Life isn't always better on the beach

I'm sure you've heard the commercial for South Beach Diet....Life's better on The Beach...I'm here to tell you, sometimes life sucks on "The Beach".

My husband and I did South Beach last year and we each lost a great deal of weight. I got under 130 and he was in the 180's. You know, you get to the size you want to be, you start picking up the same bad habits you had that made you decide to do this in the first place....so, you guessed it, we're back on.

I started last Monday and I have to tell you. I think it's much harder this time around than it was before. Each night before I go to bed I'm starving. That can't be helping. I have lost about 6 pounds but my will power is beginning to get weaker and weaker. I feel like I'm about ready to turn into an egg, or lettuce, since that seems to be all I've eaten for the past 7 days. OK, so I exaggerate, but not much.

I think it's harder because I don't go home for lunch, can't go home for lunch. I work 25 miles away from home so I have to pack a lunch at 7:30 in the morning. You know, it's really hard to decide what to eat for lunch when I can't even decide what I'm going to eat for breakfast. And THAT choice is a no-brainer Egg Beaters or real eggs. Oh, I have a selection of cheeses to add too, really difficult. For lunch I've been getting a salad from Subway with no dressing - hey, that's really tasty! Seriously, I'm at the point where I don't care if I eat lettuce ever again.

But, the weight is coming off. And, regardless of how difficult it is, I'm going to finish out my 2 weeks. I've already come this far, I can't quit now.

5k

Well, I survived my first 5k on Saturday.

The weather was rotten (raining with 100% humidity and about 75 degrees), I hadn't eaten anything since lunch time Friday and I was recovering from a killer migraine.

But, hey! Guess what?!? I got 3rd place in my age bracket! Yeah for me!

I finished in 32 minutes and 45 seconds, which to me totally rocks for 3.2 miles, especially given the conditions, and I'm still walking and talking.

The down side is that one particular person I was aiming to beat instead beat me. I had him until mid way in when I had a dizzy spell and walked for a couple minutes to get my breath back. When I started back up again I quickly passed him again but then the hill before the finish line got me and I had to walk again.

I picked it back in again when the ground evened out but by then I had nothing left for a kick at the end. In the end, he beat me by about 30 seconds. He was no more than 10 feet in front of me and I couldn't do it. That hurts. What hurts more is that he's 66 years old and so remarkably out of shape. But, he's in a running club so he knew more how to pace himself early on so he had some juice left at the end. I gave it my all the whole time.

But, all in all, I'm happy with it. Now I know what I need to work on for next year!

Time flies

Again, I've tried to catch up on recent events by posting but somehow life gets in the way. So, I'm going to try to get up to date in one fell swoop.

FAN OF THE GAME, NOT OF THE TEAM
Last weekend we made a whirlwind trip to St. Louis and caught a Cardinals game. We're Cubs fans, so I didn't really care who won....as long as it wasn't the Cardinals. So, how do die hard Cubs fans end up at Busch Stadium watching a Cardinals game when they aren't playing the Cubs? Elementary my dear, we were at a surprise 40th birthday party. One of the couples of our normal "group" relocated to the St. Louis area about a year ago when he took a new job. They're both originally from the South, he's from Missoura (yes, he pronounces it Missoura and proclaims it to be the "correct" way) and she's from Arkansas. So, since May she'd been planning this surprise party for him and there were 3 couples from home that made the trip for the surprise. She rented a skybox - SWEET - so when the game went into a rain delay for about an hour at the top of the 8th we could have cared less. The bad part was that the beer got shut off already. The good part is that the beer got shut off already - I'd have been a bigger mess than I was to begin with. I ended up with a terrible stomach ache and called my evening short at 11pm while all the others continued on into the wee hours of the morning. And I didn't even drink any booze from mid-way through the game on. It was strange, and took a couple days to get myself back to feeling 100%.

ATTACK OF THE SUPERBUG
Last Monday I got a phone call at work from my mom who indicated that my sister was going into surgery, asking if I could pick my niece up from school at 3pm and keep her for awhile so my sister could recover and get some strength back. So, I took off at 2pm and still ended up having to wait in the traffic line for pick-ups at the school. I never picked my daughter up from school so I haven't experienced that huckle f#ck of a deal. I finally got into the parking lot and parked so I could walk over to get her from her teacher. When I walked up my daughters 1st grade teacher looked at me in a panic and said "You're in the wrong place!!!" I told her I was there for my niece and we found her and away we went. Ends up my sister has MRSA, the icky bad staph infection that basically eats your skin off. She had a pimple like bump on the back of her leg that got infected and they ended up having to remove approximately 8 inches of gunk from her leg. And the wound is nasty nasty nasty. My mom borrowed my digital camera so she could take a picture for me to email to my sister-in-law who is a nurse in charge of wound care at a nearby huge hospital. Against my better judgment, I looked at the pictures. Lets just say that I won't be feeling the need to eat hamburger at any point in the near future. Its gross, it's 4 1/2 inches across and at least 4 inches deep and it's in a V pattern. Oh yeah, it's an open wound because that's how it has to heal, from the bottom of the V up and when it gets close to healing all the way then she'll get stitches to close it up. Ugh, nasty.

SCHOOL DAYS
School started up on the 22nd so we're into the start of the second "full" week. So far so good. My daughter has 2 teachers since one of them is retiring at the end of the calendar year. They worked it out this way so that when they return from Christmas Break they aren't starting with a new teacher, they'll already have had her for half days the first half of the year. I can't believe the things they learn in 2nd grade now...cursive, multiplication. I wonder if they make Cliffs Notes for parents of grade schoolers on what they're teaching now so we don't look like fools. I seriously think kids are much smarter much earlier than when I was in school.

END OF SUMMER
This past weekend we had so much going on that yesterday was just a nothing day. I only left the house twice and spent the rest of it laying in the recliner watching TV. I was nice but at the same time it ended up being the longest day of my life since we had nothing going on. Labor Day has always been the mark of the end of summer here in Illinois. I'm NOT looking forward to the cold weather that's around the bend. I hate it. One of these days I'll move to someplace where it's 80 degrees year round. One of these days.......