Mindful Healthy Eating

My legs are on fire today.  In fact when I left the gym last night I immediately said and thought, that’s it, I have broken my legs. They no work no more. Of course this is an exaggeration but I feel it. They were already sore from Tuesday night’s leg day. Heavy lifting actually ususally takes 2 solid days to produce maximum pain/soreness for me, so that puts it on par with today.  Last night, my legs were already feeling the sore but I decided to run. No pain, no gain so to speak.  I ran 6 miles.  It wasn’t as easy and breezy as Monday night, but sometimes barreling thru runs that are hard are mentally more rewarding.  And often times these are the moments when you grow the most.

The run was hard, it required all my mental toughness to push thru, but I did. Somewhere in the little over 60 minute range. 62 minutes or something like that. Key is, it was 6 miles. Key is, I ran on very tired legs and I made it work.  After my run I did a little upper body. I was completely on my own last night and sometimes that feels good too. Sometimes just getting lost in your own music, inside your own head feels good.  Of course I was a sweaty mess but that’s cool too. The more I rested my legs post run, the more I realized that the fatigue and soreness was setting in.

By the time I walked out to the car, walking wasn’t even fun. Ouch.  Today I am certain that I feel the effects of leg day then a 6 mile run on said tired legs on top of it.  It’s that funny feeling when squatting down or bending over is just hard. My quads primarily are on fire. Guess it’s a good thing tonight is exclusively upper body work. I need a good one.  I will have to work out my plan later this afternoon. Decide what muscle group or groups I am going to focus my attention on and really try and fry them. So long as I am not trying to climb stairs or squat I should be good.

This morning I weighed myself. My first real week back focused on eating healthy and I am down 3.1 pounds. Yup, I’m not shocked, but a little bit.  I haven’t been all that careful about my food intake up until this week so it doesn’t surprise me that week 1 of suddenly being mindful produces results.  I have no expectation of ever getting close to that number again.  My body is just reacting from eating anything I want period which is not always healthy, to a solid week of better choices. I am not even going to say scary healthy because I didn’t track anything. I didn’t weigh any food portions. I just ate mindfully and made better decisions.  In a week’s time I feel much better because of the quality of the foods I’m eating so that’s a big plus.

I should clarify some things. By no means do I consider myself “fat” or in need of losing weight. I would be perfectly fine keeping my body exactly where it is and continuing to enjoy frivolous indulgences of food.  I have no problem with that. I have proven to myself that I have a pretty good handle on maintaining in this range.  And that would be all fine and dandy if I didn’t have these other goals in my mind’s eye. If I am going to improve my running and build my speed and endurance back up, every single pound I can drop will help ease that transition some.  In the end taking 10 pounds off my frame will help tremendously with running.  When I go to Maui to run my full marathon I have a goal number in my head that I’m not sharing out loud just yet.  It’s not a number that I can realistically keep for any period of time, nor do I desire to, but just like athletes who work their butt off and train for a specific event, this is my event. And if losing weight to have less of it to lug around for 26.2 miles is going to help than why not do that?

Aside from all that, let’s not forget that I have physically felt better this last week than I have in a long while because it’s the first week that I didn’t stuff my face with excessive sugars or a greasy meal. Yup, my body likes mindful healthy eating.

I’m not ashamed of my weight. Last Thursday February 12 I weighed in at 154.5. This was after my vacation and quite honestly a solid 3 months of not giving a shit. I was actually quite happy with that number.  Today I weighed 151.4.  Honestly I’d just like to get back into the 140 something for right now. I am okay with all these numbers because all of these numbers reflect a strong healthy girl who has a lot of muscle too.  I’m not a delicate “empty” 151.4 pounds, that’s a pretty strong toned 151.4 so I’ll take it.

I am just going to keep plugging along, with this whole mindful healthy eating and my lovely exercise regime that is about to gear up and get a little more running heavy.  Whatever the numbers do to follow suit is fine by me. Again, I am perfectly fine weighing 151.4 pounds. This is quite the set point for my body. Anything around 150 pounds is pretty much where it likes to just hang out and live and eat and thrive.  Not a bad place to be. Not complaining at all.

I just know that taking 10 pounds off my frame makes a pretty big difference in the running game though.  Especially over longer distances.  That’s part of my real motivation right now. Anything to make running seem like a breeze again. As if running is ever a breeze. Ha Ha.