April 24

A nice long walk this morning ... a trip to the gym to work out my upper body and more cardio ... healthy food choices most of yesterday and today. Trying so hard not to dwell on the HUGE number on the scale at the doctor's office yesterday. That's right folks I now way 210 ... 23 pounds more than my sweetie - ack. At least I'm more tone now than I was a few months so it doesn't look so bad. And on my walk this morning I was reminded of people who take medicine with a side affect of weight gain so at least I don't have that. Sometimes I think it is so easy to look at other people and think "It would be so easy for her to lose weight if she just stopped using butter." or "He could drop 10 pounds if he cut back on soda and beer." and thought I didn't have an easy thing to get rid of. Turns out I do - chocolate. I tend to avoid noticing the fat grams and calories in chocolate because I so enjoy eating it. But sense it is CLEAR that I cannot eat it in moderation I'm looking for some tricks. The first one is I am now adding organic chocolate chips to my organic low fat yogurt - I can enjoy the chocolate but reduce the caloric intake. Step 2 - switch to ginger snaps instead of Newman's Os ... still sweet but not sooooo sweet that I crave more and more. Step 3 - listen to my sister and make hot yoga part of my regular routine. Not only do I feel fantastic afterwards, it is a good workout AND a sweat out extra toxins (aka chemo/radiation) in the process.

Oh - I am working on chapter 3 now of my dissertation in addition to writing a proposal for a writing research conference.