Week 4: Birthday cake, cravings and a 5k PR?

This wasn't my cake, but it looked a lot like this. Thanks Martha and Naomi!

This week is one of only a few weeks out of the year when I really celebrate. Birthdays are great because they are holidays that aren't disputed, they don't involve invisible heroes and aren't somewhat related to religion. They are a celebration of our lives. With this in mind, I didn't really focus on my nutritional habits too much this week and instead I celebrated. By celebrating, I don't mean that I deliberately overate, but I did eat foods that are out of my "healthy comfort zone" and I stayed up later than usual. The bad thing about this is that my cravings for continuous carbohydrate-laden foods have been really strong and my energy level is so low this week. In monitoring how I feel and look, I"m pretty sure I gained one or two pounds this week. It's not the end of the world, but it does help me understand how difficult it must be to start making changes if you're coming from an obese background that consists of being sedentary and eating a lot of processed foods. I can't put into words (which seems ironic since I'm blogging) how bad and fatigued I felt yesterday. I had so many cravings for things such as pizza, cookies and doughnuts. Basically, I'm learning that food addiction is a big deal. It's easy to eat these processed foods, become addicted to them and then continue to eat them in order to "feel good".

I don't have many things to post about my exercise this week because I didn't log the few work outs I completed. I did run a 5k on Saturday and hiked/ran a really tall hill on Sunday. After not running more than a handful of times over the last six months, for some reason I decided to run a 5k on Saturday after a friend gave me a complimentary registration. I ran it and miraculously ran the fastest 5k of my entire life. It helped that the course was shorter than it should've been, but even with correct math, my pace was still faster than ever. I guess this just shows how competitive I am, which is super competitive. Between this and the hike on Sunday, I now have runner's knee. Again, this just points out how difficult it is to not get injured while trying to exercise vigorously and being obese. I'll probably not run again for a month and focus on other exercises instead.

My 5k time on what turned out to be a short course. There's no way I could run this fast at this weight. 

Exercise Log:

Wednesday: Don't remember. 

Thursday: Um yea, still don't remember. 

Friday: Definitely don't remember. 

Saturday: 5k ish run. 22 minutes. 

Sunday: Table Rock hike and run. 60 minutes. 

Monday: Probably sat on my butt.

Tuesday: Probably sat more on my butt. 

Approximate Total Exercise Time: 82 minutes?

I only tracked my food 4 days this week and trust me, those other days had plenty of calories to track.

I feel like I let everyone down this week. I set out to celebrate my birthday, and I did, but I went overboard. It's easy to go overboard when you don't give yourself specific guidelines. This is why it's so important to set goals, even very short-term goals. I was arrogant and thought I would be past the food cravings at this point, but I'm not. Eating junk food makes me want to eat more junk food. There's certainly some chemical-science that goes into making these foods because the cravings and addictions are real. I ate no less than six slices of my birthday cookie cake and that's not alright. Luckily, it's a new day and I'm mindful of where I need to be and what it'll take to get me there. 

4 weeks down, 48 to go!