Feeling Accomplished

1.  Last Sunday I had an afternoon all by myself as my husband was driving a busload of campers home from NH to southeastern MA.  The weather wasn't conducive to outside activities so I plunked myself down on the sofa, found a episode of Vera on Acorn TV, and opened up a kit for a knitted bracelet which I had received on Friday.  I haven't knitted jewelry before, thinking I wouldn't like it.  Boy was I wrong.

Here's the finished piece which took me one episode of Vera, and a very early episode of Inspector Morse.  It's called Texo Cuff, by my favorite knitting designer, Laura Nelkin.

2.  On Monday, I embarked on a personal walking challenge.  I met a friend and we walked a 2 mile path through the woods on our town's Rails to Trails.  It is a very level trail which made it do-able for me.  I had to stop twice, briefly to catch my breath, but I made it.  It took us almost an hour.  I was drenched in sweat, however, when we finished.  I had to jump into the shower the minute I got home!  But I was very pleased with myself.    And then, on Wednesday, I walked the same route by myself.  I stopped once very briefly. The rest of Wed. was busy, and by the time I went to bed, I had put  10,084 steps on my Garmin.  The first time I hit 10,000 steps!   On Saturday, I walked the trail a third time, stopping only for a couple of photos, and I completed the walk in 45 minutes.   Today, I walked from my house to the end of the road and back, just over a mile round trip.  The challenge for the walk however was a longish, and steep uphill on the outbound trip, and a less steep, but longer incline on the return.  I made it to the top of the hill both times though without stopping, and I logged 27 intensity minutes on my Garmin which meant that I was exercising above my heart rate target for a good part of the walk.

3.  I have managed to keep my food intake down to about 1500 calories daily, all week.  And I haven't felt deprived or starving to death.  In fact the last 2 nights, after logging in all my food, I'd discovered I actually hadn't eaten enough!  Last night, I still had 743 calories available.   That's probably why I had felt hungry.  I ended up eating ONE serving of whole grain cereal with almond milk, using up 270 of those calories, and bringing my calorie total for the day up to just under 1100 calories.    I have a very long way to go, though, before I can move that balance scale weight another notch to the left.  Baby steps.


A few photos from the trail: