Running, running, running fool

This week I made a concerted effort to get back into the swing of all things fitness for the first time since my surgery. Some things -- like a snow day on Tuesday -- kind of messed with me. It's been frustrating because my pace and endurance have both slowed. But I seemed to have regained the right attitude again. That my running should not be about my time. It should be about the calories I'm burning and how my body feels when I'm done.

There has been one giant side effect to increasing the exercise again. My body wants more fuel, and I've been giving it more fuel, but since I'm in the box, it's been more HMR meals, more protein shakes, more fruit and vegetables. And I'm looking at my calorie intake -- and it's up there this week. Four days of more than 1800 calories. Two days in the 2,000 level. I've been burning between 300 and 750 each day, so it does take it down. But I'm also noticing the scale is registering some water weight issues between all the sweating and drinking, i.e. my body is freaked out again.

So, I don't have high hopes for Monday's weigh in. Sigh. I do have one more week of Blitz left. So hopefully, if it is all water, it'll come and it'll go like the weeks before it. All I know is that I turned 34, had no birthday cakes to readily consume and drank no alcohol... But we'll see what happens. Part of me wants to go to the armory tomorrow and run for a long time. The other half wants to just sit at home and consume vast quantities of liquids to see if I can even out my water retention issues before Monday.

I've decided that doing so will make me sound like some crazy wrestler trying to drop weight before a match though... the problem really is that I was only .4 away from goal last week. And when I saw the number I thought to myself, "This is as close as you're ever going to get." Which is so not the positive framework I need as I work toward the end of the weight loss and really get concentrated on the maintenance aspect.

The fact that I've been slowly going down since entering Maintenance at the end of September is great. The fact that I've lost 20 lbs since then is wonderful. But I still want to see that freaking goal number... So maybe if I aim for my impedance test on Thursday a.m. rather than Monday's weigh in, it'll be a healthier mindset.