Day 0 – Take 2

What happened to Winkie?

As the old saying goes, life happened.

I came back to this blog today, and was surprised by a few things:

1. It’s still 2010! Somehow, I thought I’d abandoned this blog for more than a year.
2. Wow—I kept it up for 19 days! Pretty good, considering how busy I was.
3. I didn’t recognize what I wrote. I kept thinking, someone did a good job on this blog. That someone was me!

My main reason for not coming back was work. I had been spending so much time on the blog, I was getting behind at work, and I had to get caught up.

Also, life really did happen. A week before vacation, I went to a doctor (not my usual one) for bronchitis. Technically, this doctor wasn’t taking new patients and was about to go home, but it’s amazing how quickly a doctor’s office responds when you call during H1N1 season and tell them that you’ve been coughing for 6 weeks. In addition to the bronchitis, we discussed my weight and blood pressure. This doctor was the first to suggest something besides overeating for my physical condition. I left with antibiotics, blood pressure medication, and an assignment to look into Cushing syndrome and polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Which forced me to face up to something. Once I started losing weight, I began to notice a hard mass in my abdomen. I hadn’t been able to feel it when I was at my heaviest. Time to find a GYN. I went into my vacation with my parents and brother’s family with a diagnosis of uterine fibroids (so, not Cushing or PCOS) and the knowledge that abdominal surgery was in my future.

During the vacation, I also found out that my parents were selling their beautiful waterfront condo and moving to be closer to kids and grandkid. Not thinking about it or planning for it—doing it. Like in a few weeks.

Fast-forward to June. I’m in the hospital recovering from the first surgery of my life, and my parents have been living in their new little retirement-village apartment for a month. The day I was rolled out the hospital, my mother was rolled in—for reaction to a medication which thankfully had no lasting repercussions. Can you tell this has been an eventful year in my family?

Since then, I’ve been adjusting to all of the changes, keeping up with work and life…and now, needing to focus on my weight again. My trainer scolded me the other day. She said she had expected the surgery and the resulting weight loss to “catapult” me into continuing to drop weight. If I had lost 5 pounds each month since then, I would have lost 25 lbs by now. “You have to put a stake in the ground,” she said.

She’s right. I lost about 7 lbs during and after the surgery, but put them back on over the summer. Since I started to train 3 years ago, I’m about 10 lbs down from my top weight, while being infinitely more fit than I was then. I’m up to exercising 5 days a week, and I’m one of the strongest women I know. For all of that, I give myself credit.

I currently think of myself as a fit person on the inside, with a big fat layer on the outside.

Since I’ve already written a lot about each task, I’m going to borrow from that material as applicable. But things will be different:

1. I will post my weight and body fat percentage, as well as my daily menus, which I didn’t do last time.
2. I won’t write as much about each task. More focus on doing the tasks—and losing the weight—than on creating a nifty blog.

I think the reason I didn’t lost much weight last time is that I wasn’t committed, deep-down, to weight loss. It was about doing the perfect blog and getting to meet Dr. Beck someday. This time, it’s not a dress rehearsal, a project, or an experiment. This time, it’s for real. I’m seeing it through.

And…I will get to meet Dr. Beck! More on that later!

 

Still here!

Have I really only been away just a week? It feels like forever.

I have been busy with work.  I haven’t done any new postings or moved on to Day 20, but I’ve still been honing the skills I’ve learned so far. I’m still journaling my food, working out, and reading my advantages list. And preparing for my vacation next week.

I’ve also been leafing through Dr. Beck’s second book: Dr. Beck’s Complete Diet for Life. Dr. Beck wrote her 2nd book to address issues that came up with people who used her first book. Notably, when allowed to choose their own diet, people were choosing diets that were too low in calories to be sustained even with the help of Cognitive Therapy!

So Dr. Beck’s 2nd book includes a simplified calorie counting system that gives meal plans, food lists, and recipes for various calorie levels ranging from 1,600 to 2,400 calories. 1,600 is the minimum calorie level because research has found that when placed on a lower calorie level, people invariably end up cheating until they’ve raised their calories to around 1,600. (I’ve certainly found this to be true for myself when I’ve used computer programs to count my calories. Below 1,600, my hunger is too intense, and food just finds its way into my mouth.)

