Weekend Update

We got a little more adventurous with Jackson this weekend. We took him briefly to the last basketball game of the season that Victoria was cheering at on Friday. He slept through it. We ate at a small diner afterwards in Mt. Juliet and he slept there too.

Saturday we went to a very early supper at our favorite local Mexican restaurant and he slept through the whole supper again. Afterwards we stopped to see our friends Craig and Karla, whose baby girl was born 15 days before Jackson. It was nice to spend some time with a couple going through all the same issues we are.

Today we took Jackson to church for the first time. Marissa is still a little paranoid, so we didn't let anyone really touch him or hold him, but he spent most of the time sleeping anyway. Afterwards we stopped by my mother-in-law's house and spent a few hours there. I got a chance to walk in their neighborhood, which has a lot more hills in it. I went up one that was so steep I was really huffing and puffing by the time I got up it. I wish there were more hills around here like that.

Along with a trip to the grocery store and a few dog walks this evening, I've gone over 12,000 steps for the day, or a little over 5.5 miles. I even jogged several times while I was out with the dachshund and I mean to really start doing more interval training this week. I've even got a hill or two in mind that are close to the house on the way home from work.

I've also decided to stop doing the low carb diet again. I've seen almost no progress on it for the last two weeks. I've also decided when it comes right down to it, if you want to lose weight you need to exercise more and eat less. It's really just that simple. If I can't control my appetite and exercise habits with my own mental fortitude that means I'm just a weak person and I refuse to accept that.

I'm not completely giving up on the low carbs. I'm still not going to eat processed sugar and I'm going to keep the starchy food down to a minumum. I've had success with this in the past and now that I'm able to walk 5+ miles a day several times a week I think I should be able to keep losing weight. I can always go low carb for a few weeks again if I feel like I need to jumpstart things.

I've got about 70 days until my 38th birthday. I still want to do a fairly long hike on the Stone Door trail on my birthday weekend, so I need to drop at least 20 more pounds and do hills like a mother to build up more endurance before I try the 9 mile hike that I'm thinking about.