week 2 weigh in

Ok, so here's the deal.  After playing around with how many calories per day would keep me fueled enough to keep me from passing out, yet cutting enough (and increasing my exercise) to keep me losing some weight, I've settled on 1700 calories per day.  That's what my app on my iPhone says, anyway.  I plugged a couple of days worth of meals into a different app, and got approximately the same calorie count, so it should be pretty accurate.  I've gotten to like one app better than the other though, because I think the one is a little easier to manage, and the app that I'm not fond of told me that in order to lose the weight I wanted to I was going to have to starve myself at 1200 calories per day.  No way.  I would not survive that.  My friends and coworkers probably would not survive that either.

I've also kept pretty good about not eating sweets, although there is a chocolate-covered praline candy from IKEA that I'm really fond of, and last Friday after a sort-of rough week, I ate 5 of them while watching a movie.  Still, only 30 calories apiece, so not a total failure.

After losing about 3 1/2 pounds in week one and feeling half-starved, I've lost another 2 1/2 pounds this week (feeling less-starved) and am actually feeling really good.  Probably the fact that I did not cut out my daily coffee consumption has helped my attitude a bunch too.

Actually when I am exercising, I'm feeling "lighter" and things are feeling easier.  I felt really strong skiing powder on Thursday, even though it was kind of an emotional day for me (which I don't want to get into ~ and it doesn't matter anyway because things are pretty much resolved now) and felt super-strong ski touring on Saturday.  Skate skiing yesterday was super-easy, although I picked a route with nearly zero vertical gain (the Rail Trail in Park City) but did 10 miles in an hour and 20 minutes, which felt leisurely the whole time.  Then today, trail running after work I felt like it was super easy, peasy (although a little muddy).  I'm starting to think that 6 pounds lighter really does make things a lot easier on my body!

I'm also starting to think that I could get down to a goal weight that I haven't seen in nearly 10 years.  There's no way I'm losing muscle throughout this process, because I kept my mileage up this week and squeaked out about 15 hours of exercise.

So I'm going to keep at it, calorie counting, exercising about the same amount each week (around 15 hours, between skiing, ski touring, walking, and running) and I might even try to get a run-interval workout in this week.  I'm keeping in mind that the more I lose, the more difficult it may become to lose, so I may have to continue to re-evaluate the daily calorie allowance.  3 pounds per week is feeling pretty do-able and I really haven't felt this good in a long time.  I keep wondering how much easier my 50k run last month would have been if I'd started this process a couple of months ago.  Oh well.  At least I can look forward to racing a little easier this summer.

Photos this week are from ski tour Saturday with Brendan, Brett, and Kate, and skate skiing the Rail Trail in Park City with Franklin, Vernon, and Artemis.

feeling strong on the first of three ascents

Kate, Brett, and Brendan

Kate rippin' it Grizzly Gulch style

Kate and Brett ~ sandwich time

good dogs on the Loipe ~ Franklin, Vernon, and Artemis

me ~ happy on the Loipe in the sunshine

Vernon ~ tuckered out after 10 miles