Learning curve

Life is constantly about learning limits, pushing them, working with them and avoiding them. The last couple of weeks I've been trying to figure out my physical ones and it's sort of frustrating but interesting at the same time.

Food:
I'm working on really sticking to my macronutrient ratios and so far so good... Not sure if it's really helping anything anywhere because its the first week or so that I'm proactively doing this. Although I'm learning that 1) if I keep my calories around 2,000-ish, I feel and do better through the day and 2) it's actually difficult some days to get to even 1,800 calories. It's weird, but an interesting challenge to figure out how to add in some extra food without greatly increasing the amount of fat, cuz my first instinct/desire is to go for the peanut butter. nummmy peanut buttery goodness. :) It's been nice that I've sort of streamlined my grocery list so while I don't have as much stuff in the fridge/freezer, I have what I eat regularly and enough variety to keep me from getting totally bored.

Exercise:
Doing fabu with it and being very consistent, but learning that less is probably more. Last week and this week, I'm attempting to a do the 40 minute interval program. I say attempting because while I'm able to get through it, it totally kicks my a$$ for the rest of the day.

Yesterday was awesome because I broke the 400 calories/workout barrier (my own personal thing - not sure why it was a big deal but I'd get close several times but not go over.) Well the problem is that I totally paid for it - couldn't get enough to eat, felt a bit wobbly and weak the rest of the day and had a headache. So... it's a question of do I push myself to build the endurance, or do I cut back so I don't burn myself out? I'm leaning towards the latter, especially since my knee has been a bit tweaky the last couple of days, to the point where i had to switch from the treadmill to the elliptical this morning. I know I'm overdue for new shoes, but it's still a bit worrisome and don't want to risk really hurting myself.

I'm also concentrating on adding in strength training a couple of times a week, but being careful to stop just short of the fatigue/exhaustion level because I know that I will be totally miserable of I don't. There's the good sore and there's the 'body filled with lead and can't function for 3 days' sore. I did the little workout generator and today I ventured into the 'Cage'... you know, that sectioned off area where the big huge buff guys do the grunty, clangy weigh lifting? Yeah, that was me in there with my baby 8# weights. Go me! So in addition to cutting back on the time I spend doing cardio, I'm hoping the weight training will help speed up/restart the fat loss... which leads me to...

Weight:
This is probably the most frustrating part of it all. It's up, its down. I'm bloaty, I'm svelte. Pants are loose, top is tight. Top is loose, pants are tight.

::flop::

The body fat % hasn't really changed much which is good on one level - gaining musckles instead of losing it. But frustrating because the darn calipers are difficult enough to read, and when there's only a slight change I'm not sure if it's me or if it's the way I measured.

I'd switched from daily weighing to weekly then monthly. I joined my Firecracker challenge and went back to weekly then daily weighing and started the anxiety/frustration again. I'm glad to be part of the challenge but will be glad to go back to monthly weighing and, by default, doing BF measurement. And hopefully there will a significant enough change that it'll be easier to figure out the measurement. It's the theory, anyway. :)

It's all about learning what works to get the desired result, but also keeping up with my body when it decides to change what works. Silly body. :P

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