Forgive me Tosca Reno, for I have sinned.

"Ever tried?  Ever failed?  No matter.  Try again.  Fail again.  Fail better." -- Samuel Beckett

I love this quote.  I happened upon it while scouring the internets for absolution from a very stupid decision I made 100% out of habit, without realizing what I was doing until I realized what I was doing.

To me, this quote is honesty.  We all support one another with those glistening gems of encouragement that communicate the notion that only quitters quit and only those who endure will ever persevere.  Don't get me wrong, those quotes all hold their place in the bell curve of truth.  It's just that sometimes, realism is comforting.  And reality is that every good journey is one with flaws.  Besides -- how are we to say that we ever truly grew if we didn't find ourselves on the floor summoning an unknown strength to get back up and try again?

Well.  I have caught a HORRIFIC cold that is going around.  I noticed an unusual grogginess on Monday or Tuesday of last week and thought that perhaps I was overtrained.  I forced myself thru my workouts Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and then allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted (within reason) hoping that would replenish my energy stores so I could get back on the horse come Friday.

Didn't happen.

Instead, I found myself immediately spiraling downward into the onslaught of a vicious cold, the kind that for the first two days you feel like a space cadet and that your head and your body are two completely separate entities.  I remember sitting in traffic thinking that if we were invaded by space aliens I wouldn't even care one bit because I had no energy to.  The world could end and I would just fade away with it happily without putting up any bit of a fight, because I had none in me.

But I digress.  My sin was not in allowing myself to get so stressed to the point of immunological depletion; my sin was rather in how I handled it.

As a child, my mom fed us fairly healthily.  But as any loving parent might do, when we fell ill, she would do anything in her power to help us feel better.  And again, as any loving parent might do, with patience comes bodily healing, but in the meantime, how do you cheer a little one's spirits?  Simple pleasures.  Treats.  Renting movies, allowing video game time, that kind of thing.  Well for us, my mother would let us have fast foods, soda, food-related goodies.  I think a little bit of that also came from the fact that all of us kids were not big eaters when we got sick, and she wanted to encourage us to get food in our tummies.

Unfortunately, old habits die hard.  Anytime I get sick, I immediately shower myself with food.  Usually it's McDonald's, pizza, cookies and milk, ice cream…. anything that is normally off limits I suddenly set upon a silver platter and place before my face whether I want it or not.  And even worse, I've always held the subconscious belief that this was doing good,  that I was healing my ailing body by allowing myself these delectable pleasures.

Well, the good news is that in my recent bout of this recovery 'tactic', I never once even so much as entertained the thought of eating fast food, let alone crave it.  For me, it was more a matter of allowing myself some cheese and prosciutto at an Opening Ceremony gathering I went to (ok, and maybe a piece of chocolate cake), or buying a soy chai latte at Coffee Bean, or letting myself have Yogurtland or a glass of wine on Sunday night.  And to some extent, I believe the idea of relaxing from a strict diet and allowing the mind some pleasure can do a bit of good in physical healing.

But as I was driving home on Saturday night thinking about splurging on a Subway sandwich and a diet coke, it struck me:  why on earth would consuming crap food ever be a good idea when I am sick?

This should be the time when I eat the healthiest - when I put the healthiest foods into my body, to supply it with the purest nutrients available to help heal and recover.  After all, was it not Hippocrates who said "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food"?  And doesn't the old Chinese proverb go "He that takes medicine and neglects diet wastes the skill of the physician"?? Aren't all the old dead dudes always right????

In any event, I never feel guilty about a bad decision if enlightenment comes out of it.  Treats have their place and taking a step back from any strenuous exercise - be it physical or mental - is always necessary when you find yourself ill.  But it should only be taken so far.  The Gerson Therapy has proven with great success that proper nutrition can reverse all kinds of illness, supporting the idea that indulgences shouldn't go beyond a one-time gig.  

