I stepped on the scale this morning before lunch and after the gym to check my weight. It's been a pretty regular occurrence here on Fridays that I check, as I'm trying to drop a couple kilograms (roughly 4 or 5 pounds) per week by exercising four times per week. Today I tipped the scales at about 100.5 kilograms, or about 221.5 pounds. I also have to take into account that I stepped on the scale with a very wet shirt, having run the treadmill earlier. The truth is that I need to get back to the harder exercises, such as burpees and sprinting on the treadmill. It marks a bit of a slow-down in my overall weight-loss picture, but it can also be construed as a good thing. I've noticed that, as the weeks go by, it's much easier to fit into clothing that I knew I could wear last summer, but certainly could not during the fall. Also, with the lifting that I have been doing, it could very well be that I'm adding muscle to my frame again. For instance, with bicep curls, shoulder press and tricep press, I'm trying to get in sets of 15, 12 and 10. Generally, when I've done the right weight, my arms feel like Jell-O afterwards.
My diet has also changed significantly since arriving in Colombia. I've said before, in a couple previous posts, about the quality of the food that I've tried. I need to talk about an important caveat, however: in spite of the food that I'm eating here, I'm eating it at better times. For instance, dinner normally isn't after 7:00pm here, unless I have my late Wednesday class. In addition, my lunches are now bigger: where I would have enjoyed a plate of beans and rice or paella for dinner before, I now eat it around noon, which gives me more time to walk it off in the course of a day. Even breakfast is simple: if I can snag a breakfast arepa with egg, ham and cheese on my way to La Candelaria, along with a cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice, it's enough. That, paired with the exercise and the crazy amount of walking that I've been doing, has helped me to drop around 25 pounds since being here.
For the future, I'm going to continue to watch my diet. One arepa should be able to satisfy me, not two, while I'm walking home. Fruit, while not extremely cheap here, is affordable, and I need to consume more of it when I feel hungry. The water thing has been a huge plus: I try to purchase a 1.5 liter bottle every day, and drink from it as I come and go between various water fountains around campus. I'm also going to try to get more sleep at night: some of these early mornings leave me feeling far from rested, and I need to figure out how to coordinate a late work night with an early wake-up. It will come with time, though...
Fun fact: this weekend, I will be headed to Ecuador. Expect to see tons of pictures and a fun-filled weekend with a good friend of mine with whom I have been guiding with her English for some time. Have a good night!
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