Category Archives: health

I rediscovered an old love: long walks

Pace-setter, keeping me moving along Salem Lake.

I’ve never had a natural inclination to exercise or sport. Getting to the gym was always The Thing I Was Supposed To Do. And while I enjoy my bike rides, the enjoyment is almost always outweighed by what I perceive as the difficulty of cycling.

I’d forgotten how much I love long walks, though. I’m a long-walker going way back — to high school, even. When I was in college, one of the only ways for me to successfully complete a paper was to get up from my desk and walk around campus. And I love traveling big cities by foot. It wears me out, but not in a way that I’ve ever regretted.

Over the last couple of years, though, I somehow forgot all this. Maybe because we lived in towns that required us to drive so much? Or because we haven’t gone on as many trips to big cities?

But, Winston-Salem has proved to be a highly walkable city. And that’s not to mention its proximity to mountains, and the number of parks and walking paths within town.

So I’ve picked up hiking (just Pilot Mountain, so far. It’s only thirty minutes away!). And on days I don’t want to commute, I take the dog to Salem Lake. It’s about a seven-mile loop. Sometimes I pick up the pace and run a mile or three. Most days I just walk (the dog keeps me going at a good clip). I like spending time stuck with my own thoughts. And my thoughts are so much better when I’m doing something with my body. I get creative, problem-solve-y, highly optimistic.

I usually come home and write lists …

Sunrise on Salem Lake.

I call this the I Will Definitely Embarrass My Kids ensemble.

I think this might still be in use. Maybe. I swear I’ve heard trains near Salem Lake, but I’ve never seen one cross the water.

Some bends in the path are slightly magical.

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 56 of 101: Seeking nutritional balance

Umm, this all actually looks pretty tasty. (Note: ignore those red numbers. That's just Calorie Count thinking this is a single meal and being like 'Girl, that is WAY too many carbs for one meal.'

So, step one in my effort to get better nutrified: I researched foods high in fiber, potassium, and calcium (the three nutrients that I keep under-consuming); noted the ones I’m most likely to keep on hand; then created this fake day in Calorie Count to see how to put all the pieces together and make it work.

You can click on the image above to see it in better detail. The short of it is: if I eat beans, whole grains, minimal dairy, greens, and fish, I’ll be in good shape. Throw in an egg, potatoes, and a banana and I’m full-up on good stuff.

I can easily see working each of these foods into my diet, but I don’t foresee having this exact mix every day. And this was just a preliminary hunt. How many more foods are out there packed with good-for-me things? I don’t know, but I plan to find as many of them as I can.

Foods that surprised me

Soybeans. They’re crazy. Three ounces (about 1/3 cup) contain 11 grams of protein, 3.6 grams of fiber, 168 milligrams of calcium (1,000 mg is the daily target), and 527 milligrams of potassium (with a 5,000 mg target). Also, I think they’re tasty.

Avocado. About 1/4 avocado (2 ounces) has 3.8 grams of fiber! What?! Where is the fiber? I don’t taste fibers.

Sweet potatoes (yams). About a half-potato contains more than 1,000 milligrams of potassium. Now if only I fully understood why potassium is so essential …

Greek yogurt. In six little ounces is much calcium (225 milligrams), so much protein (18 grams), so few calories (100).

Really, when each of these foods is inspected nutritionally, they’re little powerhouses, and so diverse! Even without my multivitamin (which I eventually listed to help boost my daily calcium intake), I was meeting all the vitamin targets through the foods alone.

It makes me think of what bounty we have all around us, and how much of it I still know so little about.

Mixing it up

Even though I don’t plan to eat each of these foods every day, it’s fun to think of ways to mix and match them into meals …

Veggie and grains. Roasted sweet potatoes and kale chips, served alongside a mound of quinoa and soybeans.

Soup and salad. This avocado edamame (soybean) salad from Joy the Baker, and lentil soup topped with greek yogurt (in place of sour cream).

Breakfast for dinner. Spinach and toasted kale salad, sprinkled with avocado and goat cheese, and topped with a fried egg.

Jacket potato. Baked sweet potato served with a dollop of greek yogurt and a simple tuna salad.

Breakfast or dessert. Greek yogurt over sliced bananas, sprinkled with raw oats, honey, and spices.

… And this is just scratching the surface of nutritious eating! I’ll plan an update in a week or two on how these foods are finding they way to my plate.

“My experience with H.E.A.T. class” or “Why being miserable sometimes mean You’re Doing It Exactly Right”

My goals yesterday included a 20-mile bike ride. At my husband’s wise suggestion, I opted to hit the gym instead (away from the sun) to avoid making my weekend sunburn any worse.

