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Eileen - Day #296 - Monday
 Daily intake goals::  < 35g carbs / < 1700 calories / > 64+ oz. water
Exercise yesterday::  20 min elliptical + 40 min exercise bike
Net carb grams yesterday:  33.6      Calories:  1433
Weight today:  234.8     Change:  +0.8    Total weight loss:  -50.4
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Yesterday I was bummed because my weigh-in showed a spike again and so AGAIN my total weight loss was under 50 lbs.  I didn’t even post a blog entry because I was so ticked about it that I didn’t want to SEE it in PRINT - even though I did post it in my “Exercise & Weigh-Ins” tab so it was in print anyway.  But as one of my favorite bloggers (zeusmeatball) says when he refers to a certain TMI state of being, “there were planes in the hangar” and well, those planes departed (and apparently they were, uh, cargo planes, lol) and my weight dropped back down again today.  Not as far, but I’m thinking I’m gonna see another loss tomorrow.  Don’t ask why.  LOL!

I am so jazzed about today!  I did something bad.  BAAAAD.  LOL!  I spent $115 at Walmart after work!  OMG don’t tell my husband!!  Heheh, just kidding, I tell Hubby everything - but um, he’s gonna give me a LOOK when I tell him what I spent that money on.

Over the weekend, I read in someone’s comments to someone’s blog (omg I’m so sorry I can’t remember whom either party was!!) that the best way to get your exercise is to do something you LIKE to do, and then that person gave the example that what they liked to do was to play tennis.  When I read that, I thought to myself, Oh wow, when I was a teenager, I loved to play tennis!  I had no one to play with though (no kids lived in my neighborhood) so I would spend hours and hours hitting a tennis ball against a wall.  It was a great workout and required minimal equipment.  Then when I was about 17, a teenage girl moved into my neighborhood and all that practice against the wall musta paid off because I was able to play tennis with her - and found that I wasn’t half-bad.  I loved playing the game but she tired of it quickly and we stopped playing.  And I’ve never played it again since!

I talked to my Hubby last night and asked him if he knew if there was a wall I could play against anywhere nearby.  He suggested that I use the side wall of the grocery store - we’ve actually played handball with the kids there before because there’s a high fence next door so the ball has nowhere to go. 

This afternoon I asked Kevin (my 16yo son) if he’d be interested in playing tennis with me - and he said YEAH!  We talked a bit more about what we could do to get exercise, and I suggested hitting some softballs and of course being a guy he wanted baseballs… anyway, we ended up at Walmart and I bought …

- Two tennis rackets
- A dozen tennis balls
- An aluminum baseball bat
- A bucket of six baseballs
- A package of four softballs and
- One baseball mitt.

… for a grand total of $115.  LOL!!  Then I drove to the local baseball field (there are actually six baseball fields there) and they were ALL being used.  So I drove to another park where there are three baseball fields and all of those were being used too - BUT - there were also two tennis courts!!  And the tennis courts were empty.  For the next 45 minutes, we played tennis.  Or something like tennis, LOL!  We lobbed the ball back and forth and laughed and ran for stray balls and laughed and hit wildly and laughed and … and we worked up a pretty good sweat, both of us!  OMG and it was SO fun! 

At one point I said to Kevin, “Why do you keep laughing every time I run for the ball?”  I mean we were both laughing so much that it was not a big deal but he didn’t really answer me and he still kept doing it, every time I would race across the court to try to catch a ball before it got past me, Kevin laughed.  Not a mean laugh, just a spontaneous laugh. 

After 45 minutes I was starting to get a little tired so we went to go see if any of the baseball fields were empty yet and hey - there was a batting cage!  And no one was in it!  So we went in there for the next half-hour and took turns pitching and batting.  That was fun too!!

When we were leaving I asked him if he was embarrassed being there at the park with his MOM and he said not at ALL and that it was fun and we should do it every day!  (I don’t know how serious he was about that!)  But then when we were in the car he said something that brought tears to my eyes - good tears.

He said that the reason he kept laughing every time I ran for the ball was because he had never - NEVER - in his whole life, seen his mom run like that.  Ever!  That all his life he’s known that his mom couldn’t run like that and so every time he saw me running across the court, bent on hitting that ball back to him, it just made him laugh “with like - surprise!”  I teared up, not because of the regret I felt for all those years that my kids didn’t have a mom who could run and play with them - even though I do feel that regret - no, I teared up because NOW at age FORTY-SEVEN, I am finally able to run again.  Even if it’s just short little bursts on a tennis court, it’s still more than I’ve been able to do … since before my children were born.

I teared up because I am SO GRATEFUL!!!!

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