A Little Reflection

Wednesday, March 19, 2008
17w to pics--165#=25 pounds to goal (see previous post)
Work 6p-8a
Slept a broken 8 hours.

You'll notice I added a new basic element to my intro to my posts. I put that stuff up there b/c I feel like it's pertinent basic facts. If I finished the day's calorie intake by the time I wrote this every day, I would include it, but it doesn't get laid out like that. Today, I've decided to add the amount of sleep I got the previous "night". I've read and heard a lot about how pertinent that is to weight loss and later in the post you'll see it may have proven to be part of my roadblock of late.

You may also notice that my weight is down 2.5# from Monday. This may end up going back up a pound or so over the next day or two; it usually does before it stabilizes to a particular weight. But my body seems to give me that little "teaser" of seeing a weight briefly then bouncing up a pound or so before settling back down to the new weight for good. Seeing it at all just means that the new weight is on its way to a reality. This is a breakthrough I have not been able to make for about 3 weeks now when I first hit the 167# mark. This movement in the scale prompted me to think a bit about what has been different in the last week that might have affected things. 1. My calories have increased from the 1200-1400 range to the 1600-1700 range. This has been more-or-less accidentally although David did suggest last time we met that I should probably be in that higher range. Who'd a thunk I shoulda listened to the expert? 2. I decreased my Splenda intake again. As ludicrous as it sounds, I really think more than one serving of Splenda a day may be hindering my efforts. It seems like I can't get my weight to move during those times when I'm having several servings of it a day--always in tea or coffee. I had cut back on it for a while and saw some more consistent results then convinced myself I was crazy and started back using the Splenda. I've examined things otherwise and find no confounding factors. 3. Although I've not slept terrifically, I actually have at least laid in the bed for more than 5-6 hours at a time for the last 5 days. Prior to that, I had been working a stretch of 17 out of 22 days--14 hour shifts. Stretches like that are just NOT conducive to sleep. I'll confess that the last straw about how important sleep is came when I was watching my equivalent to crack, "The Biggest Loser" and Jillian did a little blurb on how if she had a stubborn loser, she started checking into their sleep schedule.

Life is all about the learning process, so that's what I'm trying to do--learn from everything I can.
TODAY'S WORKOUT: 16kg workout B
Renegade Row 5/side then 20 swings--AMAP in 30 min.=12 sets. The first two sets of swings I did 2 handed then I switched to 10 1hs on each side. My general sentiment about this is that 16kg renegade rows SUCK. But I can also tell you that I'm about to get significantly better at them.