So, first off, apparently I don’t know my days of the week. Made a boo-boo for Sunday and Monday in my daily infographic. Moving on …
Food: I’ve noticed that the last day or two, I have not been nearly as hungry. I think it’s because the volume of food – with fewer carbs in meals – is more. As an example, my salad today was HUGE, overflowing my 2qt bowl, and it was ≈450 calories. I noticed that the severe urge to snack died off around Week 03, though it was bad with carbs last week (not as big an issue this week). I still desperately want to taste some things, but I don’t feel as big an urge to eat them. I think that’s sorta a good thing, but it could also be my body adapting to fewer calories which might not be the best thing. So … two more weeks until I up the calories for a week as a maintenance / recovery / refuel.
Another thing I’ve done with food this week and last, that I didn’t do before, is to space out left-overs, especially if they dominate a fat or carb macro. So, the beef with salsa is basically half my fat in one serving. I would normally just have one for lunch and one for dinner, but instead, I’m just eating one serving a day in order to be able to not go over on that overloaded macro so’s to be able to fit in a larger amount of variety to try to stave off cravings.
Exercise: I had zero desire to walk this evening. During the day, I kept thinking I should do cardio tonight and it should be a walk up the hill (not The Loop, just up the hill a ways). But, as the time approached, I kept coming up with excuses. Like, actually pulling up the weather and thinking, “Okay, so, if I just get up by 9am, I can still walk when it’s low humidity and be back in time for my 10am telecon!”
But, then I paused, and looked at what I was doing. I was making an excuse to be lazy. I was putting something off. And if I put it off once, it would be easier to put it off again. So, at that point, I decided that even if I don’t need to do cardio tonight to get in calories for the week, I needed to do it to prove that I wasn’t giving into an excuse and starting myself back on that path of not doing it.
So … I did! I felt like it was going to be a worse walk while I was doing it at first, I felt more out of breath than normal. But, I crested the hill – my primary metric for speed/fitness now, this first hill that’s 25–30% grades and +90m (≈300 ft) elevation – in 12 min 04 seconds after starting my walk. My second-fastest yet, by –2 seconds. I also reached my customary turn-around point a little sooner than usual (despite having to pause to yell at a dog), so I even walked about 30 seconds farther so I could make sure to get ≥40 minutes in by the time I got back home. That said, I might be getting in slightly more/better shape because the calories burned were slightly lower than usual, so I was a bit pissed at that. I was hoping for an even 400 or slightly higher, not 381.
Oh, and to give you an idea of the craziness of this hill, on the first half of the walk – the one that has most of the uphill part – I burn about 220 calories. The way back is 160 calories. Or, at least, those were the numbers tonight, but it’s usually asymmetric like that, which is also why I have to go a little longer than 20 minutes before I turn around, otherwise I’ll get home too early and circle the driveway a few times.
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