Three noon hour walks accomplished!

I can walk down to the Big Grocery Store way down the street, shop a bit, and get back to work in just about an hour, if I walk with real purpose. Adds about 7000 steps to my pedometer, which means I have reached over 12,000 steps on each of my walking days – WOO HOO!!!!

Today I bought some ingredients for making a cauliflower and potato soup this weekend in my slow cooker. Two big and beautiful heads. Also bought some celery, carrots, a kabocha squash, brown arborio type rice, kefir (more about that later)…somehow it escaped my mind that I would have to haul this all on my shoulder on my way back to work. Funny how my selections did not seem very heavy individually when I placed them in my buggy….but man did they add up. I almost bought a 2 kg bag of dried black beans too. For some reason, THAT I could figure out would be too heavy to carry, with all the rest of my loot.

I did manage to bring my haul to my office, though, with only one casualty (besides cutting off the blood supply to my arms). My kefir popped!

Kefir is a fermented milk product that is kind of like drinking bubbly yogurt. I love it poured over cereal. Yum Yum.

When you buy kefir the inner seal on the container should be bulging. This is the sign of good kefir. A bad sign for all other foods…but GOOD for kefir. Trust me!

But because of the buildup of gases causing the bulging aluminum inner seal, the container is under pressure. Expecting kefir to duke it out with a bunch of heavy fall veggies in a bag and emerge unscathed is asking for it, I found out. Luckily I only lost a little of the kefir and the bag didn’t get soiled, just the packaging on some of the veggies, so all was still good!

And I didn’t get any kefir on my new source of inspiration, Tosca Reno – the lovely lady telling me that it’s NOW MY TURN on the cover of the magazine. Which is apropos, because I only got turned on to kefir from reading Tosca’s book: The Eat Clean Diet Recharged!

Tosca is Canadian, my age (and a fitness model/cover girl!), and just flat out gorgeous and gorgeously healthy and strong-looking. She is also of Dutch background, like me, and has the same educational background: a B. Sc. and a B. Ed.! When I look at her, I see the Me I could be.

I’ve never bought Oxygen Magazine before, but I have 3 of Tosca’s books and am really feeling inspired to Eat Clean and dust off my dumbbells! Sometimes everything just clicks and the next thing you know, you are on a whole new path. I feel that is happening to me now.

When I saw the lovely Tosca beaming and pointing at me at the checkout magazine rack, I knew I had to bring her home for even more inspiration. I think I will make me a new vision board with Ms. Reno front and centre….