Honest surprise

This weekend, I was looking glumly out my kitchen window when my wife asked me what was wrong.

"I'm just surprised ... at how much damage the holidays did to my healthy habits."

It's become crystal clear to me that month-long breaks from healthy habits are akin to pressing the reset button.  A couple weeks of half-assing it trying to get them back isn't cutting it.  I've actually gained a pound in those two weeks.

So back to basics.  Start counting everything.  Set some goals, work towards them, handle exceptions by the meal not by the day or, horrifically, by the week.  The "this week is a mess anyway" may work between Christmas and New Years but writing off the entire time between your in-law's coming over for dinner and, say, the superbowl, is definitively awful.

Today's weight: 206.5
Next goal: 199.5
Summer goal: sub-190, maintained

Let's get cracking.

Reality check

I went into the end of 2009 having achieved my weight loss and fitness goals and making a conscious choice not to fret about these things too much during the last two weeks of the year -- my vacation from work.  Obviously I hadn't been paying too much attention in the first two weeks of December either, as I was in a kind of post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas funk.  But it wasn't the full-on vacation I allowed myself at the close of the year.

Anyway, now as I return to work I also return to "fretting" :).

So in the interest of transparency, here's the damage done in December 2009:

• I put on five pounds in the month of December.  
• I'm up about nine pounds from my absolute lowest (pre-Thanksgiving) point in 2009.
• (On the plus side, I'm still down nearly 30 pounds from my peak weight in 2009)
  
• I have not run in three weeks.

The last one worries me, because it happened so easily.  A lot went on, and I can list a dozen excuses, but I know that if I were in training for an event I would have made time to run.  I didn't.  I also know that my fitness goals for 2010 might be unrealistic -- I had hoped to increase my mileage throughout the winter but now I think aiming to maintain my mileage is more realistic. 

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions.  But being back from vacation is a good time to refocus on goals and reprioritize.

Vacation is over.  Time to start paying attention to portions again and making time to run.  Let's see where I am in a few weeks and re-evaluate my goals accordingly....