This month was supposed to be my last month (and most strict!) of leaning out before I started altering my diet to accommodate muscle growth.  My goal was to have shaved off all those last remaining pounds by, well, today.  Instead, I took a huge step back.  I let life get the best of me.  Juggling the stress of my current job, interviewing for new ones, organizing a fundraising tournament from the ground up, dealing with emotional loss and trying to push myself in my workouts just simply did me in.  I treated myself more than I'd like to admit at the Whole Foods food bar (healthy, but still not acceptable given that I really needed to be on top of my caloric intake), I drank 3 more glasses of wine on average per week than I should have (I really shouldn't have had ANY, to be honest!), I didn't stay on top of drinking my water and opted for coffees instead, and I admittedly was caving in and having a Peanut Butter Balance Bar each day mid-morning as nothing other than a treat.  I'm so ashamed!  

But alas, I have learned my lesson.  While 'feeding my cold', I never once felt bad because in some strange way I knew that while I would gain a couple pounds, it ironically might help break the plateau I felt I've been on for the past couple months.  And I knew the rest from the gym would help give my muscles time to recover and gear up.   But enough is enough.  It will be August 1 in two days, and I'm re-commiting myself to a strict clean-eating diet from here on out.  August will be the month I go back to the basics - track each glass of water I drink till I've met my quota, recalibrate my food journal to make sure I'm covering the bases, and while I may not workout till Thursday just to give my body time to heal, I will come back with a renewed sense of urgency.

As Samuel Beckett has reminded me, failure is inevitable.  And to say this is the last time I fail is a complete lie because if this were the last time, it could mean only one thing: that I chose to not try again.  The idea is that with each failure we learn something new so that when we fail again, we fail BETTER, and the damage isn't as bad.  Refinement thru trials is the only road to success, and each lesson we learn is one less flaw we have to trip us up.  As Antoine de Saint-Exupery so masterfully expressed:

So with that, I'm going to go have a bowl of homemade turkey and veggie soup with a dash or two of organic dill, a large glass of water, and will start tomorrow completely fresh with a clean slate as the new day dawns.

HALF YEAR ANNIVERSARY POST!! And progress photos, and other profundities.

I keep a piggy bank.  Well, more realistically, it's an empty protein powder can which I have converted into something useful anew.  Last night, I got a bout of OCD and decided to roll a bunch of the coins in there to scratch an "organization itch" I was having, and wouldn't you know, I had already put away $72 in change in only just a couple months!  Those nickels and dimes didn't even exist to me, they were nothing but little bits that I thought about on an individual basis.  One coin here, one coin there.  They were so minuscule that seeing beyond their individual values didn't even cross my mind.  It was more just an exercise to de-clutter my wallet than to actually save up any reasonable sum of money.

A lot of this got me into a spell of reflection.  Sometimes I feel like we treat a good portion of our life like we do loose change.  Minutes here, minutes there.  And the supply of time many of us have, much like with money, can seem comfortably abundant.  Perhaps even trivially insignificant.  We are careful about some expenditures, but for the most part we float through life like we sift through bills -- it's a routine that we just "do" with no purposeful appreciation.  And when it comes to forecasting into the future, so many of us are guilty of only focusing on the macro-issues and viewing life events like currency in our wallets; we think in terms of dollar bills without any regard for the change.