These days, a lap on the elliptical doesn’t seem challenging enough. So I made my way to the class that was offered Monday evening: H.E.A.T. (described like this: “High Energy Athletic Training! Drills including jump rope, step, high intensity aerobics, wieght training. Prepare to sweat and burn calories in the 55 minute fast paced class ! Beginner – Advanced”)

Sounded pretty 80s-tastic to me, so I started class with eager anticipation (and carrying only a bit of Monday blah-ness from the workday).

But as soon as class started it was basically me, falling apart, for 55 minutes. I could only keep up with the class about half the time; the instructor didn’t budge on her instructions, so I had to figure out my own easier alternatives (for instance; instead of doing one pushup then one jumping squat, two pushups then two jumping squats, three, three, all the way to ten … I held a chair pose against the wall while bracing a 4-pound medicine ball in front of me. Even then I had to take breaks while everyone else was completing their circuit!); I seriously thought “I can just walk out right now! I can do it!”

I didn’t.

And by the end of class … I was still pretty miserable. But I’d finished it, never having stopped completely (I always did an easier version of the class exercise or found an alternative).

I’ll admit: I was beat up physically and emotionally by class. I felt a little like an out-of-shape loser. But I forced myself to start reshaping my perspective.

There were two thoughts in particular I kept coming back to; two things that on the surface felt like perfect reasons to never ever again EVER go to that class, but which are in fact the exact reasons I should go back to that class every chance I get:

1. I was miserable throughout class knowing how little I could do and feeling like this class was just way above my abilities. This has got to be some kind of survival instinct: “It hurts! Make it stop! Avoid it!” And the emotional burden of those feelings. Ugh. It’s a nasty weight to carry. In the context of a gym class, though, it’s dumb. If I can’t keep up with class, it just means I have that much more to accomplish by continuing to challenge myself with that class. Duh! Keep going to class, Lindsay! It’ll get better! You’ll get stronger! Not to mention what this kind of conditioning could do for my cycling …

2. Umm. I was kind of filled with jealous hate for the instructor, who was incredibly cute and tiny and bubbly. Well, this is embarrassing. But it’s true. “Can I really stand to follow an instructor who makes me feel so insecure?!” Yes. Of course I can. Because you know what? She was a great instructor. And she did NOTHING WRONG. That jealousy is 100% a product of my insecurity, which is in turn a product of some of my poorer food & fitness decisions. Guess what could help mend my insecurities? Continuing to attend classes like this, improving my fitness and building up my self-esteem.

So yeah. Life lessons. Thanks, H.E.A.T. class and supercutebubbly instructor. I definitely needed that.

good things: food, exercise, harr!

It was a pretty good week, I gotta say.

» I stayed within my Weight Watchers points, and it wasn’t that hard. It was one of those weeks that I *wanted* fruity desserts, sauteed veggies, oatmeal for lunch some days.

» I exercised 6 days! My original goal had been to get to the gym every day last week, but that didn’t happen. What did happen was: on days I didn’t make it to the Y, I did exercise on my own time in the out-of-doors. One workday, I took a long walk on my lunch break (through some pavement fields … I’m surrounded by parking lots and main thoroughfares in this office). Last Saturday, I walked our dog to the dog park, a good 30- to 40-minute haul each way. I rested on Sunday, but didn’t feel at all guilty; the day off must have done me good.

» I simply felt better. Exercise and good eating do that. But it’s so funny what minimal positive effort it takes to get to a place that is exponentially more satisfied and satisfying. I felt lighter, smilier, more able to continue making healthful decisions.

» I did it! I cut my own hair! I was nervous. And then I got more nervous after I started in with the scissors. You know how your hair dresser gets chunks of your hair between his index and middle finger, then glides the scissors across the ends to trim up? That’s how I started in on my hair and it was taking forever. Not to mention I couldn’t cut a straight line to save my life.

At some point I got a chunk of that hair, twisted it a few times and then just lopped off the end of those twisted bits. And it worked. I just kept repeating that method until I’d got my hair looking as you see it. (And really, I had to force myself to stop. It got kind of addicting.)

I’m looking forward to my next trim, and I plan to try different shaping techniques. (I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m just sayin’ that I want to figure out how to shape my hair, is all.)

And that’s just half of what a great week looks like for me.

Onto the next!

signs that i’m back on track

Yay! Good things are happening. They’re tiny, but tiny is where it starts.

i know i’m doing it right when …

» I headed to the gym for the third morning in a row. Third day’s the charm. Not to mention I’ve been getting to sleep around 9 p.m. each night. My gym alarm is set for 4:40, and by the time it goes off I’ve actually gotten enough rest to spring out of bed.

