Blackbird has spoken like the first bird.” Cat Stevens
At 5:10 AM, I peel back my comforter and step out onto my porch. Yikes, the burrito man, with his bicycle and a cooler full of breakfast, is standing there in front of me with a broad smile on his round brown face. No problem. I know him. He saw my light and selected me as his first customer.
“Si!”
I go back to bed and get distracted with some reading and writing online. The sun comes up and the sky turns blue. Damn. I’d better get out there.
Day 1 was breezy. Days 2 and 3 were cloudy. I barely broke a sweat during my early morning walks those days. I didn’t even wear a hat. I had insane amounts of energy.
Shorts, tank top, quarter cup of sunblock, wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses.
After one mile, something weird is going on. It is HOT, but I’m not sweating. Wiped a few drops of sweat off my upper lip. No, I’m not dehydrated and bordering on hallucination. I’m just not sweating.
A couple guys my age jog by with shiny shoulders and ear buds. Millennial women running fast.
After two miles, normally, I’d be a ball of sweat and looking for the Palapa Bar over the horizon, thinking that it can’t be that much farther. It marks my half-way mark, where I turn around and head north.
This year, I don’t even notice when I get to the Palapa Bar. The time flies and I have tons of energy. I wipe another line of sweat off my upper lip.
In earlier years, I’d be so sweaty on a day like this that I’d sometimes peel off my sweaty clothes and go for a swim in my underwear off the back porch at the (closed until 11 AM) bar. It’s over water at the end of the dock. (Don’t tell my husband.) Then I’d dry myself off with my wadded up cotton shorts, get dressed and make my return.
After mile 3, I wipe the sweat off my upper lip again. Mile 4, I’m home. My hatband isn’t even wet!
It’s the sugar. This is Day 24 of No Sugar. The cravings are gone. My metabolism is changing. I’ve lost a chunk of weight. Down 7.5 pounds when I left home. Don’t know where I’m at now but my buttoned shorts are sliding off my hips. There’s a dimple on my right cheek that I haven’t seen since 1989. Looking in the mirror, I see a vertical line appearing from my belly button to my breasts. Can it be? The space between my ribs is showing up.
