{"id":173,"date":"2008-10-23T09:04:42","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2008-10-23T09:04:42","modified_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:04:42","slug":"a-vicious-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":"A vicious cycle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I blame it on the caramel apples<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You see, that’s where it starts.\u00a0 Once I see the Honey Crisp apples in my grocery store I’m soon yearning to jab popsicle sticks into them and coat them with a gooey layer of melted Kraft caramel.\u00a0 As far as sweets go, they’re not too bad.\u00a0 They have relatively little fat, and you’re getting at least one serving of fruit (more like two given the size of apples these days).\u00a0 But so starts the slippery slope.<\/p>\n

By mid-October the Halloween candies start appearing, and I just HAVE to have me some candy corn.\u00a0 Yes, they’re sickly sweet, but they’re my once-a-year guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Normally I can avoid most of the “fun size” candy bars since I no longer work in an office, but many of my clients will have bowls of them out, taunting me.\u00a0 Of course, whatever doesn’t go into trick-or-treaters hands on All Hallows Eve somehow manages to makes its way down my gullet.\u00a0 But this year my darling and I will dining at the Herbfarm<\/a>, so we won’t be handing out treats.<\/p>\n

After Halloween there’s my birthday on Nov. 12, which I’ve always used as an excuse to indulge<\/a> (it typically ends up being a week-long orgy<\/a>).\u00a0 Then it’s Thanksgiving with the pies and the wine and the mashed potatoes and the wine and the turkey & gravy and the wine and the stuffing and yet more wine.\u00a0 Early in December you’ll typically find me in my kitchen whipping up batches upon batches of cookies and “Texas Trash”<\/a> to give as client gifts (but of course there are leftovers for us to eat), then I’ll gorge myself silly at the Christmas Eve feast.\u00a0 While New Year’s tends to be a subdued affair, you can pretty much guarantee there’ll be a champagne glass in my hand.<\/p>\n

This is all a long-winded way of saying I tend to gain weight this time of year.<\/p>\n

I had such high hopes last year when Pieces of Me<\/a> issued the Holiday Weight Loss Challenge<\/a>.\u00a0 I started the challenge Oct. 29 weighing 166.4, hoping to get down to 155 by the Feb. 1 deadline.\u00a0 Holiday indulgences kept my weight pretty steady (I was just down a pound by Dec. 31), but managed to lose a couple more pounds by Feb. 1, weighing in at 163.8.\u00a0 By then I had decided to train in earnest to qualify for Boston, which included maintaining a more healthy diet (more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, french fries & potato chips only on occasion).<\/p>\n

My strategy worked, as my weight finally dipped below 160 at the end of March.\u00a0 Losing even a few pounds had a dramatic effect on my running — I was getting faster!\u00a0 (Although I’m sure my increased training also played a large part).\u00a0 My original goal was to get down to a “fighting weight” of 150 by the North Olympic Discovery Marathon (my first BQ attempt), but I was still pleased to see 154 on the scale race day morning (besides, a few people thought I was starting to look TOO skinny).<\/p>\n

I’ve pretty much maintained my weight since then, fluctuating between 155-158 (my weight this morning was 158.2).\u00a0 But I’m determined NOT to gain those holiday pounds this year.\u00a0 I’m training for the Goofy Challenge again, so the mileage should burn off most of the extra calories.\u00a0 But I know I’ll also need to show some restraint when it comes to my eating<\/span> drinking habits.\u00a0 Celebrating my birthday with a martini = good.\u00a0 Knocking back four or five martinis = not so good.<\/p>\n

(This post was part of Amy & Tom’s Take it and Run Thursday<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I blame it on the caramel apples. You see, that’s where it starts.\u00a0 Once I see the Honey Crisp apples in my grocery store I’m soon yearning to jab popsicle sticks into them and coat them with a gooey layer of melted Kraft caramel.\u00a0 As far as sweets go, they’re not too bad.\u00a0 They have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[59,58,22,17],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weight-weightdont-tell-me","tag-caramel-apples","tag-holidays","tag-take-it-and-run","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eatdrinkrunwoman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}