"Sometimes it last in exercise, sometimes it hurts, instead." (Project 190, Day Twenty-Four)

SO I GAINED A POUND BACK.

I'm not freaking out or anything.  Really, I'm not.

I get up this morning at 5:40 and I make my coffee and I put on my baseball hat and swim trunks and Packer shirt with Brett Favre's number on it and I drive down to the club and I walk in and kick off my Crocs and step on the scale and it says

252.

And I didn't freak out at all.

But I also wasn't what you would call happy, and so when I went to the Big pool to swim and noticed that it was full and I had to go to the smaller pool I thought "So it's going to be that kind of day," and it was.  I got in the smaller pool, which I had to myself, and began swimming, and it was hard to swim today: my arms felt like lead, my legs felt like lead, I kept thinking I was swimming into a current, I got water up my nose...

...it was probably psychological, feeling down because I'd gained a pound back, but I kept on pushing through, going for thirty laps today as my goal, and struggling through every inch of it.  Down and back and down and back.

I remembered that when the Olympic swimmers did their thing, they turned their heads with every stroke and I thought that might help, get more oxygen in me, but when I tried that I just got dizzy, so there is at least one thing that Olympians can do that I can't.

I finished the 30 laps, and a thought occurred to me.

I went back into the locker room, and weighed myself, post-swim.

251.

So I was right, last time: I lost water weight while swimming, enough to tip the scale just above and below 251/252, so my real weight is 252, but even before I thought that, I wasn't freaking out, and here's why:

1.  Sweetie said to me the other day "Look at your muscles," and it was true: I have them.  They're not huge, but I have muscles, already.

2.  I can already feel the difference in my health.  Take blanket swings, which are something Mr F loves: I wrap him up in a blanket and spin him around like he's the hammer in the hammer toss, until I can't anymore and he spills out.  I haven't done those in a long time, much, and when I have it's been one or two of them, but last night Mr F wanted blanket swings and I did ten of them for him.

3.  I can wear shirts that I haven't felt good about wearing in a long time.  I have this Richmond Spiders team shirt I got from Sweetie because I like odd sports mascots, and it was a little tight for a long time but I tried it on the other day and it fit pretty well, so even if I am 252 -- even if I gained back a pound or never lost it -- I am feeling more fit and fitting more clothes.

So I wasn't freaking out, although I wasn't exactly happy about not being 251 because I know this is working, and tonight I proved it even more when I walked with Mr F and Mr Bunches to the small pool, a mile away, and on the way back, Mr Bunches got tired but didn't want to ride in the wagon, so I carried him and walked backwards pulling the wagon uphill a half mile.

I couldn't have done that 24 days ago.

Today's workout: Swimming, medium pool, 30 laps, 17:00.
Latest weight: 252.
Song that popped into my head the second I saw I was 252 pounds again and which I assume was mourning the loss of my lost pound:

Bonus photo of Mr Bunches in his Spongebo hat and inner tube: