In which I survive my first weekend on the Health Project

By the way, did I mention for how long I intend to keep it up? Three weeks, as that's how long it takes to make or break a habit -- although that "fact" is probably just some kind of mythic conjecture.

I'm on day four. I've learned a few things already.

1. Going to bed at 9:00PM is not as bad as I thought.

I imagined I'd lay there for hours, tossing and turning, feeling anxious. Nope. I go to sleep. Extremely surprising.

2. Walking is more work than I thought!

I thought walking for 20 minutes, five times a week, would be nothing. And yet, after four days, I have shin/ankle pain. Just like when I was in college, I'd have pain for the first few weeks every September as I walked all over campus. Then it would go away as my legs got accustomed to Ann Arbor.

However, I am thinking about getting a pair of MBT shoes.

I am selling my Dansko clogs -- which were my Christmas gift from Dustin after pining for months. I even tried them on at a Nordstrom. Apparently 12 minutes in a Nordstrom wasn't enough to tell that my feet are too fat for them. Yeah, my feet are thinner than they were 130lbs ago, but still wider than average. Sigh. So now I'm thinking about MBT shoes, but I want to make sure they don't also run narrow.

BTW, I walk barefoot when I use the treadmill because barefoot exercise has health benefits!

3. I can't compensate for the lack of sugar. I've tried to compensate by eating every non-sugar item in my house that isn't nailed to the ground -- and it only gives me stomach pain.

For a minute I thought honey was the answer to my sugar-free prayers, but it's just not that good. We have a vat of honey from Costco that I'm working on, slowly; I'm sure fresh local honey would be a different story.

4. There was a trampoline debacle, and I'm staying off until I fix it.

The ground near the entrance was getting muddy from so many kids (and adults) climbing in, as well as a lot of rain in early February. I thought about how to fix it -- maybe straw? or hay? -- but Dustin thought that sand was the answer. Sand + mud = thicker, grittier, more hearty mud that covers not only the surface of the tramp, but also the soles of shoes and therefore the floor of my house. UGH. I'm safe for today, because it's raining outside (although this means even MORE mud), but tomorrow I'm getting some wood chips or cedar chips or straw -- or a combination -- to put down near the tramp entrance. Hopefully, problem solved. I'm not a huge fan of mud all over my house, and I also like to be barefoot on the tramp without jumping on nasty pieces of dirt.