Holidays got the best of me

It never fails, I always find myself trying to lose weight during the holidays.  It never works and this year was no different.  Luckily I continued to workout so the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Right before Thanksgiving I reported I had lost 6 1/2 lbs in a little over 2 weeks.  I was super excited about it BUT gained all of that back between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

So today marks day 1 in a personal challenge to get back on track with the zone diet to lose weight and also see big progress in the gym.  My personal challenge, and therefore I guess my new years resolution, is to create my own 60 day challenge.  I am allowing myself cheat days/meals, the resolution is to be honest, to give it an honest effort for 60 days.  I have a mental block with weight loss and always give up on the diet portion (read the first part of my blog, you'll see my last attempt and failure at losing and keeping the weight off, ha!).  Each time I try to lose weight I get stuck at 150, I haven't been under 150 for many years now.  Clearly I have some mental issues to work through, but I think Crossfit is really helping with that.  I'm constantly faced with failure at the gym, its part of tackling challenging workouts and I'm learning to be okay with failure and rather than give up, devise a plan to succeed next time.  I'm not losing weight simply for appearance reasons but also so I can workout harder and faster, be stronger and hopefully be able to compete at sectionals in 2012!

The first day is always tough, it's like a detox.  I think my biggest issue was that I fell out of my normal routine.  I am a creature of habit and find I make the most progress when I do the same thing every day.  Today I set an alarm to get up reasonably early since I'd been sleeping in during my own little Christmas break.  I also measured out all my meals, making sure to only eat my 11 blocks.  No wine, no dark chocolate, no cheating.  I'll be honest, it's 8:45pm and I am hungry.  I want to eat more, but I know the first day is the hardest so I'm doing my absolute best to stick to this.  On the days I work out I might eat 12 blocks, but for sure on the days I don't work out I don't get any more than 11 blocks.  Writing this helped me pass a few more minutes, its almost time to go to bed so I can wake up and run in the morning with the beasts.  My goal is to maintain 8-10 miles a week.  Its good for me and surprisingly Po loves running!  I never thought he would be a running dog, but he loves it so it helps motivate me to get out the door rain or shine.

Stay tuned for my updates on the good, the bad and the ugly of trying to navigate birthdays, company lunches and offsites etc all while working towards breaking through my 150 barrier!