Stringing a Few Good Days Together

I've always though that a key to my losing weight was stringing a few good days together. By that I mean to do all the right things that contribute to weight loss for several days in a row: eating right, exercise, staying active. My experience has been that this works, and results in accelerated weight loss.

That seems to be part of the theory behind Weight Watchers. When I was in the program back in the 1980s the first week was almost draconian, but the weight fell off. It gave incentive to carry on the second week and beyond, when the eating restrictions were slightly eased. I don't know if their current program still follows this pattern. I do know it sure worked for me.

Health wise, I've been able to string together two good—not days, but—weeks. I'm down 10 pounds during that time. My blood sugar readings have almost all been within the normal range for a non-diabetic, never mind for a Type 2. And best of all, my Dawn Phenomenon is almost gone. This is when your morning blood sugar is higher than when you go to bed, and out of the normal range. In theory it should be the other way around. For the last ten days my morning blood sugars have been in the normal range, or very close to it. I hope this better eating helps that to continue.

Part of this has been a slight ratcheting up of my exercise. Normally I don't take a noon walk when the temperatures are above 95, so that I don't sweat and stink afterwards. The temp has been over 95 for a month now. But around July 1 I decided I needed the exercise, so I resumed my noon walks, right after eating. Instead of doing a two laps requiring a full twenty minutes, I just do one lap, at a slower pace. It takes about eleven minutes. I find that's what I can do without having to take a half hour to cool down. I suspect this is also contributing to improved weight and blood sugar.

Which brings me to writing. I think the same principle applies. If you can string a few good days together, by which I mean productive, at the end you will probably be surprised at how much you did. My good days of writing started about June 28, roughly corresponding with my good health days—probably not a coincidence. Since that time I have:

• Read through The Candy Store Generation twice, made edits, typed the edits, and brought the book to the brink of being self-published. Today I redid a few of the internal graphics. My book formatter won't be available till Wednesday, at which time I'll send him the file for the e-book and have that one up and published by Friday. Then I'll send him the file for the print book and have that submitted by Monday.
• Did some serious research on expanding The Candy Store Generation in two areas, as recommended by a beta reader. I don't think I'll be able to complete as much research as needed and have the book out in a timely manner. But it has given me an idea for a supplement to TCSG, which might tie-in well with a marketing plan.
• Completed the writing for the home school edition of Documenting America. Also I typed all but the last five chapters. Came up with a little bit of a marketing strategy for it as well.
• Wrote another chapter in my humorous workplace series The Gutter Chronicles. I'm sending chapters to a few select people at work, and it's well received so far. Since it parodies a civil engineering firm such as ours, I don't know that it would have wide appeal as an e-book, but I'm thinking about it.

I've also worked a little with my wife as she is re-reading Doctor Luke's Assistant. Since a reader remarked he found a few typos in it, and since she hadn't read it since I made some fairly major revisions, she says it's like a new book. She hasn't found many typos, but even the few she's found need to be corrected and the book uploaded again.

Which leads me to working toward stringing a few good weeks together. Four more weeks like this will find me another 10-15 pounds lighter, three more books self-published, and two more (e-short stories) underway.