Something that has always fascinated me about life is starting a new journey and envisioning how it will all play out.  I used to do it at the beginning of the new school year... thinking about homecoming, football games.... what boys I'd be sitting next to in my new classes, what dreams may come true.  Envisioning how I'd look in my Prom dress, what shoes I'd wear with my golden graduation gown.  The parties, the new adventures.  I've done the same thing with new relationships, new jobs, and especially new years. But the fascinating part of it was always at the end, when I looked back and saw how NOTHING occurred the way I had envisioned.  Nothing transpired as quickly and effortlessly as I had forecast.  There was no magic, no fairytale explosion of lyrical happenstance; it rather was a lot of toil, patience, hard work and faith.  Also a lot of disappointment and shortcomings, because often times in waiting for the "magic" to happen, a path of inaction was elected instead.  And in the end, I would always see that the "magic" was never in how things fell into place.  It wasn't even in my determination to simply not let things fall apart.  The magic, rather, was in the growth.  The magic was looking back at where I started -- my empty wallet full of big ideas and purchases to be made -- and then seeing how it was the toil of day-to-day life, the earning of mere pennies on the dollar, that had contributed to the accumulation of wisdom which transformed me into a greater, more capable, more well-rounded and accomplished human being.  It was never the dollars or the big-ticket dreams that changed me.  Instead, it was all the loose change, the minutes that I never thought about and all of those passing moments in between the dreams and desires of macro-life that I collected in a tin can in the corner of my mind without a passing glance, that were the building blocks of my foundation.  They composed the scatter plot line connecting who I was to who I was becoming.

When I awoke this morning, I was checking my calendar for meetings when I noticed that today is July 20th.  It marks the ending of my 25th week of training and clean eating, and signifies that I am only 11 days away from celebrating my HALF-YEAR anniversary of starting this crazy lifestyle revolution!  And that's when my thoughts from the night prior really came full circle and sort of blew my mind in the quiet moments of the morning.  I have recently been looking back on my journey and can't believe how far I've come.  I had to put my head down and just keep fighting the current.  I refused to stop, I refused to let my mind tell me it couldn't be done.  This forced me to really live in the moment and take it one week, one day, sometimes even just one hour at a time.  And now, as I lift my head for a breath of air before I continue onto the second stage of fighting against the current, I've looked back at the shore where I started and can't believe how far from land I've come.  It was the change that had collected in my piggy bank - each hour I made it avoiding caving into treats, each individual squat, each single stride that took me farther from the start line and closer to the finish.  It was an accumulation of the moments I never thought about and that never seemed to really matter; it was each tiny struggle (which subsequently turned into each tiny victory) that made up the baby steps which led to the big things happening.  There was no magic nor a singular moment where I woke up and said, "HALLELUJAH! I lost 15 pounds over night!"  There was no point where it suddenly got easier.  It was more of a subtle adaptation and a certain strength of both body and mind that developed which made believing I could do it, easier.  The faith that I could do it and the determination to stick with it have become the pillars of my success thus far.

For the past few weeks I've been trying to figure out what to blog when it came to my 6-month mark.  It is a tremendous milestone for me, because I had never thought I would make it this far.  But from all of these thoughts that came to me this morning arose an inspiration of what to write.  So, instead of waiting 2 weeks to blog for my half-year anniversary, I'm going to do it now :)

Things That Training and Clean Eating Have Taught Me About Life In General

1. "I know one thing, that I know nothing." --Socrates 
   Before I set out on this mission, I thought I knew everything about fitness and nutrition.  In reality, however, I only knew 100% of what I thought I knew, or wanted to believe.  Looking back, I can say with a small degree of shame that deep down I knew I was misinformed and/or flat-out wrong.  But I was too confident in my own ignorance, too fearful of change, and too proud to accept that I had wasted countless years doing the wrong thing. 
   
   I find myself now so open to trying new things.  And doing them has become so easy for me.  The success that I've had at implementing change, whether it's been quitting dairy, cutting out fruit and store-bought protein bars, learning to do weights before cardio, or simply fighting off a temptation as it comes one hour at a time, has laid a foundational precedent for all the times that have followed when a challenge has arisen.  Simply put:  I've learned to never say "I can't" until I've walked a mile in those shoes...or however long it takes 'til I've proven that I CAN. :)
2. "Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." --Khalil Gibran
   Doubt?  I don't know if that word has a statute of limitations.  28 years of doubt had calcified into my heart a false truth, one that told me that making it this far was impossible.  But it wasn't just that it was impossible; it was entirely unreasonable, unsustainable, and unfathomable.   Never in my life have I sunk my teeth into something so steadfastly and refused to let go.  Never have I gripped onto something so tightly and held on for dear life, even when the pain and the trials amassed, for the sheer principal of one last chance to prove that I was not as conquerable as I had led myself to believe.
   
