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Week 4 officially sucked.  There’s no other way to put it.  I was grumpy, depressed and cranky most of the week and I still don’t know why.  Work was stressful.  I’m sure that had something to do with it.  I worked very late Friday and missed my interval training because of it.

In addition to the Friday interval training session, I skipped a weight training session on Saturday.  I had the time to do it, I just didn’t have the inclination.

I drank a Diet Coke on four straight days.  I felt hungrier than normal on my intermittent fasting days.  With the mood I was in, I didn’t have much mental reserve to deal with the hunger.  I managed a 21 and an 18 hour fast, but was very tempted to throw in the towel on both of them.

After doing really well with my eating choices for weeks, I fell prey to the temptation of Halloween candy.  Of course, to make matters worse, I beat myself up over it.

Here are the results for the week.  I didn’t meet my goal of 24 points and by the end of the week I didn’t really care if I did.

I’ve had a couple of days to think about things and my perspective today is better than it was last week.  I realize I had three very good weeks to offset one bad week. Maybe I needed to back off some last week.  Maybe I was grumpy because I wasn’t getting enough sleep.  Maybe I just needed a couple of extra days off.

I also found a helpful post on motivation Sunday.  With my motivation lacking and my attitude doing me no favors, I needed something to right the ship.

“Of course there are outside stimulants and things we each react to, but ultimately, the motivation that drives us to do anything comes from within us.

You always have a choice.  A choice in how you react emotionally as well as physically.  You can shy away from new things or embrace them and get excited about learning something new.  That choice is where most people’s motivation stems from.  It is not outside factors, prizes, rewards or punishment that gives us motivation.  Rather, it’s the decision we each make in response to these factors that determines whether or not we are motivated to proceed.“

So my choice Sunday was to get off my self-flagellating butt and go outside for interval training HIIT sprints and end Week Four on a positive note. I did two extra hill sprints and then went for a walk that lasted over an hour along the levees on San Francisco Bay.  The walk helped me clear my head and improved my mood.

The effect of my mood change has already carried over into Week Five’s training.  I expect this week’s results to be much better than those from Week Four.  In addition, my doctor called to tell me that the results from my latest blood work were very good.  That gave me a boost and let me know I’m on the right track with my diet, Halloween candy notwithstanding.  I’m waiting to receive a copy of the results in the mail so I can do a post on them.

Week Four is in the books even if it wasn’t what I had intended.  I need to forget about it and concentrate on getting back on track in Week Five.

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