Week two: three parties, one holiday and a C+ performance

The 10,000 Step Challenge couldn't have arrived at a better time: three parties, plus trick-or-treating over three days. How's that for a holiday test scenario?

But first, the rest of the week!

Well, boot camp finally broke me. And all it really took was a bad night's sleep.

By Monday I was still sore from the previous week's boot camp and at-home exercises. I definitely pushed my upper body and core more than necessary outside of boot camp, and I paid for it that first day. Top that with no sleep all weekend, and I wasn't looking great.

The circuit was a rough go as it was, and in the final 10 seconds of knee-in planks at the end of a 10:00 ab sequence, I just had to hold plank and pray for the end. I survived, but felt a little wussy.

You know how they say missing just a little sleep goes a long way? They're not lying. While I picked up some decent hours into Tuesday, I was still operating on a deficit. The same into Wednesday. In fact, when I loped into boot camp on Wednesday, I knew it wouldn't be pretty. It wasn't.

Let's just say in the middle of suspended push-ups (with feet in suspended straps, alternate knee-in and push up), I had to break — even from holding a steady plank. It always bugs me when people just give up on an exercise, but that was me last week. I just had nothing left.

I survived that session, nevertheless, and tried to catch up on my zzz's the rest of the week. And by Friday, I was on a better track. I hit the road with a running gang on Friday night — DH, E-Speed, NB and I covered about 4 miles over 10 intervals. It was my first really chilly run, but was a nice warm-up to the rest of the weekends workouts and parties.

We went straight from the run to party #2 (#1 was earlier that day), wear I arrived dressed as Forrest, Forrest Gump.

I knew ahead of time this week would be filled with temptations and over-eating obstacles. We took my co-worker out to lunch on Thursday and three parties in store for the weekend, and then candy all over the place on Halloween. Just look at a small portion of the spread from the daytime work party:

My approach: avoid the sweets/carbs and use a small dish. So, at work I used a small cup for all my food. Typically, I fill a plate with everything at once, scarf and go back for more until my stomach tears and I sweat with guilt. With the cup, I just took one thing at a time, ate and tried a little of something else. It worked really well, and I ate plenty of a deelish broccoli salad and my own butternut squash soup.

The problem came when I helped with cleanup. I hate throwing away food and found myself just popping extras in my mouth. Bad, bad girl! It wasn't too awful. The three pieces of pizza at party #2 later that night, however, were a little excessive. Even if I did skip the cookies. For the most part.

Saturday started with the second annual Halloween run in the Metroparks. Jen and Sara took me on my longest no-break run yet, and it couldn't have felt better. Prior to this soft-ground 5-miler, I'd only run one mile sans breaks. They were terrific company and support on the go. It was super, too, to spend a very sensible breakfast (two sunny-side eggs with wheat toast and green tea) with the speedy ladies.

That 5-miler wouldn't make up for the slightly more indulgent Saturday party #3. I did manage to avoid most sweets (seriously: there were cupcakes there, and I only had one small swipe of frosting off one of Neil's) — I grabbed a couple cookies to eat with some baked apples. It was the uber-fresh pumpernickel bread that did me in. And the spinach dip. Then the spicy guacamole that showed up a little later. So, the carb-ditch didn't exactly pan out at #3. I get a D+ there.

But where do I get an A-? Halloween. I walked to the store Sunday afternoon and picked up $30 of candy, including a bag of Dove dark chocolate for home. I had one Dove on the walk home and one much later that night. I handed out all the candy, and ate none myself — even when I was sitting by myself waiting for the rush to happen. Not one.

Sunday was a generally good day on the diet front, and I just crossed my fingers that I hadn't done too much damage. Plus, I ran a pretty consistently paced 5.25 miles @ 9:00 pace on Sunday (well, last mile was 8:13... but that was fun) and walked quite a bit scoping out Halloween scenes in the neighborhood after candy ran dry.

Whenever I have one party — let alone three! — I wake up on Monday morning and weigh 133-something. That's the norm. That's my party weight. That's my upper threshold. I don't ever want to pass 133, and I was kind of hoping not to touch it again. But I knew the trends. I knew what I had done.

So, I step on the scale in Monday's dark morning: 129.4. Not too, too bad!

I realize it's almost a full pound more than last week, but it could have been much worse (and often has been worse). So, I'll take it. Sure, some of it's water weight, bloating, sugar lumps. It still looks like 127 will have to wait for next week. I give myself a C+ for handling these holidays, and plan to tweak my approach for at least an A- Thanksgiving.

At least I have thousands of steps to help me along the way.