Week One Rewards

Aah. Winter food. It feels like autumn outside, but since the air conditioner is still set to summer conditions, as soon as I opened the door to the apartment I stepped two months into the future. Hot, spicy noodles with meaty topping seemed like the perfect option to ward off the shivers until the temperature rose to normal levels.

Do you know what today is? The one-week mark of binge-free nights! Which means that this morning I could unwrap my first "incentive."


Tinted lip balm! No more must I take two extra seconds to apply both chap-stick and lip gloss during my harried mornings, in which seconds are in short supply. Plus, I only have to carry one tube in my purse. It's not "tinted" so much as "slightly sparkly," since the colors I had to choose from jumped from this washed out "Princess" option to a come-hither "Daring." Since, at the age of 22, my round face still looks like it belongs in high school, bright red makes me look like a street-walking teenybopper. So Princess it was.

You know what looks good in red, though? These:


I have weights. I've been meaning to start mild strength training for at least a year, because I can barely eek out five push-ups before my arms collapse and my abdomen feels sore for days. Sweetie kept telling me I should use my own body for resistance instead of wasting money on free weights, so I never bought any. I also never strength trained. So on Tuesday night I plopped down $16 for these, and yesterday I actually used them! I did arm curls and lateral lifts--because those were the only two I could come up with off the top of my head--until I felt that I should stop before I would hurt myself, instill a hatred of strength training, and abandon my new toys under the treadmill to collect dust.

Do you have any favorite exercises to recommend?