Predatory Salt and Vinegar Chips

For the past year and a half I have been making great efforts to get into shape and lose a bit of weight.  I have slimmed a bit while gaining a couple of pounds.  During this same time my thyroid decided that it was done and now I have to combat the slow metabolism that comes with hypothyroidism.  Sigh.  I ran for a little over a year, if you could call it running, on some days jogging would have been an over-optimistic term.  I never enjoyed running, it did what I needed it to do, but that is it. I turned to swimming at the beginning of the summer, something I greatly enjoy.  I swam all summer until we took our vacation a couple weeks ago, during the time we were gone the local pool closed for its yearly maintenance, a total of three weeks.  I figured while we were away in the mountains I'd hike daily and then when I returned I would run for the last couple of weeks until the pool was open again.

All Wrong.

The beginning of the trip featured quite a bit of rain, it was relaxing, but it wasn't calorie burning.  My fellow vacationers helped to maintain a pretty high level of junk food in the cabin, so even if I had been hiking every day there was no way to burn off all the s'mores and chips.  One four mile hike on a mountainside, a few short walks and pedal boat races on the lake were all my activity.  (It was a wonderful trip, we all enjoyed the trip and would probably do  it all again.  It wasn't great for my waistline though.)

I returned home, the residual junk food stowed in the house, taunting me. I was ready to run to burn it all.  Then the evening after we returned, I was walking to say goodnight to my daughter, and tripped over a suitcase waiting to be unpacked.  The "OW!" I let out must have indicated that this wasn't just the ordinary trip, because both my husband and my daughter immediately asked if I was okay with a touch of alarm in their voices.  I saw stars for a moment.  It wasn't too bad, so I said goodnight to my daughter, read for a bit and headed to bed myself.  During the night my little toe throbbed and throbbed.  My husband suggested that it might be broken and I knew he was right. A few hours later it turned a splotched purple and continued to throb, so the next day I limped into a store and bought some first aid tape and buddy taped it.  I know going to the doctor would get me a co-pay, an x-ray and a little clean tape, but that is all.  You can't splint or cast a toe. It isn't a horrible injury, just achy and annoying.

So much for running, I aggravate it doing chores around the house, never mind a three mile jog.  Now, I wait for the pool to be open again, there is still one more week to go.  I have excess energy that needs to be used up, but moving around too much on my feet makes my toe ache.  I just need a little patience, will power, a healed toe, a new thyroid and to walk into the pantry to chuck all the sweet and salty-crunchy foods still lurking there. (I need a cartoon of  predatory looking bags of salt and vinegar chips and Indian Boondi Masala plotting an attack with a package of sadistic Oreo's and to insert here.)