Food overall is my weakness...

     Well, overall, the past 6 weeks or so have been a pretty good success for myself.  I've dropped from 201 pounds down to 186 pounds as of this past Wednesday.  This is the lightest I've been since 1994 - the year after I graduated from college.  To put things in perspective - when I graduated high school in 1989, I was a hair under 150 pounds.  Than between my junior and senior years of college, a roommate/teammate of mine introduced me to weightlifting.  Yep, that's where most of my weight gain came from.  By the time I graduated college I was around 175 pounds.  And I guess I didn't help things much when I stopped lifting around the late '90s and became semi-lazy, turning all that muscle into FAT.  Ugh.
     So, how did I reward myself for the weight loss?  Pretty much with an extended weakness of the mind.  As you may I have guessed, I regressed pretty bad with the eating habits.  I broke off the Pizza Hut buffet for lunch on Thursday, and I topped it off with a pizza delivery that same night (yeah, I like my pizza...)  Today, I broke off a $5 foot-long sub from Subway, followed by dinner from Five Guys.  Man, I feel like crap - both physically and mentally.  It's not that I wanted to do this.  Outdoor Track started up last week, and I've basically been pulling 12-hour work days between my regular job and coaching.  Plus, my awesome wife has been busy getting her Silpada business off the ground.  Come late this week, we are both TOAST.  So needless to say, neither of us felt like cooking.  (Plus, I also ran out of my healthy lunches during the middle of this week).
     Am I using these as excuses?  No.  I take full responsibility for my eating actions.  But at least I can say I stayed away from the soda for the most part.  Can I and should I do better?  Yes, definitely.  And I will.  My wife and I are pretty much into the groove now for the spring season, so I should be better from here on out.  I shall stick to my hybrid diet of eating better and less during the week, and allowing myself one splurge day over the week-end.  It's worked so far, so I'm gonna stick with it until otherwise.
     But in all this mess, there have been some positives...  Due to the weight loss and my new stride, my pace has increased dramatically.  Before, I was averaging around 11:15 or so for my week-day 3- to 4-mile runs.  Now, I'm down to around 10:20ish or so.  For my long week-end runs, I was around 11:30 to 12:00 or so.  I'm now down to sub 11:00.  I'm really proud of my last week-end run of eight miles.  I meant to do six, but I felt really good after six and tacked on a couple more.  My splits were 11:14, 11:03, 10:50, 10:44, 10:32, 10:25, 10:19, 10:08.  Each mile faster than the last.  I'm really proud of that.
     Tomorrow (Saturday), I plan on doing a 10-mile easy run, and hopefully burn off the food disaster from today.  I'm glad I incorporated weightlifting into my work-out program because I'm thinking that's helped out with the metabolism...  Maybe to help out with my eating problem, I should do what Ben Stiller did in "Dodgeball":  attach electrodes to my nipples and give myself a shock any time I start reaching for a slice of pizza or other types of junk food!
     Now for my weekly Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah Tip for the Day:  Always remember your form on the hills.  No matter how tired you are, if you maintain good form you will reach the top of that hill that much quicker.  You don't necessarily have to lean into the hill, but maintain a good knee drive and arm drive.  Get up on the balls of your feet (or the middle part of your foot at the least). I know sometimes people get too tired to even think about form, but the way I approach that attitude is no matter how you feel, you're going to be tired either way whether or not you use proper form - so you might as well be tired while using the proper form!
     Until next time...  Stay tuned...