and boxed. It was a half-empty class due to the aforementioned weather and I had to do something I HATE. I had to look at myself in the full-wall mirror at the front of the room. Usually, I position myself carefully behind someone so as not to have to do this. Tonight, there was no one. And I looked awful.

By the time class was over, I was exhausted, sore, and proud. I was also no longer in the mood for pizza. What might have been a full-day sabotage turned into one moment of weakness followed by redemption. Thank goodness for kickboxing.

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Daily Gratitudes

-- Ewan McGregor. Not to undermine my boys, but his very existence makes life a little more worth living.

-- Child's Pose. It is such a nice, relaxing stretch.

-- Zucchini bread. Because really? Despite the cup of sugar per loaf, there are worse things to binge on.

-- Luke. My cheerleader, my support system, my babysitter.