It's time to take it up a notch...

Photo courtesy Barry Solow, licensed CC-BY-SA

Another week has passed, and I think it is time to take up the intensity.

Today I stepped up my elliptical routine from 35 minutes to 40 minutes.  I felt a bit tired this morning, but then, I usually feel a bit tired on Sundays, coming back from my 'rest' day.  Physically, it was an intense workout, but it felt good. 

Now, all I need to do is to replicate that feat hundreds of more times [grin].

On another good note, I had a major win today - - my fasting blood sugar was normal, for the second day in a row.  (!)

This sounds like such a minor thing, except that in all the months that I have been tracking my blood sugar levels, I have never had two consecutive normal readings.  Sometimes the day after a normal value would be only slightly high, but it would always be high.

This is a great result, because I have been very diligent at trying to keep my carbs under 200g each day.  For the past week, for example, my numbers have been 208g, 164g, 165g, 171g, 152g, 195g and 178g (planned).  I think that the long term impact of managing my carbs and gradually losing weight will show itself in increasing numbers of normal blood sugar readings.  That's my hope, at least.

The really nice thing about this is that these numbers were accomplished without giving up all fun in my diet.  Yesterday we took some friends to Habaneros Mexican Restaurant, on Wellington Street East.  It is true that I had the tilapia where I previously would have had something full of cheese, meat, and deliciousness (and fat, and calories, and carbs...), I was able to have a little treat in two taquitos, which let me enjoy the crispy/meaty/spicy taste of something, without having it take over my entire dinner.  I ate two, and left the other 4 in the serving for the others at the table, and they quite happily ate my leftovers. 

I am not going to say that it was easy - - it took me the better part of the afternoon to work out what were the healthier choices at a Mexican restaurant (the short answer is that you need to avoid flour tortillas, fried anything, sour cream, guac, and cheese.  And chips.  You need to avoid tortilla chips like the plague). 

I am very encouraged both by the fact that I am staying on the plan, and that the plan is yielding results. 

Now all I have to do is survive 40 minutes on the elliptical machine 6 days a week...!