I'm back. Coming from Florida and being dropped off into 23 inches of snow is quite interesting. I debated to leave Florida on Monday because of the back-up at the airports with tons of flights still being cancelled as a result of the New England snowstorm. As a backup, I tried to make reservations at a hotel at my thru city, Philadelphia. No luck there. I decided to travel with the kids rather than forfeit confirmed reservations with 3 seats in a row for a future flight. We were dropped off at the airport at 1:45 PM, Monday and managed to get home only 3 1/2 hours behind schedule (walked in the door at 11:30 PM.) Despite not being able to get off the plane in Philly because snow and ice at the gate prevented the jet-way from reaching the plane for a 1/2 hour and the flight crew that was 3 hours late arriving for our last segment home, my boys held up quite well.

Meanwhile the wife is still on her Caribbean cruise and is due home on Thursday evening. That's if mother nature allows it. I'm quite happy she picked a great week to escape. She really deserves it. And of course I will have a greater appreciation for all that she does for the kids and family while managing to work full time.

We are due to get another 6-10" of snow today and tonight, breaking all written weather records (since record keeping began over a 100 years ago) for most snow in the month of January.

I have been pretty busy making the kids my #1 priority. Cooking, cleaning, activities and homework are my focus this week. My oldest who is 10 was diagnosed with ADHD when he was in first grade. In addition, he has learning disabilities. Evenings at my house are very busy, structured, and there really isn't time for my wife and I to relax. It takes my oldest 2 to 3 hours to complete homework that his classmates probably complete in 45 minutes. He also goes to religious school during the week and is learning Hebrew for his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. It is a lot of work for him (and his parents!) We are proud of him as we struggle daily to keep him up to date and current in his studies.

So this week (and every week for that matter) makes it hard to keep up with the posting and my workout schedule.

Let me recap last week and bring you up to date on how my progress is going. At the beginning of last week I got on those tall, doctor office-type scales at both the Y and the other gym I workout at. Both these scales read 3-4 lbs. over of what my home scale read so I am inclined to believe them. I have avoided these scales since the start of the diet for this reason. So let me cut to the chase. Before I left for Florida, I weighed in at 208 lbs. on the gym scale. This was about 4 lbs. over of what my home scale read. I believe I messed up the home scale a week and a half ago when I turned it over to investigate its wobbling. 2 rubber feet were missing from the right bottom side. I took off the 2 left side feet to stabilize it and somehow it screwed the weight up even more. Go figure. Anybody have any suggestions on a bathroom scale? I have been looking on the web at those Tanita digitals. Not necessarily for the body fat readings but the ease of reading a digital. I am tired of getting on an analog scale 5 times and having it read something different every time.

When I was at the gym yesterday I got on the scale and it was up only a pound. Not bad for eating heavy in the evenings while in Florida and coming off a midnight binge after putting the kids to bed after coming from the airport Monday night.

Today I woke up with a sore right calf. I don't know what caused it because yesterday I did all upper body strength training. I also did intervals on the bike for 30 minutes with no prior stretching. I did do 10-15 minutes of stretching after including calf stretches on a 45 degree wooden floor wedge made for specifically stretching the calf muscles. Stretching to hard on the wedge, not stretching it before the bike or the intervals on L19-20 on the bike might have something to do with it. Who knows. So today I am in the inactive list as the right calf demands rest. I was going to do cardio today but that will have to wait. I probably will see some action in the driveway today with 100's of snow throws on the shovel.

Water intake during the past 10 days has been minimal except for 24 oz. during my workouts. Yesterday I was on plan and here are today's meals so far:

B - 1 Egg Beater Omelette with spinach and onion. 1/2 sesame bagel, light cream cheese with smoked salmon and slices of tomato
L - salad with chopped up turkey, ham with lite blue cheese dressing, cup of vegetable chili
D - baked chicken breast, thigh & drumstick, some skin too, green beans, baked potato with salsa
Dessert: craving bagels: 1 and 1/2 bagels -toasted with lite cream cheese. 1/2 was toasted with margarine and strawberry jam.
water Intake: <30 oz.