Onward and downward

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome back! It definitely feels good to have returned to blogland.

I did indeed go to the gym last night, and it was nice to be back after quite a few weeks away. I only put in 20 minutes on the elliptical, but it was much better than nothing. Combined with the hour walk during lunch yesterday, and the mile roundtrip walk to/from the gym, I think I got in some pretty solid activity.


I weighed in this morning at 242.7, which is 1.8 pounds less than yesterday. The scale tends to move quickly in the first few days of a new/renewed diet, but it's still nice to see. Getting rid of the easy weight is always a nice way to kickstart a diet.

The question, of course, is how much easy weight I have to lose. I'm hoping a good portion of the 240s will end up being fluff and water weight and that I'll be back in the 230s in no time, but things of course don't always turn out as we might hope.

Anyway, a few "While I was aways" just to get you guys updated:

While I was away, I finished my Arabic class. I got an A! I'm really happy with it and enjoy the language, but I think I'm not going to do Arabic this semester and instead focus on losing weight. I simply don't think it's smart to spend 10 hours a week (6 class, 4 homework) on it at the moment.

While I was away, a big paper that I'd spent a lot of time on at work finally came out. It's been received very well, and I got thanked in the footnotes! I was, I won't lie, pretty damn proud.

While I was away, my dormant blog managed to attract its first marketing email. It's from LA boxing, offering me a few months of membership in return for telling you guys if I liked it or not (well, probably it's "tell you if I liked it, say nothing if I didn't"). They sent it to me about a week ago, and since I just checked this email account, I just got it and replied.

While I was away, I turned 24! The side of my blog has now been updated accordingly. Part of me is debating if I should just rock "mid-twenties."

While I was away, I missed you guys a lot. And since I've been back, it's been great catching up.

Right now, I'm optimistic and happy. I had a pretty good 2009, and I'm looking to make 2010 even better. Onward and downward!