Category Archives: fitness

Oh hi hi hi

I swear to Jeebus I'm smiling.

So yeah, I don’t do transitions too well. I spent the last several months:

» Being super excited about moving to our new town! Winston-Salem, N.C., is home!!
» Looking for jobs and not getting at ALL excited at the idea of sitting behind a computer.
» Running running running! Up big hills, around beautiful neighborhoods!
» Getting bummed out at not finding work. What’s a girl gotta do?
» Letting my being bummed out bum me out. No more exercise.
» Getting work! At Starbucks. Interesting.
» Getting more work! At an amazing bakery in town (Camino), selling baked goods and learning how to make really good espresso drinks.
» Working two jobs and getting tired. And bummed about being tired. And eating because I’m tired. And still not exercising.
» Ooh! Just one job now! The bakery is such a good place to spend time, behind the counter or as a customer. I love going into work.
» Oh what? I kind of gained even more weight. And also am so-very(-too-too)-slowly getting back into good eating habits and an exercise routine. You know what that makes me? Bummed. Just a little.

So I asked my best friend (hiya, Mela!) what the heck to do, and she talked about how writing her blog and connecting with folks in her area has helped her find her center. You know what? She’s smart.

Time to get back into a routine. Time to get back to writing about it. Because I liked that part. I liked all of you and I liked having a way to stay focused on the things I decided were important to me.

Things I decided were important to me

1. Being fit. Is it being 30 years old? I’m not sure how else to explain that — even with an extra 20 pounds on my frame — I’ve been looking at myself during my weightlifting classes at the gym thinking “damn girl, you’ve got a fine ass,” and “look at those thighs! Tremendous!” So yeah, I’d like to fit back into my jeans, but more and more it’s clear that my underlying motivation for eating right and exercising has to be my overall fitness, not how much I weigh or what size those jeans are. So how to mark my progress? How about a 10K? By this time next week, my goal is to have signed up for an autumn 10K in town.

2. Whole food life. It’s not so much I’ve fallen off this wagon. But last we met, there was still so much I was interested in learning and exploring. I want to take up that adventuresomeness again — new grains, new fruits and vegetables, canning! Goal: To try one new something every week and report on it. It’s also time to learn how to make jams and pickles and put ‘em by. Goals for that to come …

3. Making a happy home. Our house is beautiful, but I struggle to implement the tiny home projects that keep floating through my daydreams. There are walls to be painted, closets to be organized, a bathroom that could use little touch-ups. Goal: By this time next week, unveil a tiny, tiny home project I can plan and implement by the end of April.

3. A handmade wardrobe. I have everything to learn and everything to make. What I might need is a little focus, and my new job at Camino might have offered it: I’d love to wear smock aprons for work — something cute with cap sleeves that I can get get dirty. So a goal! Within two weeks I want to have found a pattern and made my first smock apron. Do you think I could single-handedly bring the smock back into fashion?

Hey …

… This was nice. Let’s do it again. Oh, and Dawgface says hello.

Remember me? I'm here, too!

Day 44 of 101: In my brain, when I run

Hey — I got in such a good habit of posting my blog entries first thing in the morning! What happened? Well, we got the chance to take a long weekend to visit family in North Carolina, is what happened. So more time preparing to travel, less time writing.

Coffee magic.

This morning finds me in a cozy industrial little coffee shop, playing witness to the morning rush of suited men and women (suckas!), students, etc., and thinking about my running, running, running, and how I’m really coming along.

Yesterday was Day One of Week Eight of the nine-week training schedule. I’m almost done!

And do you know what I did? I maintained a solid 10-minute-mile for the entire 2.75-mile run. Granted, it was a small, indoor, climate-controlled, flat, track run. I anticipate a little more practice before I can keep that pace in the chilly outdoors, up and down hills.

But I haven’t wavered in my training since about week three, when I was able to stabilize my workout schedule. I haven’t pulled back on any times or distances. The most anxiety I’ve felt about progressing through training is the little nervous excitement at accomplishing the next big push, whatever it is (my first two-miler, then 2.5, now 2.75. Next … 3!).

There are some things working in my favor, I believe.

Following directions, I’m good at it

If the training schedule says run two miles in week five, then the training scheduler must know that people who’ve already followed the plan up to that point are ready to run two miles. So I don’t question that’s what my body will be able to do. So I do it.

I’m good at being alone with my brain

Running and cycling have to be two of the most solitary sports — it’s just you and the ground under you. And if you want to ride twenty miles or run for thirty minutes, you probably have to be at least a little OK with being left with your thoughts.

