One More Time

Don't hate me for this but for most of my life, my weight was not an issue. I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted and still fit into the pants I wore in high school. Not that I would have ever wanted to do anything like that as most of those pants were butt ugly but I could have. And now? Now I can't even fit into the pants I wore last week. So here we go again.

This is Day Five of the new and improved exercise program - the one I am not going to give up on; the one that will make a difference; the one that will turn me into a lean, mean fighting machine. (Yikes! I have to stop watching The Biggest Loser).

My previous plan (one of them) to rid my diet of sugar lasted less than seventy-two hours and didn't really eliminate the evil white stuff beyond cookies, cupcakes, etc. I couldn't bring myself to give up my Frosted Mini-Wheats (I cannot eat eggs every day) or Skippy peanut butter (I know there are some without sugar but blech) but at least I restrained myself from activities like downing a half-bag of mini-donuts in one sitting.

This time around, I'm on the treadmill every morning, lifting weights every other day, doing 100 crunches, and trying to get my body to bend in ways it hasn't in quite a while. I'm trying to drink nothing but water and unsweetened tea. And I'm even giving that natural peanut butter another try. My late night snacking has been all but eliminated if you don't count the lone Nestle Crunch fun-size bar left over from Halloween. I know the upcoming holidays are going to be even tougher than that Trick-or-Treat bowl but nothing tastes as good as the first bite, right? And I plan on having several of those.

Where has all this renewed motivation to get in shape come from you may ask? Well. I have a new grandson and I'd like to be able to get down on the floor with him without needing a crane. So I've decided I'm going to do whatever it takes to feel better and stronger even if it means watching old Dr. Phil episodes while I'm pounding out that last quarter-mile or listening to Taylor Swift shake it off as I struggle with that last arm curl.

Hey, no matter what I do or how long I do it, I know it's unlikely that I'll ever go back to the size I was in high school and that's okay. In eight weeks, I hope to be an energetic sexagenarian with a little less flab and a little more muscle. I'll happily settle for that. Oh, and did I mention I've got a winter vacation coming up that involves a bathing suit.

Yeah. Getting on the floor to play with my grandson isn't my only motivation.