Doing the calculation in the book, I should be at the 1,800 level. It sounds like a lot, but it’s a lot less than what most people eat, and what I had been eating. I’ve been experimenting with the 1,800 calorie meal plan, but sticking to SBD (Phase II) foods. I found that I was pretty close to 1,800 when following the SBD without counting. I think I will lose faster if I pay more attention to added fats and use the 1,800 calorie meal plan as a guide.

The 2nd book goes through the same skills as the first book, but spends less time on the earlier Days of The Beck Diet Solution (setting up your kitchen, etc.) and more on dealing with challenging situations and sabotaging thoughts. Response cards are more strongly worded, and there are more of them. I believe Dr. Beck found that some people need the extra motivation!

In The Beck Diet Solution, you start food journaling and dieting at the same time. In The Complete Beck Diet for Life, Dr. Beck has you working on the skill of planning and monitoring food in writing for a number of weeks before you start dieting. She wants you to master inflexible eating (writing down what you’re going to eat the night before and then eating exactly that) before even attempting to limit calories.

I know I still haven’t mastered inflexible eating, even though I’m writing down all my food and even though I’m dieting and have even lost 10 pounds. I found myself that inflexible eating is a separate skill from calorie counting when I planned a “cheat meal” in advance. Sure enough, when it came time to eat the cheat meal, I didn’t really want it and ordered something else! I have sabotaging thoughts around the idea of sticking to a plan, not the food itself!!

In both books, Dr. Beck talks a lot about the importance about having a plan for vacation eating. Specifically, decide in advance to have up to 300 extra calories a day on one or more of your vacation days. That’s one large cocktail OR one small dessert at ONE meal that day. That’s it. No other extra sugar, snacks, drinks, bread, or sauces. No wonder people gain weight on vacation! It’s so easy to allow “only” one piece from the bread basket, and a cocktail, and a glass of wine, and a bite of a shared dessert along with the grilled chicken and veggies, and be convinced that I’m still being “good.” But that’s way too many extra calories.

On my one-week vacation, I plan to eat the same as at home except at 3 special meals that I anticipate: Valentine’s Day, dinner with my parents, and perhaps a restaurant meal with my brother’s family. I’m bringing The Complete Beck Diet for Life along with me for both motivation and calorie counting.

My Internet access will be spotty, but I will post as often as I can to keep myself accountable.

When I get back, I have plans for this blog. I want to pretty up the design, add more pictures, and post my daily eating. Any other requests?

 

Recap of Yesterday

Another day of doing the best I can despite being out of my usual controlled environment and surrounded by temptation. I was able to get my salad before lunch, and I ate earlier than everyone else because I was hungry. Then when everyone’s order arrived, I was treated to seeing and smelling the giant burritos, chips, and salsa that everyone was digging into. My boss opened a bag of chips on the table right next to me. But I didn’t give in. After he was done eating, I folded the bag closed and moved it away. Later, I threw away the leftovers.

Yesterday’s pizza was still around. Cold pizza is one of my weaknesses. The old me would have definitely jumped at the chance. Luckily, the leftovers had been left out overnight at room temperature—not safe to eat. If the pizza had been refrigerated, it would have been a major temptation! At the end of the day, I took another peek in the pizza box—my coworkers had almost polished off the leftover pizza. Egads!

After it was all over, I caved. On the way home, I stopped at my favorite restaurant and had a fried chicken wing appetizer (6 small pieces), and white zinfandel. It’s what I call “relief eating”! I was exhausted from 2 long days of meetings, and a very poor sleep the night before. My resolve was at a low. I guess my sabotaging thoughts were something like, “I deserve a treat. I can’t be expected to be perfect tonight.” Talk about fooling myself! I even had myself convinced I was too tired to write down my meal plan for today!

I would have been a rock star if I had resisted last night! Guess I’ll have to be a rock star another time.

Somewhere (and I can’t find it in this book), Dr. Beck says that you have to watch for sabotaging thoughts after a challenging food event, not just during it. Guilty as charged! I’ll be “good” at a party, on vacation, or whatever, and then eat when I get home. The sabotaging thought is, “Whew, I made it! Now it’s safe to eat.”

But it really isn’t. Unplanned food is unplanned food, at home or abroad.