   I have accomplished a great many things with my diet and training.  Among other things, did you know I had never even used the oven before I started clean-eating?  I now make my own homemade protein bars, for crying out loud!  I've given up all processed food, and condiments that made healthy food "taste better".  I've given up soda, milk, juice and artificial sweeteners. I've pushed myself to impossible limits in my training, and literally do everything in reverse from what I used to do before.  I've beaten all my records and all my expectations, and I realize now that I have only just reached the tip of the iceberg of what I am capable of.
   
   These all may seem like insignificant feats, but they represent something far greater:  They represent the shell of doubt I have encased myself within for the last 28 years, crumbling all around me.  I am breaking free of all of the constraints I now realize I was placing on myself.  There's this sense of freedom, this empowerment that calls for blood now, and a reckoning for the countless chains I've shackled myself with - not just diet / fitness goals, but other things I've allowed myself to believe were out of my scope of capacity.  Educational endeavors, travel adventures and athletic pursuits I've been too timid to pursue...  I knew clean-eating would be a challenge, but I didn't realize how much I would learn about perseverance, will power, and the inner strength I am capable of harnessing.  For the first time in possibly forever, all those quotes about being able to achieve anything I put my mind too are no longer cliches; they are simply reminders of something I already know to be true.
3. "I always say if the marathon is a part-time interest, you will only get part-time results." --Bill Rodgers
   For any of you just starting out on this wild adventure, I'm going to tell you the cold hard truth right now about everything you need to know regarding clean eating and training in an effort to achieve your goals and dreams.
   
   Right now, you are standing at the starting line of a race that you may or may not have trained for, but it really doesn't matter because any concept of distance you currently have of it will not match up to the reality of the challenge before you.  Some of you are more well-equipped or prepared than others; some of you have had prior experience with this race, some of you may already consider yourselves experts on the course.  Others of you, however, may have tried it before and failed; even others may not even know the course at all.  Some of you are swimming in confidence, and know what will be required of you.  You say to yourself, "Self, it just is what it is.  I just gotta do what I need to do to get to the finish line", while others of you are drowning in fear of the challenge, your own self-doubts having prevented you from perhaps even approaching the starting line until just this moment.
   
   None of this matters.  It matters not how prepared or not you are, how many legs up you think you have on the competition, or what pace you tackle the race at.  You think pace is an indicator of future success??  Ask the tortoise and the hare that question.  It isn't about pace, it is about PERSEVERANCE.  You want to know the truth?  The truth is that it doesn't matter how disadvantaged you feel, or how tall the odds seem to be stacked.  The truth is that everyone is starting at the start line, and finishing at the finish line.  And any idea you have about how difficult it might be, or your awareness of the temptations and struggles you'll face and how much they will just suck, will not compare to the moment when you are fully immersed in said challenge and feel the crushing weight of keeping your eyes focused on the finish line and letting your desire to reach it supersede the enchantingly hypnotic voice of failure telling you to give up and give in.  The strong and the weak, the experienced and the inexperienced, the morbidly obese and the skinny fat folks alike, ALL face the SAME moments of pressure, of doubt, of exhaustion, of temptation and weakness and hardship.  This course is not easy FOR ANYONE.
   
