HEALTH

Pictures of People Running

2010-10-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

To obtain an ideally healthy life style you should engage in exercising. Exercising on a regular basis can help you maintain a healthy weight and simply help you feel and look better than ever. It has been proven that exercising can add a couple of years to your life, make you be happier, and laugh more because exercise alleviates stress and anxiety.

Why Run?

Running is a awesome aerobic exercise which is great for improving cardiovascular health. Another reason running is good is because it is a great way to burn calories and to control your weight. People who run a lot can develop slender, sleek, tone bodies that everyone desires male or female. If your involved in other activities running will help build stamina and aerobic fitness benefiting you in your activity.

Running is a perfect exercise of choice for any healthy person because almost everyone can do it. Running involves no special skills, and it is dependent on no one else but yourself. If you have will power and determination that drives you to seek the benefits of running you will succeed in getting in shape as a runner. Running is the cheapest most convenient form of exercise because it can be carried out anywhere, anytime all you need is a good pair of running shoes, and some comfortable exercise cloths.

As you become a runner you will begin to improve your fitness physically and start to have more pride in yourself. Running will teach you to appreciate your body and diet. You will start to surprise yourself with what your capable of doing, and your self reliance, and self commitment will begin to increase greatly.

Benefits of Running

Weight Loss
Circulatory and Heart Health
Muscle and Bone Strength
Strengthens Immune System
Reduces chance for certain diseases
Slows Down Aging
Self Esteem Booster
Sleep Better

Outdoors

Running outdoors costs nothing and it is a great way to enjoy nature. Whether your running along the streets, in your neighborhood, in a park, on the trails, or cross country you will enjoy the relaxation of being outdoors. Outdoor running can be very calming and soothing meditative experience.

Indoors

Running cannot only be done outside but it can be accomplished indoors on treadmills. Treadmills simulate running with a low impact aerobic workout. Treadmills can be used anytime of the year no matter what the weather is like outside. Purchasing a treadmill is a must if your planning on becoming a serious runner because they will keep you in shape and healthy in the cold winter months. Treadmills are relatively inexpensive compared to gym costs and they will last many years.

The word aerobic means (with oxygen). Aerobic exercises refer to physical workouts that require oxygen to be delivered to the muscles over an extended period of time. Aerobic exercises require sustained exercise over a period of time, rather than short bursts of effort. Aerobic training is also often referred to as (Cardio) exercise because it helps to strengthen the cardiovascular heart and respiratory systems. Aerobic activities include:

Walking
Jogging
Swimming
Jump Rope
Roller Blading
Rowing
And most general sports.

Fitness Camps & Exercise Vacations

2010-10-23T02:15:00.001-07:00

ravel the world, stay fit, give back to the environment
and the community. You'll discover yourself along the way.

Fitness Wallpaper

2010-10-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

Fitness Running Aerobics

2010-10-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

Rheumatic Heart Diseases

2010-09-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

What is arthritic affection disease?

Rheumatic affection ache is a action in which abiding accident to affection valves is acquired by arthritic fever. The affection valve is damaged by a ache action that about begins with a strep throat acquired by streptococcus blazon A bacteria.

The furnishings of arthritic fever:

o Arthritic agitation is an anarchic ache process, be able of affect a lot of affiliation tissues, decidedly in the heart, joints, skin, and brain.

o It can action at any age, but usually occurs in accouchement bristles to 15 years old.

o It causes affection accident - mainly scarring in the affection valves and banishment the affection to assignment afflict to force claret and ability assuredly aftereffect to congestive affection failure.

What are the affection of arthritic fever?

The afterward are the mainly accustomed affection for antecedent arthritic fever; though, every being ability acquaintance affection in a altered way. Symptoms, which alter significantly, artlessly alpha one up to six weeks afterward abbreviate aeon medications of strep throat, although, in some cases, the infection may accept been too balmy to accept been recognized.

Symptoms may include:

o fever

o swollen, tender, red and acutely astute affliction in joints mainly the knee, ankle, elbow, and wrists

o nodules over bloated joints

o amoral movements of arms, legs, or facial muscles

o weakness and conciseness of breath

The assurance and affection of arthritic agitation may be agnate to added cartilage disorders and medical problems.

Treatment for arthritic affection disease:

Specific analysis for arthritic affection ache will be bent by your physician based on:

o your all-embracing bloom and medical history

o amount of the disease

o your accepting for accurate medications, procedures se up, and several therapies

o angle for the advance of the disease

o your appearance and preference

Since arthritic agitation is the account of arthritic affection disease, the best analysis is to anticipate arthritic agitation from occurring. Penicillin and added antibiotics can about affliction for a streptococcus classified as blazon A bacterial infection and abandon astute agitation from mounting.

In the past, bodies who got arthritic agitation were frequently accustomed ceaseless every day and every ages antibacterial medications, apparently for life, to anticipate approaching attacks and lower the accident of affection damage. Antibacterial analysis has acutely bargain the accident and bloodshed rate. To abatement inflammation, aspirin, steroids, and non-steroidal drugs may be given. Surgical action may be capital to adjustment and alter the damaged valve.

Complications Arthritic affection disease:

The account of complications that accept been mentioned in assorted sources for Arthritic affection ache includes:

o Endocarditic is deepening of the close lining of the heart.

o Bacterial endocarditic is the infection and deepening of the close layers of the heart, best frequently the valves account by bacteria.

o Affection abortion a affection classified by myocardial malfunction, affection abortion can advance to amiss pump achievement bargain cardiac achievement and to aboveboard affection abortion and aberrant circulatory congestion. Bottleneck of systemic venous breeze may end up in borderline edema and hepatomegaly; bottleneck of pulmonary apportionment may account pulmonary edema, an acute, life-threatening emergency.

Quick Healthy Meals

2010-09-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

As a kid, this was one of my favorites. It was anesthetized bottomward from my grandmother to my mother. It is one of those commons that we ate regularly. I accept activated some "raw" vegan attempt to it and it is now one of my actual admired commons in a compression and on a dime.

For the "raw" part, I am application raw as a appellation for authentic (not uncooked). The amber rice pasta does not accommodate abrade or added additives. It is authentic bean arena amber rice pasta and baptize - annihilation more. You can alike get amoebic or appearance versions. It comes in all of the aforementioned pasta shapes we apperceive and love. It is additionally vegan as it does not accommodate eggs as some added pastas do. If you are gluten intolerant, accept egg allergies or are a vegan, it is a abundant choice. It tastes abundant and does not leave you activity as bulked up and abounding as approved pasta.

As for the vegan elements, there are no beastly articles whatsoever in this recipe. Broccoli is a comestible affluent food. Although some may eat it raw exclusively, it does charge slight affable in adjustment to breach bottomward some of the enzymes to accomplish the nutrients added accessible and easier to digest.

It is a able blight fighter. I eat it generally and use it to accomplish vegetable juices at home. As for the best of olive oil in the recipe, olive oil is a heart-healthy oil. It is aerial in monounsaturated fat which is one of the acceptable fats that is so important for our health.

Garlic has able antioxidant backdrop and should be a approved allotment of everyone's diet.

What you need:

One 16 oz amalgamation of amber rice pasta - spaghetti, penne or whatever your admired type.

1-2 beginning broccoli active (organic if possible) - I add added broccoli to accomplish it a little bulkier.

4-6 cloves of garlic - depending on how garlicky you like things (I adopt more)

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

In a ample pot, adapt the pasta water. Add some olive oil and alkali and pepper to division the water. Bring it to a active abscess and add the amber rice pasta. Amber rice pasta takes a bit best to baker than approved pasta. It is difficult to overcook it, but it should be afflicted generally to ensure that it doesn't stick together.

It is a acceptable convenance to adapt the broccoli as the pasta is cooking. To start, cut up the broccoli. Take the stalks off by acid the active area they branch. If you accomplish vegetable abstract at home, use the stalks in your vegetable juice. You can additionally chop them and use them in soups. Or, aloof discard. Bathe well.

Use a wok to baker the broccoli. First add the olive oil and let it calefaction slightly. Chop or drove the garlic and add it to the oil. Add 1/2 cup of baptize and the broccoli. The baptize will actualize a little bit of steam.

Cover and baker the broccoli for about 7 minutes. Stir it occasionally. Don't let the broccoli get mushy. It should be a bit close back done.

When the pasta is accomplished cooking, cesspool it and bathe it. Move it to a big basin so you can complete the bowl by abacus the broccoli. Pour the broccoli, garlic and oil over the pasta and mix well.

Add alkali and pepper to aftertaste and a little bit added olive oil.

Serve the pasta and broccoli with a big blooming salad.

Treat Diabetes Naturally

2010-09-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

We usually see adipose and old bodies adversity from Diabetes. It's a accepted bloom ataxia amid them but if we don't booty some basic measures in the appropriate time, it can be fatal. It is acquired due to aberancy in one's claret glucose levels. According to the American Diabetes Association, about 21 actor bodies in United States accept diabetes while a whopping 90-95 percent citizenry suffers from blazon 2 diabetes. There are assertive tips which can comedy an capital role to amusement it naturally.

Type 1, Blazon 2 and GDM are the three above kinds of diabetes. Blazon 1 is the best astringent anatomy area your beef in the pancreas that aftermath insulin get destroyed by its own allowed system. Bodies adversity from blazon 1 should booty Insulin injections or implant insulin pumps in adjustment to anticipate themselves from this disease. While the third one is GDM is not so common. In this form, the anatomy develops a complete bent for carbohydrates. Especially abundant women are added decumbent to this category.

Here we will altercate about the best accepted anatomy of blazon 2 diabetes, and there are assertive able tips to amusement it naturally.

Home Remedies for Blazon 2 Diabetes

Limiting the Assimilation of Sugar: The aboriginal footfall to abstain them is attached your amoroso assimilation and bistro advantageous diet. Complex carbohydrates or simple sugars are acutely adverse and should be abhorred to ascendancy the ailment. Bistro fruits, vegetables that are affluent in fiber, and bubbler at atomic 8-10 glasses of baptize circadian will advice your anatomy to ascendancy amoroso akin everyday.

Exercise: Regular contest like running; walking and pond can accumulate you abroad from this ailment and aftermath added insulin in your body.This admeasurement will absolutely advice to amusement diabetes naturally.

Herbal Medicines: You can booty herbal medicines to anticipate yourself from adverse furnishings of blazon 2 diabetes. They can amusement artlessly after any ancillary effects.

Healthy Camping Breakfast

2010-08-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

What is a advantageous camping breakfast, after egg in it?

Breakfast camping recipes can be calmly moulded to clothing your specifications, be it a adorned amusement for your accomplished ancestors and the added band with you, or a simple sandwich that you can accept for breakfast, that does not alike crave any affable or in actuality an egg broil fabricated in a Dutch oven which can answer for six bodies or more.

Eggs are a admired amusement in the morning for anybody and there are absolutely a few breakfast camping recipes in which eggs are the capital ingredients. Eggs are abundant activity providers and abacus them in your breakfast ensures that it will sustain your activity and backbone throughout the day that you absorb outdoors. Since one can calmly accomplish any bowl application the cardinal of eggs, according to the cardinal of bodies present, and do not accept to chase a anchored recipe, breakfast camping recipes involving use of egg are the best best for a camping trip.

In fact, the afterward are some pointers to ensure you add that added blow to your breakfast egg dishes.

- While whipping up the eggs, if you add a little milk or baptize to them, your eggs will about-face out added bendable and fluffy.

- If you aloof let your eggs be, while authoritative accolade eggs, and do not activity continuously, affairs are that the eggs will get burnt. So accumulate stirring! In case you are aggravating to use a Dutch oven in adjustment to accomplish a bowl of egg, the cheers of the egg ability get burnt if you do not accumulate a abutting eye of the temperature of the oven. If you pay absorption to these baby details, your breakfast will about-face out to be a ambrosial meal.

- To add both diet and added aftertaste to your egg dishes try and agreement by application your admired capacity like vegetables, including mushrooms or alarm peppers.

- If you appetite to save yourself the agitation and the time for alertness of breakfast at the bivouac or do not appetite to tug about with you, added affable equipment; the best abstraction is to whip the eggs at home itself and backpack them to the bivouac in a container.

You can acquisition some abundant breakfast camping recipes, which additionally accommodate egg breakfast dishes, if you chase on the Internet. Having a abrupt abstraction about the assorted possibilities of dishes that can be fabricated at camps would accredit you to abruptness anybody with your comestible skills.

Also, you will be able to backpack the actual capacity and will be absolutely armed and able to baker up a adorable breakfast in the amount of a few minutes. In actuality if you are one of those campers, who adopt to biking light, and not backpack beefy affable equipment, but still crave for a balmy meal, there is achievement for you yet. For instance, we are abiding that the anticipation of a hot bagel for breakfast would accept you salivating.

To adapt that admirable treat, all you accept to do is add some cafeteria meat, like smoked turkey to your bagel and top it up with cheese. Aloof balmy up this adorable brew in aluminium antithesis and abode is captivated bagel about abreast the campfire. In no time at all, you will accept a balmy sandwich complete with broiled cheese. Breakfast camping recipes like these are what transform your breakfast from alone appetizing to lip smacking adorable meals.

Allergy Treatment Experiences

2010-08-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Many bodies are afflicted with some blazon of abhorrence to all sorts of things, such as ecology allergens, odors, fumes, food, and cigarette smoke aloof to name a few. If affection become afflictive and appear on a accepted basis, again abhorrence analysis and testing may be in order. With aliment allergies and baby children, the action of abolishment is the best way to actuate which aliment is causing the allergic reaction. Abhorrence testing methods such as bark testing and claret testing are effective, but some bodies may acknowledge bigger to one than the other. Aliment allergies for instance appearance up bigger on claret testing, but if you apperceive you're allergic to a assertive food, wouldn't you aloof not eat it?

Environmental allergies are a little trickier. Consider all the accessible triggers; weeds, trees, pollens, grasses, dust, dust mites, molds, pet dander, actinic fumes, and cigarette smoke are all accepted offenders. Bark abhorrence testing is the best adjustment to use for analysis of these types of allergies if astringent abundant to accreditation this approach. Abhorrence analysis can again be assigned based on the akin of acknowledgment to assertive irritants. Not anybody with allergies has to seek advice from a specialist. There are absolutely a few over-the-counter medications that are actual able in alleviative symptoms, but if this doesn't work, again a able should be consulted. Many times allergies are present with added altitude such as eczema and asthma, and should be evaluated in affiliation to abhorrence analysis back they all go duke in hand. By alleviative allergies, accompanying altitude will boldness themselves or abate decidedly as abhorrence analysis progresses.

and ACTION!!

2010-07-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well, can't believe I'm posting this but here it is.... my first video blog! I feel so silly ;)

When The Going Gets Tough…

2010-07-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

I am just staying focused on what I want to accomplish. That is my plan for the next several weeks because the Doctor is fairly confident that I have Mono. Big BOO to that. I went for blood work this morning to make sure though. Apparently I will be exhausted / sore throat /nauseous for the next few weeks and it takes months to recover. Activity will be minimal due to this. I’m seriously hoping I don’t have Mono and that is some type of weird bug that clears up over the next few days. Not counting on it though.

So, this is the time that I need to toughen up and follow my plan extremely closely because I won’t be exercising intensely. Sticking to the calories is an absolute must. I’m not going to get all pity party-ish on myself like I did when I had the surgery on my arm. Nope, I’m strong and able to work with whatever I’m dealt! :) How’s that for motivating?!

Since I’m stuck at home, blogging and tracking will be easy. And I have 9.5 more seasons of Friends to watch too. We’ve backed out of the camping trip that I was SOOO looking forward to, and I plan to rest over the next few days to see how I feel Monday. (In regards to going to work.)

My eating hasn’t been too bad, in fact this morning I am my lowest weight ever, go figure. *rolls eyes* Probably due to the fact that I’m existing on a mostly liquid diet due to how swollen my throat is.

So I got up this morning around 5am and made a yummy smoothie with some of the strawberries that I picked last weekend. This situation has pretty much taken away my whole appetite so I ended up splitting the smoothie with J.

My cup had:

1/2 organic banana
1/2c strawberries
1c organic spinach
25g Liberte Coconut Yogourt
1/2 tbsp ground flax seed
1/4c 1% milk
1/4c water

I dropped J off for work and headed over to the dreaded hospital for my blood work. I waited about an hour which was to be expected. On the way home I ran a few errands – Shoppers, Gas etc. Grabbed a medium tea to help soothe my throat.

Then stopped in to work to get some mandatory things done. My boss is awesome and was totally understanding about the whole situation. He has a great sense of humor too…hence this notice on my office door. Made my laugh when I was feeling pretty crappy. :)

Superstore was my last stop before heading home, and it was to stock up on liquid diet items and a few magazines:

For lunch I had half a can of Reduced Sodium Home Style Chicken Noodle Soup (I think homestyle means they had a few measly carrots to the can, lol) with a side of soda crackers, cup of OJ and a cottage cheese cup.