On the other hand, I didn’t go on to pig out the rest of the night. Just a bite of cheese when DH was having some. I credit the fact that I managed to eat lots of protein in the earlier part of the day. Once I’ve had a high-protein breakfast, snack, and lunch, my hunger is pretty mellow for the rest of the day and night. (Studies show that it’s protein, not fiber or fat, that increases satiety and results in reduced caloric intake.)

This morning, I have an increased desire to eat but luckily, no real cravings. For the past 2 days, I’ve given my giving-in muscle the chance to do a couple of push-ups. But it ends here. RIGHT NOW is the most important time to get back on track.

And that just happens to be the topic of Day 20! More on that later.

 

Plan C from Outer Space

(Written after lunch)

As predicted, my day is turning into a dieting worst-case scenario. Sometimes it’s impossible to plan for every alternative.

Plan A: Find out the catered meal in advance and plan what foods I’m going to eat.

First, there was no catered meal. Then there was, but too late for me to find out what it would be.

Plan B: Go get my own salad.

Conversations with coworkers were continuing during the lunch period, and I didn’t have time before my next meeting to go get the salad.

Plan C: Take whatever South Beach Diet-friendly foods I can find from the catered meal.

The catered meal is pizza and salad. No protein.

My goal was to do the best I could with what’s available, and I felt good and in control. The pizza was good quality. I got a slice of the veggie and ate the toppings off it. I took some salad and added Greek yogurt and walnuts from my snack stash. I stopped with a little salad left on my plate because I knew I was getting full. I thought about taking the toppings off another slice of pizza, but I knew it was just a desire and not hunger, so I didn’t do it. The idea of continuing to eat faded quickly from my mind.

I’m still on my diet, and I don’t feel in any danger. But it would still be safer for me to have a written plan. And the only way to really stick to that kind of plan to the letter would be to bring my own food with me everywhere. That’s definitely an alternative, at least most of the time. Sometimes, though, it’s necessary to be able to improvise.

(Written Before Dinner)

Time to strategize. I’m tired. Tonight’s restaurant with my coworkers is Italian, of all things. It would be so easy for me to order “whatever.” I would rather go home than face this. I won’t eat at home. I will feel socially shy and will want to eat and drink to blunt those feelings. That’s my previous way of handling situations like this…eat my way through them. I want to do it differently this time. It’s going to be tough.

I will:

• Read my Advantages

• Know that I am not the only person there watching what I eat. At least 2 of the other people there also work out frequently and are very careful about what they eat.

• Think of how disgusting I’ll feel tomorrow morning if I overeat tonight.

• Remember how hard I’ve been working in the gym and how I don’t want to undo all my hard work.

• Have a protein snack before we go.

(After Dinner)

Things went pretty darn well, considering we went to a fancy Italian restaurant and my fatigue was weakening my resolve. I planned to allow a light starter, since I needed to take the edge off my appetite, and I had eaten lighter than usual at breakfast and lunch. In the car on the way to the restaurant, I told my coworkers I was trying to avoid wheat, which both made me accountable and engendered my coworkers support of my not eating bread or pasta.

My light starter was sliced fresh mozzarella and tomato slices (perfect on South Beach!), which I shared with someone. Another coworker offered me a slice of grilled eggplant stuffed with ricotta and other cheeses…something I could not resist! I love eggplant. That was my big indulgence for the night.

I had planned to order swordfish and veggies for dinner, but after the rich eggplant roll, I was too full for an entree. I ordered a side salad with grilled shrimp on it as my main course. I ate half of it and took 1/2 the shrimp in a doggie bag to throw on today’s salad. (But when I got home at 11 PM I decided the shrimp had been at room temp too long and tossed them.)

The restaurant served gorgeous looking Italian bread with flavored butter and olive oil. I asked for the basket to be moved away from me. My coworkers ate slice after slice, but as long as it wasn’t near me, I wasn’t tempted. Then they asked for a 2nd basket, which did end up being near me, but by that time  was full. Some of us ordered dessert…I just tried one bite of some ice cream on someone’s plate that looked interesting. It turned out to be hazelnut! I also sipped on 3 small pours of red wine. I started out refusing, but succumbed to peer pressure to taste it. But I didn’t get drunk.

All in all, I’m happy with how I did. I spent my calories on things I really wanted to spend it on. I resisted all kinds of temptations, like fried ravioli and fried squid that were being passed around.

Still, I’ll feel much safer having a written plan for the foreseeable future.

 

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya….

