Today’s post is all about numbers, so I thought I would start it off with my photo du jour which is of all my race bibs from 2008. I finished the year having completed a total of eight 5k races, so that’s an average of a race about every 6 weeks or so. I feel really good about that! 
Now, you may be asking yourself why I circled the “4″ in the top race bib in the photo. Well, that goes back to the whole numbers theme to this post. We all know that weight loss is a numbers game, right? You have to burn more calories than you consume. I clearly didn’t do such a good job of it this because I *gained* 4 pounds. 
I’m probably the only person in history who has ever managed to pack on that much weight the same week as having the flu. 
Even though I’m not happy about it, I’m not going to whine & complain about it. Each and every pound is truly deserved due to my poor eating habits this week. Due to the whole situation with my family, I freely admit that I resorted to a LOT of emotional eating this week. No person should ever be faced with some of the decisions I had to make in the past week, so I’m not going to beat myself up over the fact that I turned to food for comfort. I’m just going to dust myself off and move on from here.
My focus for this coming week is to make the best food choices I can and to get back to my workouts. I’m finally feeling pretty much back to normal health-wise, so tomorrow I’ll get myself on track with my training plan again for my walking/running. I have a 5k race coming up in three weeks, so I need to get ready for it.
I really hope to get outside for some of my training tomorrow. We’re supposed to get into the mid-80′s (30C), so it’s definitely going to be an adjustment from the cooler temps we’ve been having. It’s going to feel really odd going from having to run the heat last night to probably needing to run the air conditioning tomorrow. 
I hope everyone is having a great weekend.
congratulations of the races you ran in 2008 ~ you should be proud of your accomplishments – you go girl!
dont beat yourself up about the 4 lbs, but it seems like you have a great approach going forward about eating right & training ~ you can do it
great job!
Eight 5k’s. Melissa, that is awesome!!
I just found your blog, but would doubt that you actually gained 4 pounds in a week. If there are 3500 calories in 1 pound, you would have needed to consume 14,000 extra calories to gain 4 pounds. Possible, but not likely. More likely your body is retaining fluid/dealing with the flu and you will drop it just as quickly in a week or 2 and wonder how you did!
Keep up the great work!