WEEKLY WEIGHT WATCHERS WEIGH-IN

I am down .2 pounds this week to 137.8. It's not much, but at least it's still going in the right direction, and given some of the splurges I had in the last week (lots of cake on Sunday, and pizza on Saturday), I am pretty satisfied.

FINALLY GETTING MY BLACK BELT!

Well, I have been doing Karate for 2 years now, and next month, I will finally be getting my probationary black belt. (That's a black belt with a white strip through the middle -- also affectionately known as the skunk belt.) When you are a high brown belt, you have to wait to be asked to attend a black belt seminar, which consists of classes on Sunday mornings for three Sundays in a row (you can't miss one), followed by the black belt test. And on Tuesday night, I was invited to attend the next one in September. (If I didn't get into that one, I would have to wait until the spring.)

I am so excited, especially since I went through a good portion of the last year of Karate pregnant. I stopped going a week before I delivered, and that was only because I got bronchitis, and I was back at Karate only three weeks after delivering my daughter by c-section!

I will probably have my skunk belt for a year before I get promoted to first degree black belt, but I am thrilled to be taking the next step.

CONFUSED ABOUT CARBS?

Of course you are. We all are. Should we avoid them all together? Are there good ones and bad ones? Well, I think we know the answer to that, but beyond that, it's all very confusing. There is a good article in the New York Times that breaks it down, and helps you decide what you should be eating more of and what you should be eating less of. It also points out that not all brown breads are created equal. In the quest to make breads appear healthier, some bread manufacturers are simply using artificial coloring to make their breads look more like whole wheat.

Anyway, I don't have time to comment more on the article, but if you want to read it, click here (you will have create a free account with New York Times if you don't already have one).

RUNNING LOG

Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Ran 3.60 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill, plus 5 minutes walking at 4 mph on level 10 incline.

RUNNING LOG

Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Ran 3.59 miles in 30 minutes, plus 5 minutes of walking at 4mph at level 10 on the treadmill.

Sunday, August 8, 2004
Leesburg 10k in 56. minutes.

LEESBURG 10K

I am a little behind on my posts, but I am proud to say that I ran the Leesburg 10k on Sunday, and finished in 56.32 minutes! Woohoo! I was 138 out of 305 women. That was my first 10k since the birth of my daughter in April. The last time I ran a 10k was in March of 2003. Anyway, thank you to my sister Karen and her fiance Jim for coming out and rooting for me! It's always nice to have someone cheering you on.

I am thinking about making my next big goal the Army 10 miler in October. But it is going to be hard to find the time to train for that, so we'll see.