"Are You Going To Finish Strong?"

Weekly Stats
Current: 215.0
Weekly Gain: 5.6
To Go: 40
Total 110



I am glad I ran into this video half way through my tough week. I was all over the place. Most of it was my fault. I didn't watch was I was eating very well. Most of it could be classified under the category of "mindless eating." I wasn't purposefully trying to be really bad, but I wasn't being very careful either. 212 would have been bad enough, but when I stepped on the scale on Monday, I was 215. How in the world could I have gained nearly 6 lbs back! Normally, I blog on Monday's so that is the weight I usually go with. I got on the scale this morning and I had dropped back to 212. I know I didn't do anything to merit a 3 lbs loss in one day. I am back to being all over the place again.

I don't know if my body is super stressed out or what, but I have been wondering if I didn't recover properly from the half marathon. I probably should have recovered by doing less stressful things considering what I had put my body through and by getting injured either from the fall at the first of the run or all of the extra downhill on the run. When I got up at 5:15 this morning, I felt terrible. As I tried to talk myself into exercising, I was wondering if my body just needed a time to recover. I don't mean no exercising, but rather choosing to exercise at a less strenuous rate for a few weeks. When I thought about that and what I could do to modify the routine this morning, I found that I could get up off the chair in the bedroom and head down to workout. I have several DVD's that I fall back to on either cold days of on off-running days. I found a 15 minute routine to work on legs and abs, stayed at a moderate pace as I followed along and then got on the elliptical for 20 minutes. That was doable and I didn't feel any stress either physically or mentally.

So here is my plan for the next few weeks. No running. I still am feeling the effects from the half in one of my legs that has been slow to get better. I plan on walking on my usual running days. I will spend as much time exercising, just not running. I tried that on Monday and was able to do a 4.5 mile loop with no pain at all. I will also keep any high impact exercising to a minimum and so if my over-all health will be better as I take stress off the body and the mind. It takes a lot of mental effort sometimes to push yourself to your limits. I will keep you posted on how I am feeling over the next few weeks. That will get me to the first of the year, hopefully healed up and ready to "stand up and finish what I started!" (Bob Harper) I still plan on not going over 215 over the holidays and complete my no weight gain goal over the holidays.

Great job to all of you who have maintained/lost weight during the challenge. Chris, Hillary, Martha, Gordon (I think), Rachel!! (stand and delivery method!), and me (even with all of the up and down). Sorry if I missed anyone else who is on the challenge. Hang in there and I will too!

Here are some thoughts from watching the video.

Time to finish strong. Finish strong in the month of December, don't give up keep trying. Finish strong in 2011. Finish strong the rest of my life. What are you going to do to finish strong. If he can get up, so can I from my struggles.