Oh, the pain

The past two weeks seem to be nothing but one pain after another.  Ug.  I was so stoked about the relatively big numbers I was enjoying the first couple of weeks after getting my treadmill, that I upped the intensity to try to do better.  Enter the first round of pain.  I'm not entirely sure why it is, but my whole right leg started getting achy.  I pushed through it when trying to do the workouts, but dealing with a painful hip and lower back was something I couldn't do while trying to sleep.  Finding a comfortable sleep position with a hip that twinges with every movement was just not fun.

On top of it all, even with the dialed up the workouts, the weight loss didn't increase. Hmmmm..... There's got to be a whole lot more to the whole equation.  Maybe it was the lack of sleep.  Maybe I went off menu more than I realized.  Hard to say, but clearly there are lots of stars that have to align to make the weight losing thing work.  And they did not align when I was hurting.  Two weeks ago, the weigh-in showed a loss of some percentage of a pound.  And I truly thought I'd done better. 

So after that small percentage of a pound, I figured I'd go back to a more manageable intensity on the workouts, and go back to the choosing my own foods from the JC list, and not counting calories so strictly (by the way, two weeks ago I tried to do one of their planned menus again - with less than stellar results).  I was doing great for the first few days, until I came down with strep throat.  Strep is painful, painful stuff.  Not only could I not swallow without intense pain, my neck muscles hurt, and because of a few bouts of intense fever shivers, my entire back hurt.  So there was no kind of activity for four days.  And these four days followed directly on the heels of two big dinners out, where I didn't even attempt to make good choices.  I got my favorites, and enjoyed every single bite.  But I guess the fact that I was living off of soup and tea for the next few days made the difference last week, because at my weigh-in, I was down by 3lbs again.

Now, there's no way I'd wish for a continuation of a sickness that makes swallowing so painful.  Good for weight loss, I suppose, but not a fun way to live.  So I'm still trying to figure out the right combination of stuff that makes for an ideal weight loss week - one that doesn't include pain, that is.

Progress

I can't believe I never got around to posting about last week's
weigh-in. It was a shock! I lost 4lbs last week, and considering
that I munched myself silly at the NYE party on the 31st, it's a
miracle. I did try to account for that night of splurging by making
sure I got more activity in, and I guess that did the trick.

This past week wasn't as difficult - I didn't have the major splurge
night like the week before, but I did have a few meals off-menu. I
guess I go less insane about the whole meal plan thing that way if I
try to stick to "the plan" in a loose kind of way. I lost 2.5 lbs
last week, which I'm quite happy with. I think the new treadmill
helps a lot - I've been doing all of my walks on an incline.

Also, in good/bad news, I just bought new pants (good!), but if I keep
this pace for too many more weeks, I'll only get a few wears before
having to drop some more money on clothes again (bad). It's times
like this that I wish it were spring - I'm sure I can get more mileage
out of a skirt, or at least be able to take in a skirt myself. Oh
well - I wanted this. So I've got to deal with the extra expense of
the in-between clothes (since they'd surely frown on my switch from
business casual to sweat pants at work ;-) ).