I’m exceptionally good at this. In fact, I think I need this at least a little each day. I fill my thoughts completely with something, and with little effort.

And then I get a little weird with it. Maybe a little Rain Man. I like to fill my thoughts during hard physical work with numbers; they distract me. The first time I remember doing this was on a bike ride a long long time ago with Patrick. We came to a hill I wasn’t sure I could climb. I started reciting the Fibonacci sequence starting with “1.” … “One plus one is two. One plus two is three. Two plus three is five. Three plus five is eight. Five plus eight is thirteen …”

I got to the top. And now Patrick sometimes starts it for me if he sees I’m struggling on a ride. “One plus one is two …”

The runs — since I’ve done nearly all of them around this tiny indoor track — have provided a new numbers game. A really simple one — keeping count of my laps (the ones I’ve done and the ones I’ve left to do).

For instance: my 2.75-mile run was going to take me 42 laps around the track. When I finished my first lap … “One/forty-one.” Second lap: “Two/forty.” Etc.

I make myself little milestones. When I pass through a “ten” I cheer. “Three/thirty-nine. Yay!” Or “eleven/thirty-one. Yay!”

It’s awkward maybe (and yes, I raise my hands and cheer for myself), but it provides me little spans of time concentrate on and distract me from the larger effort.

And do you know what I discovered? Or rediscovered, years after I’m sure I learned it in math class:

Take a number. Add its digits.
42 … 4+2=6.

Now, take two numbers that add up to that number.
3 & 39

Add their digits.
3+3+9=15

Finally, add those digits.
1+5=6

Six. As in, the same sum when you add the digits of 42. And this works with every single pair of numbers that add to 42.

I can’t remember what this mathematical trick is called, but anyway it’s cool.

And it’s stuff like this that helps me keep running. And also leaves room in my creative/philosophical brain to discover new ideas about who I am, what it is to run, how it is I can do it. Which brings me to my final thought …

If I can breathe, I can run

It was during a track run some weeks back that I realized my breathing was steady. I was breathing deeply, but without difficulty. But I was running.

And it struck me that as long as I can breathe without strain, I can make my body do whatever work it takes to run. It also occurred to me that this is essentially what fitness is — being able to manage oxygen during a given level of exertion (I think both of the out-of-shape gentlemen who walk with great difficulty around that track, and the girl who does sprints without much apparent effort).

I don’t know, but this was a liberating thought. It’s easier to imagine concentrating on my breath than on the work my legs are doing. If I’m thinking on my breath, the legs become tools that I can use as I wish. They don’t set my limits, my lungs do.

I am no fitness expert. It’s so much more complicated than I can really know yet, but on this really personal journey (I never ever thought I would run), these are the tools I’m picking up.

Hiking with Ms. Dawgface

Her name is Saaz (pronounced Zohts); Saazie most days. Sometimes Dawgface, Dawgface-Dawg, Zapfino; Zatfi; Fifi; Fi-fa-difi. It goes on.

She’s my new hiking partner, and she’s my pace-setter.

We went on our second hike yesterday. Same as the first, but with extra adventures along connected trails. We ended up walking about five, five-and-a-half miles.

That dog doesn’t get tired, so we kept a good clip. She had me running up stone stairs. She stopped only to pick up the scent of what I think was a horse that’d been ridden along the trail earlier. When I checked my watch at the top of the first trail, I think I’d shaved about two minutes off the climb. That’s what regular trips to the gym is doing for me, it looks like.

And I gotta say, except for my muscles being a little sore by the time we got back down (and all today), I felt really good during the hike. I was breathing hard during the more rigorous stretches, but I was never out of breath. My body didn’t fail me once.

The whole loop took us about an hour and forty minutes; I burned 585 calories.

And then I shamed the dog

After all that hard work and hiking help, you’d think I’d have a little more respect for Ms. Dawgface. But, poor thing, she’s still very obliging when I try to make her wear people-clothes.

Gratuitous photos of a dog wearing a babushka …

dog in scarf

I can’t lie. I sensed a modicum of shame in this dog’s face.

Day 6 of 101: Weekly health stats

You know what super-excites me? Oh yeah you do. Because I’ve written about it. Speadsheets.

My tracking tools are making a fierce comeback during my 101 Days Project.

