Leida

It’s the only one I have!

It nurtured, grew and birthed to my daughter.

We have a long history together and unlikely to part for a while yet.

No matter how much abuse I through its way, it rallies when I call for it.

It’s designed to do all sorts of things, the ones I tried already, and I haven’t yet thought of doing.

When I look at other bodies and feel envious, it doesn’t give up on me and walk away.

It takes me places, and didn’t give up on me in any major way.

All it needs is a bit of good food and a chance to get moving to show off what it can do.

Did you know that a human being that starts excersising improves percentage-wise pretty much the same, no matter what’s the age? Amazing, ei?

Here is my Halloween without a Nightmare the Morning After:  

1. I will start my Halloween with a workout with or without my wee one.

2. Candies might be a staple, but so is the nutrition-packed, anti-oxidants rich pumpkin! I will wash & toast pumpking seeds for healthy snacking, and one of our pumkins was already half frozen and half pureed to become stews, muffins and soups in the future!

3. We will eat a protein packed mushroom omlette for breakfast and low cal pumpkin soup for lunch

4. Before we head out for a trick and treating session #1 in the local Recreation centre, we’ll squeeze in a family play in the pool.

5. We will do session #1 trick and treating and session #2 (neighborhood) at as fast a pace as an impatient 3 y.o would want.

6. We will have a nice nutritious dinner before doling the candies out ourselves.

7. We will not steal our child’s candies, and everything we will have left over will be split into 2 even piles that we will pack away very sturdily and stash in a secret and hard to reach location, and take to the office 1 week later, when everyone else’s offerings had run out and people are ready for more!

8. We will try to have our candie fix with the dark 70+ % chocolate instead of the less healthful sugary treats, and we’ll try to stay under 250 cals from treats.

9. We are going to rent a couple of cool movies to watch while giving the candies away to keep us occupied instead of munching & leave the candie bowl in a place remote to the couch

10. We will go to bed happy, and will not beat ourselves up if something didn’t go According to Plan! We’ll just plain forget about it.

11. We will make our Sunday a day of exemplary eating and slip in an extra hour or two of a good fast walking or hiking or doing anything else fun and active!

I decided to learn to make my own bread simply because it sounds like fun, and the smell is awsome. The problem is, that when I calculated my recipe (which tastes great!) even when it’s made with Splenda, and most butter is subbed to canola, a slice (and a pretty thin one) is still more than twice the clories of the commercial whole-wheat bread. Ie ~200 cals vs 80 cals. Most calories come from flour itself. Does anyone know how the industry ‘lightens up’ their loaves? I am guessing it has to do with making them puffier and making smaller amounts of dough to raise heigher? Also, how do they keep the bread soft for a few days? I am going to check a few books from the library to see if they have the answers, but I am curious if anyone knows.

I had an absolutely marvelous weekend. It was the Canadian Thanksgiving, and I was taking Group Fitness Foundamentals Course with Choreography component in my bid to become a fotness instructor one day. We worked out a lot, and got to learn a lot of stuff, like fitness music beats per minute, and cueing… mainly it was fun!

It is also bitterly cold here, and we had a fresh dump of snow - the first snow came in on the morning of my daughter’s birthday about a week ago… It’s would be whickedly beautiful, if we haven’t had such a short and cold summer this year. But, as usual, here, the trees turn from green to white.

We also did have a very healthy turkey dinner that even my husband can cook (and he did, in a sense!). I skinned a cheapo whole turkey, seasoned its abundant breast with lemon pepper, and loaded it into the slow-cooker. The small slowcooker got loaded with chopped sweet potatoes, coconut and pecans. My husband then flicked the appropriate switches, and the dinner was ready when I came back home, save for gravy, a bit of mushing and topping the potatoes with mini-marshmellows. I am going to make stock from the left-over turkey.

We’ve also got 2 lovely pumpkins. Believe it or not, the store run out of canned pumpkins, so I got one for making pumpkin-cream cheese squares I promissed my husband. It’s easy to process, actually, I just cut it into 8 or so large chunks, and I microwave each for 20 min, then mush it, boil it up with a bit of sugar and salt, and put in sterilized glass jars to be stored in the fridge. I have a feeling we’ll have a lot of pumkin favored breads, muffins and what not over the next few months.

A beautiful Thanksgiving, yes. The only dumper is that I managed to pull my back when we were unloading the groceries, and couldn’t take my daughter out on Monday afternoon because of it. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it heals quickly, and I can work-out again. I am planning to do a gentle stretching routine tomorrow morning… and will build up from there.

I still can’t believe how cold and snowy it is, and it’s only mid-October.

My daughter brought a craft project back home yesterday. I looked at the spelling of her name on it and had a good laugh. Someone spelled her name as Kierra.

We spell it Kira. Four letters. The simplicity itself.

The morale: the humankind loves to overcomplicate things. But it’s not necessary, particulary in the healthy living department… just go with what feels good and is simple for you to do. You can’t make an elaborate meal plan? Then cut out junk &processed and eat from small plates, forgetting seconds. No time or inclination to hit gyms and discuss the fine points with personal trainers? Go for a walk or swim or a bike ride, or dance in whatever space you have for whatever time you have.

Become a simplifier, because we all know that there are plenty people and things out there who’d do the job of adding complications… because we are human and love doing just that.