The Weight Loss Nemesis

Hail my running brothers and sisters!  What we see here are 2 buttery, light-as-a-feather croissants with honey butter from Rafferty's.  And yes, I did order and eat them both with my salad at lunch yesterday.  What we don't see is the third croissant that I swiped from friend and also proceeded to stuff into my face.  I don't know how bad these delicatable pastries are, but I  know they are bad.  With runners, I've found there are two camps:  one camp that carefully monitors their diet and calories to maximize calorie-to-fuel ratio and then the other camp that just eats whatever the hell they like because they can.  I often hear the comment from non-runners that it's okay for me to eat whatever I like, because I will run 10 miles in a day.  Otherwise, people will ask me if I'm allowed to eat at Mickey D's or some other fast food, since they know I'm a runner now.  I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.  I try to keep my diet pretty balanced with lots of fruit and vegetables throughout the day, but since I'm on the road a lot, I try to stick to healthier choices for my fast food.  I'm a big fan of Chic-fil-a and the fresco-style tacos at Taco Hell.  My biggest weakness, however, are Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts.  These sinful pastries will bring me to my knees in sugar oblivion every time.  There is a Krispy Kreme store on one of my running routes, so I have to run on the other side of the street to avoid the temptation to stop when the Fresh, Hot Doughnuts sign is on.  My second biggest weakness is, you guessed it, honey buttered croissants from Rafferty's.  When I'm hitting the scales at 164, and I'm trying to get down to 155, a trip to Rafferty's is not always conducive to my goals.  Every reformed fat kid (like myself) knows that it's easy to lose weight once you learn the tricks.  The hard part is keeping the weight off after reached your goal.  Suddenly every calorie and every mile is a careful balancing act of calories in and calories out.  Sure I can eat 3 croissants, but I really will have to run an extra couple miles to make up for that bad decision.  God bless my fat kid heart.  

Now for the hard numbers:  Today I did a 2.63 mi easy run at an average pace of 8:17/mi.  I followed it up with 1 mi of hill sprints and recoveries at an average pace of 9:17/mi and a cooldown run of 2.68 mi at an average pace of 8:38/mi.  Tomorrow I go to the Y to work on my beach body and then I have a the Wilma Rudolph 10k and 5k on Saturday in Clarksville.  Wish me luck!  Later kids!