Another good day today (so far).  I’m taking my youngest son to lacrosse practice tonight, so I’ll be out away from snacks.  I’m going to take my puppy with me, which will force me to go for a walk instead of just sitting and watching. 

Tomorrow is my last day before I weigh in and my flexpoints refresh - and I don’t work tomorrow, so I’ll get to swim!  It still amazes me how much I look forward to swimming. 

So after the wedding, my flexpoints are gone, but I only have 3 days left and I’m not going out - I can do it!

Last week I finally went for a physical and talked to the doctor about my shoulder.  As I expected, she prescribed physial therapy, and I have an appointment on Thursday.  Last week I noticed that when I let my arms hang at my side, my right arm (the bad arm) hangs forward instead of just being at my side.  Then this morning while I was swimming, I felt something in my shoulder joint slip.  It was a good slip, though - like something slipping back into place.  I checked when I got home, and now my arms hang evenly!  I hope that means less discomfort for me - at least for a while.

I’m still going to go talk to the physical therapist about it.  I’d like to see if he can tell me exactly what’s going on in there, if it can be fixed, and if it’s worth getting fixed.  If by ignoring it I’m putting myself at a huge risk - like if I risk losing the use of my arm, or something like that- then I’d like to get it fixed.  If it’s just going to continue to be a moderate nuisance like it’s been for the past 27 years, I think I can live with it.  We’ll see…

I feel really good today.  I swam for 30 minutes this morning, then got a haircut and an eyebrow wax.  Tonight for dinner we all had chicken and salad - it’s the first night op that I’ve eaten the same meal as the rest of my family.  I usually make something just for me, like a pita pizza or something.  It was nice to eat what the non-overweight people were eating. 

I tried to increase the intensity of my swimming workout by swimming faster (’cause I don’t want to swim longer).  I got a cool Speedo watch for Christmas that’s waterproof and has a stopwatch on it, and I decided to wear it in the pool today to see how long it normally takes me to get to the other end of the pool and back and then try to go a little faster.  But it was too distracting.  I kept feeling like the buckle was going to come undone, so I kept looking at my wrist while I was swimming (awkward).  Then just thinking about how fast I was swimming the whole time was unpleasant.  The fun part of swimmimg for  me is getting in a groove and letting my mind wander.  So I ditched the watch after about 10 minutes and just did my thing and every once in a while tried to go a little faster.  Oh well - it was a good thought anyway.

We’re doing some redecorating in our kitchen, so we ate out for lunch and dinner yesterday.  Needless to say I had no problem using up all my points (plus 3.5 activity points an 7 flex points)!  It just goes to show you can be full and satisfied on less calories when you choose low fat, high fiber foods. I also noticed (after about a week of eating healthy) that I have more energy.  Yesterday when I swam, I finished my 30 minutes and felt like I could keep going.  But I didn’t really have time, so I stopped.  But this morning I did an extra 5 minutes and still felt like I could keep going.  I guess vegetable make better fuel than chocolate!

Of course, when Aunt Flo comes around I’m sure I’ll be hitting the chocolate pretty hard again.  For now I want to do the best I can, and write down what’s working for me and how good I feel so I can remind myself when it’s time to recover her visit.

I’m on a roll!  I’ve been really good with my points, I swam on Monday and Tuesday and did 30 minutes on the treadmill yesterday.  It’s funny how some days 22 points seems like it’s not nearly enough, yet other days it’s almost too much.  Seriously, some nights I go to bed thinking maybe I counted something wrong and I’ve really gone over instead of coming in 1 point under - but then I wake up in the morning RAVENOUS and I figure I must have done it right.