Day at the zoo - and my creeping up calories

Sorry all for the late entry. This morning my little guy was up at the crack of dawn because he was so excited about going to the zoo today. Problem with that was that the entire house was asleep. I really needed to get to the grocery store as I had been trying to make the fridge as empty as possible to make it easier to clean. I cleaned it last night and then afterward, exhausted from being up since 5 am, I realized that I wouldn't have anything to make lunches to take to the zoo next day. So, my son's early rising make it possible to get to the grocery store.

We had a leisurely breakfast and then headed into DC. Getting there was a snap, though we were later than we had planned on and because of it, all parking was gone. We drove around for awhile before I realized that it would be better just to drop the rest off at the gate and go searching for parking while they enjoyed the zoo. I finally found something, but all parking around DC is free parking, but has a limit of two hours. So, we walked around looking at various exhibits and after two hours I went to move the car - walking a mile to get to the car! I moved it closer to the zoo and rejoined the family. We finally came back around 4 pm, getting home around 4:45 pm.

And now to the upping calorie thing. I don't understand it, but I have been needing more food. Seems 1600 is the magic number. Only a couple days in the last couple weeks have I eaten less than that. While that is still at a deficit, especially with exercising every day, but I don't this new hunger. I can't figure out if it's from heavier/harder exercise, vacation eating still sticking with me, or if I'm just losing my focus.

I don't think it's the latter, because I'm really pushing myself at the gym and I'm super motivated to drop sizes. I want to be firmly in a size 12 and would love to get to 75 pounds lost by my anniversary. The latter is beginning to look unlikely, but I'm definitely not off track. I'm not snacking on junk, but eating an extra piece of meat, or an extra cheese stick, etc.

Even now, with just eating dinner, I'm feeling a bit hungry. hmmm... maybe it's because I've had a few caffeinated drinks? And caffeine makes me hungrier? Or, the more fruit carbs are make me hungrier? I don't get it, but I don't like it!

I can't even know if it's having an effect with the scales because I never lose during this phase of my cycle. What I can see is that I haven't gained so far and I'm on day 10. That's good, but it doesn't mean much. Sometimes I actually manage to lose a little between days 6-10 of my cycle before the ovulation gain happens. Ovulation should be in about 4 more days and then another 3 days of holding fluids. So I have survived 10 days of this cycle and the stall and have about another 7 days (Gee whiz that's a long time to stall out on a regular basis!). I'll see how much effect eating 1600 calories has when I hit my next new cycle. That is so frustrating!

Every day I say I won't eat as much and every day I am just too hungry not to eat a bit more here and there. It's not a lot more than my goal calories, but it's about 200 too high. Maybe it's the weight lifting? That's the only thing that has really changed. I started that about 2 months ago and at first did it twice a week, but I have increased my weights and now do it 3 times a week (except this week I'm doing it twice).

Ok, today I will show the workout from yesterday (which was hard, but not as hard as when I was in a hot room, thank goodness for that!) So, tomorrow it will look like an off day, but not really! Walked 5 miles at the zoo (3 of those miles was fairly fast walking as I got to and from the car a couple times for parking). I actually got 6 miles in, but I'll only count 5.

Stats for 8/11/11:

Beginning weight: 255.6  Now: 193.2
Exercise total hours in 2011: 240
Total miles walked in 2011: 674/1000