My new fit life... week 2

I would love to dazzle you with numbers of how much weight I lost and how much fat I have trimmed from my bones this week but God intervened. He did. Wednesday is the night the FLU group meets. Depending on how you look at it, the gym is conveniently located close to work (literally 1/4 mile away) or inconveniently far from home (about 40 minutes). In the morning it is great, I can shower and get dressed after my workout and still make it to work by 8:00 assuming I don't get distracted by the call of Panera or Starbucks. I guess there is another reason this FLU thing is good, it helps me get to work on time because I no longer need to stop at those places. Anyhow, back to my story...

My Wednesday basically shapes up like this:
5:20 AM - leave the house
5:58 AM - arrive, squealing tires, into the Lifetime parking lot
6:00 AM - Boot Camp
7:55 AM - drive the 1/4 mile to work
8:00 AM to 5:00 PM - work my fingers to the bone (or at least give that appearance)
5:05 PM - drive the 1/4 to Lifetime
5:15 PM - step on the treadmill for workout #2 (since I have to be here anyhow)
6:15 PM - head to the locker room to wash the sweat off
7:00 PM - FLU Meeting
9:00 PM - HOME! One looooooooong day :)

Luckily not all my days look like this one now, just Wednesdays. When I was heavy into tennis, my tennis days looked like this more than a few nights a week. So... last night I made it to the afternoon treadmill workout. There are all sorts of tornado warnings on the TV but nothing really in my immediate area so wasn't all that concerned about being there. I was actually more concerned about Rick being at home because the path of the warning was right over our house. I was about 60 seconds from the end of my workout and getting ready to hit the cooldown button and the power goes out at Lifetime. (In case you are wondering, I did not go flying off the back of the treadmill, it spun to a stop - ha - someone in the locker room asked me that...). One of the employees came around and told everyone they needed to go the first floor. I assumed maybe there was a tornado warning but had been watching the TV so it seemed odd. I thought maybe next they were going to line us up like in school in the hallway with our heads between our knees. We always did those tornado drills and never had to use them. I just followed the mass of people downstairs and went to the semi-dark locker room to get my belongings and tried to decide if I should wait for the power to come back on since the meeting was at 7:00 or just go home. Before too long, we were told that everyone had to leave so the decision was made for me. It turned out it was a blown transformer. I never saw any real stormy weather around the gym. We had some near our house, there were lights out for a couple of blocks around a major intersection close to home but, thankfully, I didn't see any wind damage in our neighborhood.

The short version of all that is I did not weigh in yesterday and got to go home early and get some much needed sleep :) Since I did not officially weigh in, I will have to do a self assessment. Try to contain the excitement.

My goal this week was to lose 0.75 pounds. I know. It isn't much. My overall need to be part of this program is to get on track with nutrition and trying to figure out what to eat, when and how much as part of my triathlon training. Overall, I am looking at losing 6 pounds in 8 weeks and 4% body fat. The funny thing about my weight is up until the last year I could have told you on any given day how much I weigh. Part of my morning ritual was to step on the scale. Since I get ready at the gym in the morning, I rarely weigh myself. Given that, I am not sure if I lost or not. I have continued to stick to the eating plan. I did have a few more "cheat snacks" this week - if you can even call them that - they really didn't amount to much. I ate out a couple more times this week than last so was kind of interested to see how that worked out on the scale.

I am surprised that I have done so well sticking to the food structure of getting in certain amounts in each food group. I really don't find that I am craving things that aren't on the list all that much. I did have an internal conflict today at Wendy's when I knew I should order a chili and my evil twin wanted a single with fries. The chili won out. I have random cravings for apples, brussel sprouts, things like that - how kuckoo is that? I'll take it, I would much rather be dealing with that than wanting ice cream and having to fight the urge to buy it at Publix.

The other thing I have noticed this week that was different from last is that I feel more hungry. I am not sure why. My exercise level is about the same from this week to last week but am feeling hungry quite a bit.

On to the workouts... the heart rate workouts are going great. Despite being on a treadmill, they really aren't boring. You get pre-occupied with monitoring your heart rate and going between whichever zones you happen to be working on so it keeps me entertained. One bright side is that the workouts are forcing me to get my mid-week runs in which is something I was lacking in my marathon prep for Disney. I also think I can tell that I am getting stronger in my running even in the last two weeks. I am covering longer distances each time and am requiring a slightly faster pace on the treadmill to get to the target heart rate. Maybe there is something to this thing.... :)

I managed to meet the goal for last week's challenge - woo hoo! The challenge was to stay in zones 1 through 3, 97% of the time last week and burn at least 2500 calories. I ended up burning 4,935 calories for the week and came in with just enough in zone 4 to be legal. YAY!

The next challenge is 15 good form pushups in one minute, 50 squats in one minute and plank for two minutes. I am faithfully doing the hundred push up program. I am pretty sure I can do the pushups and plank. Fifty squats seems kind of fast for a minute but will do what I can to knock them out.

So there is my self assessment.... on to week 3!

For the weekend, I am doing a 10k in hopes of getting a good qualifying time for the Peachtree. My goal time is under 55 minutes which will be a personal best and will get me in time group 1B for the Peachtree. I think I can make it happen - I just need to start near the front and haul booty!