Finishing Strong

if anything has developed in me the past few months of really working at getting healthy it's determination and a deep commitment not to quit or give up, no matter how dark things look, or how hopeless i feel at a given moment (and, even if it has not come across on here, i've had some *very* dark days and felt very hopeless at times recently). i started strong, way back in early march with that cleanse, and i am determined to finish strong. today i got a bit of a reward for my determination and sticktoitiveness. No, the scale has not budged yet, that i know of- official weigh in is 5:30 monday morning! I did, however, have my best swim yet! imagine that-my 6th swim in a row, 2 really tough strength workouts this week, and today, every lap set was under 3 minutes. that is a new record for me. i took shorter breaks, too. i'm really proud of that. it bodes well for the first half of this coming week, because i am going to have to go big mon-wed to make up for missing the second half of the week's workouts. today and tomorrow there will be much stretching. :-)

something else i want to talk about in this post is the book i read yesterday- Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels. if you have not read this book, please do yourself a favor and go pick it up posthaste! :-D a lot of the info in it is kinda scary to read, but after sleeping on it, i'm kinda filtering out what's applicable to my life. a lot of it i already knew and was doing, because PCOS is an endocrine/metabolic disorder at heart, and in order to manage it even as well as i have thus far, i;ve had to learn a number of the food parts. the stuff that was new to me was the science behind a lot of the practices i've been keeping "to manage my metabolism" without fully understanding how they were helping. somehow understanding the why and how helps me feel more equipped to take this on. there are going to be some changes in how i eat based on what i read- not many, or any drastic ones, but we are going to work toward being as organic as possible in our food choices. not for any green-eco friendly-environmental reasons per se, but because there are entirely too many chemicals and fake things in the modern diet. i was pelasantly surprised when i went through Jillian's chapter on cleaning out your food supply of the main toxins, that there were only a handful of items that had to go- and i had NO High Fructose Corn Syrup in my house! WOOOOOT! these changes will likely make groceries a bit more costy, but i also think they will go far in making a happier and healthier life.

Finally, i'll share one thing i've already changed- and i'm kinda embarrassed to admit this-up till now, i've been swimming on an empty stomach- not because i falsely beleived, like many, that you burn more fat calories by doing so, but because i am already getting up really early and could not fathom how i could get up earlier enough to get food in my tummy and let it settle before going to swim- well, once i read the science behind why that's just not a good plan, i knew i had to at least try- so this morning i had a bowl of oatmeal and still got out the door in the same amount of time it usually takes, and my breakfast didnt make my stomach cramp during my swim, so... YAY!