Winter has hit Columbus and this was a cold snowy week. There were snow emergencies which delayed the gym opening and cancelled yoga my class. But the biggest impact of the weather on my fitness journey was a little bit different and less legitimate.

Finding an Excuse

Yes this week was cold (mostly morning lows) but not that cold. Yes this week was snowy but not that snowy. Yes there was ice on the roads but they weren’t that bad.

Unfortunately I used this weather as an excuse to stay in the house and essentially to hibernate.

I didn’t go to the gym or do my yoga class on Sunday though it was cancelled and I also didn’t do yoga at home which I could have done. I didn’t go to the gym on Monday, a holiday and day off where I could have had unlimited time for a workout. I didn’t have any exercise on Tuesday either and just went to work early.

On Wednesday I got back into the game a bit with my weekly training session and it was a pretty good one. I did a moderately long and stupid cold walk on Thursday. Then I did an after work workout on Friday. So I thought I was getting myself back on track.

Then I had an early meeting on Saturday so I did no workout at all and didn’t do my long run. I didn’t do yoga on Sunday (2 weeks straight) and didn’t leave the couch Sunday morning at all. So the result was a weekend without exercise and a week without a long run.

Making the lack of exercise worse I paired it with not being very diligent about tracking my Saturday night calorie consumption. I know I went past my daily calorie target I just don’t know much. So it was a double whammy of bad decision making.

I know it isn’t the right choice but I found an excuse to give myself permission to take my foot off the gas this week. Looking ahead at the upcoming week it is going to be very cold which means there is a risk of a repeat of last week.

The only thing I can do is to do my best to do better during the upcoming week. I absolutely forgive myself for this week’s bad decisions (which I enjoyed by the way) and am looking forward!

Thanks for reading!

Last week’s stats (1/14-1/20):
Maintain avg. weight of 189-199 pounds: 198.4 lbs average
Run 10+ miles per week: 11.4 miles
Total walk/run miles: 32.9 miles
Weight training 2-3 times per week: 2 workouts
Yoga 1+ times per week: class cancelled due to weather
One race per month: January 5k complete on 1/1
Continue to track & manage calories: 4,734calories under budget