Dry

I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I stood on the bathroom scale, before my usual Sunday morning swim, expecting the news to be bad. Last week was an anomaly, I told myself. I wasn't about to repeat it. And if I did, I should be concerned: it was a lot of weight to lose in one week.

The scale said I had lost 0.6 kilograms, just under one-and-a-half pounds. Not bad. That put me at just under two kilos in two weeks. I was on track to lose 10 pounds in four weeks, my goal for my trip to Mexico.

Last week had been rough. A migraine on Tuesday, where nothing was done, let alone a workout. I walked a lot on Wednesday, climbed a lot of stairs, but didn't really exercise.

Thursday, I went to the gym, tried my hand (actually, my legs) on an elliptical trainer for the first time. I went for an hour and almost killed myself: my back and left hip throbbed all night and I could barely walk on Friday. I took it easy and took lots of pain pills.

It seems that in my zeal for recovery and fitness, I overstepped my abilities.

By late Saturday, I felt ready to get back at it, but I wasn't going to overdo it on one machine. I returned to the elliptical trainer, but only for 20 minutes (though my smart watch only recorded 16 minutes). I climbed on a spin bike for another 20 minutes, and then took to a rowing machine for a final 20 (though, I forgot to stop my watch for about five minutes).

I deserved a beer for my hard work, I told myself as I left the gym, but when I got home I had changed my mind. I didn't want empty calories, I told DW. Instead, I drank a couple of cans of club soda.

No calories.

So there I was on Sunday morning, standing on my scale, looking at my new numbers. While I was pleased that my weight had continued to drop, it wasn't by as much as I had hoped for.

Back to the gym, for a 1,000-metre swim. I started using my legs more and shaved two minutes off my record time.

I deserved a beer today, I said again. But again, when I got home, I couldn't bring myself to having one.

Today is the ninth day since I've had a beer. Had any alcoholic beverage, that is. I've started thinking about my last Beer O'Clock post, and about how I've unintentionally taken a hiatus from my beer reviews. Last night, before going to bed, I looked in my beer fridge, a mini cooler in our basement.

Three cans of beer. That's all I have. Two cans from the last brewery I visited, one can from when I was at Stray Dog's anniversary celebration. That was when I told myself that I would start visiting all of Ottawa's breweries and come up with a list of my favourite five or 10.

I've run dry.

I'm faced with a dilemma: I desperately want to shed the gut that ballooned when I was recovering from my foot surgery. My incapacity had also kept me from getting out over the winter months, and I vowed to return to my beer blogging when I was more mobile. I want to start revisiting breweries but I want to limit my beer intake—something that contributed to my gut over the years.

While my ability to lose the weight is more or less on track, I have been pleasantly surprised about how much fat has vanished from my waistline. I want to keep up my good work.

I think I'll try to harden my willpower even more. I've said goodbye to chips and snacking between meals. As hard as it's been, I've resisted the free snacks that my office kitchen supplies (those giant cookies are tasty but the 400 or more empty calories aren't worth it).

I'm going to start revisiting the breweries, but I'm going to limit myself to a maximum of two pints per week. Which means that I'm going to have to choose the beers that I'll review, wisely.

It's been a dry spell during my fitness regime. It doesn't have to be.

Beer O'Clock, with any luck, returns Thursday.