Mom has convinced me to try her latest crazy-diet-scheme with her. It's sort of a hobby with us. We try out fad diets, see how well they work, test their limits. Between diets we power-eat to keep our strength up. ;-) This one is called the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. And it's fun. You get to power-eat any crap you want one meal a day, as long as you start with 2+ cups of salad and eat the whole meal within an hour (therein lies the key- it takes 56 minutes to eat 2+ cups of salad, so you're left with 4 minutes to power-eat). The other 2 meals are just plain old low-carb a la south beach diet phase 1 (which differs from Atkins in fat content). I've lost 5 pounds. I'm looking forward to strawberry shortcake with buttercream frosting and french chocolates every evening at dinner, which keeps me out of the M&M jar in the breakroom all day. I'll keep you posted, but so far it's the most fun I've had on a diet since the "eat dark chocolate until you're sick of it" diet-- which didn't work very well, but who cares?! And it's WAY better than the "nothing but tomato, egg, and grapefruit for 2 weeks" diet.


We've had the most uncharacteristically superb weather lately. Since New Year's it's been warm and sunny. We've been taking advantage of it with lots of hiking, biking, jogging, driving around with the top down, wearing shorts- all those crazy indulgences we're not usually allowed in January in North Carolina. Why the heck they call this "the South" I'll never understand, but I am digging the warm. It'll be over this weekend. Penance time. Last weekend began the "Frosty Fifty" series, put on by our local bike shop (LBS). All year they put on early morning rides Sat and Sun, which usually we can't go to because I teach aerobics on weekends. We're also too wimpy to go ride at 8am in the wintertime, when it's still 20-something degrees out. So we've been rolling-our-own rides most of the time, which means very few off-season miles. But for the winter months, LBS is doing a series of Saturday rides that start at 11 am. Yay! I get out of aerobics at 10:30! And it's warmer by 11 am.


Last week's ride was fun, but a little scary-- remember that nasty crash I had 2 summers ago, where I bit a train-track in the rain? Some of you remember. That's when I discovered TegaDerm (Sure it looks like you've wrapped yourself in saran-wrap, but if you ever have terrible road-rash, get some- it's worth the expense and the goofy factor. Trust me). Anyway, we rode *that same route* on Saturday, and wouldn't you know it, it started drizzling just before we got to those nasty train tracks. Steve-o, the owner of LBS, will never let me live it down (he was there that fateful day). He told everyone "Cat's going to lead us through the railroad crossing! Don't follow too close behind!! She'll show us how to cross it gracefully." Grr. If he didn't have 500 tattoos and quads the size of a redwood tree, I'd smack him.


But, I made it over the tracks, didn't even put my foot down, no crashes. Whee! That was empowering. So I guess I DID show them how to cross it gracefully, without making a taco of my front wheel.


Next weekend we'll do the frosty 50, and I think it'll actually be frosty. I bet there will be a lot fewer people, too.