Woe is I

Warning-this post is going to be all over the place and might not make any sense. I have a migraine, so my brain feels like it's being shaken around in a mason jar. I have a feeling it was kicked off by a combination of not eating enough before this morning's workout, dehydration, and walking out of the dim basement into the bright sunlight. Those first two factors are all my fault. I didn't want to eat or drink much this morning because it is weigh in day. Lot of good it did me. I'm only down 1.4 lbs. this week and now I'm going to spend the rest of the day with a headache and various disturbing neurological symptoms. And I'm supposed to go see one of my favorite bands in concert tonight. Poop.

I know I shouldn't be complaining about the amount of weight I lost, especially when I know I've been building a lot of muscle, I'm just really surprised. According to my home scale, it looked like I had lost another 3-5 lbs. Granted, my home scale is crappy and varies by 2 pounds depending on where you put your feet, but I was certainly expecting to have lost at least two pounds. Yesterday I entered a few more days in Spark, and I've been averaging around 1,600 calories/day. It would take 2,500 calories/day to maintain my body weight, so the diet alone should be taking off two pounds a week. All of this exercise should put me over that, especially since I got in a few extra walks this week.

Ooh, fun, now it feels like someone is sticking an icepick in the top of my head, just to the left of my part.

OK, complaining isn't going to make me lose more weight, so I will try to be rational. I've stated before that I always have difficulty losing weight because I build muscle very quickly, but burn fat very slowly. That would be an excellent explanation for what happened this week-my weight loss was offset by an increase in muscle. After all, my hamstrings and quads have gotten much bigger and I can see my triceps in the mirror without even flexing (why have I never been She-Hulk for Halloween?).

The other issue that I'm reluctant to face is that I haven't been eating enough this week. It's hard for a fat girl to grasp the concept that she needs to eat more to lose weight, and I've been letting things slide. There were three days this week where I skipped a meal. Bad, bad, bad! That is just going to put my metabolism back in slothful fat storing mode. Add to that the fact that I've been slowly making my meals smaller and smaller, and this is a serious problem. My breakfasts are half the size that they were last week, I've cut carbs out of more meals than I should, and I've been pushing back dinner because I don't want to eat. Hmm, I think I may have just solved the fatigue mystery I wrote about a few days ago. I have to start eating more and stick to my meal schedule if I'm going to continue losing weight. That's just the way it is.

To touch upon today's workout, there were good things and bad things. The bad was that I had a reluctant mood today and I didn't sweat as much as usual. The good is that I did a push up (yes, just one, but a full "guy" push up) and I hung in there through all the ab exercises with decent form. We didn't do a lot of leg work because everyone was still sore from Wednesday. That's probably a good thing, because I'm going camping this weekend and will be doing a lot of hiking. I will also be eating s'mores and drinking beer by a campfire, but, hey, it will be my day off.

And since I like sticking this all the way at the bottom of my posts: official weight 203.0 lbs. The scale also said my body fat was 43%, but the trainer said it was probably closer to 37% since the scale measurement isn't exact. Either way, not pretty, but that's why I'm doing all of this. I ran into a coworker yesterday who said he was doing this to train for a triathlon. I said I was training for life. Then he said something about bikini season coming up. Right, bikini season. By the end of this contest in July, I'll still probably be around 180 lbs., not exactly bikini ready. But with all the skills I'm picking up, maybe next year.

Warning: once I look good in a bikini, I may never wear pants again.