So I’m off for some sleep now.

Back to Regular Scheduled Programming…

2010-06-19T00:48:00.000-07:00

We won’t be discussing yesterday's eats as they were convenient and unhealthy. I’m focusing on today instead! Started off the morning right with a Veggie Egg Scramble.

The scramble was a mix of 1 egg, 1 egg white, shredded smoked gouda, yellow green bell peppers, onions, tomatoes & mushrooms. Mmm was perfect with a chewy Ezekiel English Muffin.

The rest of my day is going to be clean and healthy. Booty Camp tonight!! Yah excited to get some exercise as its been a few days. I have to find some time to fit in Amy’s Challenge & Workout Wednesday too, most likely it will be Saturday evening or Sunday morning as I have camp tonight, Yuk Yuks tomorrow night and berry picking Saturday. Going to be a busy few days!
Hope everyone is well, I have to catch up on your blogs later on today.

Amy’s 15 Week Challenge – I’m READY!!

2010-06-08T22:44:00.000-07:00

So today is the first official day of Amy’s 15 Week Challenge and boy am I ever ready to rock it!

In a nutshell, here is my plan:

Start Weight: 194 lbs

Weigh In Day: Saturday morning

Challenge Goal: To lose 15 lbs, bringing my weight to 179 lbs. A one pound per week lose is easily attainable as long as I eat within my 1500 calories/day and maintain my exercise routine.

Reward: A challenge wouldn’t be very fun without a prize now would it?! I’m thinking an item or two from Lulu would be a fantastic reward!
I’m SO excited to kick butt and lose more weight. This is a perfect way to stay focused on my health and work towards achieving my goals this Summer!! Thanks again Amy!

As part of the challenge I’m also looking forward to participating in the “Workout Wednesdays” session and the Weekly Challenge! This week’s challenge is to recreate one of my favourite sinful recipes to make it figure friendly. So, this coming Friday, I will be re-vamping a yummy Date Square recipe. Mmm, I LOVE these babies and have a few ideas for making them healthier!

On to my eats:
I ramped up for the day with this yummy Green Monster! I love to have these things when I’m not feeling anything heavy/carby. They are perfect because they actually do hold you over for several hours.

This morning’s Monster Mix was a combo of Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze, 3 cup organic baby spinach, 5 strawberries, 1/2 tbsp organic peanut butter, 1 very small frozen organic banana and 1/4 scoop of chocolate whey protein powder.

I packed pineapple for our lunches and munched on the last few pieces straight from the bowl. This was one of the best pineapples that I ever bought, so juicy and sweet!

I did have a coffee when I got to work but it’s so boring taking the same pic every day so I opted not to. Mid-morning I snacked on the chocolatey On The Glo bar. Mmm delicious!

For lunch I had a piece of the left over quiche. Note to self: freezing & re-heating quiche leaves it feeling like rubber. :( Still good but the texture was ewwy.

A simple salad on the side – baby spinach, cucumber, radish, mushrooms & red peppers. Drizzled with french dressing.

Pineapple & stewed rhubarb for dessert. Fun fact: Did you know that rhubarb is actually a vegetable? I was goggling it’s health benefits and read several different articles stating that most people (myself included) assume rhubarb is a fruit when it’s actually a veggie. Weird huh?! :)

Later on this afternoon indulged in this yummy bite of dark chocolate compliments of the Farmers Market.

I got home and was excited to finally be able to try a recipe from the new Clean Eating Magazine! On the menu - Balsamic-Marinated Pork Chops & Grilled Peaches. I only made a few tiny modifications to the recipe, 1) I halved it because I only took out 2 pieces of pork 2) I used a nectarine instead of a peach and 3) I added onions to the pan to caramelize.

Fancy Smancy!

Was really tasty, even J agreed! He’s been getting some pretty awesome meals lately if I do say so myself. ;)

Served with a side of vegetable fusilli mixed with pesto & shredded cheese.

And of course, my latest obsession – Beet Greens!! These are the epitome of Summer in my mind. Growing up we always used to have them with BBQ steak & corn on the cob. I’m all out already, going to have to hit up the Farmers Market again soon.

Dessert was a lovely froyo waffle cone.

That’s all I got for ya tonight. Off to catch up on a few blogs and relax with J.

Half Marathon Training Starts Today!!!!!!!!

2010-06-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

Weeeeeeeeeeee! So excited to officially start training for my first half marathon tonight! It’s going to be a hilly 3K so I can work up a good sweat in the short time I’m out.

This post is going to be a little bit of this and that because I have a few things that I want to say!

[Edit]
Amy is thinking of running a 15 Week Challenge and she wants to know who’s in! She’s got some incredible sponsors lined up, so head over to her blog today and let her know you’re interested!! I’m definitely in!!

Also, take a moment to check out Angela’s video “Goodbye To The Obsession.” It is really thought-provoking and gave me goosebumps.

- I’ve been mentally making a list of all the foods/recipes that I want to make over the next few weeks, this includes black bean burgers, french toast (haha thanks Vanessa) and some form of raw granola bar. Making a list of the ingredients tonight and will pick them up when I’m at Planet Organic tomorrow night! J even said he would try the black bean burgers so it got me all excited to make them!

- Sometimes I think about becoming a vegetarian. There are days where I don’t have any meat and don’t miss it at all. Then there are times that I think I could devour 20oz steak. But really, I don’t think it would be that much of an effort for me to not eat meat. All you vegetarians out there, what has been your biggest struggle? Do you feel deprived?

- I went back through my older blog posts and I can’t believe how depressed/unmotivated I sounded in a lot of my writing this past year. I want to thank all those who kept commenting, even through my rough times. Your support means so much to me. ♥ I know that I stopped commenting on many blogs too and I’m going to make an effort to do better in this area. Just seems right! Getting back into blogging/commenting really seems to be helping with the motivation too.

- Anyone else watch the show True Blood? As I mentioned in my Video Blog last night, I’m totally addicted! I’ve got 2 episodes left of the first season.

- I’m feeling so freaking happy lately it’s almost sick!! :)

On to my eats. Last night I left off trying to figure out what to have for Supper. Decided to be lazy and got J to pick up a pizza. We split a medium, thin crust – mine loaded with all veggies – green peppers, onions, tomatoes and olives. Mmm mmm! I love the fact that this pizza has literally no grease and I don’t feel nasty after eating it.

This morning I woke up and knew immediately that I wanted oats. Into the pot went organic oats, ground flax seed, vanilla almond breeze a chopped banana.

Topped my bowl with some more chopped banana, sliced almonds, a few craisins, mini chocolate chips & a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter.

For my morning snack seems that I’ve been rotating between those lovely cosmic cookies and larabars. Well today was no different and I had a Coconut Cream Pie bar.

Fantastic!

Unfortunately, my lunches are usually always the same for one week because I make a pot of something on the weekend to eat all week. It may seem boring but it saves SOOOO much time and I know that it’s healthy. So again, chicken veggie alfredo with cucumber.

I munched some a few Kashi Honey Sesame crackers and an apple for my afternoon snack.

I got home from work and put the living room back together. We’ve been sleeping out here all week while the paint dried/fumes left the bedroom. I haven’t slept well at all and will be glad to be back where I belong!

So…Supper tonight was for three! My Dad is away so my Mom stopped in for a quick visit and a bite to eat. I was still in a pork kabob frame of mind so I took all the ingredients and made “kabob-less pork!” :)

Aren’t all the colors just gorgeous?!

This was a mixture of green, red & yellow peppers, red onion and diced pork with all kinds of seasonings.

Served with a side of olive oil garlic couscous.

I’m off to get ready for my run.

Night!!

Lobster Fest!!

2010-05-31T22:49:00.000-07:00

Can’t believe it’s 8pm already, where did my evening go? Today was one of those Mondays, you know an in need-of-coffee-every-few-hours type Monday. The weekend tired me out completely. I’m old and need my rest. Where has my youth gone? ;)

I’m really looking forward to tomorrow though… first night of boot camp! WoooooooWhooooo! I got some serious lunch packing/house organizing done after work today and just need to get my workout gear together. There are so many of us registered too. It’s gonna be an absolute blast and I can’t thank Booty Camp Fitness enough for providing me with this awesome opportunity!!

Overall my day was fairy decent. This morning I warmed a piece of whole grain baguette in the microwave and topped with peanut butter for a yummy breaky. As well, had half an organic banana on the side.

Got in to work and sipped my coffee while reading the news.

Mid-morning I had another wonderful “On The Glo” bar. These are SO good, I will be making them again! Just look at all that healthy goodness!

Lunch time is where my post title finally comes into effect. I’m a pretty lucky gal because I was given some fresh lobster yesterday! :) Mmm, I LOVE lobster! I just couldn’t resist making a sandwich for my lunch today. Was simply lobster meat mixed with a bit of Hellman’s mayo and baby spinach, wrapped in a Ezekiel tortilla. Mmm!!!

Side of cucumber as usual.

I had brought a container of those organic strawberries for dessert. (You’ll recall I bought that at the end of last week.) Well turns out they were moldy. I was pretty annoyed, obviously organic produce doesn’t last as long as the chemically treated. Boo. Oh well, I’m going to have a freezer full of fresh Nova Scotia berries soon enough! ;)

I ate my afternoon snack with lunch instead. My fav Strawberry Liberte yogurt.

After work I munched on the rest of the Nacho Skinny Chips while I got my cooking plans all sorted.

I got right to it and made a huge pot of spicy sausage penne for our lunches this week. Supper was more lobster, curried potato salad and a spinach/strawberry salad. Felt like a special meal for some reason.

The potato salad was simply a mix of chopped, boiled potatoes, one egg, green onions & PC Curry Mayo, sprinkled with a bit of paprika. Easy peasy. ;)

Unfortunately this pic came out blurry. It was just a mix of baby spinach, the few remaining strawberries that weren’t moldy, red onion, sliced almonds and Calorie-Wise Poppy Seed dressing.

So my eats were pretty decent. Approx 1600 calories. No real exercise other than my stroll home, body needs a break.

I’m off to get the rest of my list done before bed. :)

Pfft…

2010-05-28T04:11:00.000-07:00

Well I spent half an hour this morning writing a post and when I went to upload it, Windows Live Writer or Blogger got some type of error and it erased my whole post. :(

Let’s see… I got out for my 8K run as planned last night. It was the perfect evening for it – sun setting with a cool breeze. My route took me all around the lake, I never think too much about where I live but it really is beautiful. Polar tells me that I burnt 695 calories, this includes the cool down walk. Not bad for such an enjoyable time!

My eats for today were pretty routine. I woke up hungry but craving protein, so I made an egg on Ezekiel toast. Mmm so good with the baby spinach, shredded cheese tomatoes.

Also had the last of the cherries. Yup, when did I get that huge bag? The weekend?! And I’m the only one that eats them in the house. Opps!

Mid-morning I took a break and had a yummy treat – a Cosmic Cookie. If you haven’t made these yet, pick up the ingredients! They are packed full of healthy ingredients and taste amazing!!

My lunch was fairly identical to yesterday. The chicken, veggie alfredo dish a side of cucumber.

Dessert was some Liberte Svelte Vanilla yogurt.

After enjoying a lovely walk home in the sun, some ice cream was in order! 1/2 cup of chocolate chip cookie dough in a waffle cone. Delicious!

It is a gorgeous night out so I’m going to try and convince J to go for a walk. Wish me luck!

Week 1 Results – Amy’s Challenge

2010-05-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

I will take it! The scale is going down and that’s all that matters. The first week of Amy’s Challenge was really enjoyable, I LOVED the work out and enjoyed re-vamping my recipe!! It’s pretty easy to stay on track when I’m having fun doing it. :)

My Homemade Cheese Sauce Recipe is here for those interested.

This morning I actually slept in until almost 8:45am! Well I got up around 5:30 am for a bit but then I feel back asleep. This NEVER happens to me, so I feel pretty rested! Unfortunately I missed my early Saturday morning run, but will try and get it in later this afternoon. We do have some errands to run with friends – involving one of my favourite activities – Shoe Shopping, specifically buying her wedding shoes!!! And I’m also going to try and stop by Telus and see about getting a Black Berry.

Quickly put a pot of oats on the stove this morning while we tided the house. This turned out to be terrific batch!

My bowl had 1/2 c Unsweetened Almond Breeze, 1/2 chopped organic banana, 1/2 tbsp ground flax, 1 tbsp organic peanut butter, sliced almonds, mini chocolate chips & shredded unsweetened coconut. Was very coconutty, Yummy!!

I didn’t get a chance to post last night’s Supper so…

We had the fresh sausages and homemade buns that we picked up at the Farmers Market last weekend. The sausage we SO GOOD – spicy and flavourful. They were like the Liberte Yogort, once you have them you can’t go back to others! Plus they were organic and made from grass feed/hormone free pork AND low sodium. It just can’t get any better. I’m going to pick up more tomorrow.

Topped the bun with fresh onions, baby spinach & a squeeze of mustard.

Made a huge side salad to go with the sausages. The last of the fresh spinach strawberries, feta and sliced almonds. Drizzled with Poppyseed dressing.

Check out Angie Booty Camp Give Away!!

2010-05-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

Our gal Angie has the awesome opportunity to participate in AND give away a 4 week session of boot camp from Booty Camp Fitness!!!

Check out this post for all the details on how to enter.

Strawberry Fields Forever….

2010-05-23T22:54:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day for a trip to the valley; gorgeous skies and bright, warm sunshine! Lesley, her little guy, Angie I, plus a couple of Lesley’s other friends all met up to go berry picking at her family’s farm – Webster’s Farm. This is how all Summer days should be – having fun and getting out with good friends. BIG HUGE THANKS to Lesley for taking us all over the valley and making it such a great day. :)

This post is going to be long, loads of fun pics though!

I hopped into the car early this morning with Breakfast to go, which was another one of the fresh whole grain rolls smeared with peanut butter and a side of fresh blueberries.

Made it out a Lesley’s and we were soon off for our adventure.

Canadians Rock!

2010-05-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians!! I am so proud and lucky to be a citizen of this wonderful country!

I actually ended up working today and have Friday off, so my day wasn’t too exciting. In fact, the most thrilling part of my day was when I got home and did my first session of Amy’s Workout Wednesday series. It was a great 12 minute mini work out for sure!! Lots of the same moves from Booty Camp. Damn bicycle crunches get me every time! ;)

It’s pretty grey and bleak out here; AKA great running weather. Plans to head out in a few for a 4K.

Getting into the food… Breaky was cold cereal. A mix of PC Organics 7 Reasons cereal and Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins. Too bad the Puffins were a tad on the stale side.

Topped with some delicious fresh strawberries.

I headed over to work and was pretty busy all morning. Luckily not many people knew we were in, so not a lot of phones ringing!! Gotta love that! I took a break mid-morning to snack on a Cosmic Cookie.

For lunch I had the last of the crust less quiche. Again, was tasty but the texture was just nasty – rubber-like.

Along with that I also had a salad – just a simple mix of baby spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, a sprinkle of feta and a few croutons.

I munched on last of the organic cherries while reading a few more chapters of My Sisters Keeper. This book is awesome, I’m almost done and only got it yesterday. I’m predicting the movie just won’t be as good.

I couldn’t keep away from my desk drawer for too long…Mmmm chocolate.

Decided to have some total comfort food for Supper. Homemade Mac & Cheese with a huge side of broccoli! Was fantastic and great pre-run fuel – lots of complex carbs, fibre and protein.

One serving of whole wheat elbow macaroni covered in home made cheese sauce.

I’m also pleased to announce that even though we had a fridge full of fresh greens/veggies, none of them are going to waste. We almost need to stock up again!

So going for a run and then hoping to finish my book. Tomorrow will be a busy day because I have work and a car appointment. Hopefully I make it in time for Booty Camp.

Happy Monday!

2010-05-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

Seriously, who’s happy on Monday? Strangely ME! Today was fantastic; tons of stuff accomplished at work making the day just breeze by. LOVE it when that happens. FYI – Today’s post is going to be a little bit of everything.

We started planning our camping trip this past weekend. Going two weekends from now to beautiful Dollar Lake with another couple. We’re staying 3 nights and I’m pretty excited. The lake is AWESOME for swimming and apparently there are some hiking trails that I’m SOO checking out! Hehehe. I’m trying to plan my meals/cooking arrangements etc. Need to eat healthy even when on Vacay! :) Going to bring lots of pre-cut fruits & veggies, instant oatmeal for breaky. Definitely plan to have a ‘smore or two though!

I’ve got a little situation and would love your feedback:

I started training for my first 10K just after Christmas. I finally did it and then made plans to train for a Half Marathon. However, since running the 10K, I haven’t really felt “into it". I still managed to get 2-3 smaller runs/week but no big urge for the usual Sunday LSD. Boot camp has been really fun (and a great work out!), but I feel guilty for not sticking to my half schedule. Maybe I’m just bored of running and need a break. Anyone else every been in this type of slump? Thoughts/ideas?