   So stop making excuses for yourself.  When you are 10 miles into this race and feel like you have been going forever, and the humidity increases and you find yourself on a 8% incline hill and want to give up, thinking you can't possibly push harder or dig deeper, that life is demanding too much of you and you've fully lost sight of what this journey means to you in the face of immediate bodily or psychological pain, stop thinking.  Turn your ears off.  Turn your brain off.  Put the blinders up over your eyes, and let your body do the work.  There's a saying that goes, "The mind will give up a thousand times before the body does", and I can speak to you with 100% experience that nothing rings truer than this.  Your mind excels at telling you lies that most people won't even give their body a chance to refute.  And if you choose to cave in and not repeatedly give absolutely every ounce of blood, sweat and tears you have to this endeavor, you can expect nothing short of sub-par results, not to mention you will be cheating yourself out of the experience of a lifetime.

So.  Why all the doom and gloom on that last bullet point, you ask???  I'll tell you why (and this applies to ALL goals and dreams in life, not just those pertaining to diet and fitness):  If you are willing to move mountains - not just in a conceptual way, but actually push with a determination you've never known despite all the odds and all the naysayers, all in the heat of the battle when those challenges and temptations and exhaustion have settled upon you with a force you never foresaw when you first started out, I can guarantee you one thing:  You will change as a human being.  It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to take on this task, and not change as a human being.  Your experience of life and what you realize you are capable of is limitless, much like the universe.  If you chose to push beyond the limits you have placed on yourself, your growth as a human will expand infinitely.  And if you push against these mountains repeatedly, with complete devotion in a spirit that rivals Braveheart's on the Irish battlefields, your immediate goals will become secondary to the complete renaissance you will experience within you, and your experience of living and feeling truly alive will amplify to euphoric levels.  It may be quiet, and subtle.  You may feel it in the middle of an epic cardio session, or that last squat rep in your last set when the perfect song comes onto your iPod.  Or it may be more a matter of reflection when you look back and realize that you have transformed into something superhuman without ever even knowing it.

And you will see that it was never the mile markers along your race that mattered.  It wasn't even in the most memorable challenges that you had anticipated or battled against.  You'll notice that all the results you garnered, and on a bigger scale, the growth you have experienced as a person, were a direct product of each individual step you took along the way.  Yes, there will be detours.  Yes, you will slip and fall.  But those were already factored into the equation.  The magic wasn't ever in the sunk costs or anticipated victories; the magic was in each time you chose to put one foot in front of the other, instead of taking off your shoes and sitting down along the roadside.

So those are the more profound things I have learned so far in just this half year so far.  And I am BEYOND excited to see what the next 6 months have in store for me.  

Until then, a little progress report!!!

18 pounds and 6.6% body fat shed since the 3rd week of my program, when I did my first weigh-in.

Week 22

Week 23

End of Week 25

So.  Here's to adding up all the change, and looking forward to 6 more months of making small moments larger than life! :) <3 

"To me, life is like a bench press; if I don't push the weight, it will fall on me."

"Nobody said life would be easy; they just promised it would most likely be worth it." 

-- Harvey Mackay

We've all seen the picture quotes of the guy or gal sweatin' up a storm, face wrinkled up into an exertion-induced snarl, clearly looking to be in pain and yet pushing through it for the reward at the end anyway.  Case in point?

One of my favorite fitness athletes, Lazar Antonov, recently was quoted in a CutandJacked.com article (full article HERE) saying the following:

These two quotes proved to be beacons of reason for me in the past couple weeks.  I've always told people that the only way to fully enjoy the good times, is to endure moments of bad times in life.  It's just like with lifting weights; the pain is real, but it is temporary.  Lifting weights is exposing yourself to a biophysical breakdown until failure, with the goal in mind that we will survive the test and recover stronger than we were before.

But for all the parallels there are between lifting weights and enduring the general struggles in life, there is one stark difference that keeps the two apart:  In weight lifting, we voluntarily expose ourselves to the challenge, and control the beginning and the end.  Last time I checked, no one ever said, "Hey! Today I'm gonna wreck my car because I know it will make me a stronger person if/when I survive the financial cost, damages, and bodily harm!"

