there will be cake

DH got us a great Christmas present - a cast iron Bundt pan. God bless this man, he loves cake as much as I do. Of course, we had to break it in and to do so, he wanted to make a tasty recipe he found on Instagram... of all things, it was a delightful poundcake. Well hey, thank goodness I'm over here training for an endurance race, right? I mean, I'm burning so many calories, some days it's been too hard for me to consume enough calories, why not use a homemade cake to replace some of them? Yeah, I can lighten up the cake a bit, and it really won't be any issue, since I'm burning so many calories every day... right? Spoiler alert: I was wrong, and feedback from the scale was my weight went up despite many hours of me swimming, biking, running and weightlifting. 

Truth be told, I really did have the calories to spare and if we're talking only about the cake, there would have been no issue. But it's never that simple. The reality was that in addition to eating the cake (and tracking it) I wanted more sugar all week. I ate (and tracked) chocolate chips, extra raisins and dates... I foraged for cookies, candy and more chocolate. So the weight gain wasn't only from the cake, but all the additional sugar I don't usually have. Sugar begets wanting more sugar, for me. Also being honest, looking at the reports, my net calories in was never higher than my burn rate other than one day, where I was 200 over, but that's still in a maintenance range for me. Perhaps my weight gain there was an indication of how my body treats sugar - maybe my body stores it, and doesn't burn it. It seems like it just saves it. Maybe? 

In any case, thankfully the cake is gone. I am nailing my workouts and seeing improvements in all areas. I supplement my swimming, biking and running with Caroline Girvin's Iron series, yoga classes, stretching, and doggie walks. I had a blip last week where I really didn't sleep well, and I felt very run-down for a couple of days. But I took that direct feedback from my body and laid low during my down-time, and got some extra sleep - that got me right back to feeling great again. There's a good chance the extra sugar had also contributed to my feeling sluggish. I'm back to eating well and planning meals, en route to becoming the best triathlete I can be. 

My takeaway? The next time we make a cake [let's be real, there will be cake] I'll slice it up and freeze portions, rather than work on consuming it in a week. And I may need to make sure there's absolutely no other sugar around, or at least move all things sweet into the basement fridge, to make it a little harder to access. 

Hope you are all having a great healthy week. Do your best and make the next decision a good one...