My food for the day was pretty yummy. For breaky, I had a mix of Liberte Mediterranee Vanilla Yogurt, Kashi Crunch fresh strawberries.

I picked up the yogurt this past weekend and was happy to discover that it now comes in 750 ml containers instead 500 ml. Mmm divine!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is simply nothing better than a steamy cup of coffee on a Monday morning! ;)

I finally got to snack on one of those Rhubarb Cupcake/Muffins. They were good and tasted healthy. (I did use whole wheat flour and added flax to the mix.)

For lunch I had the cheesy chicken orzo dish and a side of salad.

Feeling More Like Me

2010-05-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

I’m happy to announce that I was able to stay the full day at work without collapsing from exhaustion! It was great. I am rather tired now but that’s why I have a laptop - so I can browse from my comfy bed. ;)

So, much to my utter disapointment it looks like Jillian has left her radio show for the time being. :( I was so bummed when I went to download her latest podcast this morning and this is what I found:

”Hey Listeners
Hope you are having a fabulous summer! I'm going to be taking a break from radio, but I'll still be out there...connecting with you in other ways. Keep in touch with me at jillianmichaels.com. Thank you as always for your commitment to yourself and your health. Until then, stay true to who you are.
Jillian”

NOOOO!! Listening to her podcasts were one of my fav ways to walk home. As soon as I saw this I headed to her message board, and one of the admins stated that she was only temporarily leaving the show. I’ll believe it when I see it. *Crosses Fingers* Luckily, I have 2 years worth of her podcasts already saved on my PC and was able to go back on MediaFly.com and download all the way back to September of 2006 too. These things are so awesome guys, just full of all kinds of information on health, fitness and wellness.

On to Breaky, I had a lovely smoothie this morning.

My glass had:

1c almond breeze
1/2c strawberries
1/2 organic banana
1/4c organic raspberries
1/4c organic blueberries
1c organic spinach
1/2 tbsp flax seed
1/2 tsp chia seed

Also munched on a 1/2 cup of the newest Kashi Cereal to hit Canada, Organic Cinnamon Harvest. Was awesome, I can’t wait to have a big bowl tomorrow!

This combo held me over quite nicely, from about 530am all the way til after 11am. Love it when this happens. I broke for a light snack, enjoyed a peanut butter oat cake.

Lunch was some of the frozen spaghetti & meat/veggie sauce. Nothing special, but it did the trick.

Some strawberry cottage cheese for dessert. This is President’s Choice brand – pretty tasty and lower in sodium than most cottage cheeses.

Mid-afternoon I snacked on the last organic nectarine. So juicy. Mmm!!

I’m definitely saving the best for last, because Supper tonight was AWESOME!!!! Spicy Black Bean Burritos. I combined this recipe this recipe to make the ultimate burrito!!

These were jalapeno tortillas stuffed with any amazing mix of organic black beans, red peppers, jalapeno, onions, garlic, fresh cilantro, light cream cheese, baby spinach, cumin, coriander, chilli pepper red pepper flakes. Topped with a bit of old cheddar, diced tomatoes and chipotle salsa.

So that was my day. No exercise but I’m cool with it!
Nite!

Farmers Market Adventures

2010-05-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I’ve heard rumours of a Farmers Market in Musquodoboit Harbour. The communities along the Eastern Shore seem to be finally getting on the local/organic bandwagon which makes me SO happy! Of course, I just had to check it out and promptly got J out of bed at 730am this morning to do just that! ;)

It’s about a 10 minute drive to “The Harbour.” (As we say around here.) I didn’t have anything to eat before we left so I rummaged around in my purse for a quick bite… I always seem to have a Larabar when in need! Shared with with hubby.

Made a quick stop at Dobbit Bake House for a cup of my fav Just Us dark roast. Mmm, totally hit the spot!

I felt very summery today in my cute dress and new sandals. Too bad the weather the weather was pretty grey.

I have to admit I was pretty excited to see what my community had to offer and they did NOT disappoint!

I snagged tons of fresh produce including spinach, red swiss chard, beet greens, radish & rhubarb! Mmm, I tried to pick up beet greens earlier in the week but they were all out when I got to the store. Can’t wait to have them for supper tonight!

Reno Day!

2010-05-14T02:25:00.000-07:00

The master bedroom is ALMOST done!!! Yah, we finally got the oak flooring put in and it looks great with the paint color that I chose for the walls! The only thing we have left to do is the moulding and that will be done (hopefully) next weekend! (These pics aren’t the best b/c the lighting is weird in our room but you’ll get the idea.)

Before:
Plain white walls with beige carpet.

After:
Sage coloured walls with oak flooring! I must say, I’m pretty impressed with how much these 2 changes update the look of the room. Can’t wait to get started on the rest of the house!!

My parents were over to help us with the flooring so I made us home made pizzas for lunch. Used a basic dough recipe and added some ground flax for added chew & nutrition. Here’s their pizza with the “works.”

Our pizza was split down the middle as usual. :)

My side had loads of red & green peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, prosciutto, a very small sprinkle of real bacon and 3 cheese blend. Mmm, was restaurant quality!

Dessert was a handful of organic cherries and some very fresh, juicy pineapple.

Recaping a bit…
So, my morning was pretty busy. Woke up around 6am and immediately headed out the door for a quick 3K run. I knew that if I didn’t get it in before the renos started that I wouldn’t actually do it. Very glad I was smart and planned ahead, because I’m tired now and just want to sit on the couch and do nothing for the rest of the evening!

Anyways, once I got back from my run I jumped in the shower and then made us a yummy “brunchy” breakfast.

I have been craving bacon for a few weeks now so I bought a package last night. Did well, only had one piece (split in two) but it totally satisfied the craving. Nice, I LOVE it when my body and mind cooperates :) I find it so much easier to just have a little of something when I’m craving it, than to ignore it and try to satisfy it with other things. NEVER works and I just end up it all those things plus what I was originally craving, which, of course, wrecks havoc on the ol’ calorie budget.

Along with the bacon was an egg and an Ezekiel english muffin with a 1/2 cup of organic OJ. Mmm delicious!

No morning is complete with out a splash of coffee…

And some love from my beautiful kitties!

Fun Times on a Friday Night

2010-05-11T01:50:00.000-07:00

First off, Booty Camp starts at 6:00pm on Tuesday evening for all those asking! Clayton Park Mainland North Common. See map here.

Don’t ya just adore beautiful summer evenings?! Yesterday was our second day of SUN here in Halifax (haha, seriously though!) and it was the perfect night for a casual dinner downtown! Parking was a bit tough to find because it’s a busy weekend with the Paul McCartney show and the Atlantic Jazz Festival, but I managed and met up with J and another couple for dinner at The Fireside.

This was my first time eating there and I was pretty impressed with the atmosphere, kind of a mix between laidback and contemporary. The menu was awesome, tons of variety and for a downtown location, the food was dirt cheap.

Spending an hour at the Registry of Motor Vehicles after work on Friday definitely deserves a glass of wine, don’t you think? ;) Of course I chose a local Foch!

Mmm, went perfectly with my dinner, which was the Portabello sandwich. “Marinated in red wine, olive oil and herb, grilled and topped with goal cheese, euro mix, alfalfa sprouts and pesto mayo. Served with sweet potato and beet chips.”

After dinner we had a nice stroll with the sun setting and made our way over to The Westin (where we got married!) for a HILARIOUS night of comedy at YukYuks. I’d never been to a live comedy show and had a BLAST! Think I laughed nonstop for 2.5 hours straight. I had no idea what I was missing. We will be going again soon. This was one of the best nights out I’ve had in a long time!

We didn’t get home until almost mid-night and now here I am up at 5am getting ready to go berry picking with Farm Girl & Angie. (Have a feeling it’s going to be any early night.) We’re heading down to the beautiful Annapolis Valley where Farm Girl is from, and I actually spent the first 8.5 years of my life. I just LOVE it down there, one of my fav places in the entire world.

Anyways, food. Yes, the rest of my Friday was wonderful! I started off the morning with a fresh whole grain roll spread with yucky green top peanut butter. I’m all out of my PB so I had to settle for Kraft. I can’t believe the difference in taste between organic and the stuff with fillers. Crazy.

Trying to finish off the carton off organic OJ before it expires. Sorry for the crappy pic.

Had the last organic nectarine for my morning snack. It was so juicy and tasty.

For lunch I had my fav Amy’s Cheddar Burrito and a side salad.

The salad was a mix of organic greens, yellow peppers, mushrooms & cucumbers. Drizzled with french dressing.

Fresh blueberries for dessert……I just love Summer for all it’s fresh produce!

And that was my day. Think I managed well and made decent, healthy choices. Off to have some Breaky and get ready for our fun day

Long Weekend Starts Now!!

2010-05-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a long day, am I ever glad that I’m now officially on weekend time. :)

Work was busy and then I had to pick up my car from being inspected/oil change etc. She passed with flying colors. AKA: No huge ass bill! *grins* After that I headed into town, picked up J, did a bunch of errands and finally get home around 8:30pm. I even ended missing Booty Camp because I wouldn’t have made it in time. Boo.

I’m actually laying in bed to blog though, hehe so comfy! Tomorrow I do have to get up pretty early to drive J into work but I can relax for most of the day until late afternoon when I’m meeting up with my Dad. The only plans I made during the day are with myself! Get in a run, enjoy a bubble bath and re-vamp a date square recipe. A lot of you were wondering about the cheese sauce that I made last night, so I will also post that recipe tomorrow. Oh and I have some plans to work on a top secret HaliBlogger item! ;)

Food wise my day was okay. This morning I woke up craving an egg so that’s exactly what I had. My version of a McMuffin – ezekiel english muffin topped with spinach, fried egg, sprinkle of melted old cheddar cheese & tomatoes.

Mid-morning I happily munched away on a On The Glo bar.

Today is Thursday, which means lunch was Subway. I’m so predictable. 6” Veggie on whole wheat w/ lettuce, green peppers, tomatoes, pickles, onions, olives, banana peppers, jack cheese & a tiny squire of chipotle sauce.

I also had a bag of baked ruffles but don’t know what happened to the picture. A small dish of stewed rhubarb to finish it all off.

And by the end of my work day the rest of the wonderful dark organic chocolate was gone. *blushes*

J & I decided to have Supper on the go tonight. Ended up at Boston Pizza, which is usually fine in my books because they have a California Pizza from their healthy alternative menu that is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. But to my utter disappointment it had disappeared from the menu. I politely inquired with our waitress, she did a bit of running back and forth and ….ta da:

Needless to say, I was quite generous with my tip this evening. :)

Ended the meal off with a much needed cup of joe! (Just look at those baggy eyes…jeez, and this was the better pic of the two!)

I ended up going over my calorie allowance by almost 300 and didn’t get any exercise. No guilt here though because the majority of my choices were healthy today. I will burn those couple hundred cals off tomorrow and forget all about it!

Sleep time!

Ps. My Operation Beautiful Post It is STILL on the mail boxes almost 3 days later!!

Light At The End Of My Tunnel

2010-05-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

Who knew all it would take for me to get back in my weight loss groove was to stop intense exercise, work part time and sleep the rest? :) Seriously though, this has what the scale has been showing for the past 3 days so I’m inclined to believe him. I am literally jumping for joy because I’ve finally got my head back on straight and am finishing what I’ve been working towards since July of 2007! No more going back and forth between 194 & 197 lbs, I’m done with all that BS. The scale is moving in one direction, and that is down!!! Only 2.7 lbs to go until I break 100 lbs lost, and only 39.2 lbs until goal!! I honestly think this break has been really good for my body and has allowed me to get re-focused.

Anyways, enough about that, I know you’re here for the eats so…

For Breaky, I had the tried and true combo of an Ezekiel English muffin organic peanut butter.

Organic orange slices on the side.

We headed into the city so that I could drop J off for work and then I went to the medical clinic for blood work. She had a really hard time finding my veins this morning (?) and ended up getting the blood from my hand. Was not a very pleasant experience but it’s done and I should get my results within a few days.

Munched on this fantastic homemade granola bar mid-morning.

On the way in to work I actually contemplated not going at all because I was that tired by 9am. Grr. This is the worst part of it, I seem to be good to go for a few hours and then I’m totally drained. Sucked it up though and got a few things done at work, leaving around lunch time.

Lunch was a 6” Veggie on whole wheat w/ jack cheese, small squirts of mayo & chipotle sauce, lettuce, green peppers, tomatoes, pickles, onions & banana peppers.

Then it was straight to my comfy bed for the rest of the afternoon. Slept like a baby until I had to leave to get J.
Belly was grumbling on the way in, so I made a pit stop for my fav summer treat, cotton candy ice cream! Decided to go easy on the waffle cones lately because they’re way more calories then the regular cones. This baby was the perfect size, around 1/2 cup.

Cooking wasn’t happening tonight. Made a quick detour to Superstore and picked up some Sushi for me. (Caesar salad for J.)

Spicy California Rolls & Spring Rolls, Mmm mmm!!

According to MyFitnessPal that’s a 1405 calorie day. Not bad, I may have a little snacky later if I’m hungry. Think a quick yogadownload.com session may be in order this evening, my body needs a bit of stretching.

That’s all I got, catch ya later!!

Blogging Live From The Patio!!

2010-05-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

What an awesome evening; sun’s setting with a lovely warm breeze! J is going to be late getting home tonight so I took my dinner outside and decided it was nice enough to blog out here too!

So, let see… I just finished listening to a podcast that Tara Costa (from last season’s Biggest Loser) did with Its Your Health Radio. She touched on many things such as what her life was life before dropping the weight, the whole Biggest Loser Experience, how different people treated her once she was thin, and her plans for the future, which include a book deal – can’t wait for this!! Tara was my fav contestant hands down and she really is such an inspiration. Check it out for yourself here.

My day was pretty uneventful. Work and home. Can’t say that I don’t enjoy that routine though, because I’m still feeling pretty darn exhausted.

Going to change it up a bit and re-cap backwards today! I wanted to make sure that I completed Amy’s 5th Challenge, which was to make a dish that featured whole grains. Originally, I was going to make something with quinoa (in hopes that it might taste better the second time around) but then I realized that I had already used up a lot of the ingredients the recipe called for. Opps. Instead, I made a Chicken Veggie Stir Fry over Brown Rice.

This dish was pretty tasty if I do say so myself! It featured – chicken breast, red, green & orange bell peppers, regular & yellow zucchini, onions, carrots, green onions, a splash of OJ, some honey hoisin sauce and a sprinkle of sesame seeds on a bed of brown rice.

As you can see I had to use the BBQ as my table. We threw out our old patio furniture a few weeks ago and are in desperate need of a new set. I’m hoping (well waiting) there will be some majors sales on towards the end of the Summer.

There was no snack this afternoon as I wasn’t feeling to hot at all.

Warning – my lunch pictures aren’t the greatest because I had to snap them in secret! ;)

Lunch was more of the left over homemade thin crust pizza.

Along with a big container of fresh farmers market veggies. Mmm peas right out of the pod, so yummy!! Apparently, I was paying close attention when I peeled the carrots at 530am. ;)

Dessert was a cup of defrosted strawberries.

The mid-morning snack was a Sticky Fruit Seed Granola square. Mmm, these babies are so good!

Breaky this morning was so much fun! Why? Because I ate it on the patio as well! There’s something so peaceful about sitting outside in the cool, beautiful morning.

I threw together an egg sammie to fill me up! Wasn’t sure if cream cheese & egg exctly went together, but lucky for me they seemed to. This was a toasted Ezekiel English Muffin with cream cheese, fresh chives, spinach and and egg.

That was my day in a nutshell, I’ll be glad when I’m able to do some intense exercise again. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment on Friday, so hopefully this will shed some light on the situation.

J just called, he’ll be home shortly (and with frozen yogourt!) so I’m off. Oh, and totally forgot to mention that tomorrow is my Friday! Yipppeee!!! Extra extra long weekend due to the Holiday on Monday.

Cook Book Heaven!

2010-05-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

I found the BEST cookbook EVER yesterday!!! 1000 Low Fat, Salt, Sugar, Cholesterol Healthy Recipes.

Got it from Value Village of all places for only $12.99! Weeee I’m just SUPER excited to try some of the fabulous-looking recipes out! Look how thick it is:

All the pages are thick glossy color and each recipe includes the nutrition information!!

Some other good news, my exciting weigh in…

Current Week: 192.4
Last Week: 195.4
Result: –3.0 lbs

Whoot!!!Who woulda thought that calorie counting actually works?! LOL, yup, since I can’t do much strenuous activity I’ve been really watching my calorie intake. This is the biggest loss I’ve had in such a long time, I can’t believe how close to the 180's I’m getting!!!!
So back tracking a bit…
I woke up yesterday morning and wanted a blueberry muffin so I opted to whip up a batch since there were some frozen organic berries still in the freezer. These turned out to be extra special because I also incorporated an ounce of chia seeds into the recipe! Was my first time using chia seeds and they added a nice little crunch, along with a bazillion health benefits to the muffins.

