It's been a rough couple weeks. Heck, it's been a rough couple months. My toddler has been sick for weeks, and last week I got a stomach virus and we passed it all around. Ugh. Really awful stuff. I got it twice, 6 days apart. The only saving factors: it only lasts a few hours, and Noah seemed to get over it more quickly than the adults. As you can imagine, I have vowed to be more vigilant about hand-washing, but that's seems to me about all I can do. Kids get sick, especially when they go to the playground and the pool and the sprayground. My partner of course wants to disinfect the house, take everyone to the doctor, etc. etc. trying to fix the problem. So, along with sickness comes extra stress and strife about housecleaning and other such matters. A rough couple months, like I said.

So, you could guess where I'm going from here. It's difficult to have the energy to exercise when you haven't been eating and/or sleeping, and myself and my son being sick definitely had an negative impact on both. It has been two weeks since I last did a JM workout. However, I did do 2 days of Week 3 on the Couch to 5K app, as well as some free weights. So, maybe 120 minutes of exercise for the week. Not great, but I'm not going to feel too bad about it. I choose to feel good about the fact that I exercised at all when I could have easily used being sick as an excuse to not do anything!

However, I have to confess that my food choices have not been stellar. The Fourth of July, I ate over my calorie range, not too much of the really terrible things, but a small amount of cole slaw, a deviled egg, a hamburger, and a lot of chicken plus soda and chocolate pudding. Too much chocolate pudding. On Friday, we went to the baseball game, I stopped counting but definitely went over my range (I ate most of a Shmitter. I don't even want to know how many calories are in one of those sandwiches. 1000 maybe? OMG) On Sunday, it was M's birthday, so I ate two slices of pizza and had quite a bit of soda. And birthday cake. Didn't count that day either. Eep. Not good. I was probably calorie deficient from being ill and basically not eating for two days, but I didn't have to eat so much sugar and fat! Not a great way to fuel a recovering body and immune system!
A few weeks ago, I saw a study about how people who have just ended a fast choose higher calorie foods. I felt like I had fasted after being so sick, so maybe those foods are what my body needed.
Or maybe I'm just making excuses?

An irony in this situation: A few weeks ago, after reaching my first goal weight, I was seeing lots of blogs and articles about binging and struggling with food choices. And I thought to myself, several times "I'm glad I don't have that issue!" or "I'm lucky I can have just one cookie and not eat the whole box." Then, last week, I felt like I was one of those people who couldn't have just a small handful of M&M's but instead ate the rest of the bag (they are only in my pantry for the purpose of potty training! Not to satiate my chocolate craving!). Or who kept having "one more bite" of chocolate pudding (God it was such insanely good chocolate pudding!).

I've been trying to rein it in this week, but I have still been struggling. What happened to all my willpower?!? Last week I had the sickness and the celebrations to blame. This week, I don't really have any excuses. I have just been eating when I feel like it, and not tracking, and eating late at night, and eating the junk that M brings home. I wonder if it is a result of being too strict on myself, or not strict enough?

I do feel good about the fact that I ran two whole 5-minute intervals without feeling like I was going to die. For a non-runner like myself, that is quite an accomplishment. :)