Day 56 - Long Post!

Day 56! Quite a lot of progress!

I had a bit of a slump, but I'm feeling pretty good about everything now. I'm starting to get to the point where I'm wondering how I'm going to keep this up once it's over.

Here's a comparison from when I thought I was making progress, to the progress I've made in 41 days since.

Day 14 (What I think is flexing, hard to tell!!!):

Day 55 (Last night):

Everyone's looking a lot better than when we started this crazy journey. It's amazing to see the progression. I get asked about it more and more every day now. Some people are honestly interested in it, some people think it's too hard to give up all that corn, salt and sugar (you know, the entire American diet?). That's okay. As Seabass was telling me today, it's not for everyone and people have to make choices on their own regarding how far they're going to go with their health.



Okay, this is a fun story from today. Before reading this, please keep in mind I'm not a violent person, and have not been in a physical conflict since middle school (over a decade).

This morning I get up on time for the first time ever on my days off. I have my iPod mini's 16 minute playlist all setup, and put on my new sneakers.

I jump rope on the sidewalk in front of the house. Yes, I sometimes get in people's way. But only for 15 minutes a day, which is how I justify my right to take up space on it. I face in one direction, otherwise rope gets caught in the grass on either side.

Part-way through the first song (probably 2 or 3 minutes) I have this 30-ish, completely out of shape man walk around me looking very upset and talking to me. He has one of those taller builds that looks like the fat's given up sticking and is slowly trying to escape downward. I pause the iPod and pull an earbud out, stopping my jumping. He's complaining that I'm in the way, and he said 'excuse me', but I can't hear him because of the earbuds. I apologized for not hearing, he's still mad. I replied that there's plenty of room to walk around (you know, the grass, 2 sidewalks, and road in between).

He tells me "we can settle this right here". I'm trying to tell whether or not he's comprehending the situation. I explained calmly that this is the place that's best for my jumping. He asked why I couldn't jump in the driveway, and I explained it isn't flat. NOW he asks me why I can't jump on the sidewalk across the street. (Umm.... I could, but what if you were walking there? Again, he doesn't comprehend the situation, but selfishly thinking I'm in his way, not others'.) He asks why I can't turn around at least once every five minutes, and I try my best, honestly, to explain to him why I may still be facing the wrong way when he walks up next time and I may not see him.

Through this whole conversation, he's right in my face, standing above me a little bit height wise. I don't want a confrontation, and was edging around it best I could.

So he tells me if I can't stop for him next time, whether or not I can hear him, he'll smash my f!@#in' head in.

Whoa, wait a minute. Hitting someone from behind because they're doing no harm but jumping rope?

He walks away down the street. The whole thing definitely was teetering on the fence between argument and fight.

I live across from a public school. The crossing guard woman tells me he's just looking for a fight, and not to mind him. She's a very friendly older woman. He turns around, saying "excuse me!?" and raving about how good his hearing is. Now they're shouting back and forth at eachother, while I change my shoes because these new ones aren't so comfy to jump in. He threatens to call her boss when he gets back.

I don't know how they left the conversation, but I went back to jumping and I was so angry at people being violent and stupid, that I did 500 extra jumps added to my 16 minutes.

So, that's the wonderful story about the dangers of jumping rope. Beware!

I need to find a new location to jump in now. Sigh.