Severed hot out of the oven with a smidge of olive oil becel, along with a side of cottage cheese and the last of the fresh berries. Oh and can’t forget the coffee!

I finally decided to try a bit of exercise by stretching it out with a yogadownload.com Sun Salutations Flow session. This was purchased awhile back but my first time trying it out. Really liked it a lot, there was a lot of repetition but by the end of it all I felt so much all over!

Post yoga, I munched on one of Jaime’s fantastic Sticky Fruit Seed bars. So delicious!!

Lunch time arrived so I stuck on some english muffin mini pizzas. Topped with tomato paste, spices, red, green & orange bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, old cheddar & a bit of feta. Mmmm!

And a froyo waffle cone for dessert.

We did head out to do a bunch of errands – bottle return, visit with my Dad and our little Value Village excursion. I was EXHAUSTED when we got home and had to lay down for a bit. Got a late Supper on a bit later… my camera batteries died while taking the pics and I was too lazy to change them, so I have one pic from supper.

Dindin was pork loin with mushrooms & onions, organic carrots with a bit of becel and spicy sweet potato fries.

I did have a bit more froyo later on. In total my day was 1725 calories, which I am completely happy with because Saturday is always my higher cal day.

No plans for today because I REALLY want to relax and hopefully get back to work for tomorrow, even if just got 1/2 day. Off to catch up on your blogs now!

Monday, Oh Monday…

2010-05-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

This whole Mono thing is getting kind of old. Today was loooong, plus I walked home. Me=Exhausted.

We had homemade pizza for supper and I had an extra piece. This put me well over my calorie allowance, so even though I just wanted to go to bed, I burnt off those pesky extra 147 calories by hopping on the elliptical for 20 mins. Yah! Take that Mono!! My motivation to lose the rest of this weight has been at an all time high lately, so there’s no point in sabotaging myself now that I’ve been back on track for the past few weeks. :)

Got a few shouts to do tonight -

First off, my good friend (and bride to be!!) Holly was down 4 lbs this morning!! Whoot, you rock!!!
Lynn (no not me! hehe) has just started food blogging, check her out now!
And, The Hubby has decided to get back on track with his journey to better health. Show him some love here! (This makes me SOO happy!!)

In other news, Hubby’s fav rocker in the entire world has decided to grace Halifax with his presence this coming September. Yup, Marilyn Manson is coming to town and I’m going. I’m not sure how well I’ll fit in with the whole crowd (seriously, for those who know me, can you picture it?! LOL) but am totally going just to see how happy the concert is going to make J. I read the news online during lunch today and was so excited to call him with the good news. I was literally bursting with excitement for him. I’m such a dork! :)

My eats were pretty boooring. Sorry guys. Breaky was a thick (read: 200 calorie!) piece of fresh whole wheat toast with organic peanut butter & apple butter.

I had this sad little peanut butter oat cake for a snack when the belly started grumbling around 10.

Lunch had a very farmer’s market feel to it…yummy salad that included spinach, mushrooms, cucumbers (yes, I still put them in my salad even though I’m SO sick of them.) and BEETS! Beets freakin’ rock. They are so sweet and make me teeth feel like I just brushed them, kinda like an apple. Know what I mean? ;)

Along with a veggie sammie. Sorry my batteries died and this was the only pic I managed to take. Just a small homemade, whole wheat hot dog bun smeared with light cream cheese and topped with tomato slices & spinach.

Enjoyed 1/2 cup of fresh cherries before my walk home this afternoon. Mmm. Summer rocks for all this wonderful fresh produce!

Well you already heard about my pizza fiasco. (Note to self: If you don’t eat pizza at all these little incidents would never happen. Bah, what is a world without pizza though?)

I made another batch of Jenna’s dough and got 3 crusts out of it. (Pizza for our lunches this week since I didn’t get any cooking done this weekend.)

Mine was topped with the usual red, green & orange bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, old cheddar & feta cheese.

I’m officially off to bed. Nite!

Finishing It Off

2010-04-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hey Bloggies, I’m back again to finish off the day. I didn’t do much this afternoon except browse the latest issues of Eating Well & Best Health magazines. Sad, I know. I wish I was on a true vacation so that I could be all fun and active. Best Health magazine is really neat though, and initially caught my eye because it’s a Canadian publication. (!!!) It’s very Self-like, with sections on Looking Great, Getting Healthy, Eating Well & Embracing Life. I really like the fact that all the products referenced I can actually find around here. Plus it’s full of quality content and reasonably priced!

While browsing the mags, I did enjoy a 1/2c of Bay of Fundy Mudslide ice cream that my Dad was awesome enough to drop off yesterday. I am so spoiled. Actually, just pretty damn lucky enough to have parents that will drive an hour out of their way just to bring me tylenol, ice cream & OJ. :) This stuff is seriously yummy, won’t last long in the freezer!

”For the adventurous ice cream lover, explore a sweet assortment of decadent flavours including a thick tide of caramel surrounding chunks of chocolate-covered peanut butter cups, atop a blanket of rich chocolate ice cream”

Around 5ish, I decided to make a smoothie/slushie since my throat was killing and the belly was growling! Into the blender went – 1c strawberries, 1/2c blueberries, 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze & 1c water. Gave it a whirl…

Came out rather slushie-like. Plus it’s low in cals, around 125 for this entire huge glass! Just look at all those crunchy seeds, they totally made it awesome! I know, I’m weird – who likes the seeds? LOL

When J got home we went up to the bank, dropped off a perscription and then headed over to the Superstore to pick up a few things that I’d missed this morning. IE: the 50lb box of cat litter. ;)

*Insert Rant*
Ever since Angie posted about the Lobster Sub’s big return I have been wanting one. I made up my mind to try and have some solid food for Supper. Got to Subway and they have all the lobster meat but aren’t allowed to actually make the sandwich because they don’t have their promo posters up yet. WTF????? I was sooooooo disappointed and pretty much let the worker know that. Why would you even bother to tell me that you had the meat if you couldn’t serve it to me? I was a bit caught off guard so I went for the Roast Chicken Breast instead. Was not that same and totally sucked. Gah. Oh well, we’re probably going to head into the city tomorrow and I will get one then.
*End Rant*

6” Roast Chicken Breast on whole wheat w/ jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, green peppers, banana peppers, a bit of mayo & chipotle sauce.

Along with 3/4 bag of French Onion Sun chips

I shoulda just had the rest of my soup and some yogourt. Oh well. So this is me on track, 1500 calories and not a bite more!

J is now officially on vacation so we’re going to watch a movie tonight. Haha, we’ll see how long I make it.

Food Health - Natal Day Happenings

2010-04-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Evening everyone, hope you’ve all enjoyed this wonderful holiday weekend! What a great day I had with the fam celebrating my Dad’s B-day. We made some travel plans for next Summer that are going to be a blast, more on that later. ;)

Started out the day with a pot of yummy oats. Organic oats made with almond breeze, sliced banana and flax seed. Topped with more sliced nanner, hulled hemp seeds, shredded unsweetened coconut, mini chocolate chips, a few goji berries, a spoonful of peanut butter & a drizzle of maple syrup.

We spent the morning in cleaning mode – kitchen was sparkling, all floors done, bathroom tidied and laundry done. Plus prepped the veggies and set out the table.

It was quite humid here, so I opted to wear a skirt and flowly top. Was nice to dress up a bit, even if we were just staying home.

Food Health-Biting The Bullet

2010-04-12T05:02:00.000-07:00

This post could be negative, going over my failures at recent weight loss attempts. Instead, I’m choosing to make it positive. I rock because:

No matter what, I NEVER give up. I’ve lost over 95 lbs by making lifestyles changes that have stuck. Going back to the “old” me just isn’t an option because I don’t know that girl anymore. The new, improved me is educated, knows what she wants and is doing what it takes to reach her goal.

That being said, the mojo just isn’t what it used to be. Life happens, weight loss stalls. Sometimes I feel like I’m too “into” it all. Calories, sodium levels, exercise. On occasion there’s enough going on inside my poor head to make the world spin.

So, I’m taking a step back and trying not to put so much focus on it all. I already make healthy choices the majority of the time and I enjoy exercise, so there really shouldn’t be a problem. I will succeed, and you know what? There is no deadline. No deadline means nothing to worry about, nothing to stress over.

Simplicity. Which is why I re-activated my Weight Watches Online account this morning. I need to give myself a break, see how far I’ve come and finish what I started at a pace that I enjoy.

This morning when I woke up, the sun was shining and I could feel the cool breeze coming from the patio doors. Definitely has a Fall feel to it. My favourite season is fast approaching! I love the cooler weather with beautiful sun, the crisp brightly colored leaves, apples, pumpkins & squash and Thanksgiving. I’m hoping that next Fall we can take a road trip down through New England.

Breaky was an opened-face egg sandwhich.

One egg fried in a tsp of olive oil on a slice of Ezekiel toast, organic baby spinach and topped with 10g of melted old cheddar & sliced tomato.

Along with some lovely Just Us (with organic sugar & splash of organic milk) and a juicy peach.

Didn’t get a chance to blog last night because I was too busy making these sinful treats for a wedding shower that I’m attending.

Chocolate Skor Cupcakes. Recipe compliments of ZestyCook. I admit to having a taste last night and they are heavenly! According to my math they clock in around 300 calories each. Good thing they are leaving my house today! ;)

Oh and I got our Supper prepped in the fridge. I used this Balsamic Maple Pork recipe as the marinade (instead of cooking as the recipe directed) and am going to let the pork loin soak all day. Going to be awesome grilled!

I’m off to tidy the house and get ready for the Wedding Shower. Later!

Food Health-Organized

2010-04-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

Morning Bloggies. What a productive Sunday we had. The house is de-cluttered, re-arranged and all nice and tidy! We spent the majority of our day working on that with a little bit of reading/tv breaks in between.

For Breaky I had some delicious whole wheat blueberry pancakes. Used this recipe from Allrecipes.com with a few modifications. (Subing egg whites, almond breeze etc.) They were awesome with some Nova Scotia Maple Syrup. Mmmm mmm.

Tea this morning instead of coffee.

I managed to cook us a few meals for the week in between the cleaning. J has a big dish of spicy beans & rice and I boiled up a few eggs for some egg salad sammies pour moi. Had one for lunch too, along with a peach. Was on 2 slices of ezekiel bread with some organic baby spinach.

I took a break mid-afternoon to relax on the deck with my book before mowing the lawn. Munched on a plate of organic granny smith slices and some cheddar cheese. I had a little furry visitor on the arm of my chair. Hehe. I’m not one for bugs but caterpillars are okay in my books.

Food Health-Shower Fun

2010-04-10T17:25:00.000-07:00

Evenin’ everyone. Just relaxing for the night now, what a terrific day! When I last left off, I was tidying up and had to get ready for Holly’s Bridal Shower. Knowing that there would be tons of yummy temptations at the Shower, I planned to have a really filling meal before hand.

Lunch consisted of 2 very tiny baked potatoes with 1 cup of steamed broccoli topped with homemade cheese sauce. My belly was almost too full after this.

Shortly after, Holly arrived to drop her fiancé off to hang out with J while we spent the afternoon with all the ladies. Posed for a quick pic before heading out. All prettied up! ;)

Food Health-Travel Talk

2010-04-08T03:23:00.000-07:00

Morning Bloggies! Just getting into settled into my lovely long weekend, couldn’t sleep in this morning of course but guess it gives me a bit more time to catch up with all of you.

First off, going to ask for all your help! We’re in the midst of planning a trip to the Dominican Republic for this coming March. I know many of you have vacationed there, so please, please share your resort recommendations and any other tips etc. We’re looking for all inclusive & beach front.

I’m thinking of doing a 30 Day Shred challenge with myself for the month of August. I want to keep my fitness level up and this seems like the perfect way because it’s high intensity but not too long of a work out. Might be a fun experiment, what do ya think? Anyone interested in doing it with me?

Last night we met with friends downtown for some yummy Dinner at the Mongolie Grill. It was a beautiful evening to be out, lots of sun and a warm breeze. The Monoglie is such a fun place to go because you get to pick everything that goes into your stir-fry. They have huge veggie, meat & sauce stations set up and you get a bowl to go crazy with. After you make your selections they have a huge open grill in the middle and you can watch your meal being made if you want. So neat and easy to make healthy choices! I think all the Halibloggers should go there for our next gathering. :)

My first course was this very spicy hot & sour soup.

My stir-fry was SO freaking good!! I chose a mix of carrots, snow peas, bean sprouts, red cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, green peppers, a couple scallops, a spoonful of baby shrimpies, some shanghai noodles and topped with a combo of curry & mongolie sauces.

I left the restaurant nicely full. :) The four of us headed back to the house, started talking about our trip to the Dominican Republic this coming March! (Just looking at the pics online made me so giddy and it’s 7 months away, lol!) We’re going to talk to a travel agent before booking anything but I appreciate all your recommendations! I sipped on a nice mug of coffee while browsing the pics.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the movie 12 Rounds, which I thought was awesome, very action packed! And, I wasn’t the first person to fall asleep, hehe!!! Actually made it through the entire thing. Must have been due to all the rest I got in the afternoon.

Guess I should go back and re-cap the rest of the day. Was really nothing special though…Breaky was a bowl of Kashi Organic Cinnamon Harvest cereal with a bit of icy milk. Some how my fridge temperature settings got turned WAY low and a lot of my produce and milk froze. Not Cool. :( Glass of organic OJ too.

I spent 2 hours at the hospital waiting to get blood work and then stopped for a few groceries. On the way out picked up Subway for lunch. My dreams of getting another lobster sandwich were just that, dreams. Boo. Instead, I had an old favourite, the Club. Not as good as I remembered. Processed meat just does nothing for me anymore, oh expect cause extreme bloat. I got in 4L of h20 yesterday and am still majorly bloated this morning. 6” club on whole wheat w/ jack cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, pickles and a bit of mayo.

It was hot out, so I indulged in a small Moon Mist cone. (They were all out of cotton candy.) Ice cream and I are getting along quite well this summer.. haha, I only stop for one every other day. ;)

Spent the afternoon in bed until I had to get up to tidy up the house and prep for our night out.

Alright, that’s it… I’m off. Please remember to leave your DR travel recommendations! Thx.

Fodd Health-Wonderful Warehouse…

2010-04-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

We started out with the Hummus - House-made puree of Chickpea, Tahini and Olive Oil with Warm Marinated Olives and Pita.

It was SOOOO good! Totally hit the spot too, since we were late eating.

I chose a light main course, the Warm Mushroom - Roasted Mushrooms, Baby Spinach, Pancetta Crisps, Feta, with a Lemon-Thyme Vinaigrette. Terrific and just the prefect amount!

The rest of my day was pretty normal, except for one thing. I was busy and found that my meals held me over well so there was no snacking. Weird huh?

Wanted to share this pic of the beautiful roses on my desk – aren’t they just gorgeous? Love the colors.

So, food…
Thursdays I always have Subway for lunch. My standard 6” Veggie on whole wheat w/ cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, banana peppers, a small squire of chipotle sauce and pepper.

Breaky was 2 slices of Ezekiel toast with organic peanut butter and Nova Scotia honey.

Side of fresh Nova Scotia Blueberries. These babies were fantastic!! Mmm, love fresh berries.

So that’s all I got for ya! I know I’m in desperate need of a good long catch up session on all of your blogs and I will definitely get to it soon. I’ve been reading though, just haven’t had the chance to post comments.

Food Health-Natural Routine…

2010-04-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently there are some routines that my body won’t let go of, even on weekends. The 5:15 internal alarm clock being one of them. Guess it gives me time to blog, get caught up and then prepare for the day.

Today is the big community event my work is co-sponsoring. I spent a lot of time getting stuff prepped and running around yesterday. Looks like everything should go off without a hitch. I’ll let you know how it all goes!

Didn’t do anything too crazy last night, just relaxed. After hearing about Ang & her hubby hitting up the tennis courts, I thought it might be fun to pick up some gear for J & I. We went up to the courts around 8pm and played for 45 mins or so. The area was lit up but it was getting pretty dark out. We had a blast and I was sweating like crazy. (Probably cuz it was still a zillion degrees out!) We sucked big time though, LOL. I think we managed to keep the ball going back and forth about 3 or 4 times in total. The rest of the time we spent running after (and missing) the ball ;)

After tennis I plunked down in front of the TV and watched the movie One Week. I really like the it, is totally different then anything else that’s out right now. Plus it’s all set right here in beautiful Canada!

