Exhausting My Options

For the past three weeks I've been consciously working out and limiting what I'm eating. I've been logging in My Food Diary 9 out of the past 21 days and some of the days I didn't log, I partially logged and knew how much I could eat for dinner.

After two weeks I actually gained weight, which infuriated me. I said that I was going to add double work outs and a resurgence of my mile run, which was this past week. I had lost that odd gained weight and then lost .4 lbs last week. I played tennis six days last week and ran my mile three times. On days that I ran my mile I also did 20-30 minutes on the elliptical.

I didn't see any significant loss with regards to my weight, which pissed me off even more than the weight gain. I worked my butt off this week!

I did finally see and feel a increase in my level of tennis play by Friday night's match, especially at the net (won 6-3, 6-4). And I could see a decrease in my mile time over the past four runs:

Nov 9 - 14:00
Nov 13 - 13:37
Nov 15 - 13:16
Nov 17 - 12:45

My last mile felt really, really good. I finally wasn't struggling against my lungs and my body and nearly felt like I could actually "run" this 5k on Thursday. Or at least the first mile...

I've also been switching up which Lifetime I go to. When I very first joined a gym in Minnesota, I joined the Northwest Athletic Club in Moore Lake. Eventually, Lifetime bought up all of the Northwest clubs, including the Lifetime where I work now, 98th St., or "Bloomington South" in Lifetime Land. The Fridley Lifetime is now the reincarnated Moore Lake Northwest.

What I like about the Fridley club is that they have a large workout room that is encircled by three track lanes. This enables me to run on a track instead of a treadmill (yuck!). I can run on my own without the aid of a machine moving my legs for me. I can speed up or slow down as I like. The track's longest lane takes nine laps to equal a mile; the smallest, 10 laps. I stick to the 9-lap lane for the sake of less laps.

So, what now for this week? Ru and I had talked about reducing carbs. Josh has been doing this and has dropped 13 lbs. I'm not sure where they came from, as he's already a skinny kid. This morning I had two eggs with some cheddar cheese instead of my usual cereal, waffles, or egg sandwich. I'm not sure it's going to keep me full though. I'm already hungry!

This is my last ditch effort. I know Thanksgiving is going to throw a wrench into things this week, but I'm going to try to be good. I'm participating (note: I didn't say running) in a 5k that morning. Tennis is down to 2x this week though, which is my big calorie-burner.

I don't know. I just do not know what else I can do. It's really been a fight to get out of this particular set of 10 and down into the next set of 10. I've never, ever had this much of an issue when I've put forth this much effort. Changing my diet is the last thing I can do. And then...? If this doesn't work? I will keep playing tennis and working out, but I'm not going to kill myself. It's simply not worth if if there is no reward at the end of the week.