Blue Eyes Make My Knees Weak

Kevin made me my very favorite food on the planet today. Homemade fresh salsa. It's actually my family's recipe, my Daddy's Salsa. I taught Kevin how to make it when we were first together. It's the only food he knows how to make, and it's so delicious that I don't even care. I think the reason it tastes so good is because I didn't have to do all that chopping. And plus, he makes it just for me. Isn't he sweet?



Fresh Salsa

5 or 6 firm Roma tomatoes
1 white onion
1 or 2 jalapenos (depending on how hot you like it.)
1 bunch radishes
1 bunch cilantro
lime juice
coarse ground salt (you can use table salt, but if you have the kind you grind it's so much better.)

Chop up everything. Juice it up and grind on the salt to taste. We like a lot of salt and lime.

This stuff is summer to me. It just tastes like summer. I love it with chips (DUH!). My very favorite meal is this salsa with an artichoke. Instead of butter I scoop some salsa up on the artichoke leaf. Healthy, tons of good cancer-fighting vitamins and so delicious I could eat it everyday all summer long. I eat left overs on a baked potato. You have eat this stuff pretty soon after cooking, because the salt leeches the juice out of the tomatoes and it effects the taste the next day. It isn't bad, just not nearly as good.

I want to come up with something healthier than chips to eat with this. Baked tortilla chips are so nasty, I'd rather eat the salsa with a spoon (which I have done.) I'm thinking maybe plain mini rice cakes? Maybe. I did eat some chips today and felt no guilt whatsoever.

We had the most scrumptious barbeque. Lean steak, the salsa and chips, watermelon and mandarin orange salad, and grilled green onions and tomatoes.

I also worked out today. First workout of week three of tri-training. So far me and Alannah are it for the Fat Girl's Tri Team. Whose else wants to join? In that Slow Fat Triathlete by Jayne Williams that I'm reading she says that some triathletes don't even run. They walk that leg.

That's particularily encouraging, because I tried to run today. I did my 30 minutes on the bike. A hill program today, level two, and it barely kept my heart rate up high enough for me to break a sweat. Two weeks ago, on my first ride, I did 20 minutes on level 2, no hills, and my heart rate was 10 beats per minute higher. Woot!

So I got all full of myself. I went to the treadmill for my normal 10 minute cool down, only I wasn't needing as much of a cool down as I usually do after a bike ride (still shocked!) So I decided to do what I've been wanting to do since last week, and try jogging.

One thing that's kept me from trying jogging on the treadmill is that I'm afraid I'll look ridiculous. Like a clown trying to have a heart attack. It's bad enough being the fattest girl in the joint by 50 pounds, without doing something that looks like it's either going to break me or the treadmill.

I did it anyway. I took off my iPod, so as not to put out an eye (it hang around my neck, and I wasn't sure what my boobs were going to do during running, sports bra or not.) I set the machine for interval training--3 mph and 4.5 mph. Now, I know that 4.5 mph barely counts as a jog by the skin of it's teeth. But please remember that six weeks ago I had to toggle between 2 and 2.5 mph just to huff and puff through 20 minutes. So 4.5 is huge.

My plan was to do 45 seconds at 3 mph and then 15 seconds at 4.5 mph for fifteen minutes. Two things...paying that close attention to short time periods makes the time go by really fast. And I could only do it for six minutes. Six minutes and I thought I was going to die. But I decided to keep up that last 15 seconds for two minutes. I lasted 90 seconds and then really, I was afraid of dying. My heart rate was higher than the little chart says it should be for my age for 85% capacity. Not good for a 310 pound chick.

But I did it. I jogged. It hurt. My calves are sore. Not so that I won't be able to move tomorrow, but sore enough. The good kind of hurt that means I pushed myself out of my comfort zone.

Oh damn, is jogging EVER outside my comfort zone. Whew. I'm praying that as the weight comes off, the running will get easier. I am, after all, carrying close to 170 extra pounds. That's a lot to expect my feet and legs to absorb while jogging. And my lungs have to pump a lot of oxygen to feed my many, many cells. And my poor heart...ooh my.

I have was feeling a little down today. Oddly enough, especially right after I left the gym. Like I'm never going to get where I want to be. Like I'm never going to be able to run 3 miles for a sprint triathlon if I can't even jog 90 seconds without risking seriously bodily injury. Like despite the fact that mostly I'm feeling pretty good about the changes in my body right now, I still have a whole other rather large person hanging off me in the form of a fat suit.

Then I remembered:

1. Six weeks ago I couldn't walk 90 seconds at 3 mph. Now I can walk an hour at 3 mph, and jog 90 seconds at 4.5 mph.

2. I've lost 8 inches and 12.5 pounds.

3. I wore a sports bra today that I couldn't even get over my head six weeks ago.

4. I can wear my size 24 shirts again...I was up to a tight 26. I can button up my size 26 shorts now...sadly I was to the point of panic when six weeks ago I couldn't come close to closing them.

5. Regardless of whether I ever lose a lot of weight, I haven't binged in six weeks and I haven't even had the need to binge for a month. I'm healing.

So I feel better. Stronger.

I'm trying to decide whether I should keep working on trying to increase the amount of time I can jog, or work up to being able to walk 3 miles at 3 mph, and then 3.1 mph, etc. My personal goal for this leg of triathlon training is to be able to do 3 miles at 5 mph. I'm a little afraid that I'll really hurt myself jogging at my current weight.