”When confronted with his mortality, Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson) impulsively buys a vintage motorcycle and sets off on a road trip that starts in Toronto and ends up on Vancouver Island in the town of Tofino. Humourous, profound and extremely moving, One Week uses the great Canadian landscape as the backdrop to the story of a man and his life’s journey. In the search for himself, he finds out what makes this country, and his life, so beautiful.”
My Weigh-In:
I’m just rocking it since signing up for WWs Online again! This morning Mr. Scale shows me down 3.4 lbs to 189.2 lbs. I’m almost back to my lowest of 188.8 lbs, should be able to pass that next week! Oh and lost another point, which puts me at 25 points/day.

Food wise, yesterday was pretty fantastic! Breaky was a Peachy Parfait. (Another Angie-inspired idea, lol!)

I picked up a tub of Liberte Svelte Peach Yogourt at Planet Organic the other day. I’d never seen this flavour before and was excited to taste it! I had a serving topped with a fresh sliced peach, 1/2c Kashi Go Lean Crunch and 2 tsps of hemp seeds. Delish! This combo held me over for 5 hours, impressive.

Late morning I pulled out one of my fav treats of all time to snack on – a Peanut Butter Cookie Larabar! These are soooo freaking good, I can’t wait for the new PB & Jelly one to arrive in Halifax.

Along with the salad I had some spicy hummus & Flatbread Factory Organic Black Pepper dippers.

The afternoon was hectic and crazy hot… by the time I got off work I drove straight for the ice cream stand to indulge in a small cotton candy cone. Unfortunately, I was hot and irritated (The AC in my car isn’t working at all. :( Any ideas what this could be?) and couldn’t be bothered to snap a pic.

Supper was a quick and simple veggie omelette with a side of organic whole wheat toast. Sorry, these pics are oddly dark, not sure what happened.

Omelette was made of free range eggs & whites, organic red, green & yellow peppers, organic onion, old cheddar & a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

I may have cracked open the bag of Guiltless Gourmet Chipotle Tortillas for an evening munch. Was my first time having this flavour; I thought they were pretty tasty, quite spicy. J LOVED em!

Anyways, off to get ready for the day. COFFEE time. :) Hope all the Halibloggers are enjoying this beautiful sunshine we finally have! Happy weekend everyone!

Food Health-Late Night

2010-04-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

I had a simple microwaved egg sammie for break. Two slices of whole wheat toast, egg topped with a bit of melted cheddar, organic baby spinach & tomatoes.

Work was fairly hectic, but I managed to stop for a quick bite – a peanut butter oat cake. A few of you have asked for the recipe - I will post it over the weekend.

Lunch was all about moderation(and the fact that I need to hit up the grocery store in a major way, LOL). Another egg sammie, this one was cold with mayo, onions etc. Along with a side of reduced fat pringles (I know, I know!) and a juicy peach.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a perfectly ripe organic banana.

For Supper, we all met up at Subway to grab a bite to take to the theatre. Lobster subs are still available so I couldn’t resist! 6” whole wheat with double meat, lettuce, tomatoes, green pepper, a few onions & a small squirt of light mayo. Mmm mmm.

I did have a bag of baked Ruffles as welll, but I ate them in the dim theatre and my camera doesn’t “do” dim lighting… :( hint hint hubby. ;) Chugged my h20 all night, in hopes of flushing all the sodium I consumed today.

Off to get ready for work, Happy Hump Day!!

Food Health-Food Inc. Is Coming to Halifax!!!!

2010-04-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

I was quite a busy bee at work this morning. Snuck in a quick snack around 10am, peanut butter oat cake.

So, The Coast has announced on Twitter that they’re giving away FOOD INC. promo tickets tomorrow!!!!! Whoot, Whoot! I am SO excited, been waiting forever for the film to be screened here! After an extensive search online, I still can’t find out where exactly it’s been shown though. How awesome would it be if I could score some tickets tomorrow?! :) Wish me luck.

Tomorrow is Friday, another reason to be happy. Got some fun plans for Saturday, which includes me baking one of Zesty’s yummy recipes . Sunday will be a day of relaxation.

So, not to point out the obvious or anything but I appear to be in some type of rut again. My weight is fluctuating the between 190-192 lbs. I will be the first to admit that I haven’t been very active lately, mainly because of the whole weird virus that is causing extreme exhaustion. My energy seems to be creeping back though, finally!

My eats, my eats…Breaky was an egg fried in 1/2tbsp olive oil with a slice of ezekiel toast and a sweet nanner.

Monday Quickie

2010-04-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a short & sweet post because I had no time to blog last night and only have about an hour before I need to leave for work!

Yesturday’s eats were pretty decent, Breaky was a slice of fresh Valley Cereal bread with peanut butter.

Bowl of strawberries to round it out.

Mid-morning I snacked on a delicious oatcake! Mmm this recipe is great!

For lunch, I had the spaghetti & meat sauce. Was even better the next day!

Along with a simple salad – organic baby spinach, organic mushrooms & cucumber. Drizzled with French dressing.

Perfect Pancakes!

2010-04-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Afternoon everyone, hope you’re all enjoying the long weekend! Yesterday we were on the go all day and I was totally burnt out by Supper time. Today’s been slow though.

My eats were all over the place yesterday, but totally started off the day with a yummy Breaky! I’ve been craving pancakes ever since I saw JavaChick’s post. Thought since we had guests overnight that it would be the perfect time to whip up a batch.

Yes, they were every bit as good as they looked! I used this recipe from Allrecipes.com LOVE this site BTW, always use it when I need a recipe. Along with the pancakes, I made a quick strawberry topping, just a bag of frozen strawberries simmered with 2 tbsp of sugar. And the light whip cream & fresh blueberries completed the decadent Breaky!

Before we headed into the city for Tux fittings, Holly & I each got a good session of cardio in! Mr. Polar says that I burnt 307 calories in 30 mins on the elliptical. Whoot. So yeah, guys got fitted at Moores and then we decided to stop for a late lunch around 2pm. And here’s where the frustration begins… Boston Pizza, oh how you’ve disappointed me. First you get rid of my all time fav healthy option, the California Pizza and THEN you have the nerve to make spinach salad with 460 calories and 40g of fat – and that is without the garlic toast. Grr, so much for my “light lunch.”

Finished up a few more errands in Bayers Lake and then headed home. It was a hot and sunny day and in my defense, it was also before I got the nutrition information for the salad… we stopped for an ice cream. Small cotton candy for me!

Happy Monday!

2010-04-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Afternoon Ladies. Terrific, sunny day here. Just got in from work and am going over my mail, etc. This is my fav time of the day, it’s pretty much my only “me” time; I’ve got an hour and a half before J gets home. Am going to catch up on your blogs; I’m really enjoying all the pics and stories everyone has put up from Toronto, makes me so happy that you all had a great time. Sounds silly I know, but after a few years of blogging feels like you are all old friends!

Thanks for the feedback on the new layout, glad you approve! :)
I think I finally managed to get all the domain issues straightened out and you can now visit the site with and without the www! Yah!!

My eats for today were pretty simple. Breaky was ezekiel toast with organic peanut butter & apple butter with a side of cherries. Mmm I am SO addicted to these things (as you will see!)

A Coconut Cream Pie Larabar was calling my name mid-morning. I cannot get enough of these and the Peanut Butter Cookies ones. Seriously, I could eat these all day, all the time.

For lunches this week I made a pot of chicken veggie pasta. Basically I tossed (measured portions of) whole wheat pasta, diced chicken breast, carrots, broccoli & alfredo sauce in a pot. Simple & tasty.

And, of course, more cherries for dessert!

I had an apple on the way home, but it was spur of the moment mid-walk. I did manage to also inhale these guys once I got through the door.

I took out pork for supper but I’m not really feeling it now. Lately I’ve been craving red meat, must get my iron levels checked.

Got plans for an 8K tonight once it cools off. This is also the week I start my HALF MARATHON TRAINING!!!!

I ♥ Mailbox Surprises

2010-03-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

On the way home from work this afternoon I stopped at the mail box…opened it to find a nice surprise from Angie. It’s a little hard to read, but it’s a card congratulating me on 100 lbs lost. How incredibly thoughtful was that? Totally brightened my whole afternoon!! Thanks chickie! :) I feel so lucky to have made such great real-life friends because of blogging.

Today’s eat were on the ball. This morning I woke up to the heavenly smell of coffee, what a way to start off my Monday! (That and I wore my new shoes!!) J has finally jumped on the coffee bandwagon and had a steamy mug all ready for me.

For Breaky, I had an old favourite - 2 slices of ezekiel toast with peanut butter & sliced banana.

Munched on a fresh peanut butter oatcake when my belly started grumbling around 10.

Work was quite busy today; ended up eating lunch away from my desk so I didn’t get to take any pics. It was a bowl of the homemade chicken noodle soup, homemade roll and the other half of the banana from this morning.

Supper was so GOOD! BLT’s, corn on the cob and salad. Mmmm.

The sammie was made out of 2 slices of ezekiel toast, turkey bacon, lettuce tomatoes with a smear of light mayo.

Fresh corn with melty olive oil becel & pepper. Delish!

All About the Comfort Foods

2010-03-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

So we survived Hurricane Bill. It was windy and pouring but that’s really all that happened. Pretty much every Winter storm causes the power to go out so I thought for sure we’d lose it but nope, not even a flicker. Was a perfect day of relaxation though – the house was tided/ chores done in anticipation of not having power, so all I did was blog/tweet and watch tv. I needed the rest though.

In exciting news, Jen, Cat and hopefully Amy (plus spouses) will be coming to Halifax in a little under 7 weeks! The Halibloggers have been making some pretty fun plans for their trip including a Thanksgiving Blogger Dinner. Not sure if you know this about me or not but Thanksgiving is my absolute favourite holiday and I’m so excited to be having such a special dinner with everyone! I’m really looking forward to their visit, I missed out on the TO trip this past June and am really glad they decided to come to the East Coast.

----

It was still pretty gray/misty out this morning which lead to a day of comfort foods. Breaky was a organic free range egg fried in a little evoo with a slice of ezekiel toast and the last of the fresh blueberries. Flipped though the latest issue of Best Health mag while I enjoyed my meal. Really like this magazine, mainly because it’s Canadian and showcases products, people, places that I know. ;)

Like every morning, I had coffee. The pic is always the same and not really worth showing. It really hit the spot though because I was not in the mood to be awake at all. Ha, who am I kidding coffee always hits the spot! ;)

In anticipation of Hurricane Bill I’d picked up some non-perishables including a box of my fav Kashi Dark Chocolate Cherry granola bars. Mmm, it’s been awhile…yum!

Moving on to lunch, total comfort food again with a bowl of homemade cheesy tomato soup. Thanks to Lynn for posting this terrific recipe! I made a pot the other weekend and froze it in individual servings.

Along with the soup there was some organic veggie crackers for dipping and a side of mixed greens with french dressing.

Splash of Red

2010-03-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

Good Morning Everyone. Can’t believe I’m on the last day of my long weekend already, it really flew by. Not much really planned for the day today – visit to the Farmers Market, out for a run and make lunches for the week. It’s grey and rainy yet again today, what is up with the weather?? Last July was the same way, I thought that Summer was supposed to be sunny!? Silly Mother Nature…I did have a strange dream that it snowed last night but thankfully that was just a dream. :)

Anywho, going back to yesterday~ Decided I was okay with making my WI day, my “treat day” so you will see a few indulgences below!

While we waited for our friends to arrive, I munched on this juicy nectarine.

We ended up stopping at Subway for lunch on the way into town. I got my usual 6” Veggie ;) Change it up a bit with an added squirt of mayo.

Side of Plain Baked Lays. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to get these because I really don’t care for them. Kind of like salty card board. I was hungry though.

We got lots of errands done yesterday day including picking up shoes for the beautiful bride to be, Holly. Holly has a blog and has joined Amy’s Challenge, so go over and show her some love!!

Ended up stopping to pick some ingredients for homemade pizza and made a trip to the booze store for some wine. Then on the way out, made another stopping for my fav summer treat – waffle cones! Hehe, I’m seriously addicted. I got a small scoop of cotton candy. Yummy!

Once we got home, I whipped up the pizza dough and then cracked open my bottle of Cab Sauv.

Mmm by the end of the evening you could say that I was fairly relaxed. ;)

Supper turned out quite well. My half of the pizza was topped with red, green, yellow & orange bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, a little bit of prosciutto, mozza cheese & a sprinkle of feta.

Wrapping Up Another Weekend

2010-03-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yup, Sunday evening already. Overall it was a pretty productive and fun one though. Last night Holly & I hung out while the boys had the bachelor party. We browsed a few stores in Bayers Lake and then headed over to see The Time Traveler’s Wife. I thought the movie was pretty good although it wasn’t the best movie I’ve seen recently. Will probably read the book now, just to see the differences.

I scored a hot new pair of shoes, at Walmart of all places, and for only $5.00!! Gonna paint my toes a lovely shade of red and kick off the work week feeling fab! :)

We got in around 3am; I didn’t sleep well at all and was up by 9am. Decided it was a Brunchy type of day so I made a run to the store for some yummy fixings.

On the menu, homemade “McMuffins.” - WW english muffins with melted swiss cheese, egg, turkey bacon, sliced tomatoes & baby spinach. Side of sliced nectarine. Oh, and of course coffee!

Half Day

2010-03-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

As in I didn’t take pics after my afternoon snack. Whoops. I was tired and spent the evening reading on the couch. No TV, No Exercise, Nothing. Yesterday was more about maintenance than deficit, unfortunately.

Breaky was a yummy open faced egg sammie. Fried egg on a slice of ezekiel toasted with a smear of cream cheese, fresh chives & spinach. Along with a side of Strawberry Liberte Yogurt.

I was going to have an apple for my morning snack but I was really hungry, so I pulled the tried and true Cherry Pie Larabar from my purse instead.

Beach Day

2010-03-26T04:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, we had sun 3 days in a row, figures I’d wake up to a down pour this morning. ;) Didn’t get much accomplished yesterday, tided up for a bit and spent the afternoon at the beach.

I’m still in need of your DOMINICAN REPUBLIC RESORT REVIEWS! Please post yours here!

Rewinding back a bit, Breaky was homemade hash browns (since I was already chopping potatoes for potato salad) and scrambled eggs. Combo of 2 eggs, 2 egg whites, splash of milk, mix of spices, chives and herb & garlic gouda.

Fun Summer Day

2010-03-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

I am feeling so much more energetic today! I’m going to head in to work tomorrow morning and see how it all goes. (Yes, I’m secretly happy to be going back to work!)

Got a late start to the day when I didn’t get out of bed until after 9am!!! This is huge for me since I’m usually a 5am kinda of gal. Obviously my body needs the rest.

Started off with a couple of the yummy Blueberry Chia Muffins; warmed with becel of course!

Along with a juicy organic orange.

Healthy Balance

2010-03-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if I have too many goals and not enough focus.

I want to do a lot why my life. Lose the weight, excel at my job, run a half marathon (full too!), be an awesome wife, daughter, sister & friend… you get the point. So I’ve set all these goals for myself, most with deadlines. But have I spread myself so thin that I’ve managed to lose all focus? Ok not lose it, but by putting a little bit of focus on this and a little bit on that it only seems be make the goals less and less attainable after each passing week.

I guess you could say that I’m struggling to maintain a healthy balance. The past few months my calendar has been jam packed, there have been very few weekends that we’ve stayed home. I know being on the go constantly is one of the key reasons that I’m not reaching my weight loss goal as fast as I want. At the moment I feel that goal needs to be my main priority so I’m going to try and cut back on commitments. Simple as that.

So starting right now, it’s time to focus 100% on me. :)

A Yummy Success!

2010-03-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Eat Atlantic Challenge that is. I managed to eat only Atlantic Foods yesterday, I did have to scrounge a bit throughout the day (IE: eating Scotsburn ice cream at 10am for a snack. hehe) but am proud to say that I stuck with it.

As planned last night Jaime, Ang & I got together for a yummy local dinner. We had a good time chatting while we prepped all the eats. I’m going on record to say that no points were counted and that I’m positive if they were, I’d be over. No sweat though because I couldn’t have asked for a better evening with great friends & great food! No regrets here. :)

Our main course was a local Eden Valley Farms chicken, that Jaime butterflied and cooked on the grill. She seasoned it with Mallett’s Maple Pepper Chipolte blend. As you will see further down, it turned out fantastic!

Along with the chicken we had some roasted taters that I prepped. These were local Scotian Gold potatos. Seasoned with olive oil, fresh ground pepper, sea salt & fresh local garlic.

Ang had my least favourite chore, shucking the corn on the cob. I picked this corn up from Superstore, it was advertised as “Atlantic Grown” but the produce manager couldn’t tell me what province it actually came from.

While the food cooked we cracked open of bottle of Blomidon Estates L’Acadie Blanc and munched an appy platter that Jaime whipped up for us!

Great Start to the Weekend!

2010-03-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was so impressed and will be going back, just a little earlier next time to avoid the crowds. Check out my loot, all this for only $50.00!

