Failings and getting back up on the horse
A tale of two extremes: lessons learned for next time.
The weekend kind of sucked.
The thing is, I absolutely stayed within my calories for both days of the weekend. But because I wake up late and consequentially eat my breakfast later, things don’t get off to a good start. Then I generally go out shopping, which is exhausting and always takes longer than I think it will. So lunch is delayed. And of course, I don’t eat while I’m out because I don’t know portion sizes and there’s nothing healthy and dairy-free to eat anyway.
So lunch tends to be grabbed on the run, just before I go out again. If I’m lucky and being especially good, I prep my snacks and pack them. Most often, I just throw a bottle of water in my bag and rush out the door.
The trouble is, after (event), there’s socialising in the pub. I don’t drink and there’s nothing I can eat, so I just have my water. That delays dinner, and quite often by the time I get home it’s 9 or 10pm and I go “… I’m EXHAUSTED.” and just go to bed.
This came to a head on Sunday. I woke up late, and knew I had to go get fish for that night’s dinner so I downed a protein shake and rushed out the door. Of course, it took longer because I kept remembering other stuff, etc. I was STARVING, and I went “… stuff it” and bought a roll and threw myself together a quick pork scotch and salad roll. High calorie, but I’d basically only had half my breakfast and no snacks so I thought that would be ok.
Turns out that I was actually prophetic. Because I hung around afterwards, and there was still nothing to eat and then my dinner was fish which is EXCELLENT but very low calorie. After dinner I had a look at my calories for the day and went “… EEEK. I NEED TO EAT MORE.” so I made up the difference with chocolate.
Not ideal.
Then Monday happened.
It was a charity lunch. I’d given my money, and even bought along a dish (pulled pork). Buuut it turns out that it’s really, really hard to say no to food when it’s for charity. And you can’t weigh out portions when it’s from a buffet.
I ate so much. Then when the day ended, I’d eaten enough that the thought of exercising made me feel sick. I sat on my couch like a lump.
Then, because there were leftovers and I took them home, I ate them. I wasn’t even hungry.
The scales the next day were… well. Not good. But, what happened happened. I hadn’t made it the easiest for myself, but I had a salad. So I went down the street and bought a 1/4 rotisserie chicken and shredded the meat off it and weighed it out. I also bought three pieces of fruit and some soy yoghurt and started pushing the water.
Then I ran last night and KILLED it. I managed to run for seven minute stretches. I was never really out of breath, either–it’s more that my legs felt heavy. The scales were, it turned out, a temporary blip. After a day of pushing water intake, I am back down to my (thus far) lowest recorded weight.
Lessons learned from this:
I need to plan better on weekends. Also, getting up at 11am isn’t an option. I think having the bigger lunch is a great idea, but on the days when [regular event] is on at 5pm, I might eat a normal lunch and bring a salad roll for dinner and eat it in the pub afterwards. The bread is going to bump up my calories significantly, so I need to make sure I run earlier in the day.
Even bad days where I eat TWICE the calories I aim for are recoverable from. I did it, it was tasty but it didn’t make me feel good. I’m not aiming to do it on a regular basis. But it’s not the end of the world and it hasn’t stopped me from achieving my goals.
Irascible and overweight 
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