I'm enjoying my Spark People friends very much! I've got a great bunch on here, and have been very impressed with the knowledge you freely share, as well as your encouraging positive attitudes, both towards yourselves and others. Very nice to be around! I'm sure I said this in very similar words last week, but it never hurts to remind people they're amazing!

My second week has been great:

+ I tracked everything I ate and all my fitness minutes this week. It's slowly becoming less tedious and settling in to what is just a sort of strange habit. This week I did track in advance of eating on one occasion, and found that to be very helpful in terms of getting the portion size right for a particular food.

+I added strength training this week in the form of kettlebell training. That's also going great. I've completed three workouts so far and am enjoying myself and feeling great. Each time I've done it, the exercises have become just slightly less difficult, or I find I can do more reps than last time. Great! In addition to kettlebell, which I have been working with in intervals, I go for brisk walks (often on the treadmill at my club as the weather has been horrible here) and bike rides (both on a real bike and a stationary bike). I'm also trying to walk more outside of exercise time. I've been walking to the grocery store and carrying home groceries, which is a pretty good workout!

+The low carb Paleo/Primal way of eating has been fantastic for me. I'm sleeping a full 7-8 hrs each night, my mood is on a very even keel and pretty positive, I have lots of energy, my skin is looking great, and best of all, NO SUGAR CRAVINGS or HUNGER PANGS! I love it! I just wish I'd figured this all out years ago.

+I read an article that shined a great big spotlight on the highly unethical and downright nasty associations and manoeuvrings of the ADA (American Dietetic Association). The ADA is attempting to outlaw alternative health practitioners, and is also working to silence anyone blogging about nutrition. Big thanks to JUSTBIRDY for the link, which I am re-sharing in case anyone is curious. You all should be! Check it out:
www.forbes.com/sites/mic
haelellsberg/2012/07/10/am
erican_dietetic_association_2/


+I lost an even 2 lbs this week. YAY! The body fat monitor on my scale is still kind of wonky....it's all over the place. I'm not terribly concerned with it at this time, as I know I'm burning fat due to ketosis. I've got a lot to burn, so I'll concern myself more with body composition specifics and the various ways of monitoring that in the future.

The summer has been pretty miserable here in the UK. Rainy and grey the entire time, alternating between cool and unbearably muggy. This ugly weather, on top of the other sad and ugly stuff that has been going on, both politically and socially, has made for a rather unpleasant summer! I desperately need a sunny holiday...

I hope everyone is having a great week so far!