I Feel So EMPOWERED!

My goodness, I feel good.

I've been having a lot of pain these past few weeks -- the cold has settled into my bones and won't go away. My hip joints are screaming at me and telling me to just lie down for a while. My back is wonky and today I was at my desk working for an extended period, so that when I got up, the pain in my joints made me scream.  Chickadee #2 came running in and watched me with concern and solicitude as I moved from a seated to a standing position, joints crackling and creaking the whole way to vertical.  That was not fun, especially seeing the concern in my child's eyes and hearing her try to soothe me.  The roles should be reversed.

Nevertheless, I feel really good today.

Part of it is the fact that the scale showed a downward trend!  Woo hoo!

Part of it is that I stayed on plan today -- completely!  Woo hoo!!

Part of it is that I drank almost all my required water -- if you knew what a horrible struggle that is for me, you'd know why I say, Woo HOO!

Part of it is that I talked to my TSFL yesterday about my goals (the ones I shared here) and talked about the fact that I had not yet started walking daily.  She encouraged me in such a nice way to just get moving somehow, someway and we talked more about the Try-It Triathalon that I want to do in June.

Well, I can tell you -- I am not going out in 9 degree weather to take a walk on icy, slushy streets without sidewalks.  I also had to work today and I looked after some friends' children this afternoon because my friends were working and their children had a half-day of school.  So it was a really busy day for me.

My plans for a lovely turkey dinner made in the crockpot (my husband loves turkey) came to a screeching halt this morning when I saw the price of turkey breast in the grocery store... thirty dollars?No way. We just will have to do without -- there's no way I'm paying 3 bucks a pound for a frozen Butterball turkey breast when I can get an organic, free range turkey from Maple Lawn Farms for less than that.  So, I had to quickly come up with something crock-pot ready, reasonable, and tasty.  Look what I found... Slow-Cooker Pulled Pork with homemade Kansas City Style BBQ sauce.  My gosh -- it was fantastic, with a little homemade coleslaw on the side and a single serving of baked beans (I like them but no one else in the family does).  Bush's Baked Beans sells a 4 oz can -- perfect, especially when you burn them so half stick to the bottom of the pan... automatically one serving. And it was relatively healthy and everyone liked it.  Imagine that.  I thought it was a bit too salty, so next time I will leave the salt out of the crockpot seasoning, but otherwise it was really good.  And the best thing -- Harris Teeter had a Buy One Get One Free deal on pork tenderloin -- and, if you don't buy two, they will sell you one for half price.  So I got a pork tenderloin for eleven dollars -- that will feed our family for at least 3 meals, maybe four.  I'll have to freeze the leftovers.

But that STILL isn't why I feel so empowered.  All day, it was nagging at me that I wanted to get some exercise in.  Yoga was cancelled this week and I really feel the need for it, but I didn't want to commit to the time it takes to do my yoga DVD.  And I wanted to walk.  Just not in a subzero wind chill.

 To the rescue... Amazon Prime, Nintendo Wii, a newly cleaned and clear basement, and Start! Walking with Leslie Sansone 1 & 2 Mile Walk.  Twenty-five minutes and a nice basement floor and I'm done for the day...  It was a little intense there for a few minutes, but I love the fact that there is a countdown clock in the upper left hand side of the screen.  I could look at it and say to myself, "You can do 15 more minutes, right?  Don't wimp out, 9 minutes to go," etc.  Before you know it, I was done and feeling happy because I had committed to doing some cardio exercise today and, by Jove, I did it.

That's the power of exercise, folks, even in little bits.