Monday evening, I was presented with a dilemma: All of my nice nylon, breathable walking shorts were dirty (thanks to our broke-down washer), and my choice was to do nothing and keep those baby-smooth inner thighs-

Hold on, I’ll wait while you swallow that little bit of throw-up in your mouth and try to picture ANYTHING else…

-or put on the cheap-ass Wal-Mart cotton shorts, knowing they would chafe me.

I went with chafing. I needed to walk last night more for consistency’s sake than anything else, and didn’t want to use the shorts as an excuse. Unfortunately, I hurt. A lot.

Was it worth the chance of missing the next day or two of workouts? Does the fact that it is early in the process of changing my behavior have any impact?

The first 10 days there was no improvement - none.

The last few days, though, big time improvements. I can bear weight and climb up stairs. Can’t go down stairs yet, though - can’t bear that much weight. It’s still painful, but manageable. The big challenge now is to not do too much.

I’ve been researching how to rehab this thing since I can’t afford to go to physical therapy 3 times per week. Looks like I’ll need some exercise equipment. Probably the most useful for this injury looks to be an exercise band. I can hold it with my hands or my good foot and loop it around the bad foot and gently work the ankle through X and Y axis with some resistance.

I’m also looking forward a bit to when I can finally start walking again. I’ve found recommendations to continue wearing a brace during exercise. I’ve found those elastic things at the drug store to be craptastic, but I saw one site that showed someone using their air cast. Not a bad idea, especially since I can’t afford a hinged ankle brace like the “real” athletes might use.

Ankle ligament injuries are a bitch, let me tell you. I’ve been through this too many times, and if I can get some surgical repair approved later this year, I’m doing it. My brother swears by it, says it is the best thing he’s done for his ankle.

I underestimated just how much the pain of my injuries would take out of me. In addition to the ankle, I have road-rash on both knees and elbows, both elbows are swollen, and my ribs are bruised. All that from one fall, if you can believe it.

Being forty years old sucks.

I just couldn’t do any exercise. Physically, I’m a wreck. Obviously, I need to take a few more days to recover. Last night, my ribs hurt so much I couldn’t fall asleep.

However, I did keep my diet goal in check - 1,699 calories. I can do better, but 1800 is a prime fat-burning zone for me. I lose weight at that level, without feeling hungry and cheating. When I add the exercise and walking back in the mix, I should begin to drop weight steadily. For now, though, I’m sticking with the diet challenge. When I’m capable of more, I’ll do more.

Diet Challenge: Day 1/100

Now that the walking is out for the next 3 to 6 weeks, I need to come up with other hundred day head start challenges. Because that’s the POINT of all this, isn’t it? Not waiting until after some event or date to get started improving my health?

There are still things I can do. For one, I can pay MUCH closer attention to what goes into my mouth. I popped over to myfitnesspal.com, a website I wrote about on myother diet blog a few weeks ago. After plugging in my height, weight, goals, etc, it gave a recommendation of 1890 calories/day to reach my weight loss goal of 2 lbs/week, along with exercising every day for at least 20 minutes.

So, here are the new challenges:

1. For the next 100 days, I will not eat more than 2,000 calories/day, and will average below 1,890 by the 100th day.

2. I will exercise every day for 20 minutes, minimum, for the next 100 days.

How will I exercise? Obviously, for the first couple of weeks I will be limited to exercises that don’t require me to bear weight on my right foot. That leaves a whole bunch of upper body and core strength exercises. Here’s a starter list, to which I will be adding:

- Chick-pushups (on my knees - I know it’s a sexist name, but my gym teacher used a much more graphic term, so live with it)
- Crunches - a whole variety of standard and raised-leg crunches.
- Block-hauling - tie a rope to a cinder block, then sit down and drag it in to you. I can also spin around and pull it over my shoulders.
- Supermans
- Leg lifts - variety of 6-inch and scissors
- Leg extensions - on back and on all fours
- Bridge form knees
- Chair March
- Balanced twist - site on but with legs in the air and back at 45 degree angle, then swing arms from side to side slowly.

Alot of stuff comes from my past experience, but some of it also comes from Ron Jones bodyweight exercise site. If you are a beginner, or have physical modifications, this is a great resource. Tons of exercises, and many can be modified around limitations.

I’m going to try to keep track of what I do and how long I do it and post the results here for accountability.

Out walking Saturday evening, ’round about twilight, and stepped on a rock, in a hole, on the gravel road to my house. Rolled the ankle. Severe sprain, much pain and swelling.

This ankle has been a problem for me since I was 18 yrs old, and in fact was a direct contributor to the end of my competitive running. I first rolled it while home from Vanderbilt for Thanksgiving, where I had a NROTC scholarship while running as a walk-on for the cross country team. So, that was over.

I suspect that was actually a broken ankle that went undiagnosed since I just went to a chiropractor for treatment. Anyway, I wound up with 3 more severe sprains and one diagnosed break of the same ankle over the next 10 yrs. I’ve been relatively un-clumsy for the last 15 yrs or so, until Saturday night.

Gloom, despair, and agony on me,
Deep dark depression, excessive misery,
If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,
Gloom, despair, and agony on me.

Later today, I expect to be back with a few idea I have for some different hundred day head starts that will hopefully achieve the same goal. weight loss and fitness.