Winning small battles

I threw my last blog post up on Facebook in the ill advised racing group with the description of "chubby girl vs. unseasonable warmth", and then realised that perhaps that wasn't so accurate.

Just yesterday I tweeted about my trousers falling off me, and those are a pair I only bought a couple of months ago. I have been making an additional effort to lose some extra pounds in the last few weeks, simply because I know that the last 10km of Around the Bay is all hills. Apparently my strategy is working somewhat; my scale weight is only down a couple of pounds, but I'm occupying less space.

One of the things that has helped is my secret weapon: herbal tea. When I'm feeling hungry at the office (to which I bring a homemade, healthy lunch and at which I keep absolutely zero snacks), a cup of mulled apple spice tea fills the gap quite nicely.

Zero calories, but hot and delicious. WIN.

I bring a little less lunch than I used to, have a small snack before I start training in the evening, and seldom use anything but water during my workouts. Unless it was quite long or intense, I just eat dinner afterward rather than bother with post-workout nutrition, and I've been eating a bit less dinner as well. Most of what I eat is vegetables, plus some lean meats, healthy fats from nuts & avocado, fruit and some - but not a huge amount - of rice or rice-based pasta.

As a result, I find myself feeling pretty darn svelte today, and wearing a brand new pair of pants that don't fall off and a golf shirt that was skin tight when I bought it just over a month ago:

Forgive the horrible cellphone-in-the-mirror pic.

No, I'm not some skinny little thing, but I'm heading in the right direction - I don't need to compare myself to anyone else, just where I was and where I'm going. As long as I can keep my appetite under control through tapering next week, I should arrive at the starting line a little leaner yet! It might be a pound, it might only be an ounce or two, but over 30 kilometers every little bit helps. Maybe we can amend that to "slightly less chubby girl".

What's even better is that I've been able to get in some pretty solid training (over 90km of running between last week and the week before), and I'm starting to feel like I might just survive this race!