NROLW AMRAP part 2

Yesterday afternoon, I did speed intervals on the treadmill.  I did the same strategy as the last time, putting in a longer recovery time.  I really like it a lot, because I feel like I do better on the actual fast-speed interval.  I did 5 min of warm-up at 3.5 mph.  Then I did 7 x 3 min at 7.3 mph, alternating with 7 x 3 min at 3.5 mph.  I finished with 5 min of cool-down at 3.5 mph.  This came to 4.36 mi in 52:00.

This morning, my weight was up some more!  After my low on Monday morning, I've been up all week.  This is crazy, because I'm not eating that much!  I've been doing 1600 cal/day; however, we have had a lot of free food at work this week, so my intake has really been more like 2000 cal/day.  Even so, this is not enough to make me gain!  This is so frustrating. 

When my waist size (and therefore body fat) was lowest ever, in March 2014, for the moth prior to that I had been eating about 1950 cal/day!  According to Body Media, my calorie burn per day during that time is similar to what I've been burning the past few weeks.  During January - March in 2014, I was not not doing as much weight training as I am now - I was doing more cardio/plyo, with a mix of Asylum 1 & 2 and P90X2.  So maybe that's the problem?  This is so frustrating.  I have this problem after every vacation - I cannot lose the few pounds that I gained, and I can't figure out why.  Grrr.

Next week there should be less free food around, and I'll do 1600 cal/day and see what happens.  The week after that is the week before my half-marathon, so I'm going to go up to about 1900 cal/day to make sure I've got enough energy.

This morning, I did the second workout in stage 1 of NROLW for my AMRAP workout (as many reps as possible).  I felt like I didn't improve in this one as much as I did for the first workout, two days ago.

• Deadlift: I went from 70 lb back down to 53 lb.  I did 25 reps, which was disappointing.  The 70 lb had been really hard, so I thought it would translate to more improvement.
• Dumbbell shoulder press:  I went from 30 lb per hand back down to 20 lb per hand.  I did 25 reps, which I think was OK.
• Pull-ups:  I did 3.5, which was pretty much zero improvement.  These show up in the next stage, too, so hopefully I'll see some improvement in them.
• Lunge:  I went from 30 lb per hand back down to 20 lb per hand.  I did 25 lunges per leg.  My legs could've done more than this, but my hands just couldn't hold on to the weights any more.
• Swiss-ball crunch:  Well, these had always been really easy for me.  I really think I'm doing them right - I can check my form in the mirror.  I did 60 reps (!!!).  I certainly could've done at least a few more, but I was getting pretty bored.

I am taking two weeks off from NROLW.  I wanted to take a break from it for the week before my half-marathon, and since that's two weeks away, it doesn't make sense to start the next stage for just a week.  The next stage is shorter in time, but adds some HIIT, which will be interesting.