The physical benefit of the sleep is one thing; and another is that when I get to bed later, I fall asleep with a sense of dread that I won’t feel fully rested by the time that early alarm goes off. I think I absolutely do carry that negativity through my sleep and into the next morning, when often I’ll opt to turn off the alarm and go back to bed.

» fruit dessert! When I can be happy and satiated by a bowl of cut up bananas, hazelnut butter, honey and a sprinkle of granola, I know I’m doing pretty well. No lingering emotional dissatisfaction with a “dumb healthy dessert,” no giving in to compulsion. Bonus: an extra serving of fruit, a dash of protein and whole grains.

» water water water water water. And more water. I’ve said it before, but drinking my daily allotment of water can feel like work. When I start craving the next bottle of water, though, I’m in a good place. It’s a place where my healthy decisions feel less burdensome, and where I put more value in them then I do in what would be easier.

some things I’m not doing yet

Some of my healthy habits haven’t kicked in yet, but I’m not worried. I’ve returned to a frame of mind that says I should slowly add things as they feel right, and up to the point I still feel excited and positive about them. In the meantime, I’m not:

» pushing super hard at the gym. I’m pushing somewhat, and I’m doing new things (namely I’ve picked up regular weight training, but I’ve traded in my rigorous elliptical workouts for more slow-paced walks around our indoor track).

» tracking my numbers. I know! I’m so into numbers! You’d think it’s the first thing I’d want to get back into. But I’d prefer to focus on the actual work behind those numbers, first. I have this nagging suspicion that — while my tracking is ultimately good and will be a great tool for me in the future — sometimes that tracking can lay a thin film of burden/judgment over everything I try to accomplish in a day. I think I may have become disheartened by some of my numbers, and I allowed that to affect my efforts.

I’ll work on establishing a solid routine with food and exercise before I slowly return to collecting data.

fin!

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?(!)

missing something … protein?

I’m digging into this right now. I microwaved it for a minute and sprinkled it with sea salt. This modest portion of edamame (3 oz. / 0.5 cups) contains 12 g of protein.

Do you know why I care about how much protein this has?

Because I have been SLUGGISH lately. And today I hit my breaking point. (Come to think of it, about this time last week I met a similar breaking point …) I found myself super drained, unable to focus, hungry, grumpy. And I mean this was on an “am I getting sick??” level.

No good reason! I had my morning exercise, my delicious oatmeal/fruit/honey/almond milk breakfast. I had my 12 oz. of coffee.

WHY THE HELL?

It was incredibly frustrating. And I continued to feel unwell after my (healthy!) lunch of homemade grain bread, hummus, veggies, granola bar.

On top of all this, I have this nagging feeling that my late-afternoon sleepies (which I experience nearly every day) are entirely avoidable …

So I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

So I dug into the numbers behind my entire food intake for yesterday and found I’d consumed around 30 grams of protein.

*Ahem* That is not enough. (And this is where I really want to start reading serious, trustworthy, educational materials about nutrition and such, because all I can say is that) I’ve seen several references to recommendations from the Institute of Medicine that folks get about 0.8 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight.

That would put me at 45 grams per day if I weren’t active. (125 lbs. divided by 2.2 to get my weight in kilograms, by the way.) But when I add activity I should add protein, too.

This article on Health.com [ehh?] suggests that if I’m active, I should take my weight in pounds and multiply it by 0.6 to calculate my grams of protein per day. That brings me up to 75.

If that number seems a little steep, at least it suggests a range to guide me. And 30 does *not* fall between 45 and 75 grams of protein.

taking-action time

I’m going to forgo the gym tomorrow (seriously, I’m still quite tired), which kinda bums me out because I was looking forward to my second Body Pump class (have I mentioned that yet? I suppose not … I went on Tuesday, I used the absolute smallest amount of weight possible and I *still* found myself struggling at times. It was great, of course).

I will eat a bean and egg breakfast (overkill?).

And I think it’s about time for me to bone up on protein-rich veggies, beans, etc. (I eat meat. I will not shun it. [Ever?] But I’m happy to eat it in moderation and I want to get most of my protein from non-meat sources.)

I asked for advice from muh Facebook friends, and folks suggested (list!):

» edamame (see above)
» cottage cheese (I love it! But I must use moderation here, too, because cheese is one of my over-eater foods)
» hemp seed powder (what the what?! I can’t wait to find out what this is like)
» quinoa
» tofu
» tempeh
» seitan
» nuts
» avocado
» kashi cereals (which I totally wanna learn how to scratchmake)

It’s a great list. I want it to grow. And now I’m wondering what other food groups, vitamins, minerals, fats, etc. I could work into my diet to bring a better balance to meals.

For now, though, focusing on protein seems like the plan …

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 …