What's a stuck girl to do?

Living risky. At least, I felt like that this past week. My mom and I did a little talking, and we spent some time bouncing ideas off of each other as to what I can do to break through this same plateau. I've read tons of weight loss books, and they all have different books ideas. Eat this, don't eat this, exercise this way, exercise this long, but don't exercise too much... It's enough to make my head spin!

My mom has felt for a long time that I'm exercising too hard. I don't really feel like it, because I'm only doing six to eight hours a week, and if anything I feel like I should be doing more! But I'm thinking that maybe my body has gotten into an exercise rut, so I've been mixing things up every day. I spent less time on the treadmill and more time doing other cardio, like step-ups on a stool, jumping jacks, high knees, and squat boxing to name a few. It's been fun doing things differently. I don't get bored, because by the time I get tired of doing one thing I have to move on to the next.

I've spent some time reading through past journal entries and blog posts, looking for any clues that might help me figure out what I need to do to continue losing. I specifically looked at the weeks where I lost 2 pounds or had a weight loss that I wasn't expecting, and I was surprised to see a common thread between those weeks. Oddly enough, it seems that the weeks that I lost the most weight were the weeks that I missed at least one day of exercising. Weird, huh? I never would have guessed that. How in the world does missing a day of exercising result in weight loss? Maybe Mom was right. Could I be exercising too hard and not eating enough calories, so then my body kicks into "starvation mode" and starts hording my fat? I didn't know, but I decided to give this theory a try this week. One day, instead of totally skipping exercise (because I really do feel SO good after doing it) I just made it a lot easier. I walked for awhile, did a few minutes of stair steps, and then walked for a little more. It was about 20-30 minutes, and I barely broke a sweat. But I was curious to see if it would make a difference.

The scale didn't reflect that this week; I stayed at 168lbs, but I think I'm going to give it a try again this week and see what happens. I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen? Weight gain? Yeah, well. I know what to do to fix that problem. I'm just trying to get out of this silly "maintaining" mode and into the "losing" mode again.

I spent time doing interval training on the treadmill today, and I was so hot and breathless once I finally finished. (Here's what I did - 3 minutes of warmup, 1 minute at 3-4mhp, 3 minutes at 5mph, 1 minute at 3-4 mph, 3 minutes at 6 mph, 1 minute at 3-4pmh, 3 minutes at 7mph, 1 minute at 3-4mph, 3 minutes at 8mph, and 3 minutes of cooldown.) My, oh my! When I was running at 8mph, I felt like my feet were flying out from under me. My heart rate sky-rocketed and I was gasping for air as I told myself, "Keep going! You can do this!". I held on to it as long as possible, and I'm going to have to work up to the whole 3 minutes. It was tough! But I'll get it one of these days...

And I've been on a salsa kick lately, so most of my salads have a tex-mex twist to them. Black beans, corn, green pepper, onions, lettuce, salsa...yum-o!

We had a crazy day in town and I'm exhausted, so I'm off to bed. Sweet dreams everyone! ~Bekah