Hiking the 'Hooch

A HUGE thank you to Ms. Magnetism at Mission to Lose 130 Lbs. for bestowing the Sunshine Award upon me.  I'm honored that she found my blog worthy of such a sunshine-y award, especially when I post so much CRAP on here, lol.  Nonetheless, I sincerely appreciate her thoughtfulness!   As far as I can tell, the only rules are to pass it along to 12 other bloggers who bring sunshine into your life.  That's impossible for me.  If you're listed on my Blogroll, then I love all of you, and the award is yours for the taking, so enjoy it!!

I'd also like to say another HUGE thank you to Kelly at Happy Texans & Brittany at :Deliciously Healthy  for passing along the Beautiful Blogger award to me.  I've won this award previously and have it listed on my sidebar...that's why I don't have the picture here in the post.  Thank you again Kelly and Brittany for your sweetness and your always-entertaining blogs!  :)

My sister and I decided to hike at part of the Chattahoochee Nature Preserve today.  It was more of a walk than a "hike", since there weren't really any hills or tough inclines.  We walked the 4 mile loop...it started out  along the Chattahoochee River and looped around through a swamp with lots of ducks, turtles, etc.  The weather was crappy....overcast, cold, windy...but that was no surprise.  I took a lot of pics that I'll put up at the end of the post.

When we got back home I decided to try out that whole wheat pizza dough I bought at Trader Joe's.  I saw a recipe on TJ's Test Kitchen for whole wheat calzones so I gave it a whirl.  Rebecca at Screwdestiny was right....whole wheat pizza dough tastes like dirt, lol.  I thought of her and had to laugh out loud when Amy and I were trying to choke down our lunch today.  The filling was very good...turkey pepperoni, black olives, cheese, fresh mushrooms, bell peppers & red onions....but the crust, not so much.  Pam at Journey To the Healthier Side of Life has her own version of homemade whole wheat pizza dough on her food blog, Lobster and Fishsticks, so I'm going to try that the next time.  I also cooked mine a little too long...25 mins at 400 degrees....I should have only cooked them 20 mins.  I'll post those pics, too.

I went to the gym tonight totally dreading it.  Tuesday's are our nights with the personal trainer, Chris, and after walking 12.5 miles in the last 3 days, my legs were so dead.  But I went and I did everything he told us to.  A little slower maybe, but I got it done.  He showed us some new stuff tonight, and made up some new exercise sheets to give us the variety I asked him for, so that was very cool.  He's a good trainer....I really enjoy the workouts.  I still think I could do a little more than he asks of me....but I also understand that he's just trying to build up my strength and endurance right now.  There will be plenty of time to get to the harder stuff.  So everything's cool.

While I was on the elliptical for my warm-up, I was watching the news on the overhead TV's and the weather is calling for a little snow north of Atlanta.  Although we probably won't get any here where I live (we rarely do), it will still be freezing temps.  That's a little more than my lungs can handle, so I probably won't be doing any outdoor hikes or walks tomorrow.  However, I'm planning on making it to the gym sometime in the afternoon for some sort of workout.  I'm sore, but I don't really feel like taking a rest day yet, especially after the bad eating this past weekend.  I need to do as much work as I can before Friday in hopes of not showing a gain.  Staying even on the scale would be a blessing this week.  My calories are just below 1500 today, so I'm happy with that.

I hope all of you are making fantastic choices this week and striving to be a better you.  The freedom that we're all searching for is out there, it's just going to take a little work to get there.  We can do it....I know we can...I believe in us!  :)

Quote For the Day:

"Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can."  -Henry Drummond

Here's the stats on the calzone:

4 oz. whole wheat dough            240 cals

1/8 c. pizza sauce                 15 cals

1/4 c. 2% mozzarella chz       70 cals

veggies                              40 cals 

4 Hormel turkey pepperoni      17 cals   

Total calories:  382