I guess we will just call this Week 1

I mixed things up last week, and ended up starting weight watchers with my wife. I have done WW in the past with success and felt I  needed a little motivation to get my eating habits and nutrition back in check after powerlifting and eating ALL the food. Its just another layer of accountability. It's also really nice to be on the same plan as Jamie. Meal planning is so much easier and we only have to cook one meal, instead of cooking multiple things for each others nutrition plans, and the kids benefit too! I'm sure as I really get into training I will need to adjust my nutrition around long workouts, but for now, I'm really just trying to drop pounds and increase my cardio. I started WW on Tuesday and had my first weigh in on Friday morning. I lost 2.5 lbs for the first week. If I can keep that rate of weight loss then I will be at or just below goal weight for my race in April.

Training was good this week. I did 5,000 yards in the pool and had a long training swim on Friday going 2,400 yards (1.5 miles) in an hour without breaks. The craziest thing happened. The first 8-12 laps are always the hardest. You play mind games. Like maybe I will only do a half mile today or maybe I'm not feeling it today. Whatever the thought, as soon as I get past that and settle in then I'm good to go. Previously I hadn't swam longer then 1 mile without stopping, so I really wanted to see how far I could go in an hour. After about lap 45 or so I just got into this zone. I wasn't thinking about swimming, I was just doing it and I was somewhere else. My stroke, the way I felt, or in this case didn't feel. It was just awesome. About lap 80 I noticed that I had this amazing rotation and hip drive. It took about a month and probably close to 10 miles, but I really felt like I "found" my stroke in the pool. It was a huge breakthrough and I was really excited. I also was really pleased that I was able to maintain my pace from lap 1 to lap 96. I honestly could have kept going, it was a really great feeling.
Aside from the swim, I walked several nights and did several strength training sessions.

It has been a very encouraging week and I'm really excited to get back in the pool and see how a full week of WW will look on the scale.