Okay, first the weigh-in news:
I am down another .6 pound - a total of 9.6 pounds in two weeks! I ALMOST made it to 10 pounds, but not quite. Darn stomach virus - if I had gotten in to exercise those two days, I might have made it. Oh, well, this is a long-distance journey, not a sprint, so I am just happy for the loss.
I stayed on plan at dinner last night and this morning, came in and walked for 55 minutes (almost killed me to add 10 minutes to my walk for BL challenge, but I did it). Here's a couple of things I noticed:
Last night after dinner, I was putting together my meals and snack for work today. I opened a drawer in my refrigerator to get some low-fat cheese for a piece of cheese toast this morning and found myself wanting to grab a couple of string cheese sticks. Realized I was only wanting to grab them because I love cheese and not because I was hungry, so shut the drawer and continued with my food preparation. A couple of minutes later, I was putting a SMALL amount of peanut butter on two rice cakes and adding a few raisins on top (my favorite snack on this plan) and found myself dipping the knife (a blunt knife, not a sharp one!) into the peanut butter a second time and getting a big dollop on the end of it. I had it half-way to my mouth before I realized - I'm not hungry, I only want this because I love peanut butter. I scraped it back into the jar, put the lid on and put it back in the cupboard. Got to thinking about that - how many times have I mindlessly eaten stuff in between meals that I didn't even THINK about, just did it because I like it and it's there? That's SCARY how many extra calories I probably took in and never even thought twice about it - probably didn't even realize I ate it because I was busy doing something else while I ate extra food I didn't need. Well, awareness is a good thing - NO MORE MINDLESS EATING FOR ME! I am now keeping track of EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth - I HAVE to for the sake of my health.
Second thing I noticed: This exercise thing is necessary, I know it is, but it hurts. It REALLY hurts. The walking hurts my feet, ankles, knees (oh, my knees ache a LOT), my hips and my low back (my back hurts a lot anyway, but the walking takes it from the usual dull ache to a throb). I realize that this is because I am carrying all this extra weight and the pressure on my joints is enormous. I know that I have to walk through the pain because I'll never get this weight off if I don't. But it is hard to accept that something that is so GOOD for me hurts so much. I took an Aleve after I got back to my desk this morning and I'm hoping for some relief. I am truly looking forward to the day when a simple 45 minute (well, 55 minute this morning) walk doesn't hurt and I can actually enjoy it!
Am in an okay mood today, but really tired - REALLY tired. It is such an effort to not only get up early for the gym through the week and do all the extra cooking on the weekend, but work at my job and do the things that have to be done in regular day-to-day life. Fatigue has been a major problem for me for a long time, as I chronicled in the first post in this journal, and I know this will get better the longer I live gluten-free and heal my system, but it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to keep going when just putting one foot in front of another is a MAJOR effort. It would be easy to quit - there's a little part of me that thinks how much "easier" it would be to wait to make all these changes until I have recovered from the damage of the celiac and have more energy. Except I am afraid to wait that long. How much more weight will I gain by then? Will I be able to feel the extra energy benefit if I am another 50 (or more) pounds heavier? I doubt it. And so I push myself - and push myself - and push myself every day to keep making this happen. And it's hard, but it can be done - the little that I've been able to read in others' journals has taught me that. And so I am going to do it - one day at a time.
Last weekend, we walked at Discover Mills mall one afternoon. They have some areas where stores are going in but the preparations for the area haven't been completed, so they have black curtains across the front to keep curious folks from staring in. The curtains have sayings on them (for entertainment value, I suppose). I saw one that spoke to me - I don't remember who said it, but I'm going to include it here because it made me think (and because I have read the motivational quotes in others' journals and I like them, so I thought I'd contribute one of my own). So here it is:
Do what you can - with what you have - where you are.
And that's what I'm doing. Hope everybody has a great weekend!
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You are doing a great job!
I hope that the pain subsides and that you are feeling better soon.
but I decided to commit before I talked myself out of it.
on taking that courageous step to sign up for the 5K in May. You have plenty of time to get yourself healthy and begin a solid training plan, don't stress over it at all. Just allow yourself to feel really good about taking that first step 
hope all Is well. weigh in is tomorrow
Ihope we do good!