The past month has really tested my ability to stay strong in the face of change, and there were several times where I wanted to just quit.  But I suppose I've been through the ringer long enough to know that giving up may be easy, but it only makes things harder in the end.  Besides, I've never been a quitter; it's just not in my blood.  As I recently wrote about in previous blogs (HERE and HERE and HERE), it's been a rough few weeks for me, but (knock on wood!) I seem to be approaching the end of my trials, and I feel like I weathered it like a champ all things considered!  There are a variety of things I can't write about since I don't know who follows my blog, but suffice it to say there have been some very stressful things going on a work, not to mention I had a million biopsies for a waterfall of health issues that was seemingly showering down on me, and to add insult to injury, my relationship sort of just dissolved in the wake of all my stress.  (For the record, Guy and I are still very good friends and this was both inevitable and likely a good thing in the long run, but that doesn't diminish the pain and heartbreak of it all).

In any event, in light of all of the things I have had to weather all at once, I began to really contemplate stress.  Stress is a really interesting thing.  I mean, just what is it?  Stress, by definition, is "pressure or tension exerted on a material object."  But stress in our lives can be much more mental than physical.  Stress, in terms of the human body, is just the body's physiological response to a neurologically-perceived demand placed on it.  This demand often calls for the involuntary release of chemicals into the blood stream, which affects the whole body.  According to a fascinating article authored by Stress-Relief-Tools.com (article link HERE), the process under which the body goes, is detailed as such:

"Your nervous system and endocrine system are interconnected by a hypothalamus, a structure located in the brain, directly above the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland plays a major role in regulating the endocrine system. 

When you are confronted with stress, the hypothalamus releases a chemical messenger into the blood flowing directly to the pituitary gland. This chemical messenger stimulates the pituitary gland to produce adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).

ACTH is then released into the blood stream, where it reaches the adrenal glands. ACTH stimulates the outer layer (cortex) of adrenal glands to produce chemicals called corticoids. And corticoids help the body to acquire energy from energy stores in the body.

The hypothalamus also activates the inner core (medulla) of the adrenal gland, through the sympathetic nervous system (a branch of the body's autonomic nervous system). This results in the production of epinephrine (known as adrenalin). It is epinephrine which causes most of the physiological changes that occur in the body to produce fast, short term high energy levels required in the presence of stressor.

With all these hormones flowing through your blood stream, every system in your body braces for action."

So, based on how much pressure you feel a given demand is being placed in your life, your own mental perception of it causes a chain reaction of hormonal responses to prepare the body for battle.  But the beauty of all of this is that it means we all actually have control over the physiological by-products of being stressed, if we can keep ourselves calm and search for solutions.  The restless nights of sleep, the panic, the anxiety, the depression and moodiness and fatigue.... a lot of it can be controlled simply by controlling our minds and how we perceive a threat!

This is all good news.  But what if a total shitstorm hits and you have a classic case of Chicken Little Syndrome where the sky is falling and all you can do is aimlessly run around in an anxious panic?

My tool has always been working out.  Anytime life falls apart on me, I throw on my shoes and get moving.  Not only does exercise release endorphins (a natural opiate that produces those "feel good" feelings), but it offers an environment of structure and a modicum of control.  As long as I have my workouts, I know I am staying on track with at least something.  And I can abuse the elliptical and the incline leg press as much as I want, until I am exhausted and have no fight left.  And it is in that state of being broken down - both mentally, physically and spiritually - that I know I can find a quiet, tranquil place with no energy left to worry. 

As Lazar said, if you don't push the weight of life off, it will simply fall and crush you; but a lot of the time, it seems like one's natural instinct is to hide, or cower, or find a comfortable spot to cozy into to feel safe and undisclosed and then just curl up and die there.  A lot of people turn to food for the instant gratification.  Some people turn to alcohol or drugs for a chemical escape.  And still others turn their woes onto their friends and the people they love most, lashing out at the people whom they know.  Which got me thinking about why we tend to take our stress out on the ones we love most, even when it's not their fault and they only want to help us?  After a little research, I came up with a general theory.  According to this site, we take our anger and frustration out on people we love most, because our hearts are the most open to them.  Therefore, in their presence, we feel more free to express all of the negative feelings we have that plague us on the inside.  The problem with this, is that it is difficult to channel such raw emotion in a constructive way, especially when you don't understand why you are acting (or reacting) the way you are, or if your loved one doesn't understand and begins to take it personally.  Additionally, I believe we lash out at our loved ones because deep down, we know we matter to them, and we know they will help carry the burden for us even if we must force it onto their shoulders.