For the next 2 days, I will be in an unenviable situation for a dieter. Hours of boring meetings during the day, and catching up on my real work at night. However, I’m lucky in one respect: My new boss, instead of planning the customary catered lunch, has given us the noonish hours as personal catch-up time. I will be able to get my predictable, SBD-friendly salads at the local café.

Therefore, I will be able to plan my meals except for dinner tomorrow night, which will be a group dinner at a restaurant, and I don’t even know what the restaurant is. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t even been decided yet.

Now is when Dr. Beck’s “write it down and eat what you wrote” system isn’t helpful. Being able to make the best possible decisions under the circumstances, in the moment, is a helpful dieting skill, although Dr. Beck’s books don’t spend much time on it. I will be presented with an unpredictable menu. I need to be able to, and I will, choose a grilled chicken sandwich without the bun over lasagna. Writing down the ideal dinner of steamed fish and vegetables tonight will do me no good if I have no idea whether that choice is going to be available. I need to be able to, and I will, choose a few ounces of protein and a lot of veggies and a bit of good fat from whatever choices I’m faced with.

I can predict my breakfast, which I will eat at home before my commute, and my lunch, and my snacks, which I’ve already packed up in advance. But I can’t predict my dinner, and I plan to do the best I can in the moment.

Doing a perfect “write it down and eat what you wrote” eating diary is an exercise I will do someday, but it won’t serve me well this week. My ultimate goal is to do what’s best for me. And I will do what will best lead to my ultimate health and weight loss in my body, not on paper.

What’s important is for me NOT to get discouraged about not being able to get exactly what I planned and then indulging in wrong eating because of the “failure.”

I also won’t do any BDS tasks for the next 2 days. I’ll resume that on Thursday.

I will continue to write down everything I eat. It’s just that, in some cases, I’ll write it after I eat it rather than before.

 

Day 19

Today’s workout: 20 mins ET Level 2, 40 mins weights & abs with trainer.

Today’s walks: once around the block, after both breakfast and lunch.

Results of the fullness experiment: As described on Day 18, I’ve been trying the brisk walk after meals. Walking after breakfast was quite easy, but then my breakfast is very small. Surprisingly, I could feel the difference between walking after breakfast and after the slightly larger meal at lunch. But I also had no trouble walking briskly, so I think I ate an appropriate amount. I will not walk after dinner…too dark, cold, and icy out there these days.

Today’s task: Stop Fooling Yourself

I love this Day! However, the first time I went through the book, I was intimidated by it. Don’t worry…you’re not expected to quit fooling yourself in one day. It will take time. Today’s the day you create the anti-self-delusional Response Card.

Where do you fool yourself that it’s OK to eat something that’s not good for your diet?

• I’ll only eat it just this once. I’ll be good tomorrow.

• It’s just the crumbs.

• I’m too upset (busy, tired, etc.) to worry about what I eat on top of everything else.

• Everyone else is eating it…I deserve to eat it, too.

• I’m celebrating.

• I’ll never get the chance to try this amazing food again.

• I’m craving it, and I’ll end up eating it eventually anyway.

Dr. Beck calls these “fake” reasons for eating. There’s a much longer list in the book. The first time I read the list, I thought some of these were perfectly legitimate reasons for eating!

I love this Day because it really digs into the nitty-gritty of Cognitive Therapy. I believe that we sometimes eat because we simply want to, we can’t be bothered to resist in the moment, and we use one of these thoughts to allow the eating.

It can be hard to fight back against these thoughts and accept the fact that wrong eating is NOT OK, even if it means feeling deprived, missing out on free food, feeling alienated from your family or friends because you’re not eating with them, and so on. Losing food as a best friend and comforter is not easy. These feelings get weaker over time, every time you make it through them without eating. At first, I thought I would never get to the point where I consistently could go without eating unplanned food, and I’m still not there yet, but my confidence is increasing over time. That’s how it works.

Here’s the Response Card that Dr. Beck recommends reading every single day:

“It’s NOT OK to eat unplanned food of any kind. I’m just trying to fool myself. Every single time I eat something I’m not supposed to, I strengthen my giving-in muscle and weaken my resistance muscle. I might feel good for the few seconds I’m eating, but I’ll feel bad afterwards. If I want to lose excess weight and keep it off, I absolutely must stop fooling myself.”

