Pleasantly surprised…

We’re back from our four-day excursion to visit with my family and play in the snow. We delivered my recumbent exercise bike to my mom, who is being urged to exercise more if she wants to ever get off of her high blood pressure medicine. Met my sister there, who was planning to go to her first Weight Watchers meeting when she got home Monday night. It seems everyone is looking at getting in shape for some reason or another.

Thus, we worked out every day during this vacation. Together, as a family. It was pretty nice. Even my mother, who at first sat on the bike for a whopping 2 1/2 minutes before she was panting when we first assembled it, the next morning used it for 35 minutes when she had my Cardio Coach cd to listen to on her headphones. Sis and I did a 2-mile walking dvd while Mom biked, and sis was so impressed she snagged a couple of them that mom hasn’t been using to take home for herself. She also bought a pedometer while we were shopping.

At the grocery store together, sis wanted to have a “I’m starting Weight Watchers so let’s have a last blast” day where we ate junk and watched movies, but as it turned out the “junk” we liked was home made guacamole — avocados, tomato, lime juice and a little cilantro — home made spinach dip — fat free sour cream, chopped spinach and chopped water chestnuts, and plenty of veggies and some baked chips to dip in them. We ate a ton, between us all, washing it all down with water, because it was so cold and dry in the house that we all craved water constantly. Surely all that pigging out was bad for us, even with the exercising every morning. Sunday we even went out to play in the snow and build a snowman to put the one at the neighbor-kids house to shame — laughing as we give “him” a trucker hat and a skirt and wonder how people driving by would judge his sexual identity.

Overall, I guess it was just the joy of spending quality time together as a family. We fussed over food. We fussed over working out. We laughed. And in the end… I came home to find out I’d apparently lost 6 lbs over the weekend. That puts me at 11lbs down to-date on the National Body Challenge.

Quite a nice surprise. I guess being healthier doesn’t have to be hard.

For your information: Food purchased during its peak season will be less expensive and much tastier. In February, look for avocados, bananas, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, mangoes, mushrooms and winter squash.