Jan 29 - Nikola Tesla

  When I got home from work today there was a stiff cardboard envelope in the top of my mailbox.  I pulled it out and was very excited to be greeted by the name Tesla!  You see, in August last year, I donated to a fundraising campaign called 'Let's Build a Goddamn Tesla Museum' as a result of reading a well known internet comic called The Oatmeal by Matthew Inma.  In particular, the edition of The Oatmeal entitled 'Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived'.  As a result of my donation I was to receive a perk!  An 8 x 10 glossy photo of the great man himself, and here it is!

  It took them five months to send out my perk but that's kind of understandable as the support they received for the campaign exceeding their expectations.  They had just under 33,300 donations received from 108 countries and they raised $1,370,000 towards the purchase and restoration of Wardenclyffe, Tesla's last remaining laboratory.
  Their aim had been $850,000.  The property was listed for sale $1,600,000 and on the proviso that they raised $850,000, New York State agreed to make a matching grant towards its purchase.  Well they well and truly did that and are currently negotiating the purchase.  If you're curious at all about it beyond what I've told you, you can check out www.TeslaScienceCenter.org.

  After having a little happy dance about my newly received wall adornment, I got changed for pilates and headed off to the physio.  It was a quiet night tonight which was great.  Normally there are three or four in the class but it seems that often people only come for one class to learn exercises they can do at home.  Tonight it was just me and one other lady who comes every week.
  Because it was just the two of us, Rush added in some different floor exercises, slightly more complicated than we've done before, and the session was a lot more chatty as Rush didn't need to show either of us how to do things.  It was a lot of fun and I discovered that the other lady has lost almost as much weight as me in the last seven months!  She looks great, really fit and healthy, and she has previously told me how much she values the pilates as a part of her process so that is all hugely encouraging to me.
  As my warm down exercise, I've started sitting on the gym ball without touching the ground.  I managed five minutes without overbalancing tonight!  I definitely feel that the pilates is making a difference.  My weight is still hovering between 102 - 103 kg but I have a feeling it's time to take a new set of measurements as my tummy is certainly starting to feel firmer.

  Today's food and exercise were:

• Breakfast was two and a half yellow-flesh nectarines with 90g Roaming Cow Greek style reduced fat yoghurt and slivered almonds.
• Morning snack was a blood plum and a 35g Carmen's Yoghurt Apricot & Almond muesli bar.
• Lunch was a Mission Whole Wheat mini-wrap with two slices of pepper Mortadella (76g), baby spinach and Lebanese cucumber followed by a serve of four belVita Fruit & Fibre breakfast biscuits.
• Afternoon snack was a Pink Lady apple, cored and sliced.
• Exercise was my 45 minute clinical pilates class.
• Dinner was homemade bolognese sauce with 64g (dry-weight) pasta.
• Dessert was 25g Yarra Valley Chocolaterie sugar free dark chocolate.

  A few weeks ago, the Masterchefs visited the Yarra Valley for a day trip and on that visit they enjoyed the delights of the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery.  Knowing that Mr Smart no longer consumes sugary treats, they bought him a block of sugar free dark chocolate to try.  Alas for him, Mr Smart is an all or nothing kind of guy when it comes to food restrictions and he felt that the taste of chocolate, sugar free or not, might lead to too much temptation.  His loss was my gain.  It's quite a nice sugar free chocolate.  Very smooth with a nice flavour that is ever so slightly reminiscent of compound cooking chocolate but in a good way.  I really enjoyed it and I have three serves still to go!
Big thanks to the Masterchefs!
  Jess