W4D5 ... uh oh....

Right on cue, the 4-week freak out (thanks Skwigg for putting it oh-so accurately). I've been going along fine, training like a demon and eating consistently, if not quite perfectly. Motivation, check, pants fitting, check. When I trained on Sunday I got a muscle pump that lasted for hours after I finished (which may be important, as you will see).

I don't like to, you know, fail publicly, but I think it's important to be real about how it goes sometimes so here we are. Today I'm sort of tired. On Saturday I looked in my planning diary and saw it was the 16th. Something in the back of my brain went 'ting...' and I realised with horror that my assignment was due on the 18th.. like.. in two days. Somehow, I had gotten, you know.. busy and lost a week. I'd thought that I had another whole week. Uh uh. I managed to get it done by the 'brute force' method of total immersion and not really enough sleep. So, today I was already feeling a bit tired and grumpy (and yet elated that I'd managed to get that paper written) and was called into the factory to pack a shipment that had to meet a flight deadline. My scales live at the factory. When the warehouse scales broke down, I happily handed over my expensive digital scales and haven't really thought about them since. Some of the boxes were quite large and hung off all sides of the scale, causing an E----- message that indicates the scale is upset. The only way to weigh the box was to weigh myself, then weigh myself holding the box. ... yeah.... that was a super smart idea..... I was all confident, thinking, yeah, I'm good.. I've been training, eating right.. it'll be fine. Well.... it seems that I've gained 3.5kg (!) since last I weighed myself, which was about 2 months ago. This caused a major adult tantrum and every single person that reads this blog will know exactly what I mean. A cursing the universe and feeling hard done by sort of hissy fit. A 'don't talk to me because right now life sucks' kind of thing. Then I came home and read a trashy magazine and ate a block of chocolate and some cereal, just to show the scale gods that if I'm going to gain weight anyway then I'm just gonna eat junkfood, so there. Yes, very mature.

Now that I'm calm again, there are some rational thoughts in my mind. The first thing is, I haven't weighed myself for a long time, who knows? Maybe 4 weeks ago after travelling I was even heavier? Secondly, three days ago I wriggled out of my jeans without undoing them.. that's never been possible before and wouldn't indicate that I'm getting fatter. Then I remembered a few things about previous times that I have embarked on a revised training regime. Sometimes I forget that it wasn't all smooth sailing, even when I have been successful. In my winning Body for Life challenge I remember having a true crisis at the 6 week mark because I was 1.5kg heavier than when I started, and yet, at week 12 I was 5kg lighter. Then, finally I wonder about that fabulous muscle pump and whether the creatine ethyl ester could be making me heavier by (as they say on Bodybuilding.com) 'volumising' my muscle cells. I'm not sure. If anyone has experience with it, I'd be interested to hear about it. I really need to start evaluating my progress in ways that don't involve the scale. Tomorrow I will take measurements and photo's and continue right on past the 4-week freak and into the 5-week freak which should be coming along about next Wednesday. Stay tuned.

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Note to Kek. I did it. I froze my credit card. it a tub of ice, in the freezer. Today I really wanted to go do some impulse spending and just the thought of spending half an hour unfreezing my credit card was enough to keep me in the black. You are full of good ideas. Coffee machine, credit card in the freezer.. you are the font of knowledge and wisdom.