Third visit to the gym in three days - two more scheduled this week!

This is going to be a real post-holiday step buster week. I made the mistake on Sunday and Monday of eating too many beans (I'd made a Brazilian-style black bean and pork stew on Sunday), with predictable results. On Monday evening my stomach felt really bloated and walking was not comfortable, so I stopped after just 1.5 miles.

1.5 miles in 41:21 minutes on Monday

Tuesday evening I felt much better. I was easily able to complete a whole hour again, clocking up 2.23 miles. Including my walk to work and back, today I walked over 11,000 steps (44,200 in the last seven days)!

2.23 miles in 1 hour on Tuesday

I have been using the "Interval Training" setting on the treadmill, so that the incline goes up and down every few minutes. That makes the workout more intense. And, today for the first time, I even picked up the pace a bit and ran for a minute (literally). I normally have the thing going at 2.2 or 2.3 miles per hour, sometimes up to 2.5 mph, with an incline of about 1.0%. Today, after I'd hit the 2 mile mark, I cranked it up to 5 mph and ran for a whole minute. Now, compared to the fit people around me, who regularly run at 6, 7 or 8 mph, my little effort was nothing; but for me it was HUGE.

I'd like to think that I stopped running to spare the machine from being pounded to death by my weight, but I couldn't manage a whole lot more, perhaps another 30 seconds at that pace. Slowly, I'll built up my speed and strength. I told a friend that I'd tried the "Weight Loss" setting on the treadmill, but it didn't work. When I got off, I was still fat!

Slowly, slowly, I can tell that I'm improving. From day to day it's difficult to see, but every now and then I'll notice that my shirts are looser, or the drawstring on my sweatpants needs to be tightened. OMG, I even bought my first two pairs of NON-sweatpants in ages recently. I no longer have to feel like white trash because I'm too fat to fit into anything else. I no longer have to buy 4X clothing from a Wisconsin-based trading company because that's all that fits. I can now wear 2X and 3X clothes. Once you get down to 2X there's no longer a "big and tall" premium price to pay, woohoo!

Next time I go to the Civic Center to watch a music concert, I'll actually be able to get my ass in and out of the narrow seats without a crane or a crowbar. I'm looking forward to the day (soon) when I can take my daughter contra dancing, like we used to five years ago, and I can do more than one dance without gasping for breath. Having lost 70 pounds in six and a half months, I know I've still got a way to go (more than 12 months), but there's nothing in this world that will stop me now. To paraphrase a certain Dr Martin Luther King (thanks for the holiday in two weeks!), "I have seen the Promised Land. I WILL get there."