Balancing myself in Week 2

Helloooooo,

I'm writing this slightly relaxed!  It's Sunday, I have the day off, and I had an amazing sleep where I woke up naturally just after 9am.  Winning.  I've been so non-stop this week, one of those weeks where I haven't had literally 5min. to myself, from very early to very late.  So today is awesome!

Today's the end of Week 2 of September Round ...which means I'm 2 weeks into pulling myself back up and being strong.

This week was a good one; I didn't stray unplanned, once.  I had one planned treat meal on Friday night: I went to my favourite RSL which has my favourite schnitzel and chips, with some of my favourite friends.  I was surprised by myself, as I decided I'd have the schnitzel and chips early in the week.  As Friday came around, I was starting to think I actually wouldn't order it.  I didn't need it, I wasn't completely focused craving it, and I thought a yummy salad or something else there would satisfy.  Sometimes knowing *I can* is enough...I don't actually need to do it.

Wednesday night boxing

But.....  I had such a bad day on Friday, I was in tears a couple of hours before dinner and by 7:30pm, I was like "I don't care about anything, I want all the schnitzel and chips!"  I took note that it was a bit of an emotionally chosen meal (the pre-planning just easily enabled it).  But that's all I did, I took note of how I was feeling, ate it, enjoyed it, and didn't think about it after.  It's little behaviours like this that make me proud of myself, that I can just notice things, and observe.  Because I guess ultimately that turns into learning and growing.

So other than that one meal, I've eaten within my calories every day.  Most of the meals have been home prepared, but there's always those pesky meals out, where you have to estimate the calories.  

Yesterday was a little hard; I ate breakfast and lunch out.  I chose okay, could have been better, but I estimated that I stuck to my cals.  Last night I was meant to eat dinner out too but got away with eating my own prepped meal at home first, without it being socially awkward.  (By me not eating when out).  That's forever an issue I find with meals out: I am often more than happy to eat food at home or bring my own, but there's a fine line between being focused and on track, and being a normal person who should be able to eat with friends and not have it be overthought.

I get away with it by just:

1. Limiting the meals out as much as I can (eg. encourage friends to have a coffee date instead of a lunch date).
2. When I can, bring my own food.  eg. there's a cafe downstairs at my work where I sometimes meet friends for lunch.  If I go there and my friend orders something from the cafe, I know I can get away with bringing my own food in - I know the staff there and etiquette wise I know it's ok.  And most friends I meet there understand and don't think I'm being weird or annoying by bringing my own food.
3. Being able to do this though is of course very rare!  So usually I do eat from the menu like a normal person.  In which case I just try to choose smartly off the menu.
4. And in times where I think my ordered meal is higher in cals than I should be having, I

   

   Smashed avo

   just don't eat the whole thing.  eg. I chose this for breakfast yesterday: smashed avocado on toast with feta. I ate 3/4 of this meal, and happily left the rest.  (It wasn't very good so that helped haha).  The other night I had another meal where I cut it in half as soon as I got it, and then looked at the half as my new, whole meal.  Cutting it first sort of helps me visualise how much I will be eating.  I gave the other half to a friend and he loved it, so winning all round.  I usually eat my entire meals - it probably sounds like I always leave stuff on my plate. :)  I am almost a plate licker haha, but occasionally when it's going to set me over, I just have to downsize!

It seems to be a case of forever chasing balance: of being normal (ha!) in social situations, and being someone who is hugely overweight and has a goal to be a lot lighter / healthier and needs to make choices to help me do this.

I haven't had to do a huge cook-up / prep session this week, because I've instead done about 3 little ones, and I have heaps of food stocked up.  I have 8-9 days of lunches and dinners in my freezer, and all I need to do is duck to the shops later to get 3 days of breakfast ingredients, and snacks.  I'm going through a phase of eating the same thing every lunch or every dinner, so I probably should look to see if non-variety could be an issue.  But for now I LOVE the meals I've got ready (dinner-wise I am addicted to the 12WBT Baked Crumbed Fish with Smoked Paprika Wedges!  Hugely!) and the fact I get excited about having it for dinner (each day.......) is good while I'm settling myself back into good habits.

As much as I have my food mostly ready to go, I'm a bit nervous about this week, as I have a few situations where I'll have a bit of temptation.  I'm traveling 3x this week, and I've said before how much I struggle with food when I'm away.  Two of the trips are just day trips, but I'll still have to battle airport lounges, aeroplane food, and eating on the run.  One of the days lunch is actually someone doing a food presentation. :o  And then on the weekend, I have a weekend away with friends...so many red flag moments up ahead.

