I'm up to 28 minutes on the jogging plan. I'd taken a break between workouts, and I certainly felt it last night during my run. I chose to walk to a University track near my house that has some sort of spongy surface, because I worry about my knees and punishing them with pavement.

The sun had set by the time I reached the track. There was an intramural flag football game going on and several runners and walkers and a racewalker on the track. I started out a bit fast, I think, because by 15 minutes in I was pooped. In fact, the whole run kinda sucked. I was pretty unhappy physically throughout and had to play some desperate mental games to keep myself from stopping towards the end.

At one point, the racewalker passed me and said "Hang it there!" as encouragement, which I appreciated, but it made me dwell on the embarassing fact that I must have obviously looked distressed. My face turns beet-red with even the slightest physical exertion, and people always seem to react with concern to this phenomenom, but the truth was that I was distressed.

But I finished, and I'll keep trying. I am worried about this enjoyment factor, and also about the fact that so far none of this running bit seems to be getting any easier. Maybe it's a fallacy to think that any sort of physical endeavor becomes easier with time and practice. Maybe it's just always hard and it's just our mental and emotional attitudes that changes. If I think back to last year, when I participated in a two-day, 150-mile bike ride, I remember that despite months of training the actual bike riding never felt like it became easier, it never felt like a breeze. I still got winded on small hills or gradual climbs, I still was slow.

This all reminded me of my confusion regarding the difference between being fit vs. being active. I'm still not certain if I'm particularly a fit person. Maybe I need to look into different measures -- like wearing the heart monitor I've never gotten around to using, or having my BMI tested. All I know is that I'm kind of ticked that this running thing remains a physical struggle.

I also gained last week at WW, which was not a surprise. I was feeling a bit discouraged, mostly because I'd been reading about the set point theory of weight loss, which essentially states that the body will fight to stay at a certain weight. I was also reading some about cultural eating habits, and despairing of being able to live in America and resist our culture of fast, processed foods. I read about French eating habits -- they eat buttery, rich foods, but don't snack much, eat smaller portions and walk a lot. I remembered living in Chile for three years as a child, where the tradition is to eat a big lunch meal often consisting of fish, a small dinner and rarely have dessert. I remember my father's stories of Columbia, and of how those years were his healthiest and how he was never once bothered by stomach distress, which plagues him now. There was a lot of fruit and beans and rice, and again, dessert was a rare treat.

I suppose this week I was feeling like the dark forces of culture were aligned against me.

I was mad, too, because I wasted money on modified foods that tasted like crap -- 85% and 25% fat-free peanut butter = crap. Sugar free jelly = crap. Double fiber bread = crap. There's no way I can sustain this new eating lifestyle if I'm mad about eating crap. It all comes down to the PB&J, folks.

I'm going to hang in WW till the end of this year, and then decide whether to continue or not. If I lose weight, great. If I don't, I'll put all my focus on being fit. If I lose and gain it back, I'm not going to try and lose it again. I don't want to subject my body to that kind of strain. I've never really dieted before, and I don't want to turn into a yo-yoer. So this is going to be my one serious effort to lose -- for the sake of my future self's health (and even that idea, that weight loss for non-morbidly obese people results in significant health benefits, the scientists question) -- and I'm just going to take whatever happens and roll with it.