Music: Big City Rhythms – Michael Feinstein

Mood: Accepting the reality of it all

The day to day struggle of ‘being good’ was paying off. I was feeling better, had lost a pound and was being more diligent about the aerobics. Then last weekend was our annual Sweet Adelines retreat. Our coach flies up from San Jose and we hole up in a hotel and work on our competition songs all weekend. In between rehearsing, we eat and drink. We don’t sleep a whole lot. It’s a great time. I think I had too good a time. I came home really puffy and creaky. I didn’t stick a whole lot to my plan. The ‘plan’ just didn’t fit into the ‘fun’ part.

So, I suppose, the trick to this whole lifestyle change thing is to figure out a new way of ‘having fun’ or enjoying life. I know if I were a diagnosed celiac or gluten intolerant, I would always go out of my way to avoid wheat. The immediate consequences would be disastrous enough that I would find a way to deal with the lifestyle change. At this point, the ingestion of avoids just causes me minor disturbances. That is, on the surface it seems like a minor disturbance. I know that inside, on the cellular level, there are many more bad things happening.

Ack! I don’t want to change. I have to change.

And the struggle goes on.