Well, the healthy kick has continued for longer than I expected. This is a good thing. I’ve always been one to jump into something totally and get bored with after two weeks or so. I think I suffer from a short attention span. Earl says I’m Aunt Clara reincarnated. (Ho ho).
Anyways, I’ve been a strict vegetarian for 15 days and I feel great. And I’m weighing in at the lowest I’ve been this year, which is one of my goals. My reasons for going vegetarian vary…would like to eat healthier – I want to feel better. This is definitely working out.
I also don’t like the way animals are being treated on farms. I swear that some night I’m going to sneak over to the farm behind us and let all the cows go. I grew up on a farm where we raised beef cattle, and I think I’ve mentioned before how startling it was to eat something we had named a couple of weeks before. My sister and I learned our lesson quickly when it came to naming the cows.
And I need to shed a few pounds. In April ’02, I weighed in at 220. At 5′ 10″, this puts me at rather heavy. Christmas ’02, I was weighed 191. April ’03, I was up to 195. Today, I’m at 188. Ideally, I’d like to weigh between 165 and 170, but let’s see if I can get to 180 first. One step at a time.
The weather finally cooperated a little bit this weekend and I was able to jump on my bike. Yesterday I rode the back roads around the house and logged on 12 miles. Not a huge ride by any stretch of the imagination, but it had been about 10 days since I had been on the bike so I thought I should take it easy. This morning I went for another ride – 15 miles this time, but I purposely tackled the big hills. The hills that I avoid when I’m riding. I discovered a couple of things from this ride:
1. The view from the top of the hills I’ve been avoiding is astonishing. Breathtaking. If you haven’t had the chance to visit Central N.Y., make a point to do so some day.
2. The hills really aren’t that bad.
I was able to complete the ride without resorting to walking, which is definitely a good thing psychologically. I had a companion for two miles of the ride – a farm dog decided he wanted to go for a jog and kept up with me for a bit. Since I was going uphill at the time, Mr. Pooch was easily able to keep up with me. But when I started my decent (topping at 46 MPH!), I waved adios to Mr. Pooch and enjoyed the FAST ride down the hill. Honestly, that decent scared the crap out of me, but man was it awesome.
Earl and I have made this a maintenance weekend, mostly doing chores around the house and such. We did go for a small ride this afternoon, but a rain storm came through and Mother Nature didn’t really lend herself to sightseeing.
Last night we went and saw “American Wedding” – brain candy as far as content goes, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
