Random musings

In excitedly writing yesterday's blog post, I forgot to add my weekly weigh-in: down 1.6lbs this week, taking my 14 week total loss to 29.4lbs. Not too shabby, that's 14.3% of my 1st Jan start weight. :-) It's a little bit lower this week than previous weeks, but I know I overate at the weekend, and the data I'm collecting on food and activity backs up the slightly lower numbers - easy to spot where I was going wrong, so should be easy to fix, right? Well, yes, if losing weight was a completely scientific operation. Sadly, there are emotions and mindsets at play: yesterday at work, while excitedly typing up my blog entry (and still managing to complete a work report, hold a telephone call with a client, and send off some urgent emails), I couldn't take my eyes off the table full of cake in the corner of the office - a colleague retired yesterday, and brought a shedload of goodies in. Eventually, I decided that I could have a bit with my mug of tea, but - cutting a long story short (which includes having to work through lunchbreak) I realised by about 4pm that I'd eaten over 650 kcals worth of mini chocolate cake bite things over the day. And nothing else. Just chocolate cake. I started, and couldn't stop... Couldn't? is that the word? I don't know, it certainly felt like I had no control and no choice, but of course I did. Getting home in the evening, I made sure to have a large salad for dinner, and spend some time writing up my food diary. I think what's important this year isn't avoiding all temptations, it's just about how I deal with things once I've succumbed. So, today it's a couple of things to focus on: one, no blame, no recriminations, and no self-criticism; and two, get immediately back on track.

This year will be a struggle, I've never been under any illusion otherwise. I think people see me being upbeat, successful and my confidence building, and think I'm doing well... Not strictly true, I'm still having a hard time with this, but it's important for me to latch onto the successes and positivity, because it will help me develop the way I want to over the year. Additionally, something I'm working very hard on this year is not letting one tough, difficult day turn into two, three, several bad days, spiralling my mood out of my control. It's all about treating myself a little better this year - and so far, I'm doing quite well with it. Just got to keep going, and keep working on the emotional aspects, while retaining a clear focus on my goals, my eating, my training, and my activity levels.

Anyway, today I'm also planning new challenges, to keep me focussed and moving forward. One of these is my first attempt at the "3k on the Green" monthly race in Glasgow, in a couple of weeks' time. It's always ran on the last Friday of the month, at lunchtime, so of course I normally can't travel through for it due to work, but this month it falls on the day before the Fling, so since I'll be taking the day off work and be in Glasgow for registration opening in the afternoon, why not turn up to the race? 3km is a scary distance for me to race - until very recently, they rarely had anyone slower than 20 minutes, so there is a chance I'll be last (someone has to be!) but I'm curious to see what I can achieve.

In the meantime, I've got to start thinking properly about my training for my May races. If I can get a couple more 35 minute-something 5kms done, I'm very much going for a PB at the Women's 10k in Glasgow on May 17th (currently 1:11:04) and then my eye is also on a potential half marathon PB two weeks later, in Edinburgh. My 60 minute run on Wednesday evening has dealt me a huge hand of confidence, but now I need to know what to do with it, in order to meet my goals in May. Talking to Davie about it, he said that my 'training pace' the other night implied I was definitely on for a 10km PB at race pace - which made me laugh. Am I turning into one of those proper runners with a training pace and a race pace??????????? Wonders will never cease...!! haha. I need to pick a parkrun to do tomorrow, and I'm thinking that after two hilly parkruns (Tollcross and Falkirk) I might test myself on a flat course - go back to Perth, maybe, or Strathclyde. I'm not sure though, I might try one of the parkrun locations I've not done for a while, like Pollok. Today is a rest day, as Fridays tend to be now, but it's importnat to me to still hit my 10,000 steps on the pedometer, so I'll get out for a nice walk at lunchtime today, and put some distance between me and the chocolate cake remaining in the office. Still, I'm about to get a cuppa, and what mug of tea is complete without a tiny wee bit of chocolate cake.....?? ;-) x x x