Getting snappy over 'D' word

By Virginia Winder
My arms feel like lead.
But this is probably a good thing.
"I love that sore feeling in the morning, you know, after you've been exercising," chirps my daughter, Clementine.
Oh how they bounce back so quickly at that age.
But not me. I keep wondering if the soreness is an injury or just a build-up of good old lactic acid. Probably the latter and, as we said back in my sporting youth: "No pain, no gain."
Hit the pool again tonight and ploughed through another 40 lengths, which still isn't a lot. Just 1km, but at least I'm one-third of the way towards the half-ironman distance. Added some sprints and four lengths of kick, which I'm so slow at.
Daylight saving starts this weekend, so I'll be able to get in more walking and cycling.
So another week has passed with daily exercise (apart from Sunday and the stomach bug).
Yes, have still been making wise choices, but today was soooo hard.
Went to lunch again at Impressions at WITT and the starters were carrot soup or chicken liver pate and toasted ciabatta. Even though home-made pate is my all-time favourite, I chose the soup. That was tough.
I'm not perfect though - I still crave chocolate and still enjoy a couple of squares of the dark stuff every day.
Also, I'm still drinking coffee. After all, I do need to be nice to people in the day.
But I might get a bit snappy when the "D" word comes up.
People, kindly, keep giving me advice about different diets. But I'm not on a diet; I can't do that because then all I think about is food. It becomes an obsession.
Diets are not sustainable. They are short-term and lead to more weight gain afterwards. I know, because I've been there, done that, tipped the scales.
So this time, I'm trying a lifestyle change, one that is simply about being mindful. Yes, of course I am open-minded about good, healthy nutrition and love to hear tips about cider vinegar and adding different things to my muesli.
I've even been to the Puke Ariki library to get out a whole bunch of books on the subject and have hauled out our large collection of the Healthy Food Guide to peruse.
But please don't talk about lemon detox, protein-only or soup diets; that's not helpful.
However, if anyone can recommend great sports nutrition books, I'd love to hear about them.
After all, I am (really I am) turning myself slowing, determinedly, achingly, back into an athlete.

Today, I:
Ate three low-fat, nutritious meals (and turned down chicken-liver pate!)
Worked for 12 hours
Slept properly for only 4.5 hours (not great)
Drank only two cups of coffee (much better)
Swam 40 lengths of a 25-metre pool
Didn't drink enough water