Get Real

Weekly Stats
Current: 198.6
Weekly Loss: -0.4
To Go: 23.6
Total 126.4

Had a small gain this week. I think I know what the problem is and more importantly how to fix it. I have been struggling with keeping track of my calorie intake. I found a program called Calorie Counter for my phone and it syncs up online. Just from breakfast this morning, I found out that I was eating too much of a good thing! By just measuring what I ate and tracking the calories, I figured I saved myself about 200 calories. I was way off in estimating this particular breakfast! That adds up quick even if you do exercise a lot. I will let you know (or you will see in next weeks weight loss) how it goes. Other than that, I had a great week. My back, though still a bit tender, is doing a lot better. I am careful in how I run and make sure I stretch the particular muscles that are giving me grief and that helps a lot. I had a great trail run on Friday and a great hike on Saturday. I took my trekking poles with me on Friday to give my back a break. I thought I wouldn't like having them, but it made the run fun! It was like a combination of skiing and running. My back felt good after as well. My hike on Saturday, was a 10 miler and I enjoyed it as well. I missed out getting wet in the rain as my timing was perfect in between storms.

One point of motivation is being realistic. Today's weigh-in has a couple of reality checks in it. Even though we may want to lose 10 lbs a month or run a half-marathon or what ever motivates you, there are going to be stretches when it is hard to stay on course. You might get sick and not able to work out as much as you would like. Perhaps you hit a plateau and are not on track to lose that 2 lbs you had hoped for this week. These things are going to happen. The biggest obstacle to overcome is discouragement. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst! Don't fall back into to bad habits because you are discouraged, fight through the obstacle and find a way up, over, around or through! Forward is the direction that you want to be headed. Choose feeling better, being more healthy. Take a deep breath and look back over the ground you've covered up to this point. I have learned that from my hiking. I will be tired from a long, steep climb, but if I take half a second and look back, I will be amazed at how far I have come! Catch your breath and move on. You can do it!

Keep up the great work everyone. Phil keeps pushing his exercise and eating right and is seeing great success in losing weight. Bill H and Todd A ran some great mileage this last week. Todd also had a great race! Hope the rest of you are having great success as well! Hang in there and I will too!