My hands are all greasy now.

Whew! It's been a while!

As far as weight goes, I am not sure where I'm at. Last time I weighed myself I was about 185, give or take a pound, but that was some time ago. I just hopped on now (at 11.30 PM) and I was 187, so I suppose, all things being equal, I am more or less the same now.

I have been using the bike a lot lately - taking a few trips per week. I haven't quite worked up to five per week, but that will come after Guides and belly dance wrap up for the year.

I was doing well with the running, but that will have to be put off for a while - I broke my toe yesterday.

It hurt.

I broke the little one several months ago, but now I've broken the middle one (this is on the same foot, too) and it's a bit more problematic. It just happened yesterday so it's still early, but in my experience (this is my third broken toe) it generally takes about 4 weeks for healing, and 6 weeks for the soreness to disappear. My running will be put on hold for about that amount of time, but it's okay since the bike has all my lovin' these days.

I went for a lovely ride tonight. The beginning was nice and easy (mostly downhill), the middle was nice enough - all on the flat, winding through town (so lots of stopping and starting, at lights and intersections) - but the end was CRUEL. A thousand feet up, to the top of Mount Crumpit. I was pretty winded halfway through - especially since it was 30 degrees today - but I only had to get off the bike once, and that was to manually change gears (my bike isn't very nice and isn't very well maintained).

I'm proud of myself whenever I ride my bike. This is because I live almost at the tippy-top of the town, so no matter where I go, I have to go WAY UP to get home. A lesser woman would avoid the bike altogether, knowing this. But not me!

I choose a different route almost every time, and some are harder than others, but every one of them is hard going for the last 20 or so minutes. I always wonder if this will be the time when I have to get off and walk, but so far I've managed to stay seated. On Thursday I came up the Hard Way, and that night I did have to stand on the pedals to get it done. But still.

Last year I had quite a dramatic body change from biking. This year, now that I'm aware how effective it is, I hope to be able to use my diet changes, clever scheduling, and the motivation I've got from my online friends to really work at it. I'd like to drop 15 pounds during the summer, accelerating my weight loss a bit. I've been doing okay, but it's just okay - not great. I've kind of plateaued at 185 and need to make some hard choices to get my momentum back.

I might have to think about dropping white bread of all kinds. I don't make white bread or use it for toast or anything, but I do get french bread a few times a month, garlic bread, that sort of thing...plus I eat muffins which I make with white bread. Sigh.

Anyway, now I'm rambling so I'll sign off and say Good Luck to you all for the next week or two - I'll weigh myself properly for next post!