Now that I’ve finished up my first week, it’s time to publish and analyze …

Daily water intake

water intake

As you can see, I’m finding it hard to get into a good routine with my water bottle. The light blue area is my goal of 64 oz. a day and I reached it only a couple of times. I’m not too worried; just need to find my new rhythm.

Weekly points consumed

weekly points consumed

This is the most complicated spreadsheet, so here’s a refresher:

The straight, maroon line cutting across the graph: My daily allotment of 29 points. I can eat more than this, I shouldn’t eat less than this.

The huge, light blue area falling across the graph: The extra points I’m allotted, plus the activity points I earn through exercise. I use some of these points throughout the week, which is why it decreases over time.

The dark blue line between: The actual points I consume each day. It’s easy to see which days I consume extra points, and which days I stick with the twenty-nine allotted.

What we see above is that most days I consumed more than the 29 points, and by the end of the week I left only a few extra points on the table.

Calories burned

calories burned

My goal is 2,000 calories a week (that big, light-blue area). I finished the week at about 1,400 (the growing blue line across the graph). And I got to the gym almost daily (that green line floating across the bottom of the graph, showing each day’s calorie-burn). I’m happy, especially considering how much this first week wore me out. I’ll be interested to see what I do by the end of this week (because my plan, of course, is to get to every single class and push harder than I did last week).

Weight

weight

(A reminder: I want to create a narrow range for my Y axis so that the small fluctuations in weight are more visible. For some reason Google only allows me to do this if I use negative numbers. So when you see the line go up, it represents weight loss; down, it represents gain.)

So I ended the week slightly heavier (129.6 lbs) than I started it (129 lbs), with what had been a promising, steady decline inbetween. I’m not in panic mode, though, I’m in analysis mode.

So what I’m thinking is that I’ll attempt to distribute my extra food points evenly throughout this week, and stick with healthy options on the weekend. (What my points chart above doesn’t show is that on the weekends, I tend to indulge in fattier and more sugary options after Thursday.)

We’ll just see if that doesn’t keep my weight loss steady.

Overall?

My choices overall are good, and I know how to adjust them.

I expect that I’ll be feeling a whole lot more fit by the end of this week or next (a good exercise routine shows itself quickly). Looking forward to that. It’s that feeling that tends to become my greatest motivator, and I miss it something fierce.

Day 4 of 101: My workout schedule

Week 1. I look good, but could feel a whole lot better.

Among the outlines and plans I drafted before starting my one-hundred-and-one days was my workout schedule. And it’s ambitious.

The schedule

Monday
5:00 a.m. — Crunches, stretching, warm-up walk
5:45 a.m. — Cycle class (45 minutes)

Tuesday
5:00 a.m. — Couch-to-5k training
5:45 a.m. — Body Pump (weight-lifting class, 45 minutes)
8:30 a.m. — Body Flow (tai chi/pilates/yoga class, 55 minutes)

Wednesday
9:30 a.m. — Body Flow (55 minutes)

Thursday
5:00 a.m. — Couch-to-5k training
5:45 a.m. — Body Pump
9:30 a.m. — Yoga (55 minutes)

Friday
5:00 a.m. — Crunches, stretching, warm-up walk
5:45 a.m. — Cycle class
9:30 a.m. — Pilates (55 minutes)

Saturday
8:45 a.m. — Couch-to-5k training
9:30 a.m. — Body Flow

And at the end of Week 1? …

I feel good. And tired. Good and tired.

This is a more strenuous schedule than I’d been accustomed to, but not by so much that I hesitated to try it. And these classes have always been a little hard for me; I can keep up but usually at a slower or less strenuous pace than many of the folks alongside me. (If there was a time that I felt self-conscious about such things, it’s behind me.) By Friday, I’d worn myself out pretty well, especially my lower body, and it showed by the end of the week.

I was only about seven minutes into my Friday cycle class when I realized I was going to have to pull back. My muscles were tired, sure, but I was also feeling nauseated. (Anyone else experience that? I consistently feel sick to my stomach when I do shoulder presses, and have since I was in college; this was a similar feeling. I have no idea what it is but I write it off as one of life’s quirks.)

I was close to leaving cycle class altogether, but my pride got in the way. Instead I kept my seat in the saddle and peddled for the next 40 minutes as vigorously as I felt I could. By the end of class I felt alright, but glad that I’d taken the cue. I also chose not to attend the pilates class that day

Come this morning, though, I was ready for my run and Body Flow (where again I pulled back just a bit from my normal participation — that class will kick your ass on a good day).

