I got tired of waiting for the rain to stop here in New Zealand so I could start walking again.  We live in a part of the country called the Bay of Islands.  It’s semi-tropical and I love having bananas, oranges, grapefruit, mandarins and avocados growing in the back yard.  Well, I did love it until I counted up the days that it has rained – it’s been nearly 12 weeks since we’ve had a day without rain.  The ground squooshes when we walk across the grass.

So I dragged out the treadmill and cleaned it all up.  It works fine.  It’s an American 110 volt model so I had to look for a converter and found that too.  It’s been a while since I’ve done much strenuous work.  I’ve been ill for so long that I’ve pampered myself way more than I probably should have.  I felt like shit and did everything to make myself feel better.  Exercising would have made me worse, I’m sure. (seriously..   well, that’s my story and I’m stickin to it anyway)

I cranked her up and started walking and it felt really good.  I was going at a pretty good clip and then decided to dry the “automatic incline”.  Dumb move.  By the time I finished my legs were aching and I was huffing and puffing.  I read somewhere that good exercise can do that to you but geez..  I was plumb tuckered out.  Not only that..  I only climbed imaginary hills for 10 minutes!

Today I will strive for 15 minutes.

The thing about starting a new exercise regime is that when you start building muscle, you gain weight.  Your muscles weigh more than your fat does.  Maybe I won’t weigh for the first week.  I’ll trick myself into thinking I’m losing a lot of weight even though the scales would call me a liar.

If you have a gastric band to lose weight, it’s only 1/3 of the battle.  You’ve got to exercise and you’ve also got to clear those emotional eating demons from your head.  Now I’ve got 2 out of three taken care of.  I’ll think about emotional eating on another day.

Slowwwwwwwly…

I decided to do a juice fast for a few days to get my gastric band pouch back into shape.  I don’t know that it was stretched but I decided that having only fresh squeezed vegetable and fruit juice for a few days would not only fix it if it was stretched but it would also dampen my appetite a bit.  I think I mentioned that I’ve never had a fill in my gastric band so I don’t have my restriction.  I can pretty much eat anything I want.  That will be fixed when I get my first fill in November.

The fast lasted 3 days and the first day was a bit difficult but after that I wasn’t hungry at all.  The funniest thing was the loss of fluid weight on day 2.  I got on the scales and I lost 2 kilograms.. more than 4 pounds!  No wonder my rings were getting tight.   I’ve now settled in for the long haul of taking off the last 30 pounds.

I need to start exercising.  I have been so out of shape after being sick and having the surgery and then having the superbug infection that I haven’t felt like doing a lot other than working and keeping us cleanish.  (I say cleanish because there are still days you could plant tomatoes in the mud that the puppy brings in – give me summer, please)  I’m going to start on the treadmill this afternoon and after a couple of days of that I’ll try walking the hills around here.  Before I got sick I was walking nearly an hour up and down hills and losing weight.  I’m ready to feel that good again.