Gee But It's Great to be Back Home

It's good to be home in snowy, snowy Massachusetts. I had a really great trip in terms of staying with my fitness goals. I had a long talk with Mark at Fitness Together on Friday before I left about eating strategies on the road. Flying is usually a problem for me, because there really aren't many healthy choices at airports. I brought an egg and cheese sandwich, apples, almonds, and protein bars for the flight to LA, so didn't need to get anything at Bradley or at my layover in Las Vegas.

I also texted a friend of mine that was also going to be assisting at the workshop over the weekend. I know she usually goes to Trader Joe's for food for the weekend and I was going to be arriving too late to go there, so I asked if she could pick up some yogurt, turkey, and cheese, which were great for breakfast (with almonds and fruit) and lunch and I had protein bars for snacks. I ate out for dinner, focussing on protein and veggies, avoiding sauces and breads. I was tired of turkey and cheese by dinner time on the flight back, but found sushi at the Baltimore airport--perfect. Sushi is high in protein and low in calories, is filling, and tasty.

I also managed to get one workout in over the weekend. The result was I came back weighing exactly what I weighed when I left. Success!

Speaking of protein bars, finding a good one is hard. Most of them are candy bars in disguise. If you read the ingredients, sugar in some form is usually the first ingredient, and if it's not, it's probably because they use a bunch of different forms of sugar, which if combined, would make sugar the first ingredient. What I want is a bar that's high in protein and low in sugar. The one I've settled on is the Think Thin Peanut Butter Protein bar, which has 240 calories, 20 grams of protien, 8 grams of fat, and no sugar, although now that I look it up, it says something about sugar alcohols. I have to find out what that means. When I first started eating them, they seemed pretty tasteless, but now they taste fabulous and are really filling.

Just a little over a week until my assessment!

It Ain't Over

I have 2 weeks left until my next assessment. I'm realizing that I'm starting to think that my training is already done--like there's nothing more I can accomplish in furthering my fitness goals in the next 2 weeks. When I stop to think about it, it's crazy! Two weeks is a full one-fourth of my training period--of course I can increase my fitness level in 2 weeks.

I know I've done this with many things in my life--stopping the race well short of the finish line. In the first place, I'm not going to stop training when my free training period is over, so nothing is really ending. And it's not like I need to taper for my assessment, which is the rationalization I've used for other athletic endeavors. I think it's a self-defeating thing I do. I stop trying before the end, don't achieve my goal, and then have an excuse for not hitting my goal (hey--I didn't prepare the way I should have), and then I get to spend some time in the well of self-hatred--I can't even finish what I started.

Well, no matter what I might be thinking, my thoughts are different from my actions. I'm going to keep up my training. It's going to be challenging because I'm heading to LA this weekend and making a quick trip to Illinois next week. I'll miss a spinning workout on Saturday, but will see how hard I can push myself in the hotel gym. I'll miss another spinning workout on Monday--I'll have to check my flight info to see if I can work out before I have to head to the airport. I moved my Monday Fitness Together workout to Tuesday. I'm going to see if I can fit in an extra spinning class on Wednesday.

I can see as I'm writing this that I'm contributing to being self-defeating by not looking at the workouts that I'll miss and getting new ones in my schedule. I'll do that before I go.