day 57 - week nine

Back to the grind. The weekend flew by and I did my very best to take it easy. On Saturday, I was feeling better so I got outside for some walking and shovelling (yes it snowed again). I puttered very slowly at my chores and managed to get the bare essentials looked after. I'm still feeling a little weak and I'm chilled to the bone but it's a 100% improvement over last week.

This morning I got back into my normal exercise routine and it felt very good. This week I should show some better results than I did last week. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't avoid whatever the sickness was that was floating around.

Once again, it's Monday so here is my latest weekly wrap-up:
summary - week 8

• I was able to break 7 miles again, each day that I rode. Because I got some weird bug in the middle of the week, I missed two days though
  
• As I mentioned the other day, I hit 200 miles on my recumbent bike so far this year
  
• I took my vitamins 7 out of 7 days this week
  
• met daily calorie intake goal 6 out of 7 days
  
• over snacked a bit on the weekend but kept snacking to healthier options (baked not fried!)
  
• met daily water intake goal 7 out of 7 days
  
• intentionally exercised 4 out of 7 days
  
• I maintained this week so I'm holding steady at 16 pounds lost since my restart on January 3

day 54 - i wanna be sedated

Today is going marginally better than yesterday. Fortunately, whatever is going on is not affecting my sleep which is good. I slept like the dead last night. I'm still feeling weak, achey and generally yucky but I'm at work again today. Today is month-end and I had a lot of stuff that I wanted to get cleared off of my desk so, here I am.

Because I've been off-kilter for a couple of days, there's not much to report. Again this morning I didn't exercise. I may or may not try to make it up over the weekend. Most likely, I'm going to take it very easy and try to feel better. My hunny is coming down with whatever this is/was now so I think that the two of us may just hunker down and hibernate all weekend.

day 53 - I can't believe I'm at work

The past couple of days have been just brutal. Whatever bug I picked up, combined with getting my period, has wiped me right out. Last night, my hunny wanted to out for dinner so we did. By the time we got to the restaurant I was feeling a bit better. By the time we were thinking about leaving I felt like I'd been hit by a truck again. All night I felt terrible, I had very bad cramps but they were way more than normal "hey it's that time of the month" cramps. I can't tell you how many ibuprofen I took yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night, in pain, and had to take more drugs. I seriously did not want to come into work but I had to (my mum and dad were dropping off some plants from her greenhouse for the office and we'd been trying to arrange this for 2 months). I feel like I'm feverish but fortunately, I don't have any meetings this afternoon so I can just hide out in my desk.

My eating has been very little today but I am eating. Exercise did not happen. When I finally dragged my ass out of bed, I pulled my workout gear on and went downstairs but couldn't do it. I stared at the bike, at my weights and other stuff and could not do anything, I felt that weak. Sometimes, I feel crummy and know that if I do some exercise, I will feel better, there are other times when I know if I do, I won't. This was one of those other times.

Right now, I'm hanging in there and am counting the minutes until 4:30 rolls around.

day 52 - icky

I've felt like a wet dishrag all day today. Last night, after dinner, I was sick to my stomach, off and on for about an hour. After that ended, my period arrived. I literally crawled into bed and didn't move until the alarm went off at 4:21 a.m. Getting up and moving around was much easier this morning than it had been last evening and eventually I got on my bike and rode. I felt like I was going slow but I hit 7.41 miles today. After the ride, I actually felt like a human being again and decided to go into work. I'm still feeling really weak and sore from being sick. I'm not moving too quickly today but I'm here getting stuff done so that's something.

There isn't much to report other than that (and that's not really exciting, I know). One note on food, bringing extra stuff to snack on is making a big difference at work this week. So far I've been able to successfully avoid tempting treats. Why in the world there is so much chocolate floating around this building is beyond me.

day 51 - 200 miles

This week, I'm trying to eat more. I think that I got seduced by chocolate brownies and easter eggs last week because I hadn't brought enough healthy food with me to work. I've brought extra fruit a couple of rice cakes with me today. If I have tasty, healthier food with me, I shouldn't get distracted by the stuff I want to only have once in a while. Personally, I don't think that there is anything wrong with having a brownie or a piece of chocolate now and then. Everyday is a problem though, for me anyway.

Today I broke 200 miles. Since January 3 I have peddled more than 200 miles. I said it twice (a la Fred Elliott) because I surprises me. Pleasantly mind you, but still. That's a lot of miles. It makes me realize that the goal I set, of 500 miles by my birthday in mid-May, is achievable. I was having my doubts for a while. I realized that there isn't any goal that I can't reach; I just have to want to reach it. Right now, I want to reach it. I want to beat it actually. We'll see what happens.

day 50 - week eight

50 days into my restart? How did that happen??

Today was a day off from work. Because my hunny was working, I got up at my usual time (4:30 a.m.), saw him off and did my regular workout. It wasn't until after I had exercised that I looked outside and saw exactly how much snow had accumulated over night. We had almost a foot of the white stuff in our driveway. I bundled up and went outside and shoveled, 2 workouts (basically), one right after the other. I expected that the shovelling would kill me but it didn't. There was a lot of snow but it wasn't too heavy. I felt really terrific afterwards actually.

As I had kept to my exercise routine, I found it not too bad to keep to my eating schedule as well. For the past three days I have kept pretty busy, catching up with chores and small projects around the house. Overall, a couple of little treats aside, the weekend was not bad. Not bad at all. I even had a not terrible weigh-in on Saturday. So far this week is shaping up very nicely. I hope yours is off to a good start too!!

Once again, it's Monday so here is my latest weekly wrap-up:
summary - week 7

• I was able to break 7 miles on all five days I rode last week. My total for the week was over 36 miles and this week, I will pass the 200 mile marker for the year to date
  
• I took my vitamins 6 out of 7 days this week (yesterday I totally forgot!)
  
• met daily calorie intake goal 5 out of 7 days
  
• either more chocolate than I should have 3 days out of 7 last week, I blame myself for giving in to stress and PMS with the evil chocolate
  
• met daily water intake goal 7 out of 7 days
  
• intentionally exercised 6 out of 7 days
  
• I am down one pound this week. This puts me at 16 pounds lost since my restart on January 3

day 47 - tgif, seriously

Has everyone had an incredibly long week or was it just me?? Was? Who am I fooling, it's still going on. My boss came in this morning and told me to leave early this afternoon (at 3 instead of 4:30) if I wanted to, to make up for some of the crap this week. I was planning to take her up on it but now, I don't think I will. After 2 months of not having filing cabinets (since December 13!!!) our overdue cabinets arrived, like 10 minutes ago, so I think I'll just suck it up and stay and try to get the boxes of files I've been working out of unpacked. Fun huh??

At least it's a long weekend here. Yay for working at a university. Because it's a government holiday on Monday, and it's reading week, we get Monday off. The nice thing about it is that not many folks have it so I can go shopping or whatever without having to deal with mobs of people.

This morning I had a terrific, albeit difficult, ride on my bike. I also seem to do better on the mornings when I am really not interested in doing it. This morning I hit 7.52 miles and I kicked my own ass in a big way. Or I kicked my big ass in a way. Either way, my ass and my legs were sore afterwards, in that really good "hey I exercised" way.

Sadly, I ate some more of those damned-able tiny easter eggs again this morning. Brownie yesterday, little foil eggs today. Not good. Other than those little blips though, everything has been much better this week than it was last week. There might be some white-knuckling involved this weekend but I really don't want to have a repeat of last week, no matter how crappy and pms-y I feel right now. I will not allow myself to wallow in chocolate!!

Mark.my.words.