I’m looking forward to my rest day tomorrow. I’m also looking forward to next week’s routine, and the week after, and so on. I’ve never stuck with a solid workout schedule long enough to notice the improvements in my strength and endurance.

The next few months have the potential to be full of proud moments.

Miss Dawg says “HEY!!!”

Miss Dawgface was hanging out just waiting waiting waiting to be in the photos, too.

And then there’s this …

I’m not ashamed. Really.

It really is. It isn’t, but it is.

I just had one of those moments: I was filling up my water bottle, stooping a little to reach the spout and feeling really, really good. “My abs! They’re doing their job!”

And my next thought was: Huh, and if I want to keep feeling this good, all I have to do is keep making the right decisions. Simple.

Not really, of course. Three weeks ago, the right decisions felt like monumental tasks. I had to work hard to get to this place, where they feel like an effortless Turn Right instead of Turn Left.

But I’m at this place right now, and I’m totally going to celebrate it, and celebrate myself for having done the work to get here.

Tomorrow, I’m waking up to get to my 5:45 spin class, and I’m truly looking forward to it.

No joke.

Why I’m laying off the scale

I believe in keeping track of weight over time.

It’s a good canary in the coal mine. I even remember the moment about three years ago when I saw the scale had nudged up by 7 lbs. My thought at the time? “Huh. Oh well.” If I’d used the information as a little wakeup call, I probably wouldn’t have gone on to gain an additional 17 lbs.

The practice of weighing (in my life) also correlates well with good health habits. If I’m weighing myself, I’m paying attention. When I pay attention, I put an emphasis on good foods (and sometimes exercise, though that’s a whole other challenge for me).

So why am I stepping away from the scale for now?

Weight-loss efforts before have been focused on just that: losing weight. When I lost more than 40 lbs. many years ago, it was in large part due to reducing my food intake (and doing occasional exercise).

And it’s what I needed at the time. I’d spent my entire life overweight, long enough to assume it was “just how I’m meant to be.” Losing weight shook me out of that notion.

Now, though, losing that weight I gained back has become a secondary goal: my primary goal is to become fit. I mean. FIT.

And I’ve been doing pretty well. It’s been easier than I expected to eliminate the extraneous cheese and sweets from my day (and I often replace them with fruit bowls or extra veggies in my meals). I’m even excited about pushing my body physically. I have little goals and for the most part I’m reaching them.

Except that when I step on the scale, it’s stuck (and sometimes sneaks up a pound or two). Whenever I see those numbers, I get discouraged.

What I don’t need right now is to be doing all this good work and then get discouraged because of the ten seconds I spend on a scale.

The plan: stay off the scale until September. Keep up my good habits (and challenge myself to ramp them up).

What I hope will happen

I want to rewire my brain to find rewards in good-food days; in my accomplishments on the bike and in my spin and H.E.A.T. classes; and in how those things change the way my body feels.

If I can start reacting more significantly to those cues, then a little time on the scale shouldn’t mean anything more than what it is: a reflection of how my body is reacting to all these good things I’m doing for it.

praise the lord & pass the good nutrition … my jeans fit better!

Just this morning I finally noticed my jeans are hanging a little looser. Not much. Just enough for me to notice. But also just enough for me to open up my brain to The Future Lindsay.

I was sucking in … maybe a little.

I’ve been very happy to take on good habits for their own sake (and proud of myself, too). I have this idea that I want to set a preliminary weight goal of 115 (I’m about 124 now). I know I want to be stronger and stand up straighter.

But those goals have felt far off and detached. All the work I’ve been doing for nearly two months has made me feel *good*, but in only barely-discernible ways.

Which has suggested to me a homeostasis. Healthfulness but little change otherwise.

And then Boom. Bam. Jeans are loose! Inside my brain, something like this is happening “I could be trim! Lean! Maybe I’ll wear bikinis, like, ALL summer. I’ll have muscles. Other people will be able to see them. No tummy roll? REALLY? Maybe! Just maybe!”

I’m not on some get-skinny rampage now. It’s just that I suddenly feel like all this healthfulness might also lead to a Lindsay I’ve never seen before. (I have weighed as little as 107 lbs., but I didn’t get their with exercise. I was still flabby, with little muscle [which I didn't think was possible at 107? Apparently it is?].)

This Lindsay might look like an … athlete? Like one of those cute yoga ladies? A gymnast (I *do* have trunk-y thighs)? I actually don’t know. But I am totally stoked to find out.

