This was inspired by a Dove Body and Soul Dear Body project.
I tried to put the letter on their website but I guess you have to live in Canada for that.

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Dear Body,

I don’t know whether to thank you first or apologize.

I have not always liked you and have treated you poorly.  Worse than I would treat a stranger or even an enemy.  I have abused you with gluttony.  I have abused you with slothedom.  I have abused you with lies and deceit.  I have hid you from a good time because I was ashamed of you.  I have hid you under large baggy clothes. It is not your fault my dear body that I got so heavy.  That I gave you poor fuel to work with, filling you with too much sugar, chemicals and never enough water.  That I deprived you of sleep and respect.

You have carried me through my toughest challenges.  You have survived rape and abuse.  You have pumped blood and oxygen through you/me.  Healing wounds and fighting off illness.  You have stood every day, even days when I didn’t want you to.  You have lived on ice cream after mom died, staying in bed for days until you ached.

You knew when to ache more than my heart to give me something else to focus on.   Yet bounced back like a spring with just the littlest of encouragement from me.

You have carried large, heavy loads for me so my “hobbies” would flourish.  You have carried me through marathons.  Your strong hands enable me to work in the garden, to feel the softness of my dog’s fur.  You allow me to smell the flowers, the paint, the coffee, the morning, the rain and the wood smoke.

Thank you!  Thank you for always being true to me.  Even and especially when I ignored you.  Thank you for every grey hair, every wrinkle, every muscle, and every curve.  For my strength which fuels my determination.

I am sorry for having treated you so poorly.  An apology does not fix things so from here on out I promise to treat you with more respect.  To use my muscles and give you the exercise and movement you deserve.  I promise to feed you healthy and natural fuel.  I promise to treat you to the occasional nap in the sun, swim in the ocean and hike in the woods to celebrate your strength and love of the fresh air.

Thank you body for loving and supporting me for so long.  It’s my turn to love you back.

Love,

Valria

One of my weight loss road blocks is the interruption in my schedule.  Be it a trip or company in town or schedule change at work.  When it is tough to fit in daily exercise because there are other obligations filling in the “exercise” time slot.

I am having a fabulous visit with Chari in town.  This does mean that I have not had a work out in four days now.  Even though everyday we say “tomorrow lets go to the track”  it just hasn’t materialized.  Perhaps tomorrow.

We did have fun bobbing around the pool on Saturday but it really doesn’t count as exercise.

What I am doing to maintain during this time is keeping my portions in control.  Not having seconds when I have had enough and keeping fresh veggies and salads in the daily menu.

It is also nice to be doing so much grilling outside right now.  Summer is great for grilling veggies and low fat cuts of meat.  I think zucchini and salmon on the grill for lunch tomorrow is the plan.  Right after we get back from the track.

My mini maintenance goal for this two weeks is to keep my weight were it is.  Watch and log my food.  Fit in workouts if I can and once the “routine” is back in force I’m sure my body will shed some weight just from the ramp up after this little break.

Weight loss is all about numbers.  Not just the number on the scale or on the waist band of the pants your trying to squeeze into but the number of hours number of calories number of days.

I am happy to say that at the 5 week mark on Monday (see a number), I am firmly above the 5% (another number) weight loss for this mini goal.  I so want to increase the goal, start the 10 weeks over, loose 10% starting from here.

But I’m not,  I am sticking with this number for now with this original goal.  Still trying to loose 10% of my body weight (FAT weight) in 10 weeks.  I am officially at 15 pounds (11 in June).  I want to tell everyone.  But really I saw the video of me crossing the finish line and hell I can’t tell by looking so what is someone going to say,  to be polite….oh really, (eyebrow raising), good for you.

Although I do have to say recently my friend Katherine did say “I can tell you’ve lost weight I was walking behind you and there wasn’t as much butt as before.”

I tracked my calories every single day in June.  The average for the month is 1568 a day.  Some days less, some days more but that is what the average is from June 1 to June 30th.   It is exactly in the range I was shooting for.

So my exercise Totals for June is about 21 hours and over 80 miles in cardio EIGHTY  I think that is the number in this post that surprised me the most.  Now I wont have a 13 mile run in July so I am sure I wont make these total again this month but for June I am quite pleased with the numbers.  (break down in separate post)

I also got to go to About and change  the number 50 to 40.  Its all about the numbers, and today’s number is 14.  Thats’ what size pants my ass fit in today!

I am actually quite pain free today.

I had a good night sleep and today my shoulders and my hips are a little bit tight but that is all the effects from yesterday.

I walked at the dog park for an hour, nice brisk pace and it felt good to move.

Luckily my period waited until the end of the marathon to start.  But my appetite last night and today is kind of off the hook.  I am still tracking calories but there seems to be a lot more carbs yesterday and today.  I am pretty sure it has more to do with my period then the marathon.

Tomorrow is 5 weeks into the 10% weight loss in 10 weeks that I am attempting and although I am on course I wont stay on if I don’t pay attention to what I am putting in my broccoli hole.

So today was a walk, I exchanged my rest day for last Friday to go into the marathon with all my energy.  I have been tracking my exercise all month and there are two days left and already have about 20 hours of exercise.  I am excited to total it all up.