This post is part of my ongoing “Get Fit” series, an effort to lose a little weight/tone up, and save money by reducing the number of meals I eat out.

Here’s a bit of good news. I weighed myself this morning and I’ve lost right at 5 pounds during the month of January.

If I was looking at progress simply from a weight standpoint, that number wouldn’t seem very impressive over a two month period. It’s important to remember that when building muscle you actually might put on weight, meaning that losing fat and adding muscle might make your weight stay unchanged for a bit.

But I’m not simply looking at my weight as the success factor, so all is well.

Skating

I’ve only skated once this week (Tuesday), primarily because I’m still experiencing a significant amount of pain in my left ankle from where a previous boot hurt my foot. I’m taking a few days off to let that settle down…and hopefully my new boot will arrive at some point next week.

After all, I have a skating competition in Hickory, NC in just under two weeks… which will be very interesting.

The Trap         

I don’t know if you’ve fallen into this trap before, but I most certainly have. You lose a few pounds or have a stretch of eating healthy… and you suddenly feel like you can cheat a little more than you have been. Then, the next thing you know you’ve been cheating for a month and gained all your weight back.

That stinks!

This trap has me debating whether or not my cheat day (Friday) does more harm than good. Part of me says yes, but on the other hand it also seems important to reward yourself. I’m not making any decisions on this just yet, but it’s definitely on my mind.

Thanks for reading the “Get Fit” series and I hope you find it to be helpful in some way.

This post is part of my ongoing “Get Fit” series, an effort to lose a little weight/tone up, and save money by reducing the number of meals I eat out.

I thought I’d do a midweek update to let you know how things are going this week. I’m doing pretty well from an eating standpoint; although, I guess I did technically cheat twice this week.

Monday night I had a pretty hard cycle class and was starving afterwards, and I was hit with a rather large craving for pizza. And it most certainly doesn’t help that I live around the corner from a Mellow Mushroom. I ended up having pizza, but did so with the condition that I had to wake up at 5:30 am on Tuesday and do 30 minutes on the elliptical… something I despise doing. What’s humorous is that I know one of the employees at the Mellow Mushroom, and when he saw me he said, “This isn’t part of your get fit program is it?”

I skated pretty hard Tuesday night and had to make a quick trip to the grocery store right after practice. While waiting to checkout I decided to treat myself to a Coke and a Mr. Goodbar, so I did.

Other than those two steps off of the path, this week has been pretty good from a food standpoint.

Now, allow me to possibly redeem myself a bit and point out that I’m exercising a good amount. Below is this week’s workout schedule that I posted on Monday – items crossed out are things that have been completed.

Monday – Cycle class, weight train (chest, back and core)
Tuesday – (added: 5:30 am 30 min elliptical session) Indoor skating practice Wednesday – Cycle Class, weight train (arms, core and easy legs)
Thursday – Indoor skating practice
Friday – Indoor skating practice
Saturday – Hope to skate outside
Sunday – Full body weight training workout (nothing hardcore), Indoor skating practice

For the rest of the week the only thing I might potentially have to skip is the outdoor skating on Saturday. You have to have a certain type of wheel, and I’ve not been able to get my hands on any just yet.

Oh yeah, did I mention that my friend tried to tempt me with ice cream and cupcakes last night? That’s just pure evil! And no, I didn’t give in!