(For those not following along, or visiting for the first time, please note that this is a maintenance week. The theory is to let the body reset hormonal levels before putting it back into a deficit. The calorie levels are specifically not weight loss ones.)

Okay, so for the moment I’m going to continue the maintenance/rest stuff until Sunday. Hopefully on Monday I’ll go back to rest day calories and see how I’m feeling Tuesday (ie. back to lifting). Even if I have to drop the weights a bit I think I’ll just feel better doing a workout.

I have a huge amount of homework this weekend. So, here’s the plan:

- minor rewrite on Communications assignment (as I was explaining it to someone today I realised I hadn’t added something he wanted us to do).

- finish Math homework (bad student, but I’ve stopped listening to the teacher in class - it’s a long story - so I’ve got the first assignment done and almost half the homework) - test on Tuesday - scary for some as she hasn’t finished teaching what’s on the test yet (although I will do the homework for it and cover it myself this weekend).

- consider finishing two missing segments on math assessment website. I technically don’t need to do them, but might give them a shot (Oct 5th is the deadline if I’m going to do them).

- type up notes from Manufacturing Management (as a review of sorts) as we have a test a week from this Tuesday.

- do assignment for Engineering Drawing (1st priority) and try and do at least a few example drawings (although stuck where I stopped in class on Monday).

- do review questions for Manufacturing Materials (started, but not complete) - test date not set, but probably only a week or so away.

- summarize Metrology notes if time (this is a would like, not a must) as I’m pretty sure this class is a no brainer for me.

See, that should keep me busy this weekend! Yikes!

Food for the day:

Total: 3162 (38% fat, 29% carbs, 29% protein)

Breakfast: bacon and eggs, zucchini bread, jam, nectarine, peach (748)
AM Snack: chocolate zucchini cake, almonds (345)
Lunch: whole wheat tortillas, mustard, smoked ham, nectarine, zucchini snack cake (457)
Snacks: almonds, soy nuts, jack daniels & lemonade, carrots, hummus (562)
Dinner: bbq lamb loin chops, roasted brussels sprouts/onion/cauliflower, salad w/dressing (776)
Late Snack: protein shake, peach (275)

So, a couple of things floating around my head today…

1) I’m still not sure that I’m well. I feel better, but I’m still congested and have a touch of a nagging cough. It’s not chest congestion, but post-nasal drip collecting and irritating. It leaves me unsure of what my plans are for the coming week. I had planned to go back to usual on Sunday or Monday, but I think I want to see what two days of rest and (ick) homework brings. I also can’t get a feel for how my weight has been affected by the maintenance week as I really feel that only my Sat/Sun weights have been valid since going back to school.

2) People are idiots in general. Someone I know from the boards is working towards a new career in personal training. I don’t know enough about what classes she’s taking, but here’s a comment about her teacher.

The teacher said, “If you have a fat person come in and you overwork them their first workout they will go home and say forget that was too hard. I’m just gonna go back to sitting on my sofa eating bon bons like I always do”.

The woman taking the class is about 5′10″ and currently about 240 pounds. She was 510 pounds and I’m so impressed with how far she’s come. And here’s some idiot throwing out generalizations about fat people. She thought perhaps quietly filling the teacher in on her background might stop the ‘fat people’ generalizations… not!

3) Eating more this week has made me hungry. It may be the fact that these last few days I’ve let my protein levels go down a bit, but I’m 30-40 mins away from dinner, and I’m freakin’ hungry.

4) I think I finally see some changes when I look in the mirror. Not subtle changes, but finally kind of recognizing that I’ve lost weight. I know that sounds stupid really. However, I put away the too big pants and have been wearing the probably slightly too tight ‘loose fit leggings’ and tossed an oversized top on the other day… and actually thought it didn’t look too bad in the mirror. This is a definite improvement.