So those that know me may know of my revolutionary weight-loss program. Because I care about you, my faithful blog reader, I will give away to you (at no charge!!!) this guaranteed formula.

“Eat less; exercise more”

Yes, if you follow this simple rule, you are guaranteed to lose weight.

I followed it pretty good earlier in the year, and ended up losing somewhere around 25-30 lbs. Then, after the great poison ivy debacle of 2007, I kind of fell off the wagon. It really was impossible to exercise with crucial parts of my body red and itchy. But even after the poison ivy cleared up, I still continued not exercising. Which of course just underscores the importance of good habits. Once you stop doing something, it becomes harder to start back up, and likewise, once you are IN a habit, it is easier to maintain, be it a good or bad habit.

So I gravitated to a new program:

“Eat more; exercise less”

As you can probably imagine, this program isn’t quite as successful at weight-loss! I have been meaning to get back to exercising, but, as I just mentioned, once you get out of the habit, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things. I finally solved my problem by telling Carolyn last night that I was going to the Y in the morning. That way, even though come Monday morning I didn’t WANT to go, she made me :-).

As I have mentioned earlier (over 2 years ago actually), it’s hard for me to exercise just for exercise’s sake. I need a goal. In June, I set a goal of exercising 1000 miles this year. At that point, I was at 299.2 miles and therefore needed to do 28.17 miles per week to hit that. As of yesterday, I am at 436.8 miles. With 9 weeks left in the year, that thar be 62.6 miles per week.

Clearly, the time for running and swimming has past. Which is just as well, since my other goal that I set back in June (a sub-20 minute 5K) is clearly not happening (I’ll re-evaluate in 2008). So this morning I went for 30 minutes on an upright exercise bike, and knocked out 9.39 miles (18.78 mph). Tragically, that’s not good enough. With 55 non-Sunday days left in 2007, I need to average 10.43 miles a day. So that means maybe longer daily sessions, combined with maybe some longer rides on Saturdays, and I’m not ruling out a late (cold!) Tour de Madeira 2007.

A very aggressive goal to be sure. But that’s the way I like them. Besides, what do you do when the chips are down and everyone’s telling you that it’s impossible?

YOU MAN UP NANCY!!!!