Stagnating & Self Defeating Talk

Lately I've been keeping up with all my workouts really well, almost never missing a session. But for whatever reason my weight seems to be stagnating lately as I've plateaued at 135-136lbs. and can't seem to go any lower for almost 3 weeks now.

I don't understand it, because I'm still following the same 1,200 calorie diet every day...except for last night when I really had a craving to actually EAT real food for a change and ended up eating several of these and this totally off limits yumminess for dinner. But that doesn't explain what's been going the past few weeks?

Last week my trainer said he wanted me to begin to incorporate some interval runs now that I've built up a fairly steady base run time so I can start working on increasing my lung capacity and overall speed.

So Monday when I set out to run my usual 5 miles I decided to add some interval runs beginning at 2.4 miles and ending at 3.1 miles. My intervals consisted of increasing my steady pace to a sprint as fast as I could go followed by 1 min. walking, and then repeating that cycle until I reached the 3.1 mile mark.

I was INCREDIBLY frustrated by the end of it because the interval sprints did not decrease my total run time any...in fact my total run time was almost exactly the same as when I typically run at a steady pace. But to make things worse, the sprints took so much energy out of me that despite all my efforts to keep running the rest of the 5 miles, my legs totally shut down!!!

My shins, calves, and hamstrings were all completely on FIRE! I tried several times to keep running, but my body was done! Completely infuriated at myself, I painfully walked about 1.5 miles home and gave up. I was so furious with the differences between how much my body was capable of doing that day vs. how much my mind wanted my body to do.

I came home, feeling incredibly defeated and angry with myself because I know I'm capable of running 5 miles, but couldn't understand why my body wouldn't do it that day?

Then my trainer came over the next day (I've switched my weekly training sessions to Tuesdays because there's too many annoying distractions when all my kids are home on Sat. evenings and in the way while I'm trying to focus on strength training). I talked to S about how upset I was with myself about the run time the day before and about my lack of recent weight loss.

Fortunately, I have an amazing trainer! He's not only very encouraging and supportive, but he provides an excellent model for extremely active, healthy living. In fact, being an extreme mountain biker, he spent last weekend here:

That's him above jumping off a huge rock. And just to give you an idea of how high up he was, here's another picture from a guy in his group riding among one of the much more MILD cliffs they biked.

S showed me some video of some of the trails they rode on and it's shocking how narrow many of the trails are with EXTREME drop offs right next to them. One wheel over the wrong rock and you could easily fall off the cliff!

Anyway, what hadn't occurred to me that S pointed out was that:

1. When it comes to weight loss, sometimes it can be a total crapshoot. Meaning there will be weeks where I'll have really big numbers of weight dropping and then other weeks where I'm still working just as hard (sometimes even harder) and I'll end up with a week where I barely lose anything. But as long as I'm still following my plan I'm continuing to make huge progress...and I am, because while my weight hasn't gone down recently I've still noticed HUGE improvements in my ability to perform many strength training exercises a little better each time I try them, which is really good considering S keeps increasing their intensity every week!

2. It makes perfect sense that my total run times wouldn't be less when I'm incorporating interval sprints...in fact, if anything it's much more likely that my times would get longer because I'm adding much more intensity to my runs. When you sprint at higher speeds it uses up more energy and then requires longer walking/rest periods to recoup. So while I'm incorporating intervals I need to give myself some slack and expect my total run times to be a little longer.

3. I've discovered that I have an EXTREME tendency toward very self defeating talk! I'm naturally an immense over achiever...constantly pushing myself to do more, and I set very specific goals in mind, so when I don't think I'm going to reach those goals on time I become incredibly discouraged with myself. When S is continually telling me how proud I should be of all the progress I've made I almost never focus on congratulating myself, but instead I keep focused on how much more work I still have to do. I beat myself up A LOT!

I'm worried that if I begin to feel good about how much progress I've already made that I'll end up losing sight of my continued focus on the big goals I still want to reach. S thinks that idea is ridiculous and believes my self defeating talk is only making things much harder on myself. It may sound silly, but it's seriously against my nature to applaud myself, instead I'm always focused on what else I can do.

So S gave me some new motivation to break the self defeating talk cycle. He asked if I would prefer it if he spoke to me like that? The way I talk to myself? So of course I said NO! I really need his weekly encouragement to keep me positively motivated. So the deal is I have to stop beating myself up and doubting my capabilities or else S says I have to start talking to everyone else in my life in the same defeating ways I talk to myself. And of course since I definitely have no plans to do that, I guess I'm going to work really hard on giving myself a break. that doesn't mean I'm going to push myself less and not continue to work as hard each day, I'm just going to remind myself that when I'm increasing my intensity levels I can't expect the same results right away.

So I've noticed some interesting differences in running outside as the weather has improved. Instead of wearing gloves to avoid freezing fingertips and sweatshirts to combat the cold winds, instead the warmer weather brings lots of annoying bugs I have to be careful not to swallow, the smell of fresh cut grass...and allergies! And running in the added heat makes a big difference! I find myself so distracted by the bugs, the allergies, and how totally hot the sun is beating down that I'm sure it's affecting my run times. Unfortunately, I don't have any babysitters for KW until late in the afternoons, so if I want to run outside it usually happens in some of the worst, hottest parts of the day.

I've also noticed some really interesting & strange bike trail etiquette. I'm not sure if this is typical everywhere, or just here, but I've noticed that people are only friendly to an extent. There are of course some runners that are not social at all and will not make any eye contact, wave, or say hello as they pass by, but most people seem to be very friendly the first time I see them.

Especially when I pass walkers on the trail, sometimes as I'm turning around to make another lap I will pass by them a second time and usually the response is another friendly hi. But if I pass them a third time, then all of a sudden all the friendliness goes away and they don't say hi, or acknowledge you anymore. It's almost like they're all of a sudden ticked off at me?

I'm FAR from a very fast runner at this point, but yet it's like there's some kind of friendly "hi" quota and once you get 2 of them you're not allowed any more. And then there's the walkers who simply act like they hate your guts just because you're running and they're walking. I don't get it? Isn't the whole point that we're all out there enjoying the beautiful days and improving our fitness levels at our own individual paces? I mean, I'm not thinking any less of them because they're not running. I don't get it.