Today

Don’t eat the candy. Don’t eat the candy. This is what I have been telling myself all day and, frankly, it’s only working because I have a phobia of eating food out of the same bag that I have seen other people put their hands in and because the candy machine by my desk has crappy candy and I am too lazy to walk downstairs. I am not sure why I do this to myself. Wake up at 6 am, run for 50 minutes-cussing in my head the whole time about how much this sucks and how is it possible that my weekends fly past me like lightening but this one minute that I have been running high resistance/high incline feels like it has somehow lasted 6 months, come to work and eat a small breakfast, small lunch, have a piece of fruit for a snack and a handful of nuts, and by 4 pm I am drinking buckets of water and gallons of green tea trying to curb the hunger pain until finally I cave in and eat something that doesn’t really taste that good and pretty much negates a good 30 minutes of my morning workout. Afterwards I think to myself, Idiot you could have slept another half hour and not even gone to the gym if you just could stop yourself from eating that. And it doesn’t help that I am on my period right now and so bloated I look like I am 6 months along. Honestly, I am surprised no one has asked my due date.
According to the program I use to track my weight loss I have lost 18.6 pounds. Of course that it total rubbish because for my starting weight on the program I used my Mom’s scale which is always at least 5 pounds heavier than my scale which I used to get my most recent number. 13.6 is probably more like it. And you couldn’t tell it to look at me. Especially now with the water baby I am carrying. But I am not going to give up. I need to figure out something to do to curb my appetite a little and give my brain some relief from the constant “feed me” messages coming up from my stomach. And I probably need to start lifting weights. I know that I should be doing sit ups. I tried to get up from lying on my back the other day and looked like an upside-down bug-my arms flailing around rocking back and forth. After Wade helped me up I taught Henry to sing “Oh where oh where have my stomach muscles gone, oh where oh where can they be?” Yeah, that’s probably going to screw him up at preschool.
The characters I run into in the locker room every day at least keep that part of my morning workout interesting. There is the 40 something year old naked lady that insists on not putting on either her top or her bottoms while doing her hair and makeup. She has tried to make conversation with me twice now, both times while only wearing a small towel on her bottom half. I am sure she thought that I was insane because I barely blinked I was trying so hard to maintain eye contact. Then there is the 60+ year old woman that smells like cat litter and fried food and she comes in with more jewelry on then Lil Jon and her athletic pants pulled up to her armpits. Today I had to deal with two phobia’s—bare feet on gym floor and drains. I never let my feet touch the floor at the gym. I will put my pants on balancing on one leg for 10 minutes if it takes that long (sometimes I don’t dry off enough and have to deal with sticky legs) in order to avoid putting my bare foot on the floor. But actually now that I think about it pretty much any part of my body touching the floor grosses me out a little. I don’t even like for my shower/gym floor flip-flops to touch my sweat covered clothes. Well, today I forgot my flip-flops. I had a choice-shower barefoot or go to work covered in sweat. I almost chose the latter but then my sister Susie suggested that I keep my socks on. Which brings me to my second phobia-drains. I hate drains. I hate to clean them, I hate to touch them, just looking at them gives me the shivers. Especially if they are rusty, have any hair or any other kind of slimy stuff in them and if they are constantly under water. At the pool I will do just about anything to avoid the drain, including not swimming. So today in the gym, stocking feet and all, I went into my shower stall and turned on the water. I didn’t look at the drain, I try not to so I don’t get grossed out. The socks on my feet kept me from feeling the hair/water. The water that was all the way up to my ankles before I noticed it. A huge wad of hair, partially attached to the drain, blocking the water from draining out of the shower and partially wrapped around my foot. I yelped and ran out of the shower: wet, naked, except for socks of course, and with shampoo dripping down my back. Naked lady stared at me and she did not try to maintain eye contact. I think I might have to start going to the gym at a different time.