But, just as with a bench press, is it possible to train our minds to instinctively "push" when stress comes?  And not in the way that is like Chicken Little running around willy nilly and doing nothing to actually address the stressor, but rather in the way that we would lift weights:  Recognize the challenge, perceive the "light at the end of the tunnel", create an action plan to get us through it, and then just push with all our might?  After all, no one ever said that life would be easy - nor do I believe we actually want life to be easy.  There is no way to acquire strength and really experience life for all that it is, without struggles, challenges and roadblocks.  The strong keep pushing until the weight is lifted.  Survival of the fittest still very much applies to us all.

And at the end of the day, even if the burden seems far too heavy to be worth the struggle to keep pushing, it is always the words of Dr. Eric Thompson that come to mind in his "How Bad Do You Want It?" speech.  At 5:00-5:16, he concludes a story about not giving up, regardless of the pain, by saying "Don't cry to quit! You're already in pain, you're already hurt - get a reward from it!!"

And I'll tell you something..... I'm not a quitter! It may not have been pretty, but I've pushed my weight.  I saw that reward in the end - even if that just meant, quite literally, to survive - and I held onto it. And now?  I'm almost through the thick of my challenges :) I had a fantastic performance review yesterday at work (which was a massive relief), and I am almost done with some incredibly stressful and time-consuming projects.  My cervical biopsies came back negative for any abnormality, and my OBGYN gave me a second opinion on the mass in my breast.  She said it was indeed a mass, not a cyst.  But she told me the doctor who examined me is very conservative and well-experienced, and the fact that he didn't even so much as order a biopsy after my ultrasound should make me feel at ease with the diagnosis that it is benign.  But she told me that if it continues to worry me, she'd be more than happy to refer me to a surgeon who could perform a biopsy.  In light of this information, I have chosen to wait the next 5 months until my next scheduled ultrasound to see if there are any changes.  Until then, I will continue to perform my own self-exams just monitor it all.  And I feel ok with this decision :)

Additionally, I have made GREAT progress in the epic amount of work needed to be done to organize this charity volleyball tournament my volleyball partner and I have organized.  There is still a great deal more to do, but at least the fundamental steps have been made - website is up, flyers are being published, and permit is being secured.  We still need to secure sponsors, products/services donated for the auction and prizes, and we need to get people to register! But those should hopefully soon fall into place.

And while my relationship may have bit the dust, I still know I will have Guy in my life for a very long time.  It's one of those bonds I feel we have that can't be broken just because the romance is.  Family is family <3

Above and beyond that, I have had INCREDIBLE success with cutting back on my fruit intake, what a difference that has made! I can't wait to blog more about that, next.  I've found that if I avoid fruits (for the most part), I rarely EVER have cravings or inexplicable hunger spells... it truly is amazing! I also discovered a new digestive enzyme complex at Whole Foods which is allowing me to eat 2 to 3 times the amount of veggies I was able to before, which has also been a huge help.  Other than that, I have adjusted perfectly to doing weights in the morning on an empty stomach, and cardio after work.  I feel like next week I will be ready to update my blog with some new progress photos.  I'll also have to start setting a time table for the HALF MARATHON(!!!!) I've decided to sign up for! Oh, and did I mention I'm planning a month-long vacation?  It'll cost me an arm and a leg, but this girl is ready to take some serious time to just LIVE.  Lot's to talk about in the next blog entry!