Loaded up on green onions, fresh chives, beets, mushrooms, 2 types of zucchini, huge bag of spinach, peas, cucumber, new potatoes, a sweet potato, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow & green & purple (!!!) beans, cherries, fresh whole wheat bread and cheese - herb & garlic gouda & feta from Fox Hill.

After we plowed through all the cash on hand, we head over to Cora’s for some yummy brunch & a gab session. ;) I enjoyed the Asparagus & Swiss Cheese Eggs Benedict. (Hollandaise sauce on the side.)

Mmm, totally hit the spot! I left most of the fruit because the eggs were so filling. Apparently we arrived for brunch at the perfect time because the line up to get in was out the door and on to the street when we left.

We browsed around Lululemon for my reward for breaking out of the 190’s. I tried on sooo many things; would you believe a size 10 fit me? LMAO. Anyways, they fit but I wasn’t that pleased with my overall comfort level wearing the clothes (I felt really self-conscious) so I decided to not make any huge purchases today. Instead, I rewarded myself with an awesome new H20 Bottle (these are the new ones made by SIGG and hold 1L!) and a black Slipless Headband.

Running, Oh How I’ve Missed You!

2010-03-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Breaky was a yummy bowl of oatmeal! Mmm, it always tides me over so well. This morning’s combo was 1/3c organic oats, 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, 1/2 organic banana, 1tbsp peanut butter, 5g mini chocolate chips, 5g sliced almonds & 1tsp hulled hemp seeds. Perfection!

Morning snack was the usual peanut butter oatcake. Sorry, most of my eats of late have been quite routine.

Lunch was a bowl of chicken noodle soup with a roll. My lunch pictures turned out really blurry though. The worst part though? I forgot my bowl and had to heat up the soup in the plastic container. Eck, sooooo bad of/for me. :( But I was hungry.

After work, I enjoyed a yummy mug of Heavenly Hash ice cream. Oh how I adore ice cream. It is one of my guilty pleasures and something that I will never give up.

So, Supper… as usual it’s been the best meal of the day! I know I only made the Easy Shrimp Pasta a few weeks ago but I was craving it again. This is one of my fav recipes of all time!

I did make a few additions to the recipe – some fresh diced garlic and 2 cups of organic baby spinach. Yummy creamy goodness!

Getting Back To Me

2010-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to not make any other plans for the rest of the week. Want to catch up on my ZzZZZzz’s and get back into my routine. We do have another busy weekend planned – I’ve got a Pampered Chef party at Angie’s on Saturday and then a family BBQ on Sunday, plus we are going to visit friend’s of ours who are going through a really sad time. (Loss of a child.)

Today’s eats were yummy. Breaky was a fried egg with a sprinkle of fresh chives & pepper on a slice of whole wheat flax toast and a side of Nova Scotia raspberries.

On the way into work this morning I decided that I totally deserved an Sbux, and a venti at that! ;) I was in desperate need of my caffeine fix!

Lunch was really about using up the last of stuff. I made a yummy caesar salad with organic baby spinach, 1 tbsp real bacon bits, spinkle of parm, Fresh Gourmet Organic Croutons & Renee’s Light Caesar Dressing. Along with a side of the sweet orange tomatoes from the farmer’s market and whole wheat croissant. Was lacking in the protein area but still managed to keep me full all afternoon. Mmm mmm!

Night Off From The Kitchen

2010-03-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Not only was it a wonderful to have a night off from cooking but as a bonus, I still managed to enjoy fantastic, quality food too! Our friends Holly & Dean came over for the evening and Dean, who is in Culinary school, surprised us by offering to cook dinner. Not like I was going to turn that offer down! :)

Oh, and please excuse my ugly blue corelle plates, all my pretty white ones were in the dishwasher.

On the menu ce soir: Sticky Lemon Chicken w/ Garlicy Mashed Taters.

The recipe for the chicken is from Gordon Ramsay’s book Fast Food but is available online from Rachel Ray’s site.

With a glass of White Zinfandel.

Honorary Halibloggers

2010-03-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I haven’t blogged in a few days. That’s because I’ve been too busy having an absolutely freaking fantastic time with the Halibloggers and our honorary members – Jen, Amy & Cat!

I just want to say how truly lucky I feel to have such a wonderful group of ladies (and their hubbies) in my life. It’s not often a big group of 17 can get along so well and are extremely fortunate that everyone seemed to click almost instantly. We have developed some life long friendships and being from all over the country makes it that more special. Love you ladies!

Since Angie had to work all week and I had the time off, I ended up staying at her place so that I could show people around and help make sure they got a true Nova Scotia experience. I don’t have as many pictures as I’d like because I spent the past few days having a good time instead of worrying about taking a bazillion pics.

The first night was, of course, a lobster boil. I don’t really have too many pics from that night at all because I was pretty busy cooking the tasty things! Both Jaime and Angie have great re-caps though.

Unfortunately, it has been raining for most of their trip here. Our plans for Thursday were initially a day trip to Mahone Bay & Lunenburg, instead Jen, Amy & I went for some tasty brunch and picked up the Thanksgiving groceries. We spent the afternoon driving around the city and were able to get an hours walk along the waterfront when the rain finally decided to let up.

That evening was our Keith’s Brewery tour. Before we left Jen straightened my hair – I’m in LOVE! My hair has never looked this good. Even in the misty air it held out.

Non-New Years Resolutions

2010-03-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve really been thinking a lot about how unorganized and chaotic my life is. Today, I’m taking the first steps to change that. These are my Non-New Years Resolutions if you will. There are definitely areas that need to be re-prioritized. I don’t manage my time as well as I could which always bites me in the butt.

I need to unplug and not go online when I please because I end up wasting so much of my free time tweeting, blogging, emailing etc. Don’t get me wrong, you couldn’t pry me away from my wonderful online buddies but I need stop doing 20 things at once and just focus on one thing. (IE: just cooking supper and tidying the kitchen instead of leaving my laptop open while I’m in there.)
I need to start focusing on the people in my life who are important to me. Relationships take work. Nuff said.
I need to be more strict with my spending habits. Honestly, I kind of just buy what I feel like, when I feel like it. :-X
I need to take more pride in my home. Our house isn’t ideal, it’s definitely a fixer up. I’m embarrassed to have people over because of it’s ugliness. There I said it out loud. We need to keep going with the renos but they take time and $$. Also, I’ve really let stuff slide in areas of cleaning. Instead of tidying every day I wait until the weekend. And I stopped composting about 2 weeks ago because our green bin containers are just nasty and I got lazy. WTF. That is not me at all.
And last but not least, I need to get the rest of this weight off so that I’m healthy enough to have a baby.

Phew! That’s a load off my mind. Does anyone else have any Non-New Years Resolutions to share?

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Food today was parfait! Breaky was 2 slices of ezekiel toast with peanut butter & fresh blueberry jam. And, of course coffee. Two cups of it actually. Was hard to get out of bed this morning after the full weekend.

New Look!

2010-03-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

Our fridge has a decent amount of veggies already but I still stocked up on some fresh blueberries,plums, sweet tomatoes (like the ones I had at Jaime’s on Friday night!) organic garlic,chives, cantaloupe, squash and some cool looking mini squash & zucchini. :)

I couldn’t resist sampling the fresh scallops for lunch. Cooked up half a pound in a bit of becel. How delicious do these look?! Mmm mmm!

Used the sweet juicy tomatoes in a side salad as well.

I spent most of the afternoon baking and now have a freezer full of lunch stuff including peanut butter oatcakes, peanut butter granola bars & rolls. I also tried out a new recipe for oatmeal blueberry lemon muffins. Made a few modifications – used almond breeze instead of milk, 1 whole egg instead of 2 egg whites, 1tbsp of oil instead of 2 and I omitted the topping. Ended up having 2 of these yummy guys for breaky this morning.

The best part about yesterday was that I went out for a run as planned! :) I’ve definitely decided against re-doing C25K again, instead I did 10:1 intervals as Amy suggested. All went well, I wasn’t gasping for breath. So glad that I haven’t lost the ability to run, I really was afraid of that. My new plan now is to increase by one set each week, so this week I will be doing 3x10:1 for a total of 3 days. Should work out perfectly to start Half training mid-October!

So, I’m off to clean, clean, clean. Opps and I was supposed to mow the lawn. Eck! We have quite a busy week coming up, only a 3 day work week. Both of us took Friday off to help Holly & Dean with the final wedding errands and then Saturday is the big day! I’m really excited!!

Anyways, that’s all for now!

So Far So Good

2010-03-15T02:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve rocked this week so far and even managed to get out for a quick run yesterday afternoon. Was gorgeous out and the perfect temp! Friday the Halibloggers have our first group run and I couldn’t be more excited! :)

The Good: Feeling 1000% better

The Bad: I still have no hearing in my left ear.

The Ugly: I think my Polar HR that I bought back in May is not working properly at all. The last few times I’ve used it my HR has shown through the roof. Yesterday apparently my HR was 208 at the end of my run. WTF?? Wouldn’t I be collapsing on the ground if my HR was really 208? NOT COOL considering I spent $150 on it. No sure if I should I take it back to the Running Room or just call Polar directly?

Part Deux – The Dinner

2010-03-14T03:17:00.000-07:00

Hubby’s B-day dinner turned out fantastic! He had been trying to figure out what he wanted me to cook for the past few days and I couldn’t have been more happy when he suggested Indian food.

Eat, Shrink & Be Merry has a delicious Butter Chicken recipe that is always a hit - “The Better Butter Chicken.” Pg 82.

This dish is tasty and fairly simple to prepare, mainly because you use a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken.

Dean had been down to tour Domaine de Grand Pré Winery recently and kindly brought over a bottle of ‘08 L’Acadie Blanc for dinner.

I served the butter chicken with basmati rice and warm naan drizzled with a bit of olive oil.

And of course, the most important part – the double layer, double chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter cream frosting topped with mini Reese’s. ;)

Going With The Flow

2010-03-13T02:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it just happens. You follow your plan all week and then an unavoidable, last minute invitation is extended. Last night was the perfect example.

We had to meet MIL to do a bunch of errands at Access Nova Scotia. I really did start the night off with such great intentions I tell ya! Beforehand I had picked up Subway so that we could have some supper before heading over to Nubodys for a sweat session after the paper work was complete. It’s nearing the end of my week. I had no WAP’s remaining and only 8 of my daily points left; my 6” veggie and baked lays would’ve been perfect. However, instead of that we ended up at Steak and Stein with MIL & BIL.

I was HUNGRY and tried to make the healthiest choice possible. I ordered a single Del Monico Derby-style steak with the garden salad. By it self, not that bad. But the meal was taking forever, so I had a piece of cheese garlic bread while we waited. And the small roll on my plate may have also been another innocent causality. Sorry guys, no food pics tonight.

It was a rare opportunity for us all to get together and we had a great time catching up and discussing the upcoming holidays.

But two hours later I was hungry again and the poor veggie sub didn’t stand a chance. Not just a little hungry either but real hungry.(I did check and try and listen to my body.) I need to dig out the tracker to be sure, but my best estimate is that I’m over by 10-15 points.

I know this post feels a bit negative but it’s actually not. Last night was a positive experience for me because I was able to chalk it up to life. Life happens. In this rollarcoaster ride that is weight loss there will always be situations that are out of your control. It’s what you do next that matters.

Therefore, my plan today is just to stay focused, on track, eat the best foods for my body, chug the h20 and get in some type of workout this evening.

I’m not worrying and I’m not punishing myself. I was hungry so I ate. If I have a small gain this week then so be it. Means I will work a little harder next week.

Happy Friday!

Simple Gestures

2010-03-12T03:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes all it takes is a cute surprise in the mail to turn a good day into a great one! :)

Thank you Amy, for making my day a little brighter! xoxo

My Favourite Season Is Here!

2010-03-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

September 1st already! My favourite month has arrived and what a gorgeous day it was for it! Sunny skies and a nice breeze. On my walk home I just felt so happy and thankful to be out enjoying the beautiful day. Sounds kind corny doesn’t it? :) I’m really hoping J & I are able to get away for a few days sometime over the next month, just to relax and enjoy the lovely outdoors.

In other exciting news Angie was on Live At Five this evening talking about weight loss and the support she received online with blogging/WWs. She did a great interview, very professional and cute at the same time! Lex was awesome enough to put it up on YouTube for everyone to watch, so check it out here!

C25K Update:
I convinced Hubby to join me last night. It was nice to have him there, he has long legs and that pushes me to go faster to keep up with him. But, to be honest it wasn’t challenging at all. I barely worked up a sweat. Amy gave me some advice just to do 2 sets of 10s & 1s so perhaps I’ll go with that tomorrow. Either way, I’m back with the running.

Another day of spectacular eats pour moi! Breaky was an egg sandwich & coffee.

Whole wheat english muffin with a slice of swiss cheese, egg, tomato slices & baby spinach.

Same morning snack again – peanut butter oatcake. I was really hungry by 9am, not sure why. Breaky was pretty filling AND I was busy all morning at work so it wasn’t even boredom “hunger.”

Like I said, famished by Lunch time. I ate and worked at the same time and didn’t really even taste this. (Opps.) Chicken Noodle soup w/ a yummy roll & side salad.

I had a small dish of Liberte Svelte Vanilla yogurt for dessert but the pic didn’t come out AND I forgot to snap a pic of the nectarine I had one the way home.

Was a burger & fries kinda night! Don’t worry, healthy versions though. :) For Supper I whipped us up some yummy black bean burgers. (Recipe compliments of Kath) I used – (1) organic black beans, 1/3c diced green pepper, 1/3c diced yellow pepper, 1/3c diced onions, 4 tbsp of flour, hot sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper & chipotle seasoning.

Oven Taters – diced potatoes (skins on!) drizzled with olive oil & seasonings. Got the funniest compliment (?) from J, when he said they looked and tasted exactly like the frozen ones. Haha.

Another Year….

2010-03-10T02:40:00.000-08:00

Can’t believe it’s our 2nd anniversary already. Seems like just yesterday, seriously where has the time gone? I just went back and read that re-cap post of the wedding/honeymoon and I have to say that this is one of the reasons I’m so glad that I blog, you forget the little details of life. Sometimes blogging is time consuming but now I have that special day journaled forever because of it! :)

This week is really busy for us so we’ve been trying to decide how to best celebrate. It won’t be until Saturday night, either dinner out somewhere or a wine/cheese night in.

A little glimpse back…..

Us at my prom - June 2001. No comments about the jersey please!
;-) We look SO young!

[EDIT] Apparently I wasn’t supposed to post those prom pics. ;)

The Big Day – December 1, 2007

Writing this post made me smile. :)

Santa Shuffle

2010-03-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

So, this is totally last minute but….as you know, tomorrow the Halibloggers are doing the Santa Shuffle 5K fun run. Well did you know that it’s in support of the Salvation Army???? :)

If you want to help out a great cause and make a donation, you can do so here. It’s all done through the Running Room.

I know it’s a tight time of year with the expenses of the holidays. No pressure to make a donation and HUGE HUGE thanks to anyone who does!

Will be back tomorrow with a potluck and run recap!

Happy Weekend1!!

One Of My Favourite Places

2010-03-08T03:00:00.000-08:00

For a while now I’ve been wanting to show you one of my favourite places in the entire world. When we went for a leisurely walk on the Musquodoboit Trailways this past Sunday with Holly & her hubby, I was sure to snap tons of pictures to share! I’ve been using this trail for at least 12 years, even before it was officially part of the Trans-Canada trail system.

This post is very picture heavy.

It was a gorgeous, sunny day… Group shot just starting out.

For all you Nova Scotian’s out there, the Musquodoboit Trail is only a 40 min drive from Halifax and is 13km of beautiful scenery. It crosses the river and passes by a gorgeous lake. Plus there are a few “rugged” trails that lead to magnificent looks offs.

As you can see, the trail is very pedestrian friendly. It’s great for running, biking and I’ve seen tons of families with strollers and doggies.

One time we actually saw a doggie in a stroller, which I thought was hilarious! :)

Fun Fact: Nine years ago (OMG doesn’t seem that long ago!) I had a summer job working for the trail – website design and weekly on-site trail maintenance. Maintenance=cleaning the outhouses. ;) At the time I was close to 300 lbs and it took absolutely EVERYTHING out of me to bike the 2.5km to do the maintenance. Now when I walk by it, I just have to smile because it’s SOOO different. My how life is changed.

I’m trying to convince the Halibloggers to come out her sometime for a group hike, maybe one of the rugged ones? Would make for a fun day! AND I know all kinds of random fun facts about the trail that I could entertain you with!

Isn’t this little foot bridge so cute?

The lake was choppy but still so peaceful.

Sometimes I will just come up here to get away from life. This is one of the most relaxing places in the world and I’m so lucky that it’s only a 20 minute drive away.

Was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Sometimes It’s The Simple Things…

2010-03-07T16:54:00.000-08:00

Like this shiny set of new frying pants that totally made my night!

