Wednesday 15 February 2012

Maintenance - unfortunately...

So, I stayed the same at weigh-in this week.  I hate it when this happens, it's almost worse than having a gain because of the horrible sinking feeling of a completely wasted week.  It's worse still when you don't know why.

On this particular occasion I can at least think of multiple potential good reasons why it might have happened.

First, I've done quite a lot more exercise than normal this week since I've been sticking to my aim of doing my Wii activity every day - or nearly every day, I'm now taking a rest on Wednesdays.  I've changed the activities that I've been doing in the last week.  In my first week I was doing mostly Kung-Fu, Step and Jogging, very much aerobic activities.  This week I've done more with Rhythm Parade and Boxing: both are also aerobic, but both also include a lot of upper body work, the muscles in my arms have been quite sore this week.

It's long been known that if you suddenly go from not working muscles to working them, you can maintain or even gain weight but still see a change in your shape and size.  I should add here that the oft-quoted "muscle weighs more than fat" adage is a misinterpretation of the facts, but the sentiment is right.  As a friend of mine pointed out in her own weight loss blog this week, the correct expression is: "muscle is heavier by volume than fat".  Muscle is denser than fat, so the same weight of it occupies less space.  This is what can lead to two people of the same height and weight being dramatically different in shape and size.

The second possible reason is that my food intake really wasn't brilliant, for a number of reasons.  Firstly I had the issue I talked about earlier in the week with having used all of my weekly points at the start of the week, causing me to eat into my activity points later in the week.  I'm never happy when it happens.  Secondly I had two meals which involved guesswork - in one of them I forgot to measure the olive oil I used in cooking a meal and I'm quite sure I used more than I guessed, and in the other I got a takeaway sandwich from the sandwich shop close to work at lunchtime.  I didn't make a wise choice, and what I did choose was very difficult to guesstimate.  Not good.  Additionally (as evidenced by these issues), what I've eaten also hasn't been brilliant.  I've eaten too much  bacon (which is salty and has a tendency to cause me to retain water), too much pasta and too much bread.

The last reason is hormonal.  I am, very obviously, a woman with all the joys and pleasures that brings - and all the hormonal booby traps too.  This is something I can do nothing about.  If water retention as a result of this has been a factor, it should sort itself out next week.

So - there are a number of potential reasons for this week's result.  Some of them I could have done something about, and some of them I couldn't.  I'm going to try very hard not to let it get to me.  Onwards and upwards into this week.  This week is going to be all about the exercise again, but also all about making wiser food choices, and managing my weekly points in a more disciplined way, working to not leave myself short when I really need them.  This week I'd also like to try to not use any of my exercise points.  Although last week I had a good result when I did use some of them, this week I'd like to see how it goes when I don't.

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