Back in the gym

I only made it to the gym once last week, opting to work outdoors here at home since the weather was pretty perfect. Yesterday, though, the ground was still too wet from the weekend rain, so I went to town.

Even though I used a lot of back, shoulder, arm and leg muscles digging, weeding and hauling dirt, I can feel a difference in my muscles this morning. It's a good feeling, I'm not complaining.

When I got back to the weight-training area, there was one muscle-bound man back there. He looked like Big Bad John – "kinda broad at the shoulders and narrow at the hip, and everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Big John."

Of course I was intimidated, 'cause that's how I roll, but I decided just to be up front about it and admit my insecurities. He was so nice. Very encouraging, everybody's gotta start someplace, free weights are better than machines, blah, blah, blah. We ended up talking about baseball movies and then baseball teams and he even admitted that he's not a complete Yankee hater. But he thinks Jeter is overrated.

Harumph.

I did 75 crunches on the stability ball, with no discomfort at all. I also did two sets of rows, curls and kickbacks with 15-pound dumbbells. Next week I'm going to try three sets, but two just about kills me. I'm definitely out of my comfort zone when I'm finished, and I guess that's the point, right?

I didn't get on the scale this morning. It's not been a good week as far as eating goes, and I just don't feel like feeling crappy about the lack of progress. Again.

South Beach works when you work at it, and I haven't been. I'm not a low-carb kinda gal when you get right down to it. I've been listening to Jeff and Russ a lot lately, and thinking that their philosophy – a wide variety of high-quality whole foods – makes more sense for me. South Beach pretty much follows the same process, but in my mind I'm doing something "bad" whenever I eat a whole-wheat English muffin.

I start work April 1, and my hope is that three days' work per week, along with all the yard and garden activity I'll get here at home plus keeping up with the inside stuff will a) be enough additional activity to jumpstart the weight loss again and b) will take up so much extra time I won't even think about eating.

Because honestly? When I'm at loose ends, I think eating is a perfectly acceptable activity. I wish it weren't so, but it is now and always has been. Where did I learn this? And how do I unlearn it? You'd think I'd have figured it out by now. But if I had, what would I have to write about? Heh.