It seems I’m lapsing back into some bad blogging habits! I only logged 2 days of food for Week 8. Now, I’m pretty sure I did okay food-wise — but the thing is, I know myself: it’s so easy to stop logging but then old habits might creep back. I find I do so much better when I log the majority of time. One week might not make a big difference, but I know, for myself, if I were to go several weeks without logging in my fitness tracker, I’ll most likely start underestimating how much food I’m eating.

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This one’s going to be short and sweet! I did very well on Friday during the day — and then had two bowls of pasta, plus some wine on Friday night. I didn’t even bother to log it! Ha! Saturday was a catered supper (fancy food!), so there was no way I was going to pooh-pooh any of the courses. But what I did was go for a 1 hour bike ride Saturday morning and I made sure I ate healthy, small meals more frequently during the day so that I wouldn’t be ravenous by suppertime. Luckily, the portions were small for supper, but the dessert did me in!

Sunday was a recovery day after the night before, but we did go to my in-laws who ordered pizza — and bought a rhubarb/strawberry pie. They insisted we take it home, but I’m glad to say I haven’t touched it.

Just a quick aside: if you have problems with week-end weight gain, read this – Weekend Weight Gain: How to Avoid It.

After this week-end, I almost moved my Monday weigh-in to Tuesday. But I’m glad I didn’t. You can see why here: End of Week 7 – Weigh-in & Measurements.

In so many ways, it’s been a really good week. But I’m not eating 100% clean and I seem to have forgotten that there are such things as vegetables! And I seem to be paying for it, unfortunately…

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The beginning of the week went pretty well, even though I didn’t post any updates. (Sorry about that!) But I just kept putting some things off and then by mid-week things got pretty busy up until the end of the week. Problem is, when I’m feeling stressed, I stop eating properly — usually by eating larger meals less frequently and/or by grabbing some unhealthy snacks. And then, by the end of the day, wine or beer seems like such a “right.” A “right” as in, “Heck, yes, I deserve some wine after the day I’ve had!” Why can’t I just say, “Heck, yes, I’ll take a protein smoothie after the day I’ve had!” LOL!

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Since things weren’t too crazy, except for Saturday, I thought I’d put all 3 days into one blog post. Haven’t been doing too badly, but had a weird experience on Saturday. I went for a long bike ride (1 hour 20 minutes). I felt great during most of it but got a bit tired near the end. Nothing to worry about; pretty normal — especially considering it was longer than I usually do. I was really pumped that I had done it!

I got home and had a second meal (having had a first breakfast about an hour before heading out for the ride). Not long after I was completely drained! No energy at all! When I look back, I had a couple of lower calorie days — and when I look at one of my macronutrient (carbs, protein, fat) reports from my fitness tracker for the past few weeks, my carbs seem to averaging about 40%. Makes me wonder
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Unless I missed something, I definitely didn’t enough yesterday. And though you can’t see it just from the chart down below, I ate my breakfast…and then didn’t eat anything until lunchtime. I got too focused on work and forgot to eat! I had some salmon for lunch, but I was so hungry, I couldn’t be bothered to add in some veggies. By late afternoon, I was grabbing things like a Nature Valley Almond Crunch Bar, which isn’t the healthiest of snacks. Don’t know if getting thrown off like that had anything to do with me ending up having 2 glasses of wine before supper! Did the first glass of wine on a somewhat empty stomach go to my head, making me say, “Heck, yeah, let’s have another glass”? Something to watch out for…

All in all, not an overly good day, nutrition-wise.

Hmmm… I also didn’t do my cardio workout this morning. My legs were feeling tired, and I really want to go biking Saturday morning. I figured I’d take my rest day today. Wonder if that threw me off as well?

Here’s what I ate, in all its glory:

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The past couple of days, I’ve been working a lot and not logging my food into the tracker right away. (This is Wednesday’s log, but I’m writing it on Friday.) What I was doing instead was writing down the food I ate on a piece of paper (you know, the old-fashioned way!) — figuring I’ll add it in when I have a bit more time. Trouble is, I didn’t write down what I had for supper on Wednesday…and I can’t for the life of me remember what I had! I swear it’s the work that’s making me forgetful; not age… Ha!

So, what you see down below is missing supper. I probably kept it around 1600 cals and I didn’t have any alcohol.

Today was a weight training day, so I had a protein shake about an hour before working out early in the morning. I blend 1 a scoop of wheat protein(or 1/2 a scoop sometimes) and 1 cup low fat milk. (I use wheat protein because I seem to be lactose intolerant. Whey protein isolate is supposed to be best though.) If you’re buying a ready-made-shake, I’d advise you to check the sugar content. Sometimes those shakes are full of sugar. I like to mix my own!

I never used to eat before weight training, which is supposed to be a huge no-no. But, oddly enough, I did well at that time. But with this 12 week challenge, I wanted to see if there was any difference by having some protein before a strength training workout.

Here’s what I ate on Day 3 of Week 5, minus my supper:

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Day 2 of Week 5 went pretty well, but I ended up eating only around 1500 calories. I usually get very hungry if eat only 1500 calories, so that was weird. Of course, I may have forgotten to enter something…

Today was a cardio day, so I usually only eat my first meal after I workout. (I workout in the morning.) Some people like doing fasted cardio; others don’t. You need to do what’s right for you. I usually feel pretty energized after a fasted cardio workout — although, now that I think about, I almost always wake up and have a tea (1 sugar and a bit of milk). So, it’s not quite “fasted” cardio, is it?

Here’s what I ate on Day 2 of Week 5:

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Although I didn’t do too badly on vacation, it did throw me off of better eating habits. I know some people think it’s a pain in the butt (even I do sometimes), but I do like calorie counting. It just really helps me keep focused on what/how much I’m eating.

Something I’m noticing (and I’ll have to go back and double-check), but I seem to do better with a lower amount of carbs. Right now, I’m aiming for 50% carbs, 30% protein and 20% fat from my total calories. I may drop the carbs down to 45% or 40% and up the protein and fat a bit. One thing I worry about by lowering my carbs is depleting my glycogen stores and running out of energy. I might just add a higher carb day in every 3 days or so.

This is what I love about using my calorie tracker, I can look back at my good weeks and see what I ate, how many calories I ate, and in what proportions!

Here’s what I ate on Day 1 of Week 5:

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It was the chips that did me in! Tough little buggers! I told myself I’d only have a few, but…

Last evening, we had some people over for supper. In many ways, I didn’t do too badly: had a tiny bit of potato salad, kept the steak to 2 oz, had some healthy scallops/olive oil. But I could have kept the wine to 1 glass max — and did I really need to eat those chips?!? They were really tasty — but that’s how they get you! Ha! (I’ll be posting an article within the next few weeks about how junk food companies get you wanting more.)

But, no excuses, right?

Now, here’s where things get interesting.
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