10K10lbs10weeks: Week 5 Progress Report

Here's my progress report for week 5 (September 20 - 26):

Goals

1. Lose 2 pounds (to be on track for -8 lbs. during the month of September). Fail. Lost 1 pound, the same one that I re-gained last week. Sigh. The online weight loss challenge I'm competing in ends Thursday. No way I'm making my challenge goal of 8 pounds, but I'd like to lose one more pound by then to have 4 lost for the month. Then, if I do that again next month (one lb/week), I'll be very close to my 10 lb. goal.
2. Increase running endurance to 4.0 miles with no walk breaks. Fail. I didn't get a long run in this week.

Plan

1. Run 3 times: once medium-intensity/longer intervals, once high-intensity/shorter intervals, once 4.0 miles/slow pace. Fail. I did one good interval run and one crappy interval run. I just had a kind of icky, low-energy week. And (stupidest injury ever!) I hurt my toes. I have no idea how. I don't recall kicking or dropping anything, but for two days the middle three toes on my right foot hurt to walk on, much less run on. Weird.
2. Do strength training 2 times: 30-Day Shred Level II. Fail. Only did it once.
3. Incorporate better stretching before and after every run and strength workout. Woop! I did one thing this week.
4. Practice portion control and better spacing with meals. Limit snacks to only veggies (unlimited) or nuts (limited). Fail. I ate popcorn, cheese, leftovers, and many other creative and sometimes unhealthy snacks. And then there was the apple crisp incident. Let's just say an 8x8" pan disappeared in a mere instant, and my husband didn't get his fair share.

Lessons for next week

• Ugh. Fail week. I need to get some positivity and energy back. I think I worked out too much the previous week and sort of burned out. I also intellectually know that exercising and eating well when I'm feeling stressed, tired, or otherwise emotionally crappy will help me to feel better, but my body doesn't get it yet.
• I'm going to make up that 4-mile long run early this week so I can do 4.5 next weekend. Gotta stay on the training plan. I don't know if I'll try to add it in to do four total runs for the week, or just skip an interval run and do two longer, slower runs. I guess I'll see how I feel.
• I'm not convinced that athletic training and weight loss go together. They say weight loss is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise. When I exercise a lot, I eat a lot. Right now, I want to finish that race way more than I want to lose these 10 pounds. So, I guess I need to de-emphasize the weight loss goals right now and focus on being consistent in my workouts. If I truly want to lose weight, I probably need to be harder on myself nutrition-wise: track everything I eat, weigh portions, cut out certain things for awhile, etc. I need to be honest with myself that I'm really not committed to doing that right now and be willing to live with the consequences (slow to no weight loss). On the flip side, I continue to be grateful that I like to cook and generally have very, very healthy eating habits (food choice-wise, maybe not portion size-wise). We all have different battles to fight, and I'm choosing to fight the lazies and focus on getting runs in this week.