Day two behind me

New rule of dieting: stay away from Rita's altogether. I took the kids and two friends to see a play yesterday and then I took them to Rita's, which was a block away, so I could be a cool mom. I got a regular Italian Ice (smallest size adults can get) figuring it would be the least harmful thing on the menu (not counting the Light Ice, which has artificial sweeteners, which are terrible for you, and still a surprising number of calories). Well, it WAS the least caloric thing on the menu -- yet still a quarter of my day's calories. One serving, 12 ounces, packs a whopping 77 grams of sugar. Yep, I drank an entire cup and a half of sugar water. The equivalent of two sodas in calories. With hyperactive red dye, to boot. Never again. Honestly, their "custard" would have been better -- only 20 calories more and considerably more filling, and probably at least marginally more nutritious. And no radioactive dye.

At Ben & Jerry's you can get a single scoop of their regular sorbet, it uses all natural ingredients, and it has not even a third of the calories. But it was a mile away and I didn't want to load everybody in and out of the car to get there, when Rita's was right there. I thought the Italian ice would be like a sorbet. I was wrong. Live and learn.

Despite that, I managed to keep my calories to my goal range, but I got mighty hungry before dinner. I procrastinated on exercise a good chunk of the day -- the whole afternoon was filled up with the play and visiting a friend who is currently her mother's full-time caregiver and starting to go a little bit nuts being stuck at home -- so after dinner when Daniel and I went out for our walk I convinced him we should go a little further, and he said if we were going further we should follow a real route and not just the flat school sidewalk, so we ended up walking our usual 5k route, which has hills and everything. (And stairs. The bridge is still out for another month.) It wasn't as vigorous as running or the elliptical or a bike ride, but it was still enough to qualify as exercise.

I still haven't started my abs and arms workouts, but I'm going to do it today. I think I can stick to a M/W/F schedule for muscle training. And if I start today I can recover for three days before the next, instead of the usual two -- based on my running experience this week, I may need that!