Monday Weigh-In & Thoughts - Wednesday the 18th Edition

Yay, it looks like Boo might finally have a home & the love he deserves.

Typically I do a Monday post, which is when I do my "official" weigh-in. However, I was super busy at the beginning of the week & just now had time to post.

Let's add to that the lovely cold I've been nursing for 5 days now. It was so bad Saturday morning I skipped my weekly swim. This did not make me happy, since swimming is my biggest calorie-burner of the week (and the most enjoyable), but I felt so crummy that I just couldn't do it.

And the yuckiness continued on until today, so I took a 4 day break from exercise. Not only was it the inability to breath properly due to stuffiness, but I was also extremely tired. I should've known something was up on Friday, when my regular workout left me extremely tired & a little nauseated. It was an effort just to get up & move around, so exercising was out of the question. Also, I wanted to give my body all the energy I could to fight off the cold as quickly as possible.

I did watch my calories & continued to eat as healthy as possible, while trying to throw in some cold-friendly items like orange juice & chicken noodle soup.

Good news from this? Even though I missed 2 days of exercise before Monday's weigh-in, I still managed to lose 2lbs, which I'm very pleased with considering how bad I felt.

Food - I did some mid-week tweaking on calories because I was burning too many & not taking enough calories in. I was ranging 1800-2000 a day. I also looked closely at my carbs & made sure they stayed under 230 grams a day, aiming for a percentage of 45-50%. I believe both really helped give me a good number on the scale. Of course, the nosedive in activity for Saturday & Sunday led to re-tweaking. Since I was burning a lot less those days than I had anticipated, I lowered my calorie intake a bit to compensate.

Exercise - I did my 3 days on the treadmill and Yoga on the other 2 days. I cut out Tae-Bo to try to lower my calorie burn a bit in anticipation of the big Saturday swim-a-thon, but obviously that didn't pan out. I'm still trying to find a balance of activity that gives me a good calorie burn, but isn't excessive. I did some strength training as well, but not as much as I wanted to.

Mood & Energy - It was pretty low all last week, and totally crashed on Saturday & Sunday. Trying to pick up extra household duties since Adam is back at work has put a lot of extra stress on me. I'm getting less sleep, I'm eating dinner later than usual, and the extra chores are causing some back pain...but it has to be done. Spidey is in 1st grade now & has homework almost every night, and by the time I get him from the babysitter after work, get home, do homework, feed the cats, feed Spidey, play the Wii with him (reward for a good day), and put him in bed, it's like 9:30 or 10 before I get to eat & sit down.

It's not anyone's fault...this is just the way things have to be for now. He's finally working the full week & we desperately need the money. I'd forgotten how hard it was with both of us working full-time & me out of the house almost 12 hours out of the day. I think this all led to me getting sick, which is usually what happens. Lots of stress = pushing myself more than I should = cough cough sneeze.

But we only have a week and a half more to go of this. Adam's last day at his job is the 27th, because as great as having the paycheck is, there is just no way we can do this & both of us go to college full-time & be there for Spidey. Financial aid will carry us with him only working part-time. I pray it will.

This (upcoming) week: The scale hasn't budged much since Monday, probably because I haven't been exercising. To compensate for the lower calorie burn for the week, I'm bouncing back down to 1700-2000 calories for the week. I don't anticipate a good drop this week, but I'm really hopeful I can knock out the last 3.6lbs this week & next week to meet my goal of 25lbs lost by the end of August. I'm going to keep trucking this week & get fully back in the groove next week.

Finally crawled back on the treadmill this morning. My body was not really happy about this, and even with just a 4-day break, my knee was grumbling.

Calories: 1700-2000

Wed, Fri: Treadmill, 7% incline @ 2.5mph - 50 mins

Thurs, Sun: 30 mins Yoga, maybe Tae-Bo, Strengthening exercises for upper, lower body & core

Sat: Swimming, 2 hours - 20 min crawl, 20 min backstroke, 10 min breast stroke, 10 min paddleboard, 1 hr general swim