I sort of disappeared for a while after I re-signed to start my program for another 17 weeks.  I’ve been maintaining more or less for the past couple of weeks.  My grandfather had knee surgery, and I went home to stay with my grandma who had a stroke recently and can’t really take care of herself.  So, while I had control over the cooking, dieting was just not on the priority list.  Between running her to doctor appointments and taking her to visit my grandpa, I just grabbed whatever I could whenever I could.  My basic strategy (and I know this is totally unhealthy) was to skip breakfast and lunch and just eat dinner.  Most days it worked.  At least I stayed in a normal calorie range that way, and since I knew it was only temporary, I didn’t feel too bad about it.

Surprisingly, one of the things I MISSED was exercise.  Go figure.  I think I’ve actually started to enjoy it.  It’s definitely a part of my routine now, and I just feel a little bit icky when I don’t do it.  I didn’t exercise for a week and a half, and I was really ready to get back to it.  I had planned to run outside while I was there, but I never really had a chance to get out of the house and leave my grandma alone.  Now that I’m back, I have lost quite a bit of endurance (I think I had been slowly losing that even before the long break).  I can now only do about 2-3 miles depending on the day, and I was running a solid 4 miles just a few months ago.

In looking back, my husband’s return from Iraq has really thrown me off.  I’m very happy to have him back, of course, but my routine definitely took a major hit.  Exercise and weight loss is no longer my top priority– now it’s third or fourth, really, and some days less.  He also presents a lot more temptations for me– dinners out more often, carryout pizza, etc., so I’m still struggling with those things.  He’s very supportive, and most of the time the cheating is my idea, but I always know I have a ready and willing partner in crime when I want to throw the diet out the window.

So, now that the summer is here and my family obligations/traveling is over for the most part (still two weekend trips planned– graduation parties– ugh), I’m looking forward to a restart/recommitment.  I am much less busy these days without school, so one would think it would be easier to make it to the gym.  However, I’m lacking structure to my days without my classes.  Before, I knew I had to go to the gym at a certain time because it was the only way to fit it in, but now I can move my time around and procrastinate, and I sometimes don’t make it.  I’m also still adjusting to the new training schedule– once a week is a bit less motivating.  I’m hoping they’ll change their policy soon.  I’d like to make a compromise between one and five times a week (what I was doing before)– say three with the trainer (weights with him, cardio on my own) and two days of cardio on my own. 

Anyhow, today was a perfect day.  I even resisted the snacky stuff at work tonight.  Yesterday I had a ladies’ night party to go to, so my dinner was two handfuls of chips, some salsa cream cheese dip, and a little cheesecake cupcake– yummy, but not on my diet.  I did skip dinner, though, and breakfast and lunch were on target, so calorie-wise I was fine.  I’m going back to being strict with my program (yea for veggies!) again, so hopefully I’ll see some results soon.  I plan to go in in Friday to WI, and we’ll see how it goes.  I should be down since last time (I was up a bit from my grandma’s), so here’s hoping for the best.

I’ve bought a couple of diet books that were on clearance, and I’m thinking of doing an informal review of them as I read them– the first is rather interesting/helpful.  It’s about eating in general, and the advice can be applied to any diet, really, even if you don’t follow their “plan,” which is basically just portion control…more to come.

weight at home:  172 (my lowest since this restart was 170, so not too bad, really.  My lowest ever was 159.5, so still a ways to go.  I’m hoping to hit that by the middle of June.)