The Power of 10

I was thinking about the meaning of the number 10 today. Thanks to the Internet age, I was able to quickly find some inspiring references courtesy of the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannica. Here is just one of their definitions of the number 10:

in number symbolism: 10 )

As already stated, 10 was the Pythagorean symbol of perfection or completeness. Humans have ten fingers and ten toes. Counting on fingers probably led to the decimal number system, with its symbols 0–9 and its place values whereby the 7 in 703 counts as 7 hundreds, but in 173 it is 7 tens and in 507 it is 7 units. We consider powers of 10, such as 100 or 1,000, to be “round...

Perfection or completeness, eh? Well, maybe not yet, but I can attest to the "powers" of the number 10 for one simple reason - it's the number of pounds I've lost in the past 2 weeks!! That realization this morning led to another significant number of "tens."

• Ten minutes of my mouth hanging open, shocked what I'd done.
• Ten instances of getting on and off the scale, just to make sure I was awake, it was working, and my eyes were not deceiving me.
• Ten silent "thank you's" to all my friends for their inspiration and encouragement.
• Ten extra minutes picking an outfit and getting excited at how much better I now looked in clothes I hesitated to bring out of the closet before.
  

I kept pinching myself as I went about my day. Can it really be this easy? I'm not even tired! Where am I getting all this energy? Ten pounds is a long way from 50, but it's a huge gain in terms of inspiration. Nadine even commented at tennis Sunday that my face was starting to look thinner. Yay!!!! I CAN DO THIS!!!

This past week was much easier on the food front, with no big plans on the weekend to derail me. And it's good that I gained some momentum, because this coming weekend is going to be a challenge. I'm going to Seattle to visit friends, so I'll be out of my "normal" routine. My goal is to keep in check as reasonably as possible but still have fun. So I'm sure I'll have quite a bit to report next Monday. For now, my summary for the past week.

Things to Celebrate!

• 10 pounds gone!
• Better food choices, including more veggies
• Lots of exercise - 6 days on, 1 day off and sticking with it!
  

Things to Work On...

• Ramp up workouts since I'll be missing 2 days this week due to Seattle trip
• Restaurant temptations: AVOID THE BREAD BASKET!
• Keep drinking more water
  

This week also presented an unusual challenge physically. I somehow managed to sleep twisted all funny during a couch nap on Saturday, and now I have what feels like a pinched nerve over my left hip. Crap! I was hardly able to get out of bed for tennis Sunday morning, but I managed it, and moving around actually helped me feel better. Sitting is the problem. I guess that gives me more reasons to get up and move! Thankfully, Advil is helping, as are the seat warmers in my car. And above all, I found an excuse to check out the hot tub by the pool. It was a hour of heaven last night sitting with the hot water jet pounding on my hip.

Guess where I'm headed right now?

But one quick note before hot-tubbing on the hockey front. Team Canada starts their Olympic Orientation Camp this week, the Kings own sophomore superstar Drew Doughty got invited! So use all your powers of positive thinking and send good karma to my #8. We're really hoping he makes the Olympic team this year!



Hockey season is just around the corner, and I'm gonna be a lean, mean, cheering machine! GO KINGS!