This Week

I'm trying to decide if I sabotaged myself this weekend or actually did something good. Let me explain.

Things have been crazy at work. I've been putting in long hours, and haven't really had time to stop for lunch or snacks. By the time I get home, I'm exhausted, eat just a bit for dinner then crash so I can repeat the next day.

So here is a day-by-day (almost) record of my weight this week.

Monday: 249.6
Tuesday: 248.2
Wednesday: 247.4
Thursday: 246.5
Friday: 246.0

By Friday morning, I had lost 3.6 lbs, averaging .7 lbs per day. This means that, had the trend continued, I would have ended up with a 5 pound loss this week. Now if I had been on Biggest Loser, and had been exercising incessantly over the week, I wouldn't have worried about it. But I hadn't even done so much as walk all the way around the block. I was concerned that I had just been undereating terrifically, and that if I kept the very low calorie diet going, it would come back to bite me in the butt.

With that thought in mind, I actually made a conscious decision on Friday and Saturday to eat -- a lot. So much that when I got on the scale this morning, I hit 247.8. I don't feel bad about that number, because it represents nearly 2 lbs lost over this week, which is generally considered a safe amount of weight to lose.

So here's the question I posed earlier. Did I shoot myself in the foot, or was pigging out for a couple of days the smart thing to do? I guess we'll see.

This coming week promises to be very busy, as well. I expect to work long days every day, but I will also be away from the office for most of the week, as well. I think this poses some significant challenges. The biggest one is that when you don't have a refrigerator next to your desk to heat up the healthy meals you already prepared, it's much more convenient to eat out. And when you eat out, it's that much harder to eat healthy -- especially when you're on a military base, where most of the population runs 20 miles each week and actually needs extra calories just to maintain their weight.

Wish me luck.