Ah, there it is.  I don’t know what’s up with WordPress, but sometimes it won’t let me put the cursor in the edit field.  Like this morning.

Anyway, as I was saying, 608 on the elliptical this morning in my 31 minutes.

One of the problems I’m finding with changing my shape, and losing weight, is that I still feel fat.  Not nearly as fat as I felt before, but still uncomfortably flab ridden.  I can see how anorexia gets started.  I still have inches of flab on my belly, and I want it gone.  But I’m also starting to see more definition on my shoulders and arms.  And this is only week 9.  I shall soldier on through at least until week 11, and then make an assessment.

Ruth mentioned last night that she’s curious about how we stabilize and at what weight.  How does this work.  If we stay on the program, would we keep losing weight, or does the weight loss slow down and stop.  And if so, why?  It’s going to be interesting.

608 on the elliptical this morning in my 31 minutes.  Not much to report.

I hope this exercise thing has all the benefits that are claimed for it.  I do feel good after a work out.

615 calories this morning in 31 minutes on the elliptical trainer.  Now I’m dripping again, waiting for cool off before my shower.  Eating my standard brown rice, qing cai, and skinless chicken breast breakfast.  I never get tired of this breakfast.  But then, some people never get tired of corn flakes, or bacon and eggs.

I’ll never eat corn flakes again without thinking of Doctor Kellogg and what a perverted idiot he was, yet with a huge influence on my culture and part of the reason I have a mutilated penis.  Don’t get me started on Dr. Kellogg.  You can Google him yourself.

Feeling pretty good this morning.  610 calories on the elliptical in my 31 minutes.

Now cooling down and responding to email while Ruth has her shower and baths the dog.

Whew.  It’s been a cheater day all right.  I started with a peanut butter and banana slices on a slice of buttered bread.  Then we rode our bikes to Starbucks where I had a blueberry muffin, a chocolate muffin, and two grande latte.  I came out of that buzzing with a sugar and caffeine buzz, but that wasn’t enough for me so I stopped at Dairy Queen and had a chocolate sundae.

We stopped on our way home so that I could pick up the ingredients for dinner.  We bought two French loafs, one of which we just consumed with the last of the Irish butter.  I made mashed potatoes and pork ribs with mushroom sauce for dinner, plus a squash cooked with cheese.  I finished off both my Breezers while I cooked dinner, which was huge and very filling.

Then we went to see Men in Black 3, which was great fun.

Getting home we ate one of the loafs of bread with butter, as already mentioned.  I’m now swilling huang jiu (yellow wine).  Oh yeah, we each finished off a bag of M&M’s  and I had a Dove white chocolate bar.

So that’s been the cheater day.  I think I really did it this time.  Get me back on the program.

Ruth this morning was 65.8 kg. = 144.76 pounds.Ruth’s starting weight was 73.9 so she has lost 8.1 kg. or 17.86 pounds.  Way to go, lover.

Mine was 98.3 kg. = 216.71 pounds
My starting weight was 109.6 kg. so I have lost 11.3 kg. or 24.91 pounds

We must be doing something right.

I am looking forward to the cheater day again.  That’s tomorrow.  I have a bottle of huang jiu (yellow wine) sitting unopened beside my desk.  We’ve laid in four bottles of Breezer, two for each of us, our favorite summer drink.  I really am ready for another Tepanyaki grill dinner, but Ruth is generally not as keen on them as I am, so we’ll see what can happen.

I see the Breezers are already in the fridge, ready for tomorrow.  Ruth is anticipating too.  We’ve just had a discussion about Tepanyaki and have discovered one area of compatibility.  For Ruth it’s too soon and too expensive.  The alternative she has suggested – Chinese – doesn’t appeal to me.  Most restaurant food doesn’t even feel like food to me right now.  I think we’ve found the compromise.  We have some pork ribs in the freezer that are too fatty for a program meal, but just fine for a cheater day.  I’ll bite the bullet and cook on a Saturday.  Ribs, mashed potatoes (yes, with butter) and probably broccoli.  I can live with that.

I wonder how Elaine is doing.  Yesterday Jin Bo expressed interest in this program so I sent him a link to this blog.  I wonder if he’ll join us.  I wonder why I want others to follow in our footsteps.  Is this some need for validation?  I don’t think so. It’s just my natural tendency to spread a good thing around once I find it.  At least two of our fellow teachers here, no more like four, could only be described as morbidly obese.  I feel sorry for them.  It must be so uncomfortable.  I was just mildly obese and that was uncomfortable enough.  And it is so limiting, making just moving around into a chore, not to mention dangerous.  The word “morbid” should be a clue.  But I’m not going to go proselytizing.  People have a right to their own body image, and only resent it, or see it as criticism, if somebody suggests they could be otherwise.

I keep thinking about what Kat told us when I first met her.  “Everybody knows what makes them fat.”  It is really true.  I certainly knew what was making me fat, and the proof of that is the loss of almost 25 pounds when I simply stopped eating and drinking the cause of my fatness.  One of the great mysteries of the mind, for me, is the question: why do I continually do things when I know the result will not be what I want?  “To thine own self be true.”

I woke up feeling almost slim.  Great feeling.

594 on the elliptical in my 31 minutes.  Not pushing it, but that’s enough.

Watched a couple of great TED talks while I worked out.  Certainly takes away the boredom of exercise.

My morning on the elliptical burned 606 calories in my 31 minutes.

For the first time in years,  I wore my shirt tucked into my pants this morning.  I still feel like I hang over my belt a bit, but not enough to worry about.  Feeling good, though near the end of the second period this morning I was feeling very low blood sugar and shaky.  Could have used an orange or an apple or something. I wasn’t hungry, but I could tell my blood sugar was low.  I suspect this also has to do with drinking a lot of water.  That has some effect on insulin levels.  But don’t quote me on that.

591 calories on the elliptical this morning in 31 minutes.  Woke up feeling like I really didn’t want to wake up.  Very nearly postponed my exercise until later in the day, because I really hate the rush to get showered and get to class.  But then realized if I didn’t do it now, I wasn’t likely to do it.  So we watched TED lectures while I put in my time.

I’m much relieved to find that WordPress is working again this morning.  I was planning on doing an off line journal if it wasn’t, and then maybe cutting and pasting the posts into WordPress once the problem was solved.  But this is better.  Assuming I’m not going to lose all my data by trusting the cloud.

Cooling down now.  Time for a shower.

Nothing much to report on the day.  During our lunch break we took GouGou in to update her rabies shot and get the paperwork done so she can fly to Canada with us if that’s the way the decision comes down.  Expensive.  1630 RMB.  But worth it to get it done.

I’m too tired to be functional.  Ruth is already in bed and it’s not eight o’clock yet.  She’s been feeling achy and flu like for a couple of days.  I’m going to join her.