Best Life Challenge: Tracy

I had a great week of working out. I've now roped more people into doing my mini-triathlon, so now Matt and I have another couple—Dave and Eileen—to train with us. As a result, we decided this would be our first week of training. I did a strength-training class that was brutal, and I was sore that same day. We were out to dinner for my first Phase 2 meal at a restaurant, and Eileen convinced me that my new bike needed a fun maiden voyage. Unfortunately, 16 miles on a bike meant that on Monday I was incredibly sore. If you would like a visual of how I Iooked, I suggest thinking about The Wizard of Oz where the Tin Man can barely move his limbs. That was me, only a can of oil wouldn't have helped one bit. Moving an inch made me say, "Ouch." I need not even mention about how sore my buns are!

Onto brighter topics that don't involve pain and suffering, my food-umentary has been going great. All my friends have been asking questions and giving me great feedback on the recipes I'm posting. My good friend Rayce is coming to visit and she somehow confused my food-umentary with a menu and asked me to make sure I'm able to make certain items. I'm just so happy that I've begun to rebuild my relationship with food and not look at eating the things I create with such guilt. I'm learning to cook in a healthier way and even been teaching Matt a thing or two.

The scale has been cooperating, but I must admit it's very difficult to resist the temptation of daily weighing. It's very hard when you want to be reinforced for good behavior, although we're not supposed to use the scale. I've had very few changes to my diet with the Phase 2 changes, once I started seeing that all those workouts were only racking up about 300 calories, I realized that 30 minutes at the gym didn't equal a candy bar.

A funny thing happened to me last week, I was running to a doctor's appointment right after I finished working out and was starving. Somehow, I'm still very hungry after I work out. However, I didn't have time to get something from a sit-down restaurant. I remembered those Slim-Fast drinks and ran into a drugstore and grabbed a six-pack. I think the cashier thought I was crazy, I had already opened the case and started drinking while I was in line. This was a huge success because I didn't plan well, but still managed to make an okay choice that could get me through the appointment and get home, where I could make a good choice.

This week I'm thankful for my massage therapist who, although she can't work miracles, certainly helped get me back on my feet and back to the gym. I only took one day off to wallow in my pain, and for that I should have a monument erected or something.

In pain and pleasure,

Tracy