And the running started ... Here.

So, that got me eating less, but did not get me running.  Eating less got me down to 115 lbs.  That was perfect.  The costume ordered in December had to be taken in and darted for a proper fit.  I was tiny and indestinguishable from my younger dance partners.  It was great! 

Growing up we would witness this though at dance school  Girls would be over weight, lose weight on an exchange diet, be this for two months then go back to their old habits.  My dance teacher would see a girl lose weight and just shake his head and say..."just wait, wait and see how long she keeps it off.  "  and sure enough with in 6 months time the girl would be back where she started.   Heavy.  And my dance teacher would just smirk and say. " what did I tell ya?"   So when I lost weight, I decided I would not be one of those people becasue I knew he was thinking the same thing about me that he thought about those other girls and I was determined to be the exception.   I needed something that would allow me to eat a satisfying amount of food each day yet keep my wieght down. 

At the time I had a job in Haskell AR, which was about a 30 minute drive from my home. A friend who worked there was a member of a gym in a city what was between Little Rock and Haskell and he would go there before work.  I decided to do the same.  I joined the gym, left my house at 4:30 every morning, got to the gym by 5am.  I walked on a treadmill for about 20 minutes then did weights before work.  That was pretty easy.  I kept this pattern up for quite a while, the challenge was to be the first in the cardio room so I could watch my favorite news channel before the old people got in there and took over all the televisions.

This pattern was pretty sucessful, my weight stayed steady, until one day I saw a girl in the gym, running on the treadmill.  I watched her for a couple days thinking...."wonder if I could keep something like that up for 10 minutes"?  I did some research....running is the most effecient way to burn calories, I read....hmmmm that sounds pretty good...and pretty easy,  So the next day, I tried it.  I ran half a mile then walked a half mile.  ....and that started the running....