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Well, that's it. I have to buckle down. I didn't want to post my weigh-in on Saturday, because I wanted to relish meeting my goal of running 5 miles, and not have a black spot on my otherwise bright day. Folks, this is some serious regression here. Not only did I not lose, or even maintain, but I gained enough weight to put me back to where I was before I started doing only weekly weigh-ins on May 10. I am currently at 141.0 lbs.  : (

It could be attributed to a lot of things: running/exercising more and therefore either building muscle, or water weight gain, or the dreaded "I'm exercising more, so therefore I can eat more"- which is the most likely reason. Or it could be because I haven't really kept a food journal since I got back from vacation in April. Or it could be because my TOM is coming at any time now.

Let me digress a little here. Just so you know where I'm coming from, back in April I went on a nice long vacation with DH and another couple. We drove from Utah to California, stopping along the way to stay one night in St. George on the way down, and stopping in Vegas on the way home. In between, we visited relatives, then continued on to spend a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Then we drove down to LA to depart for a 4 night Baja Mexico cruise, which stopped in San Diego, Catalina Island, and then Ensenada Mexico. It was a great trip, and tons of fun, but it was a cruise, and I definitely ate a lot. However, I did workout 6 out of the 10 days we were gone, including 30 minutes on the treadmill each morning we were on the ship. Plus we almost never took the elevator on the ship- always stairs, and we walked all over Sea World, snorkeled for 90 minutes in Catalina, and walked from the ship to downtown Ensenada and back (in addition to all the hills at Magic Mtn). 

Starting in January I really tried to get serious about getting in shape for the trip, so that I could feel comfortable wearing capris (I don't wear shorts) and t-shirts, and a swimming suit if it was warm enough. For the whole month of March I even did the program from Jillian Michaels' new book "Making the Cut" (which I would actually recommend to people who are at an intermediate to advanced fitness level and really want to step it up- it is tough!!). Anyway, in January I was around 133/134 lbs. Right before I started my Jillian Michaels bootcamp (as I lovingly refer to it), I was 134.6 lbs (on 2/29). By the middle of March, I was down to 132.0, then started creeping back up again. At the end of the 30 days, I was back around 134.6, but then in the first week of April I was at 136, and the day before we left on our trip (Apr 10), I was 137.2! That's the highest I had been since 2001, when I was really working hard to lose the weight I had gained my senior year of college and in the year and a half following. The day after we got home from the trip I was 139.8, which I figured was pretty good for going on a cruise (gaining less than 3 pounds). And in the first three days my weight went steadily down (139.4, 138.8 and 138.4). But unfortunately on the 4th day it was right back up and has bounced between 139 and 141 ever since. Hence my resolution to crack down and really try to change.

So, today I made copies of my food/exercise journal, and I am going to see if I can pinpoint my trouble spots and try to make changes. Obviously the exercise part is going okay, so it's got to be the food. The journal I use is from the Discovery Health National Body Challenge. This is a link to a PDF that actually has a lot of other good info besides the journal. Starting at about page 20 is examples of how to fill out the food and exercise journals, and after that are several blank pages of the journals. But to save paper, I print one copy of each of the journals, then photocopy them front to back. I print about 30 days at a time, then staple them together with the industrial-size stapler at my office. I like it because you can write the time you ate, the item, the calories, and the reason you ate. Plus it has little water glasses down at the bottom to keep track of your water intake. In the calories column, I also put the fat grams. Then out to the side after each meal or snack, I put in the subtotal. So today, I had a 1/2 cup of OJ before leaving for work, then for breakfast I had oatmeal with ground flax seed, cinnamon, a Splenda packet, and fat free soymilk, and a container of Kroger light blueberry yogurt. That brings the sub-total so far to 300 calories and 4 grams of fat. By keeping a sub-total throughout the day, it helps me to be more aware of how much I have eaten, and how much I can still eat. Normally I try to stay around 1500-1600 calories (but rarely do), but since I am running a lot more now, I may bump it up to 1700-1800. We'll see what I can stick to without feeling like I'm starving.

Okay, this ended up being a lot longer than I intended, but hopefully that gives you a better idea of what's going on with me. I think being more diligent with my food journal will help me to get back on track. Wish me luck.