Goals, past and present

I said I would get to goals later, and later is now. :)

Last week, I said that I would try:

Food - 1500 calories per weekday, 100g protein, 25g fiber Yyyyeah...about that calorie thing? Um, no. Per fitday, which doesn't even have the holiday weekend recorded, my average was 2002 calories. My protein average was 129, though, so that's good. And my fiber was fine every day but one.

Water - 2L per day Mostly met. On the days it wasn't, I was in the 1.5-2L range.

3 interval training workouts--elliptical or walk/run - check!
1 long bike ride, if the weather cooperates this weekend - check! Though there will come a time very soon when 30 miles is not a long ride.
1 upper body strength - check!
1 lower body strength - kind of. Technically I did, but I half-assed it. My eating was pretty crappy yesterday and I did the workout right before bedtime, so I wore out pretty fast.
2 abs - check!
1 long walk nope.
1 short bike ride nope.

Per the HRM, my total workout time was 4:58 and my total calorie burn was 2755. If I had done those two recovery workouts that I wanted, it would have been closer to 8 hours.

Now, this week's goals...

Food - If you'll recall, last week I tried to get all tricksy with myself about the calorie count. I said that I wanted 1500 calories, when really I was going to be happy with 1800. The problem with this approach is that I only have the one brain, and if it knows I really want 1800, it's not going to believe that I want 1500. (Incidentally, that's the same reason setting all my clocks ahead 15 minutes doesn't keep me from being late 80% of the time. Even if the clocks are wrong, I know what time it is.)

I'm trying a different approach this week--planning. On workdays (which are the only days I really count), I have a meal plan in mind at work, but it comes apart by the time I get home, usually somewhere between the making of the dinner and the eating of it. Going over the stats for the past couple weeks, I'm finding that I consistently eat about 300 calories more than I plan to. If I plan 1700, this is a problem. If I plan 1200, it's not so much.

Now, you may ask yourself--how is this different from last week's attempt at deception? It's different because I'm still allowing for 1500-1700 calories. However, when I make my meal plan during the day--3 meals, 2-3 snacks--it has to come in under 1400 in order to get the Workout Diaries Seal of Approval (WDSoA). No excuses, no tiny compromises, no undocumented trips to the vending machine. Then when the danger hour hits, I've got a cushion for grazing. Though it sounds good to me right this minute, we won't know until next week whether it will actually work or even make sense in practice. Man, this food thing would be so much easier if I could just trust myself to stick to a plan. But after 2 1/2 years, I've found that it's easier to work around my more mutinous side than to change it.

So all that to say (for copy/paste purposes next week)the food plan is 1200-1300 calories planned, 1500-1700 actual. Protein over 75g, fiber over 25g.

Workouts are essentially the same:

3 interval cardio workouts
1 long bike ride (probably the same 30 mile course, but I may go a little further so I can stop for breakfast before I head back home)
1 lower body strength
1 upper body strength
2 abs
1 long walk
1 short ride

By my calculations, this should add up to about 8-9 hours of workouts for this week.

Today I'm right on schedule, with an interval workout and just over 1350 planned calories for the day.