Well, I made it through four days of workouts -- now I get three days off! Last night I went to the pool on our roof and did laps for 30 minutes. It was really tiring -- my arms aren't used to that kind of exercise. When I got back my entire upper body was in pain. I even felt a little hot-cold, like I had chills and a slight fever! I took ibuprofen and put on warm PJs and felt better in an hour or two. Today I'm sore but not immobilized, thank goodness!

Last night we fended for ourselves for dinner. I found some dry refried beans mix and cooked that up, salvaged the good bits of the too-ripe avocados and made guacamole with that, found a quick-cooking brown rice packet and microwaved it, and served it all on corn tortillas with salsa.

This morning I had oatmeal with stevia and cinnamon, and for lunch more chili with vegan cheese on corn tortillas.

Considering I did very little planning for this first week of the diet, I'm doing well. The big bag of corn tortillas was an unexpected lifesaver. But except for breakfasts and the one day I had tabouli, all of my meals have been either Tex or Mex or soulfood/creole style, which can all seem a bit similar after awhile, delicious as they are. I could use some variety next week. I'm working on coming up with some Italian and Asian ideas to add variety.

I feel like I did really well both in diet and exercise these first 4.5 days, which really makes me not want to sabotage any progress I might have made...I'm going to try to be very good this weekend dietwise. Knowing I have to record my eating in a log will hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow for the most part!