And all because my jeans are a tiny bit loose! Who knew?

using charts & spreadsheets to track my health

Who doesn’t know I love spreadsheets? NOBODY. That’s who.

I’ve long created, used, abandoned and recreated Google spreadsheets to track my activity and food intake, but I’ve only recently (finally!) understood how to use Google’s charting options to visualize the data. Which inspired me to go beyond the simple calories-in/calories-out tracking and start exploring my: heart rate, water intake, weight change and muscle/bone/fat/water percentages that I can borrow from our Homedics bathroom scale.

So how’s about I just dive in and show you what I see everyday?

the charts

For the most part the charts I’ve included below display one week’s worth of data (for the span between Feb. 28 and March 6).

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the mothership

Here are the raw numbers, which I fill in every day. I have some ideas for more data to add (a count of visits to the gym per week, separate tracking for bike rides, inch measurements to accompany my weight numbers, etc.), but for now this is giving me a lot of great analysis. A note: You’ll notice I leave the heart rate/speed numbers blank on days I don’t exercise, but I take the time to mark “0″ calories on those days. When you see the visualization of those numbers later on I think you’ll see why.

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daily water intake

Water! Simple and straightforward. I’m still trying to figure out the best volume of water to keep me properly hydrated every day. I’ve set a goal of 81 oz. for now (my Klean Kanteen is a 27 oz. bottle and to keep things simple, I aim to drink three of those a day, which brings me to 81 oz.).

I still feel thirsty, and wake up thirsty, so I don’t know if I’m overdoing it, need more water, or need to examine something else in my diet. If I come to find that I need to increase or decrease my daily water goal, I’ll adjust my chart accordingly.

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weekly points consumed

I already track my Weight Watchers points through my weightwatchers.com login, but I thought I may find some benefit one day (for some reason I have yet to determine) of having these numbers readily available in my charts.

Maybe one day I’ll get curious about how my weekly activity performance compares with my overall food intake through that week? Or if my heart rate during exercise seems to spike on days I’ve consumed more points (or fewer)?

I really don’t know yet, but the numbers are there to be crunched …

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daily & weekly calories burned

I use this chart to keep an eye on my weekly goal for exertion: I’d love to burn 2,000 calories each week. You can see that in the week displayed here, I fell short of that goal.

(And regarding that “0″ calories burned I mark on days I don’t go to the gym: You can see how that “0″ displays on my chart.)

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heart rate zones per workout

I need to further educate myself on what different heart rate zones mean for fitness, but some preliminary reading suggests that if I keep my heart rate in a lower (though elevated) range, I’ll be in my “fat-burning” zone.

And that the further I push that heart rate the more it will push my body beyond that benefit and into … I’m not sure. That’s where I need to read more so I can understand what the higher exertion does for fitness training.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to keep my heart rate in the first (teal) and second (green) heart rate zones (as determined by my smart heart rate monitor). And that pinky red you see in my earlier workouts? It’s me nearly maxing out my heart rate before I started reading about healthy zones and how to approach aerobic training …

(And regarding those nil data sets for days I don’t work out: For this chart and the next, it would be funky to see “0″ for my heart rate those days. I think it’s more useful to mark progress from one workout day to the next, whenever it may fall.)

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overall heart rate & speed

And here’s a big-picture look at my heart rate.

As far as I understand, heart rate is a good measure of overall health. What I do with this chart is keep an eye on my maximum and average heart rates for each workout, as well as the average speed for those workouts.

My thought? That putting those two numbers together will help build a more complete picture of wellness: If my heart rate goes down over time and my average speed goes up, then I’m getting in good shape.

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weight tracking

I had to do a little trickery here, as Google’s charting seems to have a glitch: I can’t set my X-axis to a number higher than “0.”

Why do I want to adjust my X-axis? Because the narrower the range of numbers displayed, the greater the difference appears when I go up or down a pound.

What I discovered: I *can* set my X-axis at a number lower than “0.” (Silly Google.)

So I’ve set the chart range to display between -130 lbs. and -114 lbs.

Which is a long way to explain why you see the line designating my goal weight (115 lbs.) hovering above my daily weigh-in line (which creeps *up* as I lose weight).

*Phew* Did you get all that?

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bathroom scale numbers

The number I’m most interested in here is my body fat percentage, which I would love to get down to 18 percent one day (which would mean me basically being an athlete and shifting my activity into high gear). Right now it’s hovering around 28 percent.

I’d like to read up on healthy percentages for these other numbers. Right now, I’m around 52 percent water, 36 percent muscle mass and 3.5 percent bone mass.

