Making changes

Well, you know what they say about doing the same thing and insanity and all that. I have finally come to the determination that the phrase applies to me, and that I need to mix things up. What got me to this point? This:

That was yesterday’s weigh in, which is only down .2 from the week before, which was up 2.6 from the week before that. If I thought that last week’s weight was the result of my overindulging during the tournament weekend, it seems that I was sorely mistaken. I am now 7 pounds above my goal, and have been fluctuating between 4 and 7 pounds above it since the summer.

So, in the interest of not doing the same thing and expecting different results, I’ve decided to re-engage with Weight Watchers. I don’t say “re-join,” because even though I’m above my personal goal weight, I’m still below my Weight Watchers goal, which has kept me at Lifetime for the last 4 1/2 years. (Full disclosure: I did up my goal weight by about 5 pounds a few years back, when I got sick of worrying whether I would be within my 2 pound requirement every month.  I was well below the Weight Watchers maximum for my height and age, so I felt that I was allowed a little extra wiggle room as far as they were concerned.) 

Yesterday morning, I fired up the online eTools program and started tracking there for the first time in probably a year. At this point, I’m double-tracking with My Fitness Pal as well, but I don’t know how long that will last, because I really hate double tracking. 😛 I also weighed in at Weight Watchers yesterday evening, although that was just coincidental, because the end of the month is quickly approaching, and I wanted to get it done so I didn’t accidentally skip like I did in November. Considering how much I weighed at home yesterday, I was shocked that I only gained .8 pounds at my official weigh-in. They gave me the “new” program materials for 2017, but as I had already learned from Kitty over at Less of a Better Me, there really wasn’t much changed from when they did the big overhaul with Beyond the Scale back in November 2015. (Which is right about the time I left…) 

I’m going to hold off on making any observations until I’ve had a solid week into it. Plus, I’m kind of cranky today, and it’s never good to write a blog post when you’re cranky. 😛

While the weight loss isn’t going well, the half marathon training is coming along. Last week was a “step-back” week according to Katie’s strong finish half marathon plan, so I had significantly fewer miles. I’m right back at it this week though, with a 40-minute run yesterday, and intervals this morning.  Katie’s plan for today called for 10 repeats of one-minute sprints with two-minute recovery. This training plan is the first time I’ve ever done sprints, and that was just one time, back in week one. Back then, I did eight intervals of sprint/recovery; today it was up to 10! One minute may not seem very long, but when you’re running as hard as you can, it’s an eternity. And when you have to do it 10 times, it’s akin to being tortured. 😮 OK, maybe that’s just my opinion. 😉 My friend Ann is also loosely following this training plan, and when I showed her that she could use her Garmin to set up the workout so that it would automatically notify her when she was above or below pace, and when to start and stop, she thought it was great fun. Talk about questioning someone’s sanity… 😛

Anyway, my goal pace for the one-minute sprint was between 6:15-7:45. Does that sound fast you? It sounds fast to me!! The last time I did it, in week one, I woke up that morning to gale force winds. Not surprisingly, I was only able to keep pace for half of the eight intervals. And it was excruciatingly difficult! I didn’t have high hopes for today, especially with having to do 10 of them, but when I was done, I was shocked:

I can’t believe that I was below pace for every single interval! I must admit, I am ridiculously proud of myself for that. 🙂 

That’s enough for today. For now, I’m going to go try to get a better attitude about Weight Watchers and their Beyond the Scale program. 😉 If you have experience with the program, I would be interested in your thoughts, especially if you also have experience with calorie counting and can offer insight in how they compare.

Thanks for reading!

(Oops, I need some pictures for this post! Here are some photos from my four-mile run last Saturday morning. It started out extremely foggy, even as late as 10 AM, but it got better as the run went on.)