For those new to this blog, I and a bunch of other tweethletes embarked upon this year’s 10in10 challenge, with the outcome goal to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. This report covers progress through week 8 of 10.

How’d I do? (The Outcome Goal) The see-saw continues as Week 7’s surprise drop of 2.75 lbs was followed yet again by a corresponding increasing gain, albeit of only 1.25 lbs this time. This was a near perfect week for me with the only major gap being a lack of weight/resistance training. Therefore just as Week 7 yielded a surprise benefit, the Week 8 result is equally surprising, but considering that I have dropped and gained weight on an alternating basis throughout this challenge, I should probably be used to it by now. But it doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.

I use three levels of performance measures. Less than Expected, Met Expectations and Exceeded Expectations. My grade?

Met Expectations Overall, for week 8 of 10 I gave myself a self assessment of Met Expectations. The reason I can grade myself this way is because of my strict adherence to the process goals set forth; my nutrition was excellent, my portion control was good and I got in 10+ hours of endurance activities including 50 miles of running and 42 miles on the bike. Why the resulting positive weight gain? I have no freak’n idea except that the actual weight measurement itself may be dependent upon a number of other factors that I have yet to identify.

Before we get into this week’s details, I thought it would be fun to throw out a week by week log to illustrate exactly what I’ve been talking about:

• Week 1:  +3
• Week 2: -4.5
• Week 3: -.75
• Week 4: -1.5
• Week 5: +1.5
• Week 6: -1.5
• Week 7: -2.75
• Week 8: +1.25
• Total to date: -5.5

I know it looks like I’m counting cards, and to make it even more squirely, there is very little relationship between the gains/losses and how well I met my weekly objectives that week. To me this begs that there may still be important and relevant determining factors I am not measuring or a time lag between the implementation of positive behaviors and the resulting measured response. Your thoughts and opinions on an explanation are both encouraged and welcomed.

Report Card – Week 8

February 22 – February 28:

Caloric Intake/Nutrition = Met Expectations

Portion size: Actually pretty good this week.

Eat Healthy Breakfast: Only issue was a few more bagels than I would have liked.

Eat light every three hours: Much better with this this week.

Eat fresh whole foods: Good. Salads almost every day.

Avoid junk food and sugar: No slip-ups this week at all. Ruthless adherence.

Eat protein first: Did this.

Stop eating 60 mins. before going to sleep: Hunger is ugly leaving your body.

Caloric Expenditure/Positive Stress = Met Expectations

February 22 – February 28:

Workout early: Got out for 2 early morning runs this week.

Min 45 mins of Cardio: Excellent week for cardio, including a 23-mile run on Saturday.

Resistance training: Hit legs and chest this week but I could have used one or two more days of weight training to keep things off-balance.

Recovery/Adaptation = Met Expectations

Sleep min of 7 hours per night: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Conclusion: I’m very proud of what I accomplished this past week although it didn’t result in the weight loss I had been hoping for. More work to do and a short time to get it done.