The final wait

The exercise / diet / lifestyle management program starts in one week now. At this point I'm just tired of waiting to get started. My home is nearly devoid of food because I want to get rid of stuff I won't be eating anymore (like pasta, pop, and so forth), and I don't know exactly what my new diet will entail, so I don't want to buy new food now either. I'm in this weird limbo state where on one hand I don't want to eat super-unhealthy because that's fairly counterproductive, and on the other hand, I'm not going to be eating things that are delicious for quite some time, so I might as well do so now. The advice I've gotten from people has been wildly divergent, ranging from "you need to start eating healthy right away and stop drinking Diet Coke so you get used to it" to "eat the most unhealthy crap you can think of now because you won't have it again for six months." So, I'm wandering aimlessly, at least gastrometaphorically, waiting for my new draconian regime to kick in.

I'm successfully down to one Diet Coke a day, excepting a little indulgence when I go out to dinner with friends (which is itself an indulgence). I've got one more week of one a day before I go to zero. Moreso than anything else so far, that's been the toughest part about getting started with all of this. I've cranked up the workout frequency and adjusted my schedule and gotten used to not showering at home very often anymore without any troubles. But it's the Diet Coke that I miss.

I'm wearing a heart rate monitor when I exercise now, which tells me whether I should work out harder or slow down to achieve the optimal heart rate. It works similarly to the ones that are built into nicer fitness machines, except it's attached to me so it works when I'm doing other things like lifting weights too. (I have nicknamed it the "push-up bra" based on the fact that it straps onto my chest right below my manboobs—I mean, pecs) I can handle 30 minutes of cardio at the correct heart rate without much of a problem, but I have a feeling that whatever my trainer makes me do in a week is going to make my current workouts seem like a joke. I'm already about as sore as feels okay, so it will be interesting.

I burned 1,450 calories so far working out this weekend, or about .4 pounds. That was a lot of effort for .4 pounds. I should probably not think about that.