A note about this chart: imagine that the walls of color you see are stacked one behind the other, rather than on top of one another. Which is why that little strip for muscle mass looks so tiny (36 percent), even though it’s greater than the body fat (at 28 percent).

what does it all mean?

I’m trying to look at these numbers more in the spirit of scientific observation than fire-under-my-ass motivation.

I know I’m making good, healthy decisions. I know that my weight and various body percentage numbers will slowly approach a healthier range. I know my heart rate will slowly decrease as I get more fit.

But isn’t it interesting to watch those things happen quantitatively? And couldn’t these numbers be helpful to observe hiccups or to help me get in front of bad habits rearing their ugly heads?

I think so.

And I hope you think so, too. Because I plan to produce weekly updates using these charts. Maybe some monthly updates to analyze bigger shifts. And wouldn’t it be great to see where these charts rest in one year?(!)

a week of good decisions

Let me put it this way:

I’m drafting this blog entry as I sit and watch my husband make dinner (which he almost always does … I’m lucky!), and I’m drankin’ an entire beer to eat up the last of my bonus Weight Watchers points.

Not even my activity points (I earned 33 of those this week, by the way). No. Just the standard 49 extra points that Weight Watchers doles out to, I think, everyone.

I’m also indulging in a simple and decadent dinner: some Patrick-made tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich (on homemade spent-grain bread!). Even with all the cheese and butter in the meal, I had to make sure to include a little dessert (bittersweet chocolate and a granola square) to finish up those extra points.

You know what else? I exercised a lot this week: four trips to the gym to hop on the elliptical (plus some stretching and crunches), one visit that included a 55-minute body flow class, and a 20-mile bike ride up a mountain and along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Not only am I working hard to use up my extra points, but it’s on a week I would have assumed I’d need them most.

But I haven’t needed them. It’s interesting … every time I’ve come home from a hard workout, I’ve maybe wanted a piece of fruit, but that’s it. It’s usually at least an hour before I eat a real meal (and I’ve been returning from my workouts around mealtimes).

The reason I’m working to use my extra points? I suppose if I left them on the table, I’d technically be eating fewer calories and possibly speeding my weight loss. But I’ve always thought of the Weight Watchers allotment as an indication of a healthy intake. Under-cutting my allotment, consequently, has seemed like a bad accident waiting to happen.

the week and its accomplishments

What you read above is just an indication of how good my week has gone. Some other things I think were pretty brilliant include:

» I was as sugar-free as I aimed to be and I saw the results that I thought I might. Namely, I didn’t experience my typical end-of-week doldrums. My cane-sugar consumption was limited to the granola squares I made last week, bittersweet chocolate and a single indulgence in three Fig Newton’s (on a day I was desperately hungry for I-don’t-know-why). Otherwise? Fruit and honey.

I’ll keep my low-sugar goal for the week ahead. I only anticipate breaking it when I know there’s a good reason to enjoy a super-sweet treat.

» One pound, lost. I’m not *worried* about losing weight as much as I am about getting in shape, but it was getting ridiculous that I was making some fairly good decisions and not budging an ounce. Sometime earlier this week I wondered if I was eating too muich “zero points” fruit. Which, of course, still has calories.

So I checked out the USDA’s guidelines for daily fruit: 2 cups. Umm. I was eating a load more than 2 cups.

That day I decided to cut back to 2 cups of fruit, and since that day I’ve felt less full … and I’m finally down one pound on the scale.

» I got the gym four times, as hoped! The previous week, I’d only found my way to the gym twice. This week, though, I headed to the gym three times before work; then I headed to the Saturday body flow class at 9:30 AND followed that up immediately with 50 minutes on the elliptical; AND AND did a 19-mile training bike ride with Patrick today.

I’ve felt able and willing to do all this exercise. If my good mood and high energy continue, I think I might have another week like it ahead.

» That bike ride … It felt pretty good. Patrick and I rode 19 miles. We started by heading straight up Mill Mountain. At the top, we headed left (away from the (Star) and connected with the Blue Ridge Parkway. We rode that until we hit Vinton, at which point we headed back into town and headed home.

We averaged a little better than 10 miles an hour and my top speed on the toughest part of the ride (the final climb on Mill Mountain) was 4 mph. Those are both numbers I want to improve, but I’m happy just to have established a precedent for myself.

And this is what I looked like upon my return …

Just so’s you know.

» Spreadsheets! Oh wait … this deserves its own blog entry …