I learned a valuable lesson last week. Actually, I first encountered it back in May, but I failed to fully learn the lesson and had to re-learn it. As George Santayana said,  ”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Point taken, George. Back in May, when I first started doing my lunchtime sprinting routine, I was about three weeks in when one day I woke up with some very sore muscles around my knee. I had to stop sprinting while I waited for the pain to subside, and it lasted nearly two weeks, until I went to Las Vegas in June.

It was no mystery to me why this had happened:

That’s more like it!

I stuck to my plan this week, and not only did I lose all the weight I gained last week, but I lost another half pound more than that! On top of that, I lost more this week than I had since the first week of the plan – three whole pounds. I attribute this to my persistence with sticking to my diet plan, and also the reintroduction of my workout routine. I was able to get out to the park to sprint at lunch one day this week, which is one more than I had sprinted during the previous three weeks. I would have sprinted more, but I forgot to stretch and ended up with some very sore muscles around my knee the first day. Nevertheless

Earlier this week, I talked about how my “cheat day” quickly turned into a four-day eating binge. This has been a frequent pitfall of mine – I usually have my cheat day on a weekend, and often I’ll let it get out of control and find it spanning the whole period from Friday night to Monday morning. I almost always see negative results from this kind of binge – I either lose no weight, or I gain pounds back.

In the case of this week, I erased nearly two weeks worth of weight loss. That’s the other big downside to a binge – it almost always does more damage in a short period than I could lose in the same amount of time, I’ll probably spend at least eight days recovering from the damage I did in four.

How can you still take advantage of the benefits of the cheat meal, without letting it snowball into a binge?

I got a little carried away.

Make that a LOT carried away. I intended to use my July 4th BBQ as my cheat day, and I did. I didn’t think ahead, though. I hosted the BBQ, and found myself with a few pounds of leftover pulled pork, hot dogs, potato chips, and thirty bottles of beer after the party was over. What started as cheat day turned into four cheat days – and my results reflect it. I put on about 2.5 pounds this week. Ouch!

The upside is, there was no mystery as to how this gain happened. I know exactly what I did wrong, and I know exactly what I need to do to get back on track.

A year and a half ago, a question came into my mind that has proven to be one of the most motivational concepts I have ever come upon.

The question was this: What if I live my whole life without ever knowing what I could truly achieve?

There’s a version of ourselves that has the potential to exist. Inside each and every one of us is a blueprint for ourselves in our very best form, the very peak of what we can become. Very few people are anywhere near that level – I know I’m not. Could I ever reach it? Could I ever become that absolute best version of myself?

Going down, down down.

Luckily, I’m talking about my weight! I continued my downward trend this week, losing another pound and a half. I also saw some reduction in my hip measurements, and my muscular areas are staying pretty steady, so I think I’m doing well with my protein intake.

Take a look at the chart below, which shows my weight progress since I started tracking it on Bodybuilding.com. You can see that since I started tracking my weight last November, when I initially had a big spike from attempting to add muscle (and ending up adding lots of fat), I’ve had some moderate success with bringing my weight down. However, the last three weeks stand in stark contrast to the rest of the chart – now that I’ve focused on staying disciplined, I’ve been much more successful.

I came upon this article earlier in the week and found it very interesting. A gym in Canada has banned skinny people, claiming that they lower the morale of overweight gym members and make the gym an intimidating place.

I thought this seemed like an interesting concept. I can understand the basis behind the idea – I know what it feels like to be overweight and walk into a gym where it seems like nearly everyone is in better shape. I’ve looked at others and thought, “Man, if only I could look like that.” It can be very disheartening to be reminded of how far you are from where you want to be.