Sweet nectar of the gods

For the New Year, Jason and I began modified version of the flat belly diet, which, to my horror, requires the elimination of soda. But we're doing a modified version of the diet, so there's no need to go crazy, right? I figure it's OK to have a diet soda or two, as long as I drink all the water that I need first. So my new rule is no diet soda until I've had 64 oz of water. After I drink my water, I'll have a diet soda or two in the afternoon and then will usually drink another 32 oz of water at swim practice.

So in the past week I've gone from about 7 diet cokes a day to one or two, and from very little water to about 12 glasses. At first, it was very hard for me to cut back on the sweet nectar of the gods. The first day I was tired, grumpy, and in general much less charming than usual (see exhibit a).

exhibit a

The good thing is, it made sticking to our diet much easier. When you break your leg, you no longer notice a paper cut. Similarly, when you drastically cut back on such a crisp, refreshing beverage, you miss it too much to notice that you miss junk food too.

After the first few days things got much much easier. If fact, I felt great. I told Jason that I felt like I was on some wonderful drug. "Yes," the smart ass replied, "the drug is called hydration."

Anyway, fully hydrated and properly nourished, week 2 of English Channel training went as follows:

Mon: swim 4200, do 30 min of abs work
Tues: swim 4200
Wed: swim 3100
Thurs: swim 3700, 30 min abs
Fri: swim 2600, run 5 mi
Sat: Run 7 mi
Sun: Swim 10,000

Total: swim 28,000, run 12 mi, 1 hr of abs