Losing weight

First things first, last night I actually did do some weeding for about 45 minutes and then planted a couple tomato plants which did leave me a little more satisfied with my evening. At least moreso than I thought I would be, but I suppose that's because I thought I was in for another boring night of nothingness (and I mean REAL nothingness, since even the television was a little lacking, save for a Marlins game (hard to come by in Ohio) which was a little slow considering it took until the 7th or 8th inning for anyone to score). Wow, that was a long sentence, and is it allowed to have a parentheses within a parentheses? In any event, weeding and planting tomato plants was not a bad way to spend an hour or so. Especially since my mom came over to help. Okay, really it was her idea. Like I would have done it on my own, even though I knew it needed to be done.

In any case, not wanting you to think I've had a change of heart and am actually satisfied (ha ha), let's get down to the third reason I am somewhat unsatisfied. I'm sure many people, women in particular, out there can relate to this one: I'm trying to lose weight. Now, I'm not a lump of fat, but I could stand to lose a few. And I actually have lost about 20 pounds so far this year, which is about ahlf of what I wanted to lose in the first place. So major props to me for that. However, I've hit a plateau. I've maintained instead of lost any more and it seems that nothing I do fixes that plateau. I actually generally like eating fruit, vegetables, chicken, and fish, but I think the mindset of knowing that those are the things I have to mainly eat to keep losing weight makes me a little crazy. I get so bored of the same things over and over again. And I get these insane cravings for things that aren't necessarily awful for you, just not good if you're trying to diet. Like tacos and mac and cheese. I just wish I was at the point where I wasn't being restrictive (like I can't eat this or that, or else I'll gain weihgt), but ate anything I wanted to in moderation. At that point, when I'm no longer trying to lose weight, but rather just in the maintenance phase, I think I will still mainly eat healthy stuff, but won't worry as much if I slip for a day and eat a huge helping of chinese food followed by ice cream.

The other part of this losing weight thing is the exercise. I've actually taken up running, which is crazy to me, the girl who could barely finish a mile, very slowly might I add, when we had to run it in gym class in high school. Now I'm up to running 2 miles straight through, three times per week. But here's the catch... I HATE running. It hurts. My legs hurt, it's hard to breathe, I feel like I might die any second. I always feel good about it afterwards, but I wish it didn't hurt so much during. I always dread the days I have to do it (today being one of them) and wish that I could just skip it. I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, I will one day wake up and enjoy running. Or at the very least, not dread having to do it. I want to be able to run a 5K, but right now running just 2 miles (not very fast mind you) kills me every time. The only satisfaction I have from either of these things (eating well and running, blech!) is that I have lost weight. Now if I could just push past this plateau...