I’ve been saying forever that we need some new pans and it’s gotten to the point where we’ve even been made fun of for only having one crappy frying pan. :-P

We finally gave in and ordered a new set with some points that J had accumulated through his rewards system at work.

Of course I had to try it out right away! So nice to have new non-stick, I always had to use oil on the old one. Cooking up the tacos was a breeze.

PS. Holly you can pass along to your hubby that our kitchen tools should now all be up to par.. ;) hehe

Oh and to top it off, I finally found some icing that works for the tree cookies!! Which means that I’m all ready for the exchange tomorrow night. Glad, because I really didn’t want to give away naked cookies. :)

All prettied up for my girls….

Got a busy weekend coming up. Work all day tomorrow and then we have our Haliblogger potluck and cookie exchange. Saturday, I’ve got an early Weight Watchers meeting, the Santa Shuffle 5K, post run brunch at Coras (?) and then hubby and have got movie + dinner plans in the evening to celebrate the anniversary. Sunday is my birthday but we’re actually going to an extended family brunch at the Prince George.

I’m sad to say that this week has been a write off for me in terms of WW’s. I can’t wait to WI on Saturday and move on. I knew this week would be a struggle and having the gain last week didn’t help at all. This is me being 100% honest with you all. However, looking at this from a long-term perspective, it’s nothing but a small glitch and as long as I keep moving forwarding then I can’t go wrong. :)

Oh, there is a certain goal that I'm really looking forward to achieving in the next 6 months, can’t wait to share all the details with you soon! I’ll give you a hint, it has to do with running……

It’s Only Noon…

2010-03-06T09:03:00.000-08:00

and I already have a freezer full of veggie chili, peanut butter oatcakes (recipe here) cooling, rolls fresh out of the oven and curried cauliflower soup all ready for lunch!

Plus the kitchen is in fairly decent shape. Whoot, love it when I have productive days like these! Lunch-wise we are all ready for another work week. Planning/Prepping always making it so much easier to stay on track.

Speaking of staying on track, got in an hour of HI cardio last night as planned. Did 15 mins of incline training on the dreadmill then switched to running for the last 15. I was able to easily run, which is quite a relief. Finished up with another 30 mins on the elliptical.

I’m still going to take the running slow though so that I’m fully prepared for the Half. Registration opens online the day after my b-day so that will be my present to myself.

Unfortunately, even though I was within my points the scale showed me up 0.6 lbs this morning. No biggie really, should just make for a bigger loss next week.

For breaky, I whipped us up some blueberry pancakes. The recipe is pretty basic – 1/2c ww flour, 1/2c flour, 2tsp baking powder, 1tbsp brown sugar, 1c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, 1 egg white & 1/2c blueberries. Topped with Pure Nova Scotia Maple Syrup and a side of fresh JustUs! Mmm mmm.

Lunch was a bowl of the curried cauliflower with honey soup. I was searching for simple cauliflower recipes yesterday because I had half of one that needed to be used and stumbled upon this FANTASTIC recipe! I literally licked the bowl clean. ;) Perfect Fall meal, will definitely be making this again.

Of course I had to taste the fresh rolls! The soup was really thick so they were perfect for dipping.

Plans for the rest of the day include working out, doing some laundry and then relaxing. J is going to a bachelor party tonight, so the bride-to be & I will be hanging out this evening waiting for the drunken call to go get the boys. ;)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Another Fabulous Saturday

2010-03-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

What can I say, my Saturday’s of late have been fantastic! As per the new routine, Holly and I headed into the city and met up with Angie at our WW’s meeting.

I hoped on the scale and was down another 1.8 lbs for a total of 5.6 lbs since joining meetings. I also got my first 5 lb star!

Today’s meeting wasn't really focused on anything in particular People were just talking in general about what motivates them and many were recognized for milestones, there was even a lady who got to goal today! Exciting stuff!!

The overall tone of the was very positive and I felt pumped listening to what everyone had to say! Terry passed along another great quote -

“If you do not change your direction you may end up where you were headed.”

After the meeting we went to the gymbo for a sweat session. (J and Holly’s Hubby joined us.) Let me tell you we kicked ass today!!! All of us were sweating buckets when we left. :)

My work out consisted of:

Treadmill – 2 min warm up, 20 min running, 3 min cool down
Crosstrainer – 20 min
Strength – 20 min circuit

It was so much fun being there with a group of great friends. I think we all pushed ourselves to do our very best. :) A little locker room photo opp hehe.

Post workout Me, J, Holly & Dean grabbed a coffee at Starbucks. I stuck w/ an Iced Americano because I was still pretty warm from the gym. :)

We decided we were in need of some lunch and ended up at Cora’s. The place was packed but we managed to snag a booth without too much of a wait.

Woulda been a nice shot if we weren’t in our skanky gym clothes. ;)

Poached egg on dry whole wheat toast. (4 Points)

Cottage cheese, approx 1/2 cup. (2 Points)

Plus a huge amount of fruit salad. There had to be at least 2 cups on my plate. Strawberries, melons, apple, pear, pineapple, grapes, kiwi…. and Holly was kind enough to share this cute starfruit with me!

I ate about half of the fruit and took the rest home. Overall a fairly well balanced 8 points. Lots of protein and carbs, plus a serving of dairy.

There you have my week 2 WI. I’m very happy with my progress since joining meetings. I feel like this was one of the best decisions I have made in my weight loss journey. It was a huge step for me to admit that tracking online wasn’t working any more but I’m SOOO glad that I looked at it as an opportunity to explore this new support system.

My goals for this week are to earn 25 APs and to get in my daily servings of oils. I’m getting more dairy but still slacking on the oils. This needs to change. :) What are your goals for this week?

Eat Atlantic Dinner Party!

2010-03-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the Eat Atlantic Challenge – a few of the Halibloggers are planning a small dinner party on Friday night. I’m really excited to see what tasty eats we can all come up with! Should be a fantastic night full of yummy local food and lots of laughs. :) If you’re Atlantic Canadian and have yet to make your pledge, head over and sign up now!

The Eat Atlantic Challenge is a promotion aimed at encouraging Atlantic Canadians to eat only food produced in Atlantic Canada for a day, on September 4. The primary goal is to promote the economic, health and environmental benefits of eating food that is produced here in Atlantic Canada

For more info check out their official sites:

http://www.eatatlantic.ca/

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Join Facebook Page

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A few people have been asking for the roll recipe I used this past weekend. I uploaded it earlier today and it can now be found here.

My eats today were yummy, filling & fairly healthy. Breaky was another morning of ezekiel toast with peanut butter & sliced bananas.

Was a busy day at work. Snuck in a quick snack, a handful of Simple Pleasures Spice Snaps. I love these guys for dipping!

Lunch was a plate of leftovers from Sunday’s roast chicken dinner. I had 2oz of meat, 1/2 c mashed taters, 1/4 c stove top and 1/2 c carrots. Wasn’t too bad microwaved. I also had 1 square of organic dark chocolate that a co-worker gave me.

Another fantastic Supper! In case you hadn’t noticed, we really haven’t been eating a lot of meat lately. After seeing Food Inc., I wanted to try and buy as much local/free range/organic meat as possible. Unfortunately, that’s harder than it seems, mainly because it involves me driving all the way over to Planet Organic. Since I’m lazy, I’ve just been making more meat free meals and am slowly using up the last of the nasty toxic meat that’s in our freezer. Tonight is an example. Have to admit though, the toxic meat was pretty tasty! ;)

I present, homemade philly cheesesteaks!

I thinly sliced 6oz of beef round steak, fried (olive oil) in a skillet with sliced onions, green peppers, yellow peppers, garlic powder, pepper and small amounts of A1 sauce, Worcestershire sauce & BBQ sauce. Placed the mixture into 3 flax seed buns, sprinkled with old cheddar and then under the broiler for 5 mins.

Side of Liberte Svelte Vanilla yogurt & strawberries.

With that I’m off for another c25K session. Oh how I missed running!

Re-Training The Brain

2010-03-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

Want to thank everyone for their supportive comments from earlier this morning. You have no idea how much they help with the motivation! I’m really struggling to be in the same place head-wise that I was 2 years ago when following weight watchers was new and exciting and the weight was just falling off. What I realize but need to actually accept is that it could take another 2 years to get the rest of this off. Obviously I need to follow the plan to lose weight but my body probably needs time to adjust too. My main focus has always been on my health and it’s staying that way. I hate the feeling of waking up and still being full from last night’s overeating. That is not who I am anymore. But no matter how many books I read on food addiction and intuitive eating, I will probably still struggle for the rest of my life. I let food rule me for so long that it’s natural instinct to go for food when I’m upset. Re-training the brain is hard work but I’m slowly getting there and slip-ups happen. I’m only human right.

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Overall was a pretty decent day; got in a nice 30 min walk in the lovely Fall sunshine; am relaxing now and I’m looking forward to the weekend. Originally, I had a bunch of things planned but have decided to forgo some of them and head to my parent’s place in the country for a night away. There is only dial-up available in their area so I will also be taking a little break from my PC too. The only plans I have are to hit up the trail on the way there, make a batch of salsa with Mom and go out for a few runs on the four wheeler with J, oh and maybe an actual run on Sunday morning. :)

Moving on to my eats….Breaky was an egg wrap with a small dish of vanilla yogurt. Mug of steamy Just Us totally made the meal though!

The ww wrap was spread with light herb & garlic cream cheese, topped with organic baby spinach, egg & tomato slices.

For me, there is no better way to brighten the mood than a great pair of shoes….which is why I wore these lovelies today!

AM snack was a Quaker Caramel Chocolate Chip rice cake. Woulda been better with a smear of peanut butter though.

For lunch I tried to use up a few things from the cupboard including a can of turkey breast leftover from my Hurricane Bill grocery run. Mixed up the can of turkey breast, 1 tbsp Hellman’s mayo, 1 tbsp craisins and 1 chopped pear and spread over another ww wrap with organic baby spinach. Was yummy and I still have the other half of the mixture for lunch tomorrow.

Side of the sweet yellow tomatoes. Mmm, love these guys!

Juicy watermelon for dessert.

Was chilly out which made it the perfect time to pull out the last of my Pumpkin Spice tea! I have a few of these left over from last Winter, they are such a treat.

Supper was comfort food at its finest! Pan fried scallops with angel hair pasta and mixed veggies topped with homemade cheese sauce.

I’m off for another cup of coffee even though I know I shouldn’t because I won’t be able to sleep.

Girls Night Out!

2010-03-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

My pedi was awesome! I just love getting pampered and having your feet massaged is the best. :) Here are my toes post-pedi, sadly they still look pretty nasty with all the blisters. For my color I chose OPI’s “Bastille My Heart.” I really liked the color when I got it last summer and was glad to hear it was still available.

We had dinner on the waterfront. Ended up on the patio at Salty’s. First off, if you’re from Nova Scotia then you probably have heard about the whole sewage plant problem. While the view was pleasant enough, a wonderful sunny evening; the smell was certainly not. And second, I’m not gonna lie – I was really disappointed with the restaurant. There are 2 sections to Salty’s, the Upstairs, which is fine dining or the Downstairs (what we chose), which is casual.

We started off with the garlic cheese bread. It arrived within 5 mins and really good. (forgot to snap a pic) For drinks, I ordered a Black Current Lemonade Martini and water. Looked pretty enough, but definitely not my type of drink. Holly enjoyed it though.

Our view from the patio was nice – there was a wedding party getting photographed on the boardwalk and tons of boats in the harbour including Theodore! Hehe ;)

For dinner I chose the Cajun Chicken Wrap - grilled chicken slices, ancho pepper mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato in a tortilla wrap with a Caesar salad. There was so much mayo in the wrap that overpowered the entire thing AND went everywhere. I couldn’t take a bite without it dripping down my hands and face.

The salad wasn’t anything special either. Usually that amount of bacon adds some flavour but not this time. :(

Since it was chilly out I decided to treat myself to a hot chocolate. There wasn’t much taste to it at all, very watery. It was really busy and I was with other people so I didn’t think it was the most appropriate time to complain. I can’t see myself ever going back there though.

Our next stop was the Old Triangle for more drinks. I ordered something that I think was called a “Guilty Pleasure.” – a YUMMY mix of amaretto, kahlua & grand marnier!

And even better was this melt in your mouth, white chocolate vanilla cheesecake! :) I have been craving cheesecake for some time and this certainly hit the spot!

We spent a few hours at the Triangle. I managed to sip on one double White Russian for the remainder of the time. Back in the day that was my drink of choice and I thought what the hell, might as well have one! This is pretty much where I stopped taking pics though. We ended up on the patio at Peddlers for a couple hours, where I enjoyed two double vodka cranberries and then headed over to the Casino. Gambling isn’t really my scene so I watched everyone else and waited for the guys to pick us up. Overall a fantastic evening and can’t wait for the wedding next Saturday!

This morning I woke up and headed down to the farmers market to stock up on fresh meats & produce. The rest of the day includes a mile long “to-do” list, getting my butt out for a run and an early bed time! Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend!

Happy Friday Bloggies!

2010-03-01T01:57:00.000-08:00

Yup, Friday has arrived. No work for me today, instead I’m going to a women’s networking event that I attend every year. Fun!

I ate well yesterday (minus a bowl of cookie dough ice cream!) and ended up making my best Homemade Mac ‘N Cheese yet. I think what made it better was that I baked it and made it in to a casserole dish.

This was so easy to make. All I did was cook 3 servings of penne and a pot of my cheese sauce, mix and then transfer to a casserole dish, top with a bit of shredded cheese & bread crumbs and bake for 10 mins. YUM. J went back for seconds!

A third of this was 520 calories with a whopping 9.3g of fiber and 21.7g of protein. I usually eat around a 500 calorie supper so it worked well.

The only thing missing was a side of broccoli & cauliflower. Unfortunately, I need to get to the grocery store so I had none on hand. Still this is comfort food at it’s finest! :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday, please cross your fingers for me that it’s not cold and rainy this evening. The Halibloggers are supposed to have their first group run ce soir but I’m not going if the weather is nasty because I need my ear to get better.

Sushi & The Symphony

2010-02-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

Evenin’ everyone, I’m blogging a bit later than usual today because I just got in from a fun evening out with Angie & Jaime. A few days ago I mentioned that Jaime and I won tickets from Symphony Nova Scotia, well tonight was the show.

In true Haliblogger fashion we made it a night out and met up for dinner beforehand. After hearing Jaime’s review of Doraku, I knew where I wanted to go…
But the inside was just lovely. The first place we hit was the bathroom. There were candles and all kinds of yummy smells throughout the building. :) After powdering our noses our waitress took us to our seats - we actually had to take our shoes off and walk up the table. It was so neat!

While we waited for Jaime to arrive we browsed the menu and decided on a bunch of rolls to split.

I like to have green tea when I’m having sushi, ours came in a beautiful teapot.

We decided to start of with a cup of miso soup and a few bowls of edamame for the table. The miso soup really hit the spot on this cold, damp day.

And of course, the best part, the rolls. We ordered a few different ones to share including - Sweet Potato Tempura , Philadelphia Roll, Spicy Tuna and a Spicy Scallop. It was the best sushi I’ve had in the city. I’m definitely not an expert but better than the other 2 places I’ve been. :) (Excuse my poor quality pictures.)

After dinner, we made a dash for the Cohn and arrived just in time to get a few ticket issues sorted out (the staff were great and very accommodating!) and got to meet two other Halifax Twitters - @TammiHayne and @AliceinParis. So cool to meet other local twitters! I may have snuck a few pics once we got inside…

We enjoyed the sounds of “Brushstrokes and Bows.” Over all I liked it. I just wish I hadn’t have been up since 5am because I was pretty tired. It was my first time going to a Symphony though and it was pretty amazing! Thanks again to Symphony Nova Scotia for the tickets! I can’t wait to go back in December to see the Nutcracker!

Dinner and a Movie

2010-02-27T03:17:00.000-08:00

Anyways, regardless of my silly throat, Mom and I had a great time on our date last night. I met her after work and we headed over to the Ramada for dinner at the Peppermill. The lighting in the restaurant was horrible and my pictures reflect that.

We got there before they officially started serving dinner so we had to sit in the bar. No prob, I did find it chilly though. Turns out they were having issues with their water systems and didn’t have any coffee. Won’t lie, I was disappointed, had been looking forward to an afternoon pick-me up.

We ended up splitting a glass of wine, a local white - Grand Pre L’Acadie Blanc. Although I wasted it by only having a sip or two.

They brought us over a small loaf of seedy bread and garlic butter to munch on while we browsed the menu. I had 2.5 little slices with a bit of the fantastic garlicky butter. Counted as 3 Points.

I stuck to my original plan and ordered the entrée-sized Spinach Salad w/ a Grilled Chicken Breast.

In true WW-style I immediately got rid of one of the cups of dressing. The menu indicated that there was supposed to be apple and almonds in the dish but I didn’t see/taste any. The Jarlsburg cheese did give it a nice flavour though.

