Me and my BFF “Jil”

I woke up to a glorious sunny Sunday morning and it was the kind of bright and sunny sun that makes you think for just a second that spring or summer might be here – just for a second!  Hey do any of your dogs act like cats?

I got up with Lucy and took her outside and then brewed a pot of coffee to sip on while I got caught up on my BLBE email inbox - you guys are awesome ;-).  Then I thought I’d get my body going for the day and instead of jumping on the elliptical (as I do not want to resent the thing), I was excited to try Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred DVD that hubby snagged for me (yay hubs!).  Now maybe I’m a little on the wimpier side with it comes to working out, but I really pushed it on the Level 1 and I got a good sweat in for that 20 minutes.  It might have only been 20 minutes, but it is a combination of cardio and strength training and all you are using is a floor mat (yoga mat) and some small hand weights.  I kept pushing it as best I could because she makes such a good point!  There is a difference between “calling it in at the gym” and actually making your workout minutes count.  You have to earn your calorie burn and not just “put in the time,” right??!  So I says tough it out for that measly 20 minutes, sweat, feel the burn and make it count!  So I did!  If we want to get results in the “20 minutes a day” mentality, you gotta push it for those 20!  Thanks Jil!  (I call her “Jil” because she and I are going to be BFF in my rec room for a while, just like on the ranch :-D)

So then I enjoyed a fabulous bowl of oatmeal post-workout which included a real vanilla bean!  I was so excited to try it because I’ve seen them used a million times on TV.  So there I was in my kitchen trying to slice them open like I’ve seen them do and drag the back of the knife along the insides and scrape out the beans.  I gotta say, I’m not nearly as neat and tidy about doing it as they are! lol  I flung vanilla beans all over the cutting board :-D  I scooped them up and in the pot they went, with of course the vanilla bean pod, or whatever it’s called in the pot to cook with the oats, Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze, water and half of a banana chunked to simmer over medium heat in my non-stick pot (so important):

Then when it was all cooked up to my liking, I removed the pods, added a pinch of salt, some vanilla extract and a heaping tablespoon of flax meal.  I topped it in my bowl with 2 tablespoons of Chocolate PB2 (constituted with water enough to make it drizzly) and then 8g of toasted natural sliced almonds (a little on the crispy side – whoops!) and then I topped the works with some POM SEEDS = YUM!:

I have to say, I think I will be saving my vanilla beans for something else because although I did like it, I didn’t notice them as much as I would like, most likely due to the dominant chocolate PB2 flavour and pom seeds.  I’ll save them for baking up something special :-)

I topped up my coffee but instead of adding more cream (since I had some earlier), I used more almond breeze and a splash more of sugar-free hazelnut syrup from starbucks (thought I’d change it up from the cinnamon dolce).

Then I puttered around the house to get the laundry done for the week.

I had a yummy Small Lunch/Snack of some Mocha Liberte No Fat Probiotic Svelte Yogurt topped with some regular PB2, fresh blackberries, strawberries, POM seeds and blueberries (I am going start turning all different shades of berriness soon) to do me over before I met  hot yoga at Breathing Spaces yoga studio at 3:30:

Farm Girl and Bionic and I went to hot yoga and it was great.  It is a different experience “heat-wise” from Moksha but I just love it. Moksha you had better bring an entire change of clothes – including underwear and you might even want to take a shower before you leave.  Beathing Spaces will make you sweat, but I didn’t sweat that much at all and I didn’t really even need to drink very much water.  Farm Girl told me that the temp at Moksha was 37 (105 for the Americans) and if I were to guess at Breathing Spaces the temp was about 25 - 28?  Would you say ladies?  We all bought 10 card passes so that we can go to whatever classes we want at either location.  I am thinking about also checking out a pilates class too.

After yoga, it was over to MIL’s house for a turkey dinner :-)  Nothin’ says “Great workout today Ang!” than a home cooked turkey dinner someone else has made!:

This isn’t an accurate representation of my Supper because I forgot to add some cranberry sauce, a spoonful of dressing and some mustard pickles which I added after I took the picture.  I’m telling you guys I was STARVING!  I even went back for seconds of some turkey, a scoop of mashed potatoes and some more peas pudding.  That’s what that yellow stuff is – it’s dried yellow peas which are put into a cheesecloth type bag and boiled in boiling water for about 3 hours, then you add a little butter and salt and pepper and voila = Newfoundland peas pudding.  There are other types of Nfld puddings like this, but this one is my favourite and totally healthy!

I am stuffed to the brim.  I ate too much.  All because I was so hungry I didn’t take my time to let myself feel full.  It was damn good! 

And then we came home and it was more BLBE getting ready for results posting, changing of fresh bed sheets (I love Sundays for that very reason – I’m a dork who loves things like sheets and towels) :-D

I am sooooo sore from Shred AND hot yoga today.  And I mean SORE!  I have a hot bath running and I’m about to take a hot soak along with some Epsom salts and a eucalyptus bath balm and hopefully have a restful sleep.

‘night night bloggies and rest up for an awesome and successful week ahead!