I was thinking today about the last time I lost a good deal of weight. It was quite a while ago ~ I was still in high school and in the marching band. This particular summer, we got a new director who promptly set about marching our legs off. Our first meeting with him had us doing a high step for 25 minutes as he went in to introduce himself to ye olde parents. Mr. Fuchs was from Lynchburg (of Jack Daniels fame) and he was an interesting character ~ as well as an all around cool guy. I wonder what happened to him?

Anyway, this was the summer that I got in the best shape of my life thanks to all those literal 'forced marches'. That was also the summer that I turned into a raving hyperchondriac (or is it hypochrondriac? I don't know and the dictionary's not handy at the moment.) Every little thing convinced me that I was about to die of cancer in the next 30 seconds. That was the summer that I had 3 or 4 lethal pimples.

I never really thought about my weight before that summer and it disappeared. I guess it was had always been there and the thoughts about it had been buried to such a low level, it wasn't a conscious thing anymore. I've heard that sometimes people latch on to crap to worry about when they lose weight because they literally need that low level stress ~ like smokers need something to do with their hands when they quit.

You know ~ sometimes, I seriously consider not keeping these journals anymore because I really get tired of seeing all these glaring faults right in my face. I feel like an absolute neophyte. I know that it's the name of the game...but I would really love to feel as if I've made it off the first level (would it be too much to ask to be bumped up to like the 10th or 12th level...I don't want to be God like or even on the Master level...but journeyman would be highly preferable to apprentice...)

Like I said on the opening page though ~ I'm a sucker for punishment. Does that make me a masochist?