Eating: The Good and the Bad

After I posted my last message about pushing through the pain and overcoming personal obstacles, I found myself eating my own advice. After work on Thursday I attempted to run the 1.3 miles around campus and halfway through found myself thinking about this blog and the pep talk I had posted that morning. My calves burned, my breathing was rigid, my mind was unfocused...in short, I felt awful. As I passed each academic building I found myself wanting to quit but realized that if I had made it 1.3 miles just two days before, there was no reason I couldn't make it again.

So I pushed onwards.

And about 17 minutes later I found myself stretching at the finish line! I was whipped but I had done it! And here's a picture to prove it!

Fast forward to Super Bowl Sunday. Exactly one week since I launched Tash 2.0 and I was hoping to see my hard work and diligence reflected on the scale. I mean, all those calories I've been burning had to go somewhere, right? I knew before my weigh-in that it may be too soon to notice a significant difference, and I convinced myself that feeling better was more important than reading the numbers staring up from the floor. However, I will admit that when the scale still read 140, I felt a twinge of disappointment. However, I'm determined to keep going - maybe 4 miles in 7 days just wasn't enough to transform 140 into 139 or 138.

In other news, I've been thoroughly exhausted. I ran 1.3 miles yesterday after work, made dinner, and suffered through a chapter of grad school homework before crashing - at a mere 8:30pm. I got nearly 11 hours of sleep and still feel like I could use a good 10 more!

I think the fatigue is because 1) I'm fighting a cold. 2) I may have eliminated an important "something" from my diet and by body is readjusting. (Before I get a ton of nutrition suggestions let me say that I'm eating lots of protein and drinking lots of water. I have however, cut back on carbs, milk, and processed sugar.)

Because I've been so tired I've skipped walking at lunchtime for two days in a row :-( and I also allowed myself to eat a chocolate chip cookie today. I know, I know, shame on me - simple sugars don't provide long term energy boosts, but I could either have eaten the cookie or went home for a nap (it was really that bad!). Now, two hours later, I'm slightly regretting the 180 cookie-calories but honestly, it helped get me through the afternoon grind.

Now, I'm not recommending that we all eat a cookie every time we're a bit drowsy (that's how I got to 140 pounds!), but I am saying that after much deliberation, the cookie seemed like the only option. I thought about posting a picture of it, but that would be shear torture and would certainly NOT help those trying to eliminate sugar, so instead here's this: