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Posted: 10 Sep 2012 06:00 PM PDT Yesterday marked six weeks until my marathon, and there is something about that number that screams "do a challenge!" or "make some six-week goals!" Six weeks just seems like the perfect amount of time to focus on a goal. After thinking all week what type of "six weeks until my marathon" challenge I wanted to do, I actually came up with two things. The first, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, is to give up peanut butter for six weeks--not forever, but six weeks. I've been eating way too much of it, and when I binge, I always binge on peanut butter or something with peanut butter in it. So I am actually kind of excited to explore new snack foods. So far, there have been no withdrawal symptoms ;) The second, is something I never thought I would ever do--I actually signed up for Weight Watchers Online. I've written before that I had bad experiences with WW, and that I did their program on my own when I first started losing weight. Eventually, I found all kinds of flaws with the (old) program and decided to switch over to counting calories. I did try the new PointsPlus program for a couple of weeks when it first came out, but I didn't have luck with it, and I never tried it again. Recently, Mary gave the new program a try, and it planted the little seed in my brain that had me thinking, "Maybe I should give it another chance, I have all the materials..." Another reason I decided to try it is because of marathon training--my appetite is all over the place. Sometimes I'm starving, even after eating all of my calories for the day, and sometimes I feel just fine eating the low end of my calorie range. The one thing that I liked about counting Points rather than calories in the past is that there are "free" foods--when I did the program, it was most vegetables that were free. But with the new program, all fruits and most veggies are free. So on those days during marathon training when I feel like I'm ravenously hungry, I can really bulk up my meals with fruits and veggies. Also, as I've mentioned, I have been feeling kind of out-of-control lately with my eating, and I feel like I need some structure, at least for a while, to get back on track. When I mentioned WW to Jerry, he got really excited about it. He said that he really misses when we used to count Points together. He was bummed yesterday to see that his weight is up about 10 pounds as well, and he said he wants to count Points again to get it back down. Now, I know there is nothing magical about counting Points (or PointsPlus, rather)--it really is just a glorified way of eating less. But sometimes I like to change things up and do things differently to make it fun for me. Enter the six-week challenge. I'm going to give the program six full weeks (last time, I only gave it about two weeks), sticking with it as carefully as I can, and just see what the results are. I would like to lose 5-10 pounds in that time, but most importantly, I just want to gain back a sense of control. I always do best with my eating during the fall and winter, so hopefully I can get back into my goal range. And then I need to come up with a good plan to stay IN the range instead of going up and down with 10-15 pounds. But for right now, I'm going to try embracing the program and giving it a fair chance. My friend Stephanie does Weight Watchers, and I was super inspired when I saw her recent before and after pictures. She looks amazing!! She reached goal this year, but continues to count Points. So anyway, today is Day 2 and everything is going well. I got off to a rocky start yesterday, because my friend Danielle was in town (she's moving from Minnesota to Washington D.C. and was passing through) and my mom made dinner. I ate there, and then had not one, but TWO pieces of dessert. I did look it up and count it, but I used up a lot of my weekly points already. I had an AWFUL morning as far as running goes. Today, I had planned on doing an 18-mile run. Last night, I plugged in my Garmin to charge, plugged in my iPod for some new podcasts, laid out my running gear, mapped out my route, got everything ready so that the morning wouldn't be hectic. This morning, I woke up and got dressed in my running clothes, then got the kids ready for school. I left as soon as the bus picked them up, and drove the 20 minutes to park at the community center, where I start my run. As soon as I pulled into the lot, I realized I forgot my Garmin at home. I was SO bummed. I thought about doing the run without the Garmin, but I really didn't want to. If it was just a six-miler or something, I would have run without it, but the Garmin gives me a whole timeline of my run, which is fun to have when I've run 18 miles. So I decided to go home and get it, and then go to the State Park instead (which is only 10 minutes away instead of 20). So I drove home, grabbed my Garmin, and headed out to the State Park. I got almost all the way there when I realized that the heart rate monitor I put on wasn't working. I had put on an old heart rate strap because the new 910xt strap feels like razor blades under my boobs. Again, I could have just gone without it, but on a run as long as 18 miles, it's important for me to be able to monitor my heart. So I went back home AGAIN, switched out the strap, then went to the State Park. As soon as I pulled into the lot, I saw this: There was a sign next to it that said the trail was closed, and there were a bunch of trucks doing some sort of construction. At that point, I just screamed in frustration. It was already after 9:00, which is late to start a long run. In my pissed off state of mind, I just thought, "Fine--I'm just going to run 18 miles on the fucking treadmill!" Hahaha... Got home, set up the treadmill and started running. I couldn't figure out why my pace was showing to be so slow even when I kept bumping up the speed on the treadmill. Then I realized that I had forgotten to turn off the GPS on my Garmin when I started running indoors, so it screwed up my pace. I didn't want to do all 18 miles like that, so I decided to just go outside, do a shorter run, and do my 18-miler on Friday. I'm glad I at least got in a good run today, because I was just so frustrated and irritated by everything going wrong (made worse by PMS, I'm sure).
Wow, this post is way too long! |
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