What I've been up to

I haven't been on Spark much lately, but then again I haven't had much of an online presence anywhere. Big changes have been happening and I've been doing my best to just hang on!

The biggest change: I'm enrolled in culinary school!

What started as wanting to meet with an admissions counselor to find out more about the Continuing Education program at Johnson & Wales University quickly turned into doing everything necessary to enroll and begin taking classes during the March term. I had a whirlwind few weeks and am only now beginning to feel like things are slowing down.

In the CE program, I only have classes on Sundays this term -- but I'm in class from 7am to 6:30pm. There's also reading and homework to do in between classes, plus studying for quizzes and exams. This week I'm preparing for the final exam in this first segment of classes, then I'll move on to the next class. On the one hand, it doesn't feel like I'm really in school. On the other, it's still taking a huge toll on my week. I generally spend Monday recovering from Sunday's class, then spend the rest of the week trying to catch up with everything I haven't done over the past 6 weeks. I know I need to just breathe and try to start fresh where I am right now, but even that feels overwhelming at times.

I've also taken up baking sourdough bread. I know that that's a risky thing, but it feels *wonderful*. There's something about working with bread dough that's wonderfully therapeutic for me, and sourdough is just magical. I'm still working on portion control, but that's less of a problem if I slice and freeze half a loaf right at the start. There are so many things that I'm still learning!

I've been feeling better, healthwise -- I think Vitamin D was the culprit. It turns out that I wasn't taking supplements with fat, so all the fat-soluble vitamin was being flushed right out of my system. My body should be even happier now that the sun has returned in force!

Speaking of which, I'm looking forward to grilling again. It's so much easier for me to focus on healthy eating when I can just open the back door and fire-up the grill. Over the winter I still want to eat heavy, hearty meals. Yes, I do know how to make those in a healthy manner, but they don't even feel healthy -- even when they are.

So there it is. I've had to stop going to WW meetings because of cost, so I'm on precarious ground. Being back in school is triggering compulsive eating behaviours that I hadn't even realized I had, so I know it would be easy for me to backslide big time. I won't, though -- I *will* focus on fitness again and get down to 199 lbs by the middle of June. I need to be carrying less weight on my feet while I'm in class, and I need to be getting outdoors while the weather is perfect for it. And so it will be!