Oct 2 - Where Did I Slow Down?

  Where did I slow down?  Or when?
  I thought I'd share a photo my dad took many years ago.  I think I was about nine years old but I can't quite read the date stamp on the photo so Dad may have to correct me.  From left to right, that's Gub, me (yes, the skinny one with straight blonde hair), my brother BaconBones and of course, Bertie.  We are in the Flinders Ranges somewhere atop a rock formation we would have scaled voluntarily and with glee.
  A wonderful thing about our childhood, we did a lot of walking.  My parents were avid bushwalkers and took us with them from a very early age.  I can remember photos of Mum with Gub in a baby carrying backpack.  I've seen a lot of countryside in South Australia and Victoria and I remember it all fondly and with the same sense of wonder.
So what happened?
  Well.. I became a teenager for one thing.  My hair suddenly went curly and boofy!  And I noticed boys.  Some noticed me which was nice, and some didn't which was devastating.  I got boobs and other curves and felt fat and weird.  It was suddenly completely and utterly embarrassing to be seen with my parents.  I stopped going with the others on our weekend walks.  I had 'better' things to do than hang out with 'the olds'.  I felt fat so I ate.. enter the shame spiral of comfort eating.
  So if I could, what would I go back in time and tell the fourteen year old me?
  Well firstly, "You are so gorgeous, don't for a minute think you are fat and unattractive, you are beautiful and the boys are going to love you (except the one you're dating now, he's a douchebag and you should dump him and definitely not date him again in three years )"  Yes, I was a bit of a slow learner with that one.
  Secondly, "Your parents are right about pretty much everything, learn to trust them.  They are two of the coolest people you will ever know in your entire life.  One day you are going to miss being able to see them every weekend so enjoy it for as long as you can.".
  Now obviously I can't go back in time, and even if I could it probably wouldn't have changed anything, after all I was a teenage, I knew everything.  Also, I'm not sure I would want to change anything.  I'm generally happy with how life has turned out for me and any little change back then would make now completely different!  So although I might wish I'd never given up bushwalking, that doesn't mean I can't start again!
  So where or when did I slow down?  I do feel that the path I went down started at around age fourteen.  There were many factors at many ages, nothing in life is ever a simple answer, but that is when I think of the first things starting to change.  Maybe that was to do with becoming an identity in my own right.  No longer just such and such's daughter, but Jess, a distinct and unique identity emerging in the universe.

  Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was a slice of toasted banana bread with yoghurt, honey, slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds.
• Morning snack was two brazil nuts, four almonds, two hazelnuts, two pecan halves and one dried peach half.
• Lunch was a Mission Wholegrain Wrap spread with a quarter of a hass avocado and a smear of Rosella Reduced-Joule Chutney then topped with around 100g of sliced turkey breast, fresh mushrooms, Lebanese cucumber and alfalfa sprouts.  I also had a bowl of eight Perino snacking tomatoes and a third of a yellow capsicum and half an unpeeled carrot both sliced into sticks.
• Afternoon snack was two homemade chocolate balls brought in by my substitute right-hand gal for Ops Man J's birthday.  They were lovely and it was very hard to resist going back for more but somehow I managed!
• Dinner was Salmon Croquettes.  I edited the recipe a little:  I made it into four salmon cakes rather than eight croquettes and I left out the two tablespoons of oil.  Instead, after I crumbed them I just sprayed them with the spray canola oil.  It worked just as well and I save myself a heap of calories.  I only cooked two of them, just 9 minutes in my AirFryer, and I put the other two into the fridge for tomorrow night's dinner.  I served them with a salad made of a goodly couple of handfuls of Coles Asian Baby Pak Choi Stir-Fry mix and a good splash of Red Kellys Sweet Chilli & Lime Dressing.
• Dessert was 20g of Lindt 85% Cocoa dark chocolate. 
• Exercise was 43 minutes on the cross trainer at load 2.  That's right, it's a new quarter in the year, so I've put it up to the next level!  Puff puff puff puff....

  I was in a more positive frame of mind today, in case you hadn't noticed.
  Jess