Good morning all. Welcome to Health Group, week #2.

I did really good the beginning of this week. Monday, I went for a 2 mile walk and lifted weights. Tuesday, I skated for 45 minutes on my inline skates and lifted weights. Wednesday, I did another 2 mile walk and weights. (My walking route takes 45 minutes.) Thursday, I did the Hula video and no weights. Yesterday was insane, and I didn’t get any formal exercise in. Today, I hope to at least do upper and lower body on the weights. Hooray for me! It’s at least better than last week was!

Something that I do that really helps is I mark up my calendar that hangs in the kitchen. I have a pack of those foil star stickers, and then a pack of little sparkly flower stickers, and a green sharpie pen. The foil star is for 45 minutes or more of aerobic exercise, and the little flower stickers are for 30 minutes of aerobic exercise. I use the sharpie for tracking weights; a “U” for upper body and an “L” for lower body. There are many days where the only reason I made myself do the exercise was so I wouldn’t have a blank day on my calendar. It is very satisfying putting that silly sticker up there. And what is really rewarding is looking back as the weeks progress in a month, and seeing stickers and green U’s and L’s all over the place. Even if I haven’t lost pounds or inches, I feel I’ve accomplished something when I can see that I’ve really put in effort. I have something to show for it.

Food-wise, I did OK. I didn’t eat bad, but I’m sure I could have done better. As always, I drank a ton of water.

And finally, the scale….. The scale hasn’t been very nice to me the last couple of mornings. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s muscle. Maybe it’s water retention. Who knows? I know that I was up 4.5 pounds Friday morning from Thursday. It’s been really, really hot and humid the past few days. I always feel fatter in weather like that. I feel like I swell up, you know?

So, this morning I weighed 233.5 pounds. Blah. Up from last week. Up from most of this week. I know there are lots of factors though, so I’m not assuming I put on 3 or so pounds of fat. (Interesting side note: when I was at a doctor’s office this week, to follow up on my MRI and X-rays from last Friday, I asked if I could weigh myself on their medical scale, and I weighed 228, clothes and all! This was halfway through the day, too. I had lots of water and breakfast contributing to that! I was pretty stoked!)

That’s it for me, now it’s your turn. Do you think we should have a better name than “Health Group”? I’m open to suggestions. The floor is now yours…. :-).