October 7th

I had an okay week, and a really nice weekend. Why does the weekend go so quickly? I could really always use one more day. 

I've actually gained a pound since last Sunday, but I'm okay with that. I had a really odd up-and-down week, weight-wise. Last Sunday I hit my lowest weight, at 39.4 lbs lost. Now I'm at 38.4 lbs lost. 

I've had a lot of challenges this week with eating out and stuff. I wouldn't say I made good choices, but I made "better" choices. 

I had a rough start to the week and skipped two workout days, but then I made up for one of them on my rest day, so I still wound up doing 274 fitness minutes this week. It feels odd to me now that reaching 1,000 minutes in a month was such a challenge; it seems really natural to me to be aiming for at least 250 minutes per week. Which is a great thing, of course! I've just gotten so used to working it into my daily schedule that it feels odd to not work out. 

I had a couple great ups this week, too. I had an incredible jog on Thursday. I'm not sure why, but I had a lot of energy and ended up doing the fastest run I've done in a LONG time on that route. I shaved a solid 4 minutes off of it. I completed it in 49 minutes. I think the fastest I ever did it (a couple years ago) was 46 minutes. 

I felt chaotic and busy yesterday - it was a good day, but I was all over the place. I did my step aerobic workout and it was really hard (probably because I didn't start it until 8 pm) and I was just sort of cranky.

So today I took myself on a short hike at a park I haven't been to in a long, long time. I have a lot of memories of this particular place, some good and some bad, and I had a really, really relaxing, nice time. I went really far away from any other people. After a while, I just sat in a tree and hung out and listened to music, and it was really what I needed. I can get myself so wound up about things and I haven't felt that relaxed in a while. I'm also going to do some yoga tonight after the food baby in my stomach settles (I just ate dinner.) I wasn't sure what I was going to do for my workout today and I think I made a good choice.

Tomorrow I get to see Andrea Gibson, my favorite poet, perform at a coffee house here in Madison. I'm really excited and, oddly, anxious about it. I'll be out of the house pretty much all day because I'm going there straight from work, so I'm trying to plan something to bring to work to eat for dinner, too.

Here's my menu/exercise plan for the week.

SUNDAY

Zucchini and spinach calzones

Hike & Yoga 

MONDAY

Leftovers

rest day

TUESDAY

Veggie pad thai

Frontside circuit training, 43 minutes

WEDNESDAY

Portobello mushroom and red pepper sandwiches

Backside circuit training, 53 minutes

THURSDAY

Leftovers

Cardio kickbox, 25 minutes

FRIDAY

Herbed chicken parmesan and broccoli

Cardio Blast, 35 minutes

SATURDAY

Decide next week

Step Aerobics, 63 minutes