Cravings update: I’m feeling pretty good today, not in danger of craving. At the gym last night, while stretching my tight muscles, I thought that a craving kind of feels like a cramp. The end of a craving sure feels like the release of a cramped muscle. My body feels like it does after a good cry. That’s how I feel this morning. Maybe the cardio reset my system…maybe physical activity is a good way to counteract whatever’s causing me to have these cravings. One more reason to exercise.

Today’s To-Do List:

✓ I read my Advantages and NO CHOICE Response Cards at least twice today.

✓ I made and read other Response Cards as needed.

✓ I ate slowly, sitting down, and noticing every bite: All of the time.

✓ I gave myself credit for engaging in helpful eating behaviors: Some of the time.

✓ I did spontaneous exercise: twice

✓ I did planned exercise.

✓ I wrote out a food plan for tomorrow.

✓ I monitored everything in writing right after I finished eating.

✓ I ate only to normal fullness (and checked my stomach by taking a brisk walk after each meal).

✓ I created an It’s Not OK Response Card.

Today I give myself credit for:

☆ Making lots of new Response Cards.

☆ Exercising 3 days in a row without worsening any of my injuries.

☆ Eating the exact lunch I planned, even though I had an urge to change some of the ingredients.

☆ Identifying and responding to some of my sneakiest sabotaging thoughts.

☆ Going to the grocery store to purchase the foods I had planned to eat.

Benefits:

♡ My pants are looser.

♡ My stomach is flatter and my waist appears smaller.

 

Day 18

Today’s workout: 40 mins EFX Trainer, wt loss intervals, HR 115-125. Crossramp 4 – 10, Resistance 1 – 8.

Today’s walk: 1/4 mi walk on indoor track.

Today’s task: Change Your Definition of Full

My family and friends used to  marvel at how I stopped when I was full, when I was a child and teenager. Later, I learned how to allow more food, and then eat less later. And then, I stopped managing to eat less later. At my first job after college, I had a 30-minute lunch period, and no other eating was allowed in the office. I often had to work late, so I started eating something heavier to get me through. And forget eating slowly when  you only have 30 minutes to heat, eat, and clean up your food. Exhausted and starving at night, I’d have something big, usually Chinese food.

I started gaining weight after leaving that job, because I took those bad habits with me, and eventually my metabolism couldn’t take it any more.

Dr. Beck believes that overweight people are eating to the point of being overfull rather than normally full. Her criterion is being able to take a brisk walk after the meal. This is a good fit for me, since I’m usually the crazy one on Thanksgiving and Christmas trying to herd everyone out the door for a walk. (I have one SIL who never comes…but then she always pigs out on holidays. She’s very, very skinny, for the record.)

On the South Beach Diet, I get a certain amount of food at each meal and snack, and it’s usually just the right amount to satisfy me, especially since it’s mostly protein. But in the interest of testing Dr. Beck’s theory, I’m going to actually take a brisk walk after every meal and see how it feels. This routine will also get more movement into my day.

Dr. Beck is not a believer in intuitive eating, mainly because she’s never seen it work for any of her patients. But when you take this week’s exercises in hunger and fullness perception, her prescriptions line up exactly with those of the intuitive eating program Thin Within: Wait until you’re truly (even very) hungry before you eat, and then eat only to satisfaction.

Today’s To-Do List:

✓ I read my Advantages and NO CHOICE response cards at least twice today.

✓ I made and read other Response Cards as needed.

✓ I ate slowly, sitting down, and noticing every bite: Most of the time.

✓ I gave myself credit for engaging in helpful eating behaviors: Not often enough. See below.

✓ I did spontaneous exercise: Once.

✓ I did planned exercise: Yes.

✓ I wrote out a food plan for tomorrow.

✓ I monitored everything I ate in writing right after I finished eating.

✓ I ate only to normal fullness: Most of the time.

Today I give myself credit for:

☆ Continuing to resist ongoing cravings and desires.

☆ Going to the gym on my own 2 days in a row.

☆ Keeping my eating diary 8 days in a row.

☆ Sticking to my plan despite not having much food in the house.

