Day 1 - August 28, 2009

My morning started out with Yoga in my living room at 6:10 AM. First added benefit: the heat wave made it into "Hot Yoga." Second benefit: I was able to serve my daughter her breakfast instead of having my dad do it.

I'm not as flexible as I used to be; I can't bend over and touch my toes. When I was younger (age 5 - 13-ish) I took tap, ballet and jazz dance classes. I was good. Genetics took over in Junior High and made my knees "go to pot." Doctors told me no running, jumping, dancing, skiing, stairs, etc. I took a 3 year break from dancing and took Weight Training in High School instead of regular P.E. It allowed me to focus on strengthening my legs and not have to play softball or tennis where running would be involved. My Junior year in High School I took a dance class as one of my electives, where the instructor was gentle with those of us with physical limitations. My knees felt better those last two years of high school because of the muscle conditioning they received from the Weight Training and then the dancing.

Anyway, so Yoga was interesting this morning because my fingers could only go to about 6 inches off the floor when I bent over. It got easier later in the exercise. A couple of the moves gave me a headache, but it didn't last long. But the 30 minutes felt a lot longer than that; I was out of breath and sweating like crazy by the time my timer went off. Not sure if my muscles will be sore in the next few days; right now I feel fine. No notable increase in energy yet, but I'm not as tired as I expected I'd be after getting up 30 minutes earlier than normal and exercising.

9:20 AM "Kirkland Signature" weight loss shake for breakfast. I plan on having leftovers for lunch: 3/4 of a roasted chicken thigh and mashed potatoes. Dinner will be interesting: my daughter, boyfriend, cousin and I are going to Disneyland. Usually we hit Redd Rocket's Pizza Port for dinner, getting the Chicken Fuscilli with a cream sauce. Probably not the best for my diet plan. Again, not big on salad, but I might just have to finally try something other than the fuscilli for dinner.

12:10 PM 1/2 a skinless chicken thigh and more mashed potatoes than I should have had; I didn't want to throw them away, and I wouldn't eat them again as they'd been reheated twice already.

4:15 PM 1 medium sized apple

6:00 PM 1 Granola bar

8:00 PM 1 small corn tortilla

8:30 PM 1 large chicken Caesar salad (took me about 40 minutes to eat it)

11:15 PM 1 medium pineapple spear

In General:10 8oz glasses of water

Around 10:45 PM I noticed that my lower back was a bit sore if I sat down. We did a lot of walking at Disneyland, especially in the later evening when we went from Tomorrowland to Critter Country to Tomorrowland to Adventureland all to ride one attraction (everything kept breaking down when we arrived). The walk from Tomorrowland to Critter Country and back included about 10 minutes of carrying my 40lb 5-year-old on my shoulders. The walk back to the car in the parking structure also included about 15 minutes of carrying my now-sleeping child. So 25 minutes of walking with 40 extra pounds. Not bad.