Day 114: Fresh Air

“You can’t change who you are, but you can change what you have in your head; you can refresh what you’re thinking about, you can put some fresh air in your brain. ~Ernesto Bertarelli~

Photo Credit: John Supan

Wise words from the Swiss billionaire. I can’t change who I am but I’ve definitely changed what is going on in my head. Mr. Bertarelli was likely talking about success in business but the same things that make a businessman successful can help you succeed at anything. I had to reach a point in my life where I could focus on losing weight, without noise from other concerns. After everything that went on the past few years I finally reached that point on December 29, 2018. I feel like that day was a turning point in my life. Nothing earth shattering happened that day to lead me in this direction. Those eye opening photos from Christmas had been on my mind and I guess that day I finally decided I was going to do something about it. I had cleared away all of the doubt swirling around in my head and decided I could and would take this step. December 29, 2019 will be a better day, because I’ll be able to sit back and look at what I achieved during that year.

Breakfast today was a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll with Green Mountain Breakfast Blend coffee. I was hungry so it disappeared quickly ! I was still hungry when I got around to my 2nd cup of coffee (vanilla caramel cream) and I didn’t want to have the usual piece of cheese. I remembered I have these spinach egg white frittatas in the freezer that I didn’t particularly like, and since they’re only 70 calories they don’t quite meet the 80-120 calorie requirement for a Power Fuel. One is not enough and two is too much ! Then I remembered I also have a bunch of Laughing Cow cheese in the fridge and those little wedges are only 30 calories ! So I threw a frittata on a plate and topped it with a wedge of the garlic cheese. OMG ... it was delicious and at 100 calories it was the perfect PF. How can you resist anything with warm melty cheese ?! I guess you know what my weekend breakfast Power Fuel will be from now on ! My morning snack was a 155 calorie vanilla shake with peanut butter powder. Lunch was a 200 calorie three cheese chicken in a cup. You add water to these so the cooked weight is probably around 7 ounces. I had a little salad of cucumber slices and matchstick carrots with some Skinny Girl roasted garlic vinaigrette, which is only 10 calories in 2 tablespoons ! My afternoon snack was 2 slices of whole wheat toast (100 calories) spread with about a tablespoon of peanut butter (95 calories). This left me about 358 calories for dinner and an evening snack, which was more than enough since I have lots of 90-100 calorie ice cream bars in the freezer. So dinner was a 8.5 ounce 250 calorie chicken and vegetable stir-fry with roasted garlic riced cauliflower. It was delicious ! Evening snack was a 3.4 ounce 100 calorie fudge bar. So I’m finishing the day at 1192 calories. I didn’t do so good with my water .. only 32 ounces so far.

I got a new workout in before lunch, a walking tour of Lisbon, Portugal. It had a bit more incline and is about a minute shorter than the Atlas Mountains workout I’ve been doing but I didn’t feel like this workout challenged me quite as much, even though the pace was the same and it claimed to have higher elevation and burned a couple more calories. I also didn’t like the tour because Lisbon is a modern city full of people, cars and noise, so it wasn’t a very peaceful workout. I found the cars and noise and crowds to be very distracting. In the Atlas Mountains workout you see a couple locals and that’s it. Granted, it’s a poor village in the foothills of the mountains but I enjoy that quiet so much more. About all the workout in Lisbon had to offer was an exterior view of a couple churches and a walk inside the walls of an old castle so it was kind of boring. There was little history offered, other than the fact they had a devastating earthquake in 1755 that destroyed much of the city. As a result, much of the architecture is considered to be relatively “new”. There was so much more history to share in Morocco ! After some hiccups I was able to get a second workout in, back to the Atlas Mountains ! When I turned on the treadmill this evening the incline started up and raised as high as it could go. No matter what buttons I hit on the treadmill it wouldn’t go down and it wouldn’t connect to iFit. So I looked online, of course ! Advice was to recalibrate the machine so I used the instructions provided and it worked like a charm ! Had I pulled out the manual it probably would have told me the same thing. Once I did that it worked fine and I got that workout in. I wasn’t sure I could do the whole 32:40 minutes because my left hip was bothering me. It’s nothing new, it’s bothered me on and off for years. Pain went away about halfway through .. maybe those feel good endorphins kicked in !

I slept in as long as I could this morning, finally getting up around 8:30. I thought it was much later .. lol ! It was after 10 when I went to bed and I was probably asleep by 11 so I got plenty of sleep. Woke up to snow and brutally cold wind gusts. Needless to say I had NO plans to leave the house ! There was nothing good on tv so I spent the day listening to music via the Pandora app on my tv while I cleaned the house and did the laundry. The $5 a month I spend for ad free listening is well worth it since I can use it on my phone, my tablet, both tv’s and in the car.

I love the photo I’m using today so much that I’m considering buying a framed canvas print for my home. I just have to decide what size I want. Before the fire I had an oil painting of the beach in the living room, but it couldn’t be saved. So this would replace that.

It’s been a full day. House is clean, laundry is done, baby gift is wrapped, 2 workouts done. Time now for a hot shower and my warm cozy bed !