Four Rounds For Me

Before Nathaniel stepped in the ring to spar with Gabriel, Alan gave him a few tips.

Right before Nathaniel stepped into the ring, his girlfriend walked into the gym.  She had an exercise mat with her, so I assume she was taking an aerobics or yoga class elsewhere in the field house.  Nathaniel was getting some good punches in, as seen in the photo above.  Then the tide turned.  Gabriel kept throwing straight lefts and rights to Nathaniel's face.  Nathaniel backed away, but Gabriel stayed on him.  Alan yelled at Nathaniel to keep his hands up.  When the round ended, and Nathaniel took a seat near the lockers, I saw that his nose was dripping blood.  "Do we have any towels around?" he asked as his girlfriend surveyed the damage.  I trotted down to the ladies' washroom, wet up some towels, and hurried to bring them back.  Nathaniel's girlfriend tended to his nose.

I sparred with St. Louis for two rounds; in this picture, you can see how far I had to reach up to him.  "Work your way in with the jab, then when you get inside, bang," Alan told me in-between the two rounds I sparred with St. Louis.  "But St. Louis' arms are long," I said.  During the second round, I had even less success trying to get in on the inside.  Did I mention that like Erica, whom I sparred with a couple of days ago, St. Louis had also fought in the Chicago Golden Gloves?

After resting for a couple of rounds, I went in for two more with Zeina.  I heard Alan tell her something about being "glove shy", and to keep her hands up.  Zeina threw a few jabs where I immediately came over with straight rights, catching her in the jaw.  Zeina hits very hard, so I had to make more of an effort to not only move my head, but to move my body, as well.  She caught me in the mid-section with a straight right that caused me to back up and cover up.  "Don't turn your back," Alan told her several times after she avoided some of my punches that way.

Muhammad was telling me that he's been trying hard to avoid certain foods in his quest to get back in shape. "I love rice.  I have to have it with most meals," he smiled.  It has been advised that diabetics -- like myself -- should avoid rice altogether because of the high carb content.  Luckily, I had grown tired of eating a lot of rice long before I was diagnosed, so that was easy to give up.  I'll eat it once in a blue moon these days.

Yesterday, I let myself be tempted by some blueberry turnovers.  Someone donated a good amount of food to the church's food pantry.  There wasn't room to store it all, so Vera and Terri, two of the volunteers, offered some of the food to me.  It's very hard to be a diabetic with a sweet tooth for pastries.  I had one of the turnovers for desert last night, ignoring the fact that I could have had some low-carb Greek frozen yogurt instead.  Perhaps I should get rid of the rest of the turnovers, but I keep hearing the grumblings of my late parents who were born during the Great Depression about wasting food.  I haven't had desert yet, so I'll pretend I don't see the blueberry turnovers when I open the refrigerator door and pull out the yogurt -- I hope.