AKA long overdue pantry cleanout

I haven't done pre-season yet :(  but I did end up doing Kitchen Makeover without realising.  I had to make some space in my pantry, fridge and freezer, and in doing that did a major overhaul (I do so in the fridge and freezer regularly, but the pantry not so much).  I know exactly what I have now, and everything feels more clear and 'streamlined.'

Exercise wise I really pushed myself this week.  I did 5 boot camp sessions; I can't remember the last time I did that.  I think I pushed myself possibly a little far?  Because by Friday mornings session, I felt, simply, fatigued.  Sleep wise I was tired, but it wasn't that, it was my body.  I pushed myself with weights on Thursday night, and I think backing up on Friday morning, using some of the same muscles, just made me reach a limit.  I was doing clean and press, and lowered the weight because I didn't trust myself holding the weights. 

I worked out a new way to get that 'incidental walking to work / to my car' into my routine, that

Post workout lie down

I think will work.  More on what that is soon; but why I brought it up now is that I planned to start doing it on Friday.  Meaning after boot camp, I would walk a bit to work.  But I was so exhausted, I didn't know that it was a smart thing to do.  I was nervous I'd pass out if I did, so I drove straight to the office, and plan to start the walk thing on Monday instead.

Hopefully it doesn't sound like I'm over-exercising, because trust me, I definitely am not.  If anything it's textbook wise, the opposite.  I'm also only physically able to do 50% of my exercise plans, so even when I do train, I'm not even going as nuts as I would be in an injury free world with no physical limitations.  I think Friday was probably just a case of pushing myself a little too much after having a few weeks off, and just muscle fatigue from the weights.  I guess what also happened is that I actually hit my exercise targets, which my body is clearly not used to at the moment! ;)

After parkrun / 30+ Virtual Run

I'm going to take care of myself this week, listen to my body, and not overdo it.  With this weeks travel, I'll time wise actually have to do less anyway, which is probably a good thing.

I felt fine again on Saturday, and went and did parkrun.  This was a special parkrun though, as it was also me doing a Virtual Run that I'm in!  The 30+ crew have organised a Virtual Run, where basically we can do a run anywhere, at any time, and they send us a medal in the mail!  Other than doing Mothers Day Classic in my own place and time this year (I still am so impressed that this was an option!), this was my very first Virtual Run, and I think it's such a cool concept!

The finish line

I registered for the (virtual) 10km, but the latest with my knee is that I am only able to run 200m intervals :( and that I should work back up to 5km. :(  Considering this and how I felt on Friday, I decided that to do parkrun plus another 5km or 10km event this weekend would be very stupid, so I combined it; and did the 30+ Virtual Run as parkrun.  I did the intervals as per my Osteopaths advice, and completed it!  

I also did intervals across the Story Bridge on Thursday night, extremely spontaneously.  I wrote about it on my Instagram, but basically I was driving across the bridge when I decided I felt like running across it!  At the very last minute, I pulled my car over and ran across the bridge and back, just for an exercise rush!

My water intake is on track, but my sleep definitely isn't.  I have a longstanding issue with sleep / time / over commitment that is particularly bad right now.  I'm going to focus on this.

I think that's the main gist of my Week 2, food, exercise etc. wise.  So much more to blog about, but I felt like doing a little update on how this week went.

Story Bridge at night

I was a bit frustrated this morning; I do mid week, and very often, daily weigh ins.  (I explain why I do this and don't have issues in this post, so don't freak out at me).  So this morning I weighed and I've lost 100g since Wednesday.  I really felt it would be more by now.  The really cool thing is, when I started writing this paragraph, I was frustrated about it and didn't know why it would be 100g when I really was expecting more.

When I did a quick search of my blog to get the link I just used above, I came across this older blog post I wrote, and I've kind of explained it all for me!  Talk about helping myself!  Blogging therapy at it's best.  I suddenly feel a whole lot better. :)

So yeah it's still a few days away but next Wednesday may not be a glorious success scale wise, but at least I'm sort of expecting it now, and I will just keep going.  I'm doing (most of) the right things, and that will bring results in it's own time.  I lost 3.1kg in Week 1 and 700g in Week 2, so I'm on the way down.  

More than that though, I'm just really proud of myself that I'm 2 weeks into making good

On the bridge

choices again, and that I picked myself up from a fall at all.  Not to have tickets on myself in a bad way, but I am really proud of that.  If anyone out there is 2 weeks into their Attempt #32149, or 2 months, or even 2 days, then you too should be bloody proud.  

I get it; I know so well that this takes strength.

Bring on Week 3!