This month was….okay. In a lot of ways I feel like I can just copy and paste last month’s wrap-up, because not only are the end numbers the same, but a lot of the status reports are the same as well. To me, that is somewhat encouraging buried within the initial disappointment.
Similarities to last month’s wrap-up. Overall I’m still feeling really good, the ankle/Achilles is really getting better, and I’m improving performance in the gym despite it not showing up on the scale.
The Achilles – Going back to the Achilles, I feel it’s more and more apparent that that pressure is an extension of the calves. Tightness of the calves = Achilles hurting. Believe it or not, this actually makes me feel a lot better mentally, because when it’s tied to a muscle and not a tendon, it seems to be a lot more stable. It seems like something that I can build strength around, continue to stretch, and alleviate the problem instead of being in constant fear of it rupturing.
The Workouts – I continued to improve performance. While I haven’t really increased my weights since last month, my speed has increased a little. Looking at the spreadsheet I have of my performance, I had a week of feeling extremely tired and sluggish. I think I was on the verge of getting a bug but was able to hold it off. So it’s kind of difficult to tell true performance because of that off week and the week I took off. But when not feeling “off,” I did notice that it took more effort to get my heart rate up, so that’s a new challenge that my body will have to adapt too.
Calorie burn average was about the same, but the heart rate numbers were different. There was a decrease in my orange and red zones (above 82% of maximum heart rate) while the green zone (typical cardio zone, or what some call the “fat burning zone,” 72%-82% of max heart rate) increased. So, speed on treadmill and heaviness of weights increased while heart rate overall decreased while doing so, that means my heart is healthier!
Of course, this also means that soon I’m going to have to step up the intensity to continue making the target minutes spent in the higher zones. But that’s a challenge I welcome.
Night Nation Run – You might have casually noticed me slip in that “took a week off” line a couple paragraphs back. That was because I was recovering from Night Nation Run. I feel that this was the highlight of the month and what really set it apart from last month. While March-April was all about getting back into the swing of things and restarting the wagon, April-May was about continuing it and just keeping everything cracking. Completing a 5k and being in enough shape to not die trying it in that amount of time is something I’m proud of, and something to springboard from.
Overall – While I wish I had more to show for it, I’m satisfied with the month. Not excited, not too down on myself, just overall neutral. As a good friend of mine once put it: on a scale of -5 to 5, I would give it a zero.
Considering the amount of stress I’ve been under this month, history shows that I easily could have taken a double hit of physical stress (i.e. cortisol) holding on to fat, and emotional stress (stress eating) to completely derail everything (again). But as I already posted about, staying diligent at least in working out has helped keep me in a good place mentally.
The eye test from last month to today is difficult to determine since I’m wearing different shirts. But I want to say the my chest and backside have a slightly toned shape to it. So while there was no change in the scale, perhaps I gained some muscle.
As I have discussed here before, I fully understand how the scale can be deceiving, and that while it’s a large part of it, my goal is NOT necessarily to lose weight. My goal is to be healthy. That’s why I keep track of the performance numbers and do these monthly eye tests. Between weight, performance, and eye, as long as there’s improvement in ANY of those areas, I can not get too down on myself.
For the record: I’m reminding myself about this as much as I’m telling you all again.
Again, to keep a big picture, this time wearing the same shirt, I’ve still made marked progress from when I started this blog. The eye test is telling me that that looks a heck of a lot more than 10.6 lbs of progress. There’s still a long way to go, I just have to keep pushing through this rough patch.
Current Weight: 290
Lost since April 2016: 0 (boo)
Lost since Jan 2015:10.6