So today has been a pretty awesome day mostly because it’s my Mama’s birthday!  For those of you who don’t know, my Mama and I are best friends.  I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful relationship with her and she is the most amazing woman I have ever known!  Needless to say, we did some celebrating today!  Here’s how today went:

Workout 1:  So the day started off with my Mom waking me up at 6:45 a.m to go for a walk!  I am so not a morning person, let alone a morning workout person!  I had actually discovered a while back that I do not prefer to work out in the morning.  My body just takes too long to physically wake up, making the early workout less enjoyable and not productive (in my opinion).  That being said, I agreed last night to get up early to go walking with Mom this morning – after all, it is her birthday, and I really do enjoy going for walks with my Mama!  We walked for about an hour and although the weather was pleasantly cool and the company was great, the walk itself was certainly tougher than normal as my body fought to wake up!  When we finally made it back home, I collapsed onto the couch where I stayed for about the next hour sipping on my morning coffee with French-Vanilla cream.

Breakfast:  After recovering from our morning walk, I cooked up a fried egg and 3 slices of turkey bacon for breakfast.  By this time, it was beautifully cool but sunny so I got to enjoy breakfast on the deck!  The rest of the family was also having bacon and eggs but they were eating the most delicious looking buttery toast with theirs.  I was practically yearning for one because it looked so good (have I mentioned my affinity for bread?!) but I knew there would be other temptations in the day (including birthday cake!) so I resisted and instead focussed on just enjoying the beautiful morning with my family.

Lunch:  For lunch I warmed up a leftover turkey burger and covered it with sautéed vegetables and a bit of feta cheese.  I also had a giant piece of watermelon and, after the early morning wake-up call, a second cup of coffee (and cream).

Workout 2:  After lunch, we decided to do some adventuring for Mom’s birthday.  We headed about 45 minutes out of town where you can hike a short trail that comes out at a location called Devil’s Rock – which is essentially a lookout from a 300-foot cliff that provides the most spectacular views of Lake Temiskaming.   It took us about 20 minutes to make our way down the rugged, rocky trail through the woods.  I was glad it wasn’t too hot out today and for the cool shade all the trees offered.  But guys, let me tell you about these views when we finally made it! My pictures don’t even do it justice (only taken on my iPhone) but my breath was literally taken away!  I can’t believe I had grown up so close to this area and never discovered it before!  We spent some time walking around the top of the cliff (being very careful not to get too close to the edge!) taking photos, exploring the area, and just soaking in the stunning nature all around us.  After, it was a 20-minute hike on the same trail back to the car which all in all, was about  an hour of hiking and adventuring.

On the ride back home, Mom wanted to stop for a coffee at Tim Horton’s.  My stepson ordered a Chocolate Maple Chill which is essentially a sugar-packed sweet drink similar to a chocolate milkshake.  After our hike and the heat, I had a pretty good hankering for an iced cappuccino, but again knowing there would be birthday cake after dinner, Idecided to pass and instead I ordered a nice cold bottle of water (although I did have half of a honey dip Timbit – my mom said she was “saving” me and bit half of it off before “allowing” me to have it – HAHA!)

Dinner:  As a gift to Mom, my husband and I took on the task of cooking dinner.  We invited my brother and his family so there were six adults and four children in all.  My husband makes the best cedar-plank salmon and I made some vegetable-flavoured rice and vegetables to go with it.  The veggies weren’t my favourite (but I wanted to try something different) so I smeared a little garlic butter on them to make them taste slightly better.   I also couldn’t resist a half-piece of toast and butter and then after I made one of the biggest diet faux-pas ever – I ate the crusts of my niece’s toast that she had left on her plate!  (Oh my god, I was dying to eat bread! Haha). And not going to lie, toast and butter is so darn good!

Of course, after dinner we had to have birthday cake!  My sister-in-law and nieces had made the prettiest little cake which they decorated with purple and yellow icing, sprinkles, and little candies.  Since I was in charge of cutting and serving the cake, I made sure to cut myself a fairly small piece which I enjoyed very much!  Surprisingly, I didn’t even want a second piece after the first was done.  I mean, I could have eaten another one mindlessly (which I may have done in the past) and then felt really sick afterwards.  But I’ve already started to notice that now that I’ve been trying to cut back on sugar, when I do eat something sweet, it tastes really sweet and because of that, just a small amount is enough.

It’s now nearly bedtime and I won’t be having an evening snack tonight since we finished dinner/dessert pretty late.  I’m happy to say that I don’t even feel the least bit guilty about having that cake because I planned ahead for it.  I made the conscious choice to have it and avoided other treats throughout the day knowing I would be having it. Plus, I kept my portion a reasonable size, ate slowly, enjoyed every bite and accepted that I was done instead of mindlessly eating seconds.  This is a huge success for me!  It will still take time for me to learn to treat myself without feeling guilty, but it’s all about baby steps, right?

14 days down, 16 to go!