Starting weight:  285.2
Calories/Carbs Goals (limits):       1400  / 30.0
Yesterday’s calories & net carbs: 1320 / 34.8
Yesterday’s exercise:    5 minutes elliptical
 Weight Yesterday:: 246.0    Today:  246.0
Change today::  -0.0 lbs.   Loss-so-far:  39.2 lbs. 

Yesterday my knee was feeling pretty good so I decided to get on the elliptical just to see how it felt.  Immediately I could confirm that the pain I’d been experiencing was caused by that motion because I could feel it in that muscle on the backside of my knee.  I kept saying that it was tight, like a rubber-band stretched as far as it could stretch.  As soon as I started moving on the elliptical, that same muscle complained.  Loudly.

So I only stayed on for 5 minutes.  Five!  I felt like such a weinie, getting off after such a short little workout, but I wanted to be smart about using that knee.  I did not want to reverse any progress I’d made.  I was happy to discover when I went to bed last night, that I had no residual pain from my five minutes of effort.

This morning when I walked to work (I live one whole block from my office), it was so beautiful out (nice and cool!) that I just felt sooooooo good … that I decided out of the blue to try running.  I haven’t run, really, since my children were little - and even then, it was only out of occasional necessity (when one of them would take off and I had to chase after them).  I have, for so many years, had so much trouble walking, that I thought that certainly I can’t possibly run, not with all this weight on my frame.  But for some reason today I really wanted to try.

The first few steps were horrible!  The term “high impact” was an understatement!  Both of my knees protested quite vehemently that running was a really bad idea.  Bam! Bam! Bam!  It was like slamming a sledgehammer into each knee, one at a time.  Okay, so I stopped running and resumed walking.

It really bugged me that I couldn’t.  Just couldn’t do it.  Couldn’t run.  I can zoom along on the elliptical and feel great - and then spend the next week barely able to walk!  No!  I don’t want to live my life like this!  I want. To. Be. Able. To. RUN!!!!!

Pissed me off, so I tried again.  I know I was sporting a really weird gait - a self-protective-let-me-try-to-minimize-the-impact-jolt-kinda-gait, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to run.  A little bit.

I ran most of the way.  It’s only a block, but it’s more than I’ve even attempted in at least twenty years.

CARTOON OF THE DAY

5270