Sixteen

Well.....it's been a while.  (just shy of a week)  Let me go back to where I last wrote and start from there.  In my last blog entry I weighed in and talked about my slow start to my "I Pity the Fool Challenge"   I didn't come right out and say it, but I totally implied that I would be shaping up and knuckling down to actually show a loss and get this challenge moving.   Yup...that was the plan.

Plans Shmans!!!

Ok, so it didn't work out that way.  I ate.  I was hungry as all get out.   I couldn't stop eating.   I think part of it is that I let myself get hungry (beyond hungry) and then I just gorged on food.  Not a good method.  Although the Fried cheese bites were tasty, the tater tots were fresh out of the fryer, and the.........I just better stop right now!

By Friday/Saturday morning I was absolutely petrified to weigh myself!  I felt bloated and icky.  In my mind I was SURE that I had gained sixteen pounds in the few days since I had last weighed in.  I was too afraid to check....so I just moved on and VOWED to not eat junk food over the weekend!  I figured next Wednesdays weigh in would be time enough to face the music!

So we move on to the weekend. 

It was my Saturday to not work in the morning so we were able to get an earlier start to the fun.   What fun did we have planned?   The weather was forecasted to be GORGEOUS.  Like REALLY pretty.  (The weekend before we had dealt with temps in the teens as a high....this weekend they were calling for 60 degrees!).   We decided to go hiking at Mason Neck State Park in Lorton, VA.   This is part of a nature preserve (and borders more preserve land)   The weather was just what they called for, fabulous!   Some of the trails were in great shape...some were a bit muddy.   Not an issue.  We were wearing water proof hiking boots.  We didn't go into the visitor center....and instead opted to try to hit as many of the trails as possible in the time we had. 

We managed to hit up almost all of the trails!  A bit shy of 10 miles of hiking.  WOO HOOO  

Through the woods and by the bay....it was all pretty.

Through wetlands too...

We were at the tail end of the day.  We were both getting tired.  I was starting to feel some hot spots on my heels from my hiking boots but we decided to push onward  to take the Eagle Spur trail another one of their out and back hikes.  What a DELIGHT!   We had went out to one of the other bird blinds and checked that out.....but we figured a bird blind/observation point on a trail named the Eagle Spur Trail HAD to be a good bet.  Ohhhhh was it ever.  It was the most serene and beautiful spot!    (Yes, we saw some eagles....and YES, I WILL be returning with my good cameras instead of a simple no frills cell phone!!)

By the time we got back to the car it was right at sunset.  We decided to go to the bay to watch the sunset.  More beauty!

How was my food on Saturday?   I had an English Muffin for breakfast.  For lunch I had a Kind bar and a block of Cheddar cheese.   After hiking for a few hours we hit dinner HUNGRY.  I had about 4 hot buffalo wings, a slice of pizza and a 1/4 of a stromboli.   My calorie Count for the day.... 1397 calories eaten.....rough estimate of calories expended through hiking?  1337.  There ya go.   I was wiped out and I slept like a log!

Sunday was still warm but it was overcast.  We pondered our choices....and had settled on trying to find mostly indoor activities but I had found a park near us that offered a 1/2 mile boardwalk hike.  I kept it in the back of my head because I knew that if it was only drizzly that we could do that just to stretch our muscles after the previous days hike.   We got in the car and it looked like any kind of outdoor hike would be a bust (yeah, better rain gear may be on my list of future expenditures!).    A mile or so down the road the rain stopped.  YAY!   I threw out the idea of this short boardwalk hike.   Jason jumped at it.  So off we headed to Huntley Meadows Park.    What a great little discovery!!!!    The boardwalk took us right through the wetland preserve. 

Love seeing all the beaver dams!!!

When we stepped off the boardwalk we were walking through a nice tree cover (well, it would be nice tree cover were it a season that had leaves on the trees!). 

  

So much interesting fungus and  mushrooms

This was a wonderful hike.  We were able to link some of the trails together to pick up just over three miles on the one series of trails (the other series of trails were not interconnected and we didn't go over there on this trip).  It was pretty enough that we traversed this same path a second time and we vowed to hit up this park three more times...at least (it is about 2 hours away from home).   Why three more times?   There are three more seasons that we want to experience at this park!   The grand total for day two?   Just over 6 miles!

Sundays food?   Not as good   I ate 1530 Calories and expended about 689 calories.  I actually picked up mixed fruit and had a banana instead of junk food when we stopped!   Soooo proud of myself on that one!!!!

16 miles in two days.......and two pretty decent eating days........ I faced the music on the scales.   I am almost exactly the same as I was last week (within 2/10ths of a pound!)

My feet are TORN up.  I've been wearing these boots on almost weekly hikes for the past almost three months....but this weekend tore up my heels.  BAD.  (Day two they were covered and protected and I pushed on....ha ha ha...I just didn't tell Jason how bad they were until AFTER we were done day two of hiking otherwise he would have put his foot down and we would have missed the beauty of Huntley Meadows Park!!)   

Soooo....the question remains....do I hope that my feet and the shoes have reached an understanding?  Or do I go buy new boots.  I have had a few slight blisters as I started to wear these boots...they ARE leather so they do take a while to break in.    However, I like shoes....new boots for hiking may be the most fun option!  :-)  (and i would continue to wear these....on SHORTER hikes..as the blisters didn't kick in until about mile 6.....and just general use as they ARE comfy!)  ahhh  decisions decisions decisions.....