Update: My mood has been crappy, and I’ve been very unwilling to follow my diet and exercise plan. I feel like I’m dragging myself kicking and screaming through the day. I think I’m a little depressed (but today’s exercise helped with that), but I’m finding more sabotaging thoughts that are causing the depression. For example, Dr. Beck frequently says, “Imagine how good you’ll feel after you [exercise, resist temptation, etc.]” I don’t feel good after doing these things. It’s more like, “Oh, great, you finally did what you should have been doing all along. Congrats. < /sarcasm>”

Although most sabotaging thoughts come before behavior, this one comes after it, and its goal is to demoralize. If I want to live a happier and healthier life, I have to answer back to this kind of sabotaging thought, too. And although CT doesn’t put much focus on talking about your past, these demoralizing thoughts come straight from my mother’s mouth. I love my mother insanely and don’t have any desire to change her. The world is a better place because she existed. I don’t want anything but to have the best possible relationship with her for the remainder of our lives together, but I do want to stop nurturing the unhelpful thoughts that she instilled in me.

Eating Diary Update: Dr. Beck says that you don’t have to start the day with a written plan and monitor it in writing forever. In her O Magazine article, she required a patient to do it for one full week. After that, I assume you can dial back to a more casual way of journaling/planning. Starting tomorrow, I will keep my paper eating diary to the letter according to The Beck Diet Solution for at least 7 days, or until I stop finding it helpful, but after that I will enter it in an online food journaling website that also counts calories. I think that will be more fun and motivating for me. I’m also curious to see what the SBD gives me in terms of calories. So far, I haven’t been counting.

This is going to be a challenge, since I have 2 days of business meetings this week, and even if I inquire in advance what food is going to be served (which I will do), it’s hard to predict exactly what’s going to be available. Wish me luck!

 

BDS Around the Web – 2

• MSNBC’s website has a 5-page excerpt of The Beck Diet Solution, with accompanying video. This is a great intro for someone trying to decide whether they want to read the book.

• Another good intro to the program is Newsweek’s interview with Dr. Beck.

• Time to Get Serious. Psychology Today article from January, 2010.

 

Dr. Beck CNN Interview

Just for fun. I need some fun today. This is from 2007, around the time The Beck Diet Solution was first published.

 

Problem-Solving Exercise

Today’s workout: 40 mins Arc Trainer, wt loss program, HR low 120s. I’m not focusing on intensity right now. My biggest challenge right now is to establish the habit of daily exercise.

Today’s walk: None…more on this tomorrow

Today’s (self-designed) task: Problem-solving exercise

Yep, I didn’t go to the gym yesterday, although I blogged that I would.

Why can’t I get myself to go to the gym, even when I’ve been enjoying the many benefits of exercise for almost 2 years now?? Even when I know from at least 3 reliable sources—Bob Greene, Dr. Robert Huizenga (the medical adviser for The Biggest Loser), and my own trainer—that I need to be doing cardio no less than 5 days a week, preferably six??

I’m putting up all kinds of resistance to getting my exercise where it needs to be, which means there are some sabotaging thoughts going on. So today, instead of doing one of Dr. Beck’s tasks from the book, I’m creating one of my own, using techniques from the book. I’m devoting today to working on exercise.

I’m going to increase my exercise by doing the following:

Writing the planned time for my workout in my planner and on my blog.

Emailing the planned time for my workout to my trainer.

Emailing my trainer again when I’ve completed my workout.

Writing a special Advantages List for exercise.

Writing special exercise-related response cards.

Watching health-related TV shows.

Reading Shape magazine.

Thinking about how good I feel while stretching and using the whirlpool after a workout.

Exercise must be part of my daily routine for the rest of my life. The sooner I accept this fact, the sooner it will get easier!

Today’s To Do List:

✓ I read my Advantages List at least twice today.

✓ I made and read other Response Cards as needed.

✓ I ate slowly, sitting down and noticing every bite: Most of the time

✗ I did spontaneous exercise: No

✓ I did planned exercise: Yessss!!!!

✓ I wrote out a food plan for tomorrow.

✓ I monitored everything I ate in writing.

Today I give myself credit for:

☆ Withstanding ongoing mild cravings.

☆ Attacking my exercise problem head-on.

☆ GOING TO THE GYM!!

☆ Sticking to SBD Phase I foods all day.

Update: Although my DH goes to a different gym than I do, it’s in the same chain. His gym was closed today, so he used his reciprocal privileges to come to mine. We bumped into each other there. How fun is that? Maybe exercise will even bring us closer!

Although I didn’t finish all of the projects on my list today, I did most of them, and will keep working on it.