Back on the wagon

It's amazing how easy it is for me to lose focus during a diet. When I'm eating clean I love it... I rarely crave bad foods, I feel healthy and energetic, and I lust for whole grains, fruits, and vegetables... But as soon as I break diet and lets pizza or burgers or chicken wings enter my stomach it turns me all Mr. Hyde and I start drinking out of the deep fryer like a lunatic...

So not surprisingly an impromptu 48 hour adventure to NYC last week caused me to fall off diet hard... It started on Wednesday morning with two McDonald's breakfast burritos (my friend who bought breakfast ate 4 McGridles!!!), culminated with a 12 beer 12 bar Wednesday night tour of lower Manhattan sandwiched between two unfortunate consumptions of unidentified NYC street meat, and ended with a chicken wing and gas station sandwich pit stop. Combine that with a 6 hour Wednesday morning flight, 5 hours of sleep on the floor of a buddies closet sized Manhattan apartment, and an 18 hour partly hungover Thursday morning drive from NYC to Peoria via St. Louis (my friend had extra frequent flyer miles so I flew out to NYC with him to help him drive back a Honda S2000 that he bought on eBay)... Needless to say my body was not happy with me...

I spent Friday recovering physically (laying on the couch all day with my dogs) and Saturday recovering the mental fortitude of the diet (after one last half pound, grass-fed, local farm raised double cheeseburger mmmmm...)

Sunday I finally felt like myself again. In fact with the increased calorie consumption and rest from the daily exercise I felt pretty great. I decided that since I was back on my game I'd head to the gym and make up for some lost time. That's how last nights melee of exercise endurance began...

I started with 1.25 miles on the treadmill with a incline of 3.0 and an 8:34 pace. Then I hoped on the exercise bike for 20 minutes on the random hill setting. I then returned to the treadmill and ran another 1.25 miles this time with an incline of 5.0 and an 8:34 pace. I then got back on the exercise bike for another 20 minute session on the random hill setting. Then I returned to the treadmill and ran 5 miles at a .5 incline at a 8:00 pace. Then back to the exercise bike for one final 20 minute random hill session. And finally capped it off with 3.11 miles on the treadmill with the first 1.61 miles at 7:47 pace and the final 1.5 miles at 7:03 pace.

In the end I had run 10.62 miles, biked 20 miles, and burned about 2000 calories. I was exhausted, my legs were jello, but mentally I felt great! I'm back to craving healthy foods, back on my workout schedule, and back on the wagon... which is crucial because I'll definitely have to hit it extra hard during the next 5 days since I'll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the family this weekend and diet or no diet I'm cutting out all the stops!!!