The Food Journal for Week Ending 07-04-04

It's an odd food journal week. I missed a few days due to weird circumstances with my financial aid/credit situation, so I just didn't deal with it. I suppose on some level I have to admit there is some emotional relationship to how/what/how_much I eat when under some sort of stress. It's something to keep an eye on. In the end, it's hard to undo a lifestyle in a single day or (or even a single week for that matter). I know if I keep control of calories and keep up the good strong work-outs, things will continue to shrink -- and that's probably a good thing overall.

TRAINING - TRIATHLON VIA CYCLING AND SWIMMING

I've been doing more training and I've purposefully left out the running to try to save my knees. I've been pretty regular about getting to the pool once per week, and riding ~70 miles per week, across ~5 rides. I've found a couple of good mountain rides (over mt. hollywood in griffith park) that I really like and intend to keep on going after.

Nonetheless, the last three weeks have all been long weeks, so I'm going to purposefully reduce the amount of training in order to give my body a break.

Oddly enough, though I'm doing lots of training now within my life, I'm not really prepared to sign up for a triathlon this year (though I've done them every year for the past 5-6 years); I suppose it's partially expense coupled with real body image issues, especially now that I'm trying to document things with my camera.

GUT CHECK

The other thing I should give myself credit for, I suppose, is the fact that, via round numbers, I've lost ~25 pounds, give or take. That's a nice accomplishment. Indeed, I can probably start wearing my cycling jerseys again, if I wish. I suppose I yearn for enough weight loss that I need to purchase new clothing, that would be special :-).

There's almost no better phrase than "I can't wear those, they don't fit me" -- well, only when the clothes are too BIG :-).

I do think the tools I'm bringing to the fight are useful. Namely:

* Food Journal;
* Regular Exercise;
* Exercise Journal;
* Regular photographs (though they drive me a bit crazy at times);
* photographs of the food I'm eating. . .
* regular weight/body fat measurements; and
* regular measurements of circumferences around my body.

On the one hand, I'd like to provide regular motivational priorities; on the other hand, I'd also like to create a system that's workable in the long term; I'm unsure whether this is actually workable in the long term, but since it seems to work in teh short term, it's worth a shot. . .

k