Scary cycling thighs

My weight today was 143.2. Not great, but I can live with that.

What I'm not liking is I had to buy a pair of size 12 pants tonight. I was at Eddie Bauer trying on jeans. I always wear a 10 from EB (always being relative--always in the past three years, though), but I had the foresight to try on the jeans instead of just buying them. Length good, waist and hips good, thighs--not good. Really tight to the point of bunching up and visibly straining. And I've noticed this with my "skinny jeans" too--they still fit but every time I put them on, they are tighter around the thighs. All I can figure is it's all the cycling (and running and swimming, but mostly the cycling) I'm doing that's building up these enormous scary thigh muscles. It's nice that there's no jiggle in the area at all, but I hate it that all this exercise is making me go UP a size!

Is this Tuesday?

I'm getting so discombobulated with all the preparations for the move.  I think I weighed myself this morning but it was a million years ago -- it's been around 149.2 for the past several days, though, so we can call it that.  Ugh.  I bet I've lost weight today -- no, I take that back.  Even though I've been on my feet a lot, we had pizza for dinner and cream cheese on cracker bread for lunch.  And several brownies apiece.  So -- not such healthy eating today.  I think I'd better hope there's no scale in Oslo!

Again, I forgot to post on Tuesday!

I was 142.6 yesterday. I'm really feeling like these numbers mean next to nothing now--I'm at the point where I'm judging my level of fitness by my heart rate. The problem with exercising more, I'm finding, is that after a while it starts to be pretty ineffective as exercise. Back in January and February, walking Davey got my heart rate up to the low-moderate range. Now it doesn't even count as "light" exercise because walking just barely gets my heart rate up. Swimming, which used to get my heart rate up to "why aren't you dead?" now only hits the moderate zone. I know this means I should push myself harder, but it's kind of nice to go swimming without feeling like I'm in imminent danger of drowning. Running is still hard exercise, but my average heart rate is still about 10 - 12 bpm lower than it was before.

I keep having to tell myself that this is a GOOD thing. It's the whole point of aerobic exercise, right? But it doesn't burn as many calories.

147.2

Yes, that's the worst it has been since I got to Norway, at least for a weigh-in day.  For the past two days it was at 148.6 but I knew it was bloat since my rings wouldn't go on.  I have NO idea why I'm retaining water at this point in the month, but there it is.  Unfortunately, not all of the weight I've put on is water.  Our outing to Sommarøy this weekend involved me eating quite a lot of good food (and a fair amount of only so-so food, but it was food I didn't have to cook!) and drinking far too much alcohol.  And then I ate out again on Mother's Day, which involved more too much food and alcohol.  So I've really gained weight.

I went to the storage room to see if there was a bicycle I could ride here -- I would love to circle the island one time before we leave -- but I don't think that's going to work out.  One bike is clearly Harald's; the seat is set up much too high for me and it will require a screwdriver to get it set lower, and even if I can get it adjusted I fear the frame is too long for me, and even if I could ride it, the pedals are the clip-on-shoes kind, which I don't have.  The other bike here is missing its seat.  I found the seat, but even with WD-40 (or the European equivalent) I couldn't get it back into its socket.  And the tires seem a bit aged -- the rubber feels wrong.  I'm not sure where I could rent or borrow a bike or how much it would cost, but that might be an option.  When we get to Oslo I'm going to try to find bikes for all of us.

I almost forgot!

I was just shutting down my browser when I realized I hadn't done my usual Tuesday post.  I was 145.4 today -- my weight once again rose to the occasion.  Bleah.  I was in the 143s when I got the scale fixed last week.  The weather is so nice I have no excuses anymore!

Ack! It's Tuesday!

Almost let this one get by me.

I've been just plain lazy the past week. I only exercised three days/four times last week (one day was two sessions since I biked to work), and one of those days was walking the dog so it hardly counts. Naturally my weight is up this week--143.6. Bleah. But that's what I get for not paying any attention to what I eat and only exercising minimally.

On the other hand, my swim last week was good. I decided to just not pay attention to all the drills and intervals I normally do and skip the rests between sets and just swim. For the triathlon this summer I'll have to swim the equivalent of 22 laps, so I just counted off 22 laps and had no problem finishing them at all. It was still half breaststroke, and I wasn't trying to speed through any of it. I was going for straight endurance just to see if I could do the distance without pausing. I want to say my time was 27:40, but I can't remember precisely. And my heart rate was LOW--it didn't even count as hard exercise since I didn't get my heart rate past 160 for more than a few minutes. So overall a good workout.

And then except for walking the dog, that was it for last week--I hadn't exercised at all since last Wednesday (had to run out for supplies for scouts on Thursday and was in training on Friday. Saturday I spent recovering from Friday night's overnight, and on Sunday I went from the Sheep and Wool Festival to baseball with Connor to cooking dinner) until today when I went for a run for the first time in nearly two weeks. I don't know why I let myself do this. I *could* have found some time on Saturday to go for a run, but I didn't. And the more I put off working out, the less I want to work out. I had to drag myself to the gym today, whining to myself the whole way. And of course once I started I was fine. Big baby.