I counted this salad as 10 Points - spinach, tomato & mushrooms 0, egg 2, cheese 3, dressing 2 and chicken breast 3. Over all it was good, give it a 6/7 out of 10. Honestly though, nothing spectacular. I think I could’ve found a better way to spend 13 points (half of my daily points) at home. I am proud of my healthy choices though, lots of veggies, protein and dairy! That is how you stay OP at a restaurant. Really simple if you’re focused.

Going to point out the obvious here too, and admit that I’ve become quite the food snob, especially when dining out. If I’m going to pay a decent amount of money for something then I expect it to taste exceptional. :)

My body was craving caffeine so we made a quick detour to the Starbucks drive-thru. My Mom nearly died from laughter when she heard me order a “tall, non-fat pumpkin spice latte, no whip.” Yup, turns outs I’m finally down with some of the ‘bucks lingo that all the cool kids use. ;) Totally hit the spot AND it’s my first red cup of the season!

We made it to the movie with plenty of time to settle in. Does anyone else find all the advertising annoying? I know it’s the same thing as commercials on TV, but I really disagree since you’re paying money to see the film. Ok, well tonight I wasn’t paying, I scored some tickets to see Coco Avant Chanel from the wonderful folks at The Coast but still. Thanks again by the way!

Here’s a summary of the film from IMDB:
Several years after leaving the orphanage to which her father never returned for her, Gabrielle Chanel finds herself working in a provincial bar both. She's both a seamstress for the performers and a singer, earning the nickname Coco from the song she sings nightly with her sister. A liaison with Baron Balsan gives her an entree into French society and a chance to develop her gift for designing increasingly popular hats. When she falls in love with English businessman Arthur Capel further opportunities open up, though life becomes ever more complicated.

I really enjoyed the movie. It was my first time experiencing a film with sub-titles. So neat, I do a have a bit of a background in the French language so it was quite interesting to see what I could understand. The sub-titles were great too, by the end of the movie you didn’t even realize that you were reading them and watching at the same time. What a life Coco had before becoming a famous designer! I knew she was the genius behind the LBD and woman’s suits but I had no idea that she originally started out making hats. Did you guys?

Yup, was a great Mother/Daughter night for sure!

So plans for my day off include trying out my new French press compliments of Things To Do For Two, with a full review to come. Getting in 2 cardio sessions, checking out my newly dug-up yard (septic issues) and cooking.

I kind of thought I might head up to the cenotaph too, I always went to Remembrance Day services when I was younger, it was a nice tradition and a great way to remember all those who fought for our country/freedom. This will depend on how I feel though.

Alright, off to check up on all my lovely bloggies now!

Hubby’s B-day – Part One

2010-02-26T04:23:00.000-08:00

Morning bloggies, happy weekend!

Yesterday was hubby’s b-day so I thought it would be nice for him to wake up to a yummy breaky. I made one of his favs, my mom’s Potato Boats. I had to get up a little early to make em, but I did take the easy way out by microwaving instead of using the oven. Stuffed with old cheddar & real bacon bits. Mmm mmm.

Fresh sliced mango on the side. It was perfectly ripe; very sweet & juicy.

Plus his cute card,

It reads -

Your keys on the table,
Your shoes at the door,
Your pillow on the bed,
Your clothes on the floor,
Your arm around my neck,
Your laugh in my ear,
Your body leaning close,
Our hearts beating near,
It's the little things that combine
To make one big love.

One of my fav snack combos of late is a rice cake with peanut butter.

While I was having my snack, I snapped a few shots of my desk. I’ve basically got a collage of all the important people/events in my life. J & I on our wedding day, a couple from Holly & Dean’s wedding, my stagette dinner, a few different family ones including one from my 10K and a couple shots of the Halibloggers :) It always brightens my day to look up and be reminded of all the fun times.

And this is the where the food blogging ended for the day. :) After work my main mission was to bake J’s B-day cake. He’s a chocolate peanut butter kind of guy and after seeing the cake that Angie made for her hubby I knew that I was going to make something similar. I googled for a recipe and decided to go the easy route and bought mixes instead of making the cake from scratch.

Somehow I ended up buying a chocolate brownie mix instead of a cake mix though. Opps. I mean really, the only words I can see on the box are organic and chocolate… :)

I followed the directions but then also added 1/2 cup of milk and 1 tsp of baking powder to the mix. 2 hours later….I think it turned out pretty well!

This is a double layer, double chocolate fudge cake with peanut butter cream frosting topped with tooooo many mini Reese’s! I’m scared to do the calorie count on this. ;)

Needless to say I need to get in quite the workout this morning so that I can indulge ce soir. Speaking of, I weighed in this morning and am down 2.8 lbs, which is quite a relief :)

I’m off to get prepped for the gathering tonight – we’re having friends over for dinner/cake/drinks.

Local Love

2010-02-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

Good Evening Bloggies, long time no chat! What a busy week for this household. Thankfully, it’s wrapping up quite nicely and I’m looking forward to the weekend.

I’ve got some exciting news – Life, Health & Fitness is now being streamed in the “Life” section of Haligonia.ca.

It was a big decision to make because being published on a local site kind of takes always from my anonymity. However, the whole point of my blog is to share my experiences with others, so why not locals as well? Thanks again to the Haligonia.ca, I really appreciate this opportunity!
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This evening the Halibloggers were supposed to go for our first group run. You know in preparation of the Santa Shuffle 5K that is a mere 2 weeks away. Yup, sometimes the schedules just don’t work out the away we want them to.

In anticipation of the run, I had a bite before I left work. For some reason I’ve been craving egg salad lately, so……

Bodywise WW Bagel with organic baby spinach, spread with the egg mixture – 1 egg, 1 tbsp of the best light mayo ever, diced chives and various seasonings. YUM and the perfect amount of carbs and protein to fuel my workout.

We agreed to met up at Starbucks beforehand and as usual I was a tad early. Not to worry, I managed to snag a comfy chair and had the crackberry and a short dark roast to pass the time. :)

In the end it was just me, Jaime and Tash who hit the pavement. Ang had planned to go but got held up at work. Lex and Farm Girl had previous commitments. We started off with a brisk walk down Spring Garden, then ran intervals for the next 45 mins or so, throughout the South End. It was a beautiful crisp evening, hard to believe it’s almost December. I haven’t done a lot of group running and have to say that I really enjoyed it. It’s nice to be out working up a decent sweat while spending time with good friends. Thanks for tonight girlies :)

On the WW’s front I’m doing okay, this week as been really busy which has resulted in a lack of “me” time. Read: lack of work out time. I’ve stayed within my points, used all of my WAP and most of my APs so we’ll see what the scale says on Saturday. I have a feeling that I won’t have much of a loss but I’m okay with that because the last 2 weeks I’ve had great results. I am finally back to where I want to be in terms of focus/motivation AND I’m back to running on a regular basis. Really don’t have much to complain about.

I will be checking in with everyone shortly, sorry for the lack of comments this week.

Focusing On Me – Day 1

2010-02-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

One day down, the rest of my life to go! :) Happy to report that I stayed within the calories, got in a bit of exercise plus the house is tidy, lunches are made and I’m thoroughly enjoying my newly installed DVR. Yup, after 8 years I can finally watch my fav guilty pleasure ever, Days of our Lives. We bite the bullet and joined the 21st century this past Saturday. Hehe. Oh and I got to watch Jillian on The Doctors this afternoon! How excited was I? LOL

I’ve unplugged quite a bit over the past 2 weeks and it’s been a great break. But I feel like blogging helps me stay more accountable so I’m back to posting my daily eats now. Plus I missed checking in with my fellow bloggies!

Was definitely an oats kind of morning – a rainy, dreary Monday. I whipped us up a pot of organic oats, unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, organic banana, peanut butter & mini chocolate chips. There was also a huge mug of coffee too but it disappeared before I could snap a pic.

We don’t have any homemade snacks made so I grabbed a handful of Simple Pleasures Spice Snaps for a snack. These a great dippers too!

The rain made me crave a steamy mug of yumminess, so I had a minty hot chocolate. Used half this packet of Nestle Noir Dark Chocolate mix and a bag of Stash Peppermint tea. Mmmm

Lunch was 1/2c organic brown rice and 2 homemade veggie eggrolls. What a boring pic, the food just blends right in with the plate.

I did have a nectarine and then some air popped popcorn when I got home but was relaxing and opted not to take a pic. Supper was left over BBQ chicken breast, mashed taters & green beans. Had to use my ugly plates, the nice ones were all in the dishwasher.

Exercise was 30 mins of brisk walking.

So, someone of you are probably wondering how my Marilyn Manson concert experience went. To be honest, it wasn’t that bad. The show itself was pretty cool with all the lights, props, effects etc. There was a potential situation with a few people beside us but thankfully security handled it well. In regards to my “look” I showed up to J’s friend’s place in my work clothes and she proceeded to give me a make over. I LOVED my straightened hair but in general wasn’t comfortable with the rest, especially after we got out in public and by then I had no choice but to just go with it…eye make-up and all. I look so silly! :-P There, hope you all had a great laugh!

Back in Business

2010-02-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve had a seriously great 2 days! I AM BACK 1000% and does it ever feel good. I am happy, happy, happy! :) From previous experience, I know exactly what I need to do in order to have a successful week staying OP.

GET ORGANIZED!

So that is what I spent the day doing. I am ready to take on this week, full speed ahead! I can’t wait to kick butt on the scale this coming Saturday!

I`m getting back into the habit of making all our lunches for the week on Sunday. This makes my mornings much easier and staying on track easy peasy!

I decided to added some veggies to the Mac `N Cheese casserole by creating a Roasted Red Pepper version. I`ve never roasted red peppers before; its so simple and they tasted amazing. Click here for directions.

I also experimented a bit more and made a fantastic batch of muffins. Orange POM Muffins to be exact. Yum

I want to thank everyone for their positive feedback and supportive comments on yesterday`s post. I am in this for the long haul and you will see me get there, promise! :) I took some pictures before heading off the WW Meeting, forgot all about them. So here are my official `fresh start`before pics. Excuse the tight running pants ;)

Time of my Life!

2010-02-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

Well the G2G is just about over. I am tired, a bit hung over and sick as a dog but am still smiling because this whole week has been just amazing! I never thought a group of 16-18 people could get along as well as we all did, but apparently it can happen. FYI: I’m trying to put only flattering pics of everyone in this post but it might be a little tricky because we were all having quite a “good” time. :)

Our Thanksgiving dinner was yummy, we had a huge 21lb free range, organic turkey complete with all the trimmings – Cat & Jen made the yummy garlic mashed taters, Amy made her famous sweet potatos, Lesley and I both made different stuffing, there was sweet potato casserole and corn, Jaime made awesome roasted brussel spouts, plus mashed carrots & turnip, and Tash brought over yummy pumpkin & apple pies from Pete’s. It was a huge feast! I only have one pic from the actual meal and it’s of the bird. :)

To be honest I can barely remember the rest of the evening. I’m not a big drinker by any means but this was certainly a night of indulgence. hehe. I know I started off with wine but then Jen brought out her the jello shooters and it all kinda went fuzzy from there! Of course you end up with lots of cameras when bloggers unite.

Meanwhile, the men were getting to know each other the usual way – with beer, video games & sports, hehe!

Oh and Lex’s b/f Dave is a rubix cube genius and he spent part of the evening sharing his tricks of the trade!

Saturday we had a yummy brunch – bacon, scrambled eggs, hash & toast then J & I snuck out to attend a memorial service. J was really hurting so I took him home after the service and then headed back into the city to meet up with everyone at the Halifax Feast Dinner Theatre for a hilarious evening of entertainment. We saw High School Reunion - The Musical. I had a blast and can’t wait to go back for another show! After that we wandered up to Maxwell’s for a few drinks (and so the guys could watch the hockey game.) Ang & I got this crazy idea that we needed something to commemorate the G2G. We snuck out and after a bit of running around (there’s not that much open at 1145pm on Saturday night) we got a group shot printed and had everyone write on each other's.

It was another late night with some yummy butterscotch shots and a game of “What.” I think I finally hit the sack around 4am. Eck.

Yesterday we packed up and Jen & hubby were off to the airport, they got their flight info wrong so they made it just in time. It was a short but sad good bye. Miss you already chickie. I headed home sick and in desperate need of sleep.

One finally gathering this morning at Cora’s for brunch where I said my goodbye’s to Amy & Cat. Really can’t believe it’s over already. Can’t wait to see what we come up with next though.

I’m not even sure how I managed to drive there to be honest. My body is simply going through the motions and I plan to spend the rest of the day on the couch getting some much needed rest.

Once again ladies, this was truly one of those experiences that I will never ever forget. I’m just in awe of it all. I love you all from the bottom of my heart, thanks for some wonderful memories! xoxo

PS. DETOX STARTS TOMORROW!

Zumba Fail

2010-02-23T03:26:00.000-08:00

So, as many of you know I was quite excited to try Zumba with a few of the other Halibloggers last night. Over the past several years I’ve really tried to broaden my whole fitness experiences and have mixed things up with spinning, warm yoga, pilates, shred and running.

What is Zumba you ask?
The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you've got a Zumba® class! [All info taken from their official website - http://www.zumba.com]

So Angie,Lesley, Lex, Tammi and I all met up to go to the Zumba class at Good Life Fitness. There were a lot of people hoping to get a spot. The room only holds 30 people, so luckily we managed to get in line early enough that we were all able to make the cut. :)

I had no expectations for the class at all. The girls who went last week raved about it so I thought why not?

The class was packed, the music was fun and the instructor was very enthusiastic. I forget her name but she did a really great job of demonstrating the moves and it was quite obvious that she loves it.

Unfortunately, I'm not coordinated at all. I'll be honest, after 5 minutes in I knew that it wasn't for me. Of course, I stuck out the class but I was all over the place and always seemed to be several moves behind everyone. Plus I was facing wall to wall mirrors, so half the time I was looking at myself and the other half the instructor, but she was facing us so I ended up doing the moves opposite of what they were supposed to be.

It was a fairly decent sweat. Couldn't tell ya the exact number, roughly between 300-400 cals in the 45 mins class. (I had doubled up on the sports bras and Mr. Polar kept riding up underneath the band so I ended up resetting 3 times, not really great when I'm trying to track calories.)

Anyways, I'm thinking that group fitness classes aren't for me.... Group runs, definitely!

Overall I'm glad that I tried it and stuck it out.

Have you tried Zumba? Did you enjoy it? Let me know!

POM Marinated Pork Tenderloin

2010-02-23T02:22:00.000-08:00

Pork tenderloin was on sale this week so I picked up a package. I was trying to find a good marinade recipe when I stumbled up on this one - POM Marinated Pork Roast from POM Wonderful.

As luck would have, I actually had all the ingredients in my cupboards! Whoot, this rarely happens! Please Note: I only used the actual marinade portion of the recipe and not the whole meal.

Combine POM Juice and white wine.

Mix in mustard, (I didn't have dijon, just honey) Worcestershire sauce, fresh chives, rosemary and bay leaves.

Use a knife to perforate the meat.

Place meat in bowl with marinade mixture and then cover. I let mine marinate over night and then all day. Probably close to 24 hours.

Bake at 400 for approx 25-30 mins... and voila! This was SOOO good.

Most definitely a recipe I will be using again. :)

Quick Update:
I've been EXTREMELY busy so far this week. We've solved the mystery of the missing septic tank and that problem is being dealt with today. AND we're finally getting a second vehicle, which is going to make life soooo much easier! I should have her by next week! I'm so excited/releaved! :)

Exercise hasn't really happened since Saturday. I've worked the spin class in tomorrow night and we have a group run planned for Thursday evening, so overall it's not so bad. I've also used up all my WAP and 4 AP. I' don't plan to eat any more APs and will work with the 26 daily points I have for the rest of the week.

I've got a bit of work to do this evening but I'm going to try and catch up on all your blogs too. :) Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Pom-errific Salad Night

2010-02-22T15:46:00.000-08:00

Evenin’ bloggies. Hope you all had a wonderful day and managed to stay focused on your health goals. :)

You may have noticed, I made the blogroll dedicated to other bloggers who are back at WW’s Meetings. If your blog is missing, please leave me a comment so I can add it. I would love to share the support on this journey.

I made a fantastic salad for Supper tonight that I wanted to share. The past few days I’ve been craving a huge salad; figured this was a safe one (craving) to actually give in to. Hehehe.

Baby spinach, pom seeds, red onion & feta cheese. Perfection!
Tossed with some Calorie-Wise Poppyseed Dressing.

This huge salad was 2.5 Points – baby spinach (0) pom seeds (0.5) red onion (0) feta cheese (1) poppyseed dressing (1)

To round it out, I had 3oz of chicken breast and a side of rosemary focaccia bread. Mmm, I’m thinking a smaller portion of this would make a fantastic lunch!

I’m off to read up on my Blackberry and squeeze in a quick cardio session. Night!