Week Eight: Easy street

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By Julie

Week 8 of the feel great weight program has turned out to be the easiest week thus far. The food portioning was effortless and, aside from one day in which I pushed lunch too late due to a meeting, I rarely felt super-hungry. This surprised me because the intensity of my workouts has been turned up. Admittedly I went over my allotted pasta servings this week, but mainly because I made a huge batch of ratatouille (yum!) and pasta complements that dish best.

One night I prepared a tofu stir-fry for dinner and it was delicious. My husband isn't keen on tofu but he happily returned for seconds. My toddler is still the hard-sell but I am becoming more adept at getting him to try things. Of course the real test will be my weigh-in this coming week.

And as I mentioned, Justo turned up the intensity of my workouts with a lot more interval training. I'm surprised by the level of coordination needed on a few of the exercises, and by how I can be sore the next day even though we didn't use any weights. Where I am struggling is with my outside cardio sessions. I've tried to focus on increasing my running endurance, but I am not making much progress. I realize that as time goes on, I'll need to add both time and distance, so Justo is helping me put together a running program. I would love to eventually be able to run a 10k and not be completely winded before I hit the finish line. This will take dedication and time on my part, though. I keep reminding myself to think about the tortoise and not worry about the hare.

The greatest motivation of all have been the comments I've been getting on my physical transformation—and this week I received several of them. Justo said that I was looking smaller, and at my son's playgroup several friends commented how great I was looking. And even though he sees me every day, my husband remarked on my svelter self. My clothes are beginning to be too big, which is great, but even more important to me is how much stronger I am feeling. I am more conscious of my muscles, my form and posture are better. and I can easily do 10 push-ups. I am beginning to feel glimmers of my former fit self, and with several months of the feel great weight program to go, I am happily looking forward to conquering many more physical milestones in the future.