Watching Our Weight Diaries
By Kathleen Daelemans

Butter Endorphin Highs
I must be doing something right because I've lost a few pounds despite the tour of New York's finest bakeries I took with my sister Carol last week. The tour wasn't planned. It was an honest innocent "mistake." In search of coffee one morning my sister and I ended up in a bakery. We were greeted with a heavenly blast of real-butter-smell.     

And even though I only went once (I'm present every week in spirit) I dutifully remembered to practice my Pilates breathing technique. I took a slow deep breath allowing the real-butter-smell to flow sequentially into my upper chest and expand into my sides, my diaphragm, my back fat, my blabs and pelvis. The proper Pilates exhale is the opposite of the proper Pilates inhale.

You're supposed to let your breath out slowly and purposefully. I cheated and let mine out with the force of my Spanx being released after a long day so my sister and I could practice synchronized real-butter-junkie breathing techniques. We both took giant deep breaths and slowly let them out with satiated retail therapy sighs and then at the exact same time let out whopping halluhs, Oh My Gobstoppers! That was good!

The Secret
Right then and there in front of all the skinny New York beautiful people in line for warm pain au chocolat and triple-organic-soy-whip-eco-moch-a-chinos I experienced the most intense endorphin high of my life. I know Oprah thinks she found The Secret but beg to dif. I found The Secret. Bake with real butter, eat and repeat.

We visited the real butter bakery several times during our visit but we didn't gain an ounce and in fact we lost weight because in between the work we were doing in the city and the dark chocolate brownies we couldn't live without we walked every minute. And I mean every minute. We were staying in Union Square. We walked to, Soho, Greenwich Village, China Town, Little Italy, Tribeca, Battery Park, Harold's Square, Rockefeller Plaza and heaven knows where else. We didn't always take the most direct route either. I was the map reader. I cannot read maps. I pretended we were always supposed to be wherever it was we ended up. Ten more blocks I'd cheerfully say any time my sister looked the least bit suspicious.

The point is we knew we had to burn more calories than we consumed. We wanted the brownies but we weren't willing to gain weight over them. So we made the commitment to go the extra mile or miles in our case and work in extra exercise to work off the brownie calories. We supported each other. We were accountable to each other and we made it fun.

I'm able to fit into more of my clothes this week. Lots more. This makes me very happy. I had to buy new clothes last month because I had gained so much weight I couldn't fit into 99% of my wardrobe. This made me very sad.

"Make it Work People"
Love, love, love  Project Runway! Anyway, this week's challenge is to figure out how I'm going to stay on track. I re-injured my neck and cannot ride my bike. Not only am I out for the season I'm probably out for good. I may be able to ride again but not in the capacity I've been riding. No more 100 mile rides, no more chasing, no more racing, no more time trials (I hated them anyway) and no more tours.

This is devastating to me. But I'm not going to whine about it. No one wants to hear it and it's not cancer. I'm having another procedure on my cervical spine next week. It will be painful. I'm not looking forward to it. But between physical therapy and Doctor Needle hopefully this will all be a memory soon.

This week my focus is on my garden. I love it. I'm happy there. I love weeding out that which takes away. I love moving my plants around. And giving them away to friends. I love planting seeds and watching things grow.

My body loves the garden too. The movements are small, gentle and purposeful. I can feel my back, my legs, my arms and even my abs getting stronger. I can sit down when I need to and enjoy the view. I'm motivated to hurry up and finish my work every day so I can extend the amount of time I get to play in the dirt.

If I can figure out a way around my challenges, a wardrobe I grew out of and the resulting depression you can too!