Mixed Results

Last week I posted about my grand plan for (re)starting weight loss and a healthier lifestyle.  The goal was to get up and workout every morning before work in order to 1) stay committed to exercising and 2) to kick start each day with a healthy habit.  All in all, I was very pleased with how this went.  On the 3 days I was able to stick to the plan (Monday, Tuesday, and Friday), I felt noticeably better throughout the day than I did on non-AM-exercise days.  Even more, I found it much easier to monitoring my eating on these days, mostly because I was a lot less hungry than usual.  Whether this was actually a physiological response to exercising before breakfast or some type of placebo effect is unclear.  What matters though is that it did work, which is huge.  I must admit I was a bit shocked with how immediately I saw benefits (albeit, not on the scale) with this new routine; with all the other diet/exercise plans I've tried, I've usually end up starving/cranky/discouraged.  This time I actually felt good as a result of change.  Now, don't get me wrong; I pretty much hated everything about waking up before sunrise.  No only was it dark and cold every day, running on half-awake legs hurt.  But this feeling was nothing compared to the energy I had throughout the rest of the day.  For the first time, I'm actually motivated to stick to something.  

So, given how good things went last week, why is this post titled "mixed results?"  Well for starters, I didn't make the commitment the entire week. This was mostly because I had few deadlines last week that kept me up later than planned on a few nights which made it exponentially harder to wake up by 6:45am.  But, given that this was my first shot at a pretty drastically different routine, I can live with slacking a couple days in week 1.  However, the major bingefest I had this weekend was most certainly a step backwards, and arguably negated my efforts during the week.  The fact that almost every hour of the weekend was scheduled is at least partially to blame for this; between a birthday outing Friday, planning and prepping for a Halloween party Saturday night, and another birthday party in MA on Sunday, there was little time (and desire) to prepare healthy meals or get in a walk.  Top that off with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy yesterday and you get a lot of days full of pizza, McDonald's, and unhealthy party leftovers (candy, chips, etc.).  Not surprisingly, I didn't manage to lose any weight this week and continue to hover around 206, approximately 40lbs out of the "healthy" range for someone my height and pushing 60lbs over my college weight.  

Depite this hiccup however, I remain encouraged and motivated by the results of the AM workouts.  I will pick up where I left off starting tomorrow and, thanks to a much more relaxed weekend this coming weekend, hopefully I won't slip as far as I did this weekend. Also motivating:  the Wallis Sands 1/2 Marathon on April 28, 2013.  I signed up a couple weeks ago in hopes to keep me running and it has worked.  I'd love a PR (currently 1:58:11) and think one is attainable so long as I train properly and shed a few pounds.  With this new routine, hopefully I'll do both!