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 Not weighing myself everyday on this plan. The book doesn’t say I have to so I will weigh myself weekly. I am picking Friday as my weigh in day. Why do I do this? I’ll tell you…

I found when I run a 5K, I run faster if I don’t carry my watch. Why would that be? Well, in the absence of data, I assume I am doing worse than I really am. When I know what my time is, I tell myself “hey, take it easy. You are making great time.”

When I don’t have my watch though, I am constantly thinking, “This is probably your worst race yet! Speed up!”

I am thinking I might be sabotaging my weight loss efforts by weighing too often. I know that people who are lean tend to weigh themselves often, but I think daily is too much for me. Here is why - when I see 182 on the scale, I think - “Hey, why not grab an ice cream. I weigh 182. I can fudge a little and still be okay”. Well, 182 is good. Better than the 240 I was last year, but not the 170-175 I want to be. So, Friday will be weigh-in day. I choose Friday because Saturday is my less-restrictive diet day and I don’t want to negatively reinforce my treat day.

Allright so, Escape Your Weight thus far. Well, the workout is awesome. Saturday I ran intervals for 25 minutes (basically 5 minutes of warm up, then 2 minutes of higher intensity followed by 1 minute of lower intensity). After the running, I stretch for 3 minutes (the stretches are in the book). Then do a “fat burner” which has squat thrusts, side bends, jump rope (I am really enjoying the jump rope). It really gets the heart pumping. Next is an upper body routine followed by jumping jacks and then another “fat burner” followed by a leg routine and then an abs routine and then 5-10 minutes of cardio (I chose 6 minutes of jump rope). All in all a pretty intense exercise. I do that 3 X weekly. On my off days (2 x weekly) I run for 40 minutes, then do the leg routine and the ab routine.

All of the workouts are spelled out in the book with good diagrams and everything.

The book does caution against customization. I like that. I like plans that are very specific. I do have the one day that is less restrictive (Saturday for me). The book says this should be a day where you are exercising and since my off days from the exercise are Thursday and Friday, then it makes sense to me to eat a little more on Saturday. As I have said before, I have to be somewhat cautious when given a “free day”. In the past I have turned that into a 24 hour feast. I am going to try and be a little more controlled than that now.

I chose Thursday and Fridday as my no-exercise day so that when I have a race on Saturday (which will happen once a month or so) then I have those 2 days for my legs to recover.

Oh yeah, food. I have managed to stick pretty close to the 1600 calories thus far without being too hungry (the book has tips for how to keep from being too hungry). I struggled more with the target of 221 gms carbs, 80 gram of protein and 44 grams of fat. I was under on the carbs (by quite a few though I tried to get there). Right at the protein number, but a little over on the fat. I will do better today I hope.