Apparently frequent blogging was lost in the big “let’s get everything done before going on holiday” efforts I had during most of June. Status reports went out the window after just one. HOWEVER. I have tracked every single thing I’ve eaten nonetheless, and as of yesterday I had 69 consecutive days without exceeding my calorie limit.
Today was supposed to be my 70th “green” day (referring to the colour in my app, where a day is green if you are below your calorie limit and red if you have exceeded it), but it didn’t happen. I was travelling back home from my vacation, which meant hours in the car, almost no food in the house (no shops open on Sundays here) and very little time to burn off the extra calories. To be completely honest, I ordered a pizza and ate it all. And I don’t even feel bad about it. Technically it’s my first cheat day in more than two months, so I feel I’ve earned it.
Though in retrospect I might have been better off ordering sushi, but done is done.
The challenge now is to get back on track. I don’t have a good track record with these things, since one cheat day tends to evolve into many. However, now I know that I can, and if I’ve already done two months, why should I not be able to do two more?
I do tend to get a bit more pessimistic than usual when I’m tired, and I’m very tired today. While I love driving (I don’t have a car of my own), six hours in the car when I’m the only one driving – particularly on unfamiliar, narrow and challenging roads – is exhausting. I’ve also spent two weeks in a caravan with my family, which can be tiresome when you’re an introvert and used to living alone. Particularly since things were really crowded for a couple of days. Because of quitting antidepressiva I’ve had troubles sleeping, particularly when I’m worried or tense about something, or simply waiting for a specific thing to happen.
It’s not a very good thing when staying in a small caravan with other people, particularly when you’re claustrophobic as well. One of the nights – when there were people and dogs literally everywhere – I couldn’t sleep at all, which again made the next day completely off. I still haven’t completely shaken it off. It’s probably a combination of many things, not all of them related (side effects from a recent hormone injection, quitting antidepressiva, being a solitary control freak without having any control over the situation, excitement and too much worry over how things would go, different eating habits etc etc, but it still feels like a failure. Next year I’ll try to be more prepared. But yeah, I am a bit more exhausted than I usually am when returning from holiday.
Still, despite these things it was a really good holiday. I walked a lot, I had a good time with my family, I spent a nice day at the zoo, I had quality time with my niece (she loves playing hair dresser and I love when people brush or play with my hair, so it was a killer combination), I sunbathed by the sea, ran through the forest there a couple of times, went shopping, ate good food, returned to my love of photography and saw a lot of nice places. Hours of driving alone also improved my singing technique 😛 I didn’t buy everything on my summer shopping list, but I did by new running shoes – not for running on asphalt, those are still on the list, but for hiking and running in the terrain, and they are AWESOME (they’re also a reward from my mother for reaching a weight loss milestone) – and a spare shaker for my protein shakes. I bought a hip pack with drinking bottle for hiking (when it’s too short for a full backpack and too long not to bring anything), sports socks, bicycle pump, books, two purses (on sale) and a couple of other things. I still need new running tights and a sports bra, and I never found a decent bikini. Couldn’t find one that wasn’t ugly.
A really satisfactory thing is that I managed to keep my eating habits under control throughout the vacation. I did most of my scheduled runs and went walking more than I had planned, and ended up losing 0.7 kg in slightly less than two weeks. Probably more, since I think the scale I used two weeks ago was a bit kinder than my own, and I’ve also eaten quite a lot of salty foods too. I’ve now lost 6.7 kg in total since the 4th of May, and I’m really happy with that. It’s a bit less than 0.7 kg per week, and my goal is 0.5 kg per week.
Now I’m going to bed – it’s earlier than I planned, but I feel like I need it. I’ll enjoy sleeping in a room completely by myself, getting up whenever I like without waking anyone up in the process, and doing my usual morning rituals. Sitting by my dining table with a cup of coffee, looking at the mountains outside my window. I’m going to go to the city centre to look for new running shoes tomorrow, and perhaps I’ll spoil myself by going to a café afterwards, reading and drinking coffee, enjoying the last week of my vacation. In the afternoon I’ll go for a run and then make a nice dinner, and hopefully also get some writing done. Sometime during the week I’ll also sort all the photos I took during the summer. There are a LOT.
Well, this was kind of a rambling entry, but at least it is an entry 😉 Planning on blogging more frequently now that things are more or less back to normal!