Thanks, Kelly!
Still a couple of pounds to go before I reach 15 lost pounds, but I'm trying here..
You're doing great yourself! And thanks for stopping by my diary.
Julie

Good morning!
Today I'm going to do a long walk, 10-11 miles. It's a wonderful sunny day here and it's a national holiday, so nothing else to do today!! It's kind of windy out there, only about 12 degrees Celsius, so not too hot for sports.
The walk'll take me about 2½-3 hours.. I've got a beef tenderloin steak waiting for me here, some avocado-red pepper salad to go with that and the rest of the evening free... Oh bliss!
Have a good Thursday, everybody!
Juliette

Your walk ... and day ... and supper ... and quite evening, sound heavenly. And you're all the way in Scandinavia! It must be beautiful there. Are you near the water? Denmark, Norway or Sweden? Please share anything and everything about your beautiful country in your diary!!

One of my favorite stories from world war II is:
The German occupation headquarters gave the decree: ALL JEWS MUST WEAR A YELLOW ARMBAND WITH A STAR OF DAVID.
That night the underground transmitted a message to all Danes. King Christian has given the following answer to the German command that Jews must wear a Star of David. The King has said that one Dane is exactly the same as the next Dane. He himself will wear the first Star of David and he expects that every loyal Dane will do the same.' The next day in Copenhagen, almost the entire population wore armbands showing a Star of David. The following day the Germans rescinded the order.

Very very cool!

11 miles walked today! 2 hours 55 minutes. I stopped now and then to take some photos on my cell phone (sorry for the bad quality..) for your and my pleasure, so here goes..

I live in the capital of Finland, Helsinki. Not quite in the center, as you probably notice from these photos. The spring is at its most beautiful. The birch trees are light green with new leaves and some of the first flowers of the spring are in bloom. The viola tricolor grows on very dry places, here directly on a rock. The Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea is about 10 minutes walk from where I live, so I like to go run and walk to the shore.

I had such fun on my walk, it was so beatiful all over. It was a pity I didn't have my camera with me, but it's so heavy that it's not really an option on such a long walk.
Right now I'm starving, so I'll go and prepare my tenderloin and the salad. See you later..
Julie

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you're gonna give M2M a run for her walking money I'd kill for a speed that good -that's awesome way to go speed racer

Did you do that walk with your nordic walking poles?

Nope, just walking. I seldom use the walking-poles for such long walks. Normally 8 miles is my limit for nordic-walking at a time. It's not worth killing yourself, ya know...
Julie

Great pics Juliette. Looks wonderful!

Can I come visit?

You're welcome, honey! There's always room for angels like you.

You sure live in a beautiful area! Those pictures are great.
Have a good day and eat healthily!!

Cheryl

Hello There!! Just stopping by for my first visit, what gorgeous pictures. WOW I love the water, your so lucky!! We are close to the same height, I'm 5.6 1/2 and a few pounds heavier than you, so I feel we are in the same boat so to speak. You said you were making that delicious salad and my mouth was watering BIG TIME!! I love salad!! And avocado, you can't beat that at all!! I'm not much of a red meat eater, but I would take a nice grilled chicken breast to go with that yummy salad. hehehe Well, I need to read a few more of your pages to get caught up. I wish you the best of luck, but it looks like your doing pretty good so far!! I'll stop by later gator. Enjoy your evening!
Kim

Thanks ladies! I'm enjoying my beautiful surroundings myself.. Can you blame me for rather taking my cardio outside than in the gym after having seen the scenery.
Here comes my wisdom for today:

It's easy to ignore what you don't know. It's hard to ignore what you do know.

When I learn about nutrition, it's that much harder to eat wrong. When I learn about the effects of exercise, it's that much harder not to do it.
When I count my nutrients and calories, I'm suddenly very reluctant to eat above my calorie limit or below my nutrient goal. When I don't count, I don't know so it won't bother me much to eat whatever.
When I don't think how I've exercised (or not) today, it doesn't bother me to be stationary all day. When I set a goal to get some form of exercise every day, it really starts to bug me if I don't get to that goal.
Since both nutrition and exercise affect my health in long term, the immediate results seldom are enough to guide my actions. It takes intellectual decisions instead of doing how I feel to get these things right. And hopefully, in years to come these good habits will replace the old, not so good habits. Before that happens, I need to keep making informed decisions instead of intuitive ones.
The information is also supposed to keep the panic at bay. When the scales don't budge for three weeks, I'm getting my happy attitude from the knowledge that I'm doing everything right. When the number finally changes for the better, it's time for cheers, when it doesn't, it's easy to figure out, possibly with the help of a professional, where I went wrong, since I know exactly what I did the past three weeks.
Needless to say, I'm going back to calculating and writing everything down now that I finally have the time again. They say curiosity killed the cat, but I say curiosity is what's going to keep this cat alive!
Julie

lol i agree with you 100%. i noticed that it bothers me a lot when i don't do my planned exercise or eat right.
i always tell myself that i will start writing down here what i eat, but there are days when i skip. so i think i need to do some kind of chart and post it in my kitchen and see what i eat.
hugs to you,
Lena

I totally agree with that... it helps keep me honest

Hey, gals, I kinda inadvertently joined a gym today... I don't know how this happened. I just went to do my groceries at the nearby supermarket, and bang, there was this nice girlie selling the memberships for a future gym (opening in August) 2,5 miles from where I live. It's a chain of gyms and I've once tried out their gym in another location and liked it very much. The gyms have all kinds of classes, all kinds of gym equipment and really nice showers and saunas and dressing rooms. They also assign you with your personal trainer, which is included in the price. It just cost SOOOO much, that there was no way I could afford it then.
Now I joined mostly because I can train until August 12th at another of their gyms for a total of 28 euros (38USD). It's actually cheeper than the gym where I've trained now, which was the cheepest on the neighbourhood. After the new gym opens I still have 10 days to figure out if I want to pay 60 euros a month for the next 12 months or if I want to cancel the contract. Then I would only end up paying the 28 euros for the summer, nothing else. Right now I reckon I need to cancel the contract in August, 720 euros (973USD) a year is above both my ability and willingness. But you never know, maybe I become addicted or something.
On my normal gym the three months until August 12th would have cost 100 euros, so this was a true bargain.
Today is my day off, but tomorrow I'll go find out about schedule for the classes in the gym and book myself a time for a training session..
Do I sound enthusiastic? Do I? Do I?
Julie

you sound super enthusiastic - that's awesome send some enthusiasm this way i could use a shot of it..

that gym sounds like a great deal - maybe i'll move to your area