Success, or at least it feels like success. I am starting my fourth week (the 26th will be one month) of the diet. No sugar, no white flour. Do you know how hard that is? Do you know? And now Mom says that I will have to give up caffeine soon. Well preferably now, but I am a little overwhelmed with things I am giving up right now. Maybe later. It's not killing me yet. Typically I give things up when they are killing me. Sugar is not killing me either now that I think about it, but it sure was doing a number on my self esteem.

Today I was able to do 45 mins of cardio and "strength" training. The strength training is a three times a week thing focusing on different muscle groups each time. Today was legs. I did lunges with three pound weights twice (I was supposed to do it three reps, but I was afraid I was going to fall over by the end of the second one so I moved on to the next exercise). I did calf raises with three pound weights. I did hip adductions and abductions at 55 lbs. I did the leg press at four plates (the numbers were worn off so I don't know the weight). And finally I stretched. All of this took about an hour and fifteen minutes. Not bad. I came out feeling buzzy. If you ever had a buzz from a beer, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't...yeah, I don't know: sucks to be you? The nice thing about the buzzy was that it was from doing something good for me instead of something bad for me.

I also was able to eat correctly all day. I have also had the ketosis process start in which means that my body is processing the fat to make sugar instead of using outside sugars and storing excess sugars aka fat cells. It does weird things to my body like random muscle cramps in the legs or making my urine smell funny. The nice thing is that it means that I am getting smaller on a healthy rate. I haven't gotten back on the scales this week because I was too overwhelmed by the scale process last week. I have decided that I will do the footwork for healthy living process if God will handle the worrying about the weight. It leaves the mental consternation in the hub of prayer and eliminates daily mental activity that was cumbersome.

I have always found that exercising was a chore. My head told me it was hard so I wouldn't do it for long. The reality is for me to be at a healthy weight for my height and being the age that I am, there is no way for me not to exercise to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I wish there was and outside of heroin or the diet coke/cigarette method, there seems to be no other choice. I found a positive affirmation in my Shape magazine that has helped tremendously for my thinking: Working out is a way of honoring my body and my health. Since honoring the self is a way to honor God, it means something to me to honor my body and my health. I liked it and it changed my perspective on working out. Honoring God in all my affairs is a hard practice for life. I am slowly but surely being able to apply the God discipline in my life one affair at a time.