145.0 again. (Whew!)

I say "whew" because last night before bed I was 148 and dropping three pounds overnight seemed improbable, and I've been 147 and 146.5 the past two days. Eeek! No more of that!

But yesterday I WENT TO THE GYM! Hooray! I did 40 minutes on the exercycle -- at level 6, I think, but the fat burner program on the bikes at this new gym keep up with your heart rate and respond to make you maintain a fixed rate. I set it at 165 at first but it doesn't do a warm-up so that nearly killed me at first, so I reduced it to 157 (the recommended upper limit for a 35-year-old, though that has always felt low to me) and worked out at that level. I'll bump it up a bit over the next week or so until I can get back to my prior level. I burned 300 calories (they say -- but I don't remember it asking my weight) and went 14.4 miles. Very satisfying.

After all the fuss about childcare Daniel and I ended up switching off yesterday and keeping the kids at home. You can schedule care at the gym up to a week in advance and if you wait until the last day there's no way to get four slots (Cecilia counts double) at a reasonable time. So we're signed up for next Monday for 5 pm. I have a Thursday slot for 6:30 but I might call and cancel that and we can switch off over the next couple of days. My goal is to work out three times this week. If I keep exercising my weight will be reasonable. If I don't, I will gain dramatically. It's that simple.

My eating yesterday was pretty good because I was trying to focus on it. I've made the bright move of leaving the clementines sitting on the counter -- they won't keep as long as being in the fridge but they don't need to, because as long as they're in sight I go through two or three a day, as do Cecilia and Alexander! So I'm less inclined to reach for the chocolate or the chips (leftover from Daniel's poker party on Friday). We still have Christmas cookies, but they're getting so stale that they're not very tempting, though maybe they will be when the chocolate is all gone!

Today so far I've had a bowl of cereal with milk, a clementine, eight almonds, and (unfortunately) several chocolate-covered almonds (from Trader Joe's -- they were a gift, and, oh, they're yummy, but thank goodness they're almost gone). Now it's lunchtime -- yogurt and pretzels, I think!