I did yard work!

Well Amigos, the weight loss is going quite well. I had a moderate gain a couple weeks back, but I didn't let it get me down. I got right back on that horse and proceeded to lose the amount I had gained and then some a week later.

I'm definitely feeling this one physically. Know one of the reasons I know that to be? I raked on Sunday. I hate raking. To me the worst part of home ownership is the fact that I have a yard. But I was sitting inside watching television, and it was a beautiful day. I'd already walked the dogs for almost an hour and had met some friends for coffee so my morning wasn't exactly dull. But all I could think about was getting out there and enjoying the day and raking all these dang leaves off my lawn.

Let me back up here a second. One thing I'd like to say, and I realize there isn't a darned thing I can do about it, but none of the leaves that are on my lawn come from any trees on my property. I have 2 trees on my property. The one in front is a maple tree, which remains green until, oh, Christmas, and then overnight turns yellow, and then, again overnight, drops its leaves. It stands there, mocking me, hanging on to every damn leaf, while every tree around it is bare. The other tree I have on my property is a very long, lean crab tree. This tree has not lost any of its leaves either, though without the mockery.

But what was covering my front yard? Every other kind of leaf imaginable. Not exclusively on my yard of course, they're on everyone's yard. But for a person who has the least amount of foliage on their lot, and undoubtedly the smallest house by a huge margin, I certainly do amass more than my fair share of leaves. I keep hoping, sadly, that some neighbor will take pity on me, realizing that I am, in fact, raking the leaves from THEIR trees, and come to my rescue. But alas, no.

But Sunday I didn't mind. I have a rake with an extra-wide span and I was able to clear the lawn in a relatively short time, and without getting sore or winded or anything. And when all was said and done and the leaves were raked into the street (and getting caught in a stiff breeze and blowing across the street to my neighbors' yards, much to my glee), I figured I'd better mow the lawn. See, with a longer lawn (and my lawn is always longer because my tenant is supposed to mow it and he doesn't) you tend to have lots of leaves that get stuck and it's quite hard to rake. So I went into the garage, dug out my lawnmower (my tenant has several, since it's what he does for a living, though you'd never know it), plugged it in (yes, I have an electric mower, and I couldn't be happier with it), and away I went. I have to say, the sense of accomplishment when all was said and done was most satisifying.

And the best thing of all is that I didn't mind doing this physically. Neither of these things are chores I care to do, but when you're not carrying around as much excess weight, they don't seem so bad.

Possibly the best thing of all is that I could do all this and not think twice about my knee. Honestly Amigos, I think often about how much better I feel. In the end I think my knee was just really, really bad. I shudder to think how much it would have hurt had I done these same chores last year.

I've had a couple other interesting changes. I find I have many, many more clothes than I ever realized. I had been dressing in old stand-bys. You know, the clothes you can wear that don't make it look or feel like you've gained weight. I have a navy blue sweater that I wore a lot, and convinced myself that because it was quite old and I'd worn it years ago, I hadn't put on that much weight. But I came to rely on things like that more and more, and didn't wear a lot of my clothes that were more iffy. But now, pretty much anything in my closet is fair game.

Pants, though, that's another story. Right now I have essentially 1 pair of pants that fit, and they're not going to be fitting me much longer unless I manage to shrink them significantly. The thing is, it's not like I've got money to throw around, so I may need to invest in some belts (unless belts cost more than pants...).

This is weird amigos, just plain weird.

I still fight that demon though. Yesterday I went way overboard on points. I logged everything as I should, but boy can I put it away at night. I ate an entire acorn squash (not difficult, it's one of my favorite things, has very few points, and is cheap and plentiful), a spinach salad, a bowl fo veggie chili, a few weight watchers 1 point snack bars (few = 4), and a big bowl of popcorn. This was spread out over the evening, and I was up pretty late, but still, jeez...a girl can't eat like that all the time! But I was having one of those days where no matter what I ate I just never felt satisfied, so I kept looking for the thing that would do the trick. I gave up eventually and went to bed.

But, today is a new day. Just because I overdid it last night does not mean it's going to happen tonight. Nor does it mean that I've lost hope. It just means I'm an overeater, and I'll be fighting that my entire life, so I'd better figure out how to cope. So far so good!