On the challenging side, the Nerd and I had an Italian friend staying with us for most of the week. He was a very considerate house guest and a charming man so his visit was very enjoyable, but a guest - any guest - will throw off even the most disciplined routine.
I stuck to my workout plan and tried to eat well all week and tracked everything, which was good. However, because our guest insisted on cooking a couple of times, and because we were trying to show him Canadian foods like tortiere, butter tarts and nanaimo bars, and because he wanted to show us Italian foods like osso bucco with mushroom risotto and pasta carbonara, we were eating much richer foods than usual for most of the week.
I was feeling pretty good until our Italian friend left and we moved the scale back into its usual place (we had hidden the scale in our closet for the duration of the visit, whereas it usually lives in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs). The Nerd noticed that the scale was giving us strange signals, and I guess with all the moving back and forth the scale had gotten out of calibration. This would have impacted my weigh in last week, as well as all subsequent weights for the most recent week. The solution appeared to be to reset the scale, and recalibrate it, just in time for this week's weigh in.
At which point we both suddenly weighed 2 pounds more than last week. Shock and horror! And extremely disappointing, especially given how disciplined I had been all week, and how attentive to logging all my food I had been. Yes, my food choices were somewhat different than usual, but they were not junk food, and I was managing the portions, or so I thought.
Given that we both went up 2 pounds, however, it looks like the scale may be the culprit. Properly calibrated, I was showing 2 pounds heavier than expected. I don't think I actually put on 2 pounds last week - at worst, I stayed exactly the same - it's just that the weight I thought I was should have been 2 pounds higher.
Anyhoo, the good news is I am still on my program of daily workouts and eating healthy, and now that our guest has gone, our healthy routines can continue uninterrupted.
More good news - - the new workout clothes I ordered from Old Navy have arrived, and they are an XL, and they fit! (cue my happy dance)
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| New workout clothes :-) |
A friend of mine at the office was raving about her Old Navy workout gear that she uses for running clothes. Words like "affordable", "comfortable", "great value", and "awesome" were used, and I was intrigued.
On visiting the Old Navy website, I saw that for them an XL is a size 16-18. Well I am virtually an 18 - - depending on the cut of the clothes, an 18 is either tight or looking good - - so I thought I would take a chance and get the XL. Worst case scenario, the clothes wouldn't fit yet, and I would have to wait a month or so to wear them. Best case scenario, they would fit, and I would have 2 more workout outfits.
The clothes not only fit, the tops were actually cut so generously that they were a little loose! This is particularly exciting because: i) Old Navy is a normal store with wide distribution in many malls across Canada; ii) my friend was right - the clothes were very affordable, and they had a ton of selection; and iii) an XL is a normal size. I am (ever so slowly) evolving away from the need for 1X-2X-3X clothes, and transitioning into more normal sizes. I love it!
So, overall the week wasn't too bad, even though the scale is a lying bitch out to break my heart. I was able to stick to my program, which meant that I was not facing a ridiculous weight gain to overcome this week, only a calculation error. I got some new workout gear which, I am amazed to say, actually made me want to work out right away (!). And, my new workout gear was from a straight size store in a normal size. Will miracles never cease?
After our friend's visit the Nerd and I looked at what worked and what did not in terms of the layout of the apartment for having guests staying over. Because the elliptical machine is in the office, we moved our daybed upstairs to the living room so that we could continue our morning workout routine without interruption. That worked well. The fact that my desk had to be pushed up against the bookcase to make room for the bed, and the fact that when our guest wanted to go to bed I could no longer work at my desk or in the living room was less optimal.
The solution: move my desk downstairs to the office. We also ended up moving a small bookcase (with the books to be read) down to the bedroom, and had to flip the orientation of the office so that my desk and the Nerd's desk are now on the right of the room as you enter, rather than on the left. This required that we empty out the room completely so that we could move the elliptical to the other wall, but all is done now, and the room looks great. The Nerd is now working on getting all the networking set up, and we'll be off to the races.
All in all, it was a super productive day, and I am feeling pleasantly tired (read: exhausted) after starting the day with my usual 30 minutes of weights + 55 minutes on the elliptical.
But the laundry is done, chores are finished, and we're having lamb lollipops tonight for dinner, so it's another good day.
Hopefully next week I will be back to my losing ways. The scale is already coming back down, so I am optimistic that this week was just a minor technical issue.
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