Don't drink calories.

Several things are going on this week:  1) I keep forgetting to wear my cool pedometer, and I had gotten my step count up over 4,000 several days in a row.  The problem with a cool pedometer for me is that I lead just about the most sedentary life a person could imagine and not be paralyzed.  I get that 3100 steps on a typical day is not very many.  Thirty-one hundred is a number I can understand.  I could probably count that high without getting lost.  Ten thousand is unimaginable.  Ten thousand people, $10,000, 10,000 days--I have no idea what to think about these things, but 3100, that's within my realm.  I walk up the same 40 steps from the parking lot to my office and classroom daily, and I count them.  Forty-one, if you count the curb.  I use the handicap ramp just to avoid the debate over whether or not a curb is a step.  Thank God for the ramp down to the office door.  If it weren't for that moment of joy--wind in my hair, lactose acid burn in my thighs--I probably wouldn't survive the 40 steps.

When I start to parse out activity units into meaningful numbers, I realize how little I actually accomplish standing up.  It's not that I take only 3100 steps a day that bothers me.  It's that I take the same 3100 steps everyday and that I can count them down to the steps to the office and the worn spots on the floor in my classroom.  There are so few of them that, if I worked at it, I wouldn't have to assign numbers to them.  I could call them by name.  "Hello, Curb Ramp!" I might say.  "Here come The Forty," I could observe.  "Thank you, Other Ramp," I surely would express.

2)  My scale is having a bad week. I don't blame it, however.  It's been coming in with encouraging numbers for awhile.  Setbacks happen, and it's new to the job.  I did get a good piece of advice from a friend who has lost some inches since March.  Perhaps he'll join the discussion.  A potential follower!  He said, "Don't drink calories."  Fantastic, I thought.  This I can do, and celebrate my success on Soda Saturday.  I'm not good about abiding by it in the morning, though.  I need coffee to wake up, but I don't like the stuff, so I have to have sugar--that beautiful, raw kind.  Sugar isn't enough to mask the taste of coffee, so I have to have an equal share of skim milk.  As I've said on The Perfect $4.00 Breakfast, I really only like sweet, warm, caffeinated milk.

3) I have a photo op on the 30th to showcase my progress.  April's photo op was huge. Wasn't it?  I was thinking about getting my hair cut Saturday morning.  Not so I look better.  I'm hoping it helps my scale come in with better numbers.  By the way, I'm not announcing my scale's total this week out of respect for its effort.  No need to dwell on misfortune.  But, the second I started thinking about not drinking calories, I started thinking about all the calories I could drink.  Drinky calories are everywhere.  It has taken me a few days to get my head around what I'll have to do to drink no calories.  Last night was the Bulls game, so I had a host of drinky calories to suit the occasion, and it gave me the chance to think about drinking no calories, but I only realized that after I'd had more than my scale should be asked to tolerate.  Next time, I'll be better prepared.  I'm sure the pulled-pork sandwich and fries didn't help either, but they were good.  Really, really good.  One of the only pulled-pork sandwiches in town and waffle fries.  Worth every ounce!