Just call me L’l Miss Lightweight

Well it most certainly is a real winter here this year.  Lots of snow!  The amazing thing about the Maritimes is that the temperature can easily fluctuate 20 degrees within any given day in the winter time, so you just never know what your going to get and for how long it will stick around.  It was a lovely day today, nice and mild.  I started it off with a late Breakfast of oatmeal consisting of:

• 1/3c oats
• 1/2c unsweetened vanilla almond breeze 
• 1/2c water
• 1/2 banana chunked and cooked in with the above
• pinch of salt
• tbsp of flax meal
• splash of vanilla
• dash of cinnamon
• splash of sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup
• 1 tbsp chocolate PB2
• 8g toasted sliced natural almonds
• a few chocolate chips
• 10g almond butter on the spoon

SO GOOD!  I sipped on two cups of coffee with scotsburn blend cream and some starbucks sf sryup:

     I love almond butter! 

I guess I can officially label myself as a “coffee drinker” now.  I never was for my entire life, not even when I was a student until the last year or so.  And I gotta say, I supremely enjoy sipping on a cup of coffee in the morning and especially on the weekends when there’s time to just sit there, take your time, relax and enjoy it.

 

After breakfast, I got some laundry on the go and decided to hang out with Jillian and “the gals” and I did the Shred.  It never fails to give me a great workout.  I’m still on level one, but I’ve already improved significantly from when I started doing it and I’ve only done it about 4 times in total so far.  I’ve already told you that I’m a wimp with the pushups, but I’m getting better already.  I’m up to about 8 in a row now before I’m really struggling to complete them.  I also have to get some heavier weights for some of the arm exercises.

Toward the end though I think I hurt my left quad with the lunges or side squat things.  It’s been killing me ever since.  It’s like there’s a huge knot there that won’t go away.  I went for a nice easy 20 min walk with Lucy afterward hoping to walk it off, but so far, no luck :-(  I will have to assess it tomorrow as to whether or not it’s smart to go to yoga.  There are plenty of lunge and warrior poses that would definitely directly engage that muscle.  So we shall see.

After that I had a delicious and satisfying Lunch.  I had the other half of the egg salad I made for my lunch yesterday and I had it on top of a toasted slice of Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain bread with a few slices of tomato, S&P.  I also had about 100g of Mocha Liberte No Fat Probiotic Svelte Yogurt topped with a tbsp of chocolate PB2 and a few sliced almonds:

   Oh yes and a refreshing glass of candle water :-D:   

Then we were off to run some errands and go out for Supper at Moxy’s which just opened here at Dartmouth Crossing.  It’s the first one we’ve had around here so we were looking forward to checking it out. 

What a snazzy place that is!  We got there just ahead of the Saturday supper rush, so we got a table fairly quickly, but it was a long wait for pretty much everything.  It’s to be expected with a new restaurant.  I’m just glad that we had a table because there were people waiting outside in the cold!

I decided on the kitsilano chicken sandwich with a side garden salad:

Although we started off with a basket of sweet potato fries to share between the three of us (MIL too) and I had a glass of my favourite wine – White Zinfandel:

Hubby ordered the NY strip with garlic mashed potatoes and it came with bok choy which I obviously ended up having :-).  Unfortunately, hubby’s steak was bad :-(  It was dry and tough and a huge disappointment.  He is not one to complain, but the waitress kind of drug it out of him and they were nice enough to comp his meal which was the proper thing because he didn’t end up eating it and it was about $25.

Mine was very good!  And yup, that’s naan bread! 

The bok choy was good and I’ve never had it grilled like this before.  Or at least I think it was grilled, but it was whole!

 

 

And I enjoyed my glass of wine so much, that I ended up having a second :-D :

And then we headed home and just in time because the weather started getting really bad on our way home – blizzard like.  We’re only supposed to get about 5cm, but it all was coming as we were getting closer to home.  We dropped off MIL and made it safe and sound though.

I am feeling pretty tired now and I think it is because of the wine.  It was only two glasses although it came in a little decanter so I poured it in 1 oz drinks so it felt like 6!  I am most definitely a lightweight with it comes to booze now though because those two glasses hit me a little more than expected and I may have to turn in early tonight!

Tardy Friday’s Eats!

Apologies for the lateness of my post for my eats for Friday! I got caught up in too many things last night and before ya knew it I was watching a movie and then was ZzZzZzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :-)

But of course I’ll share with you guys my eats! For Breakfast I decided that I had better put my loaf of Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Whole Grain bread that I’ve had in the freezer which I enjoy alot! I am all about the chewy dense kinds of breads, I find them so satisfying, so this morning I had two slices toasted with some PB2 and a half of a banana sliced on top. With my cup of coffee with Scotsburn blend cream and sugar free cinnamon dolce syrup from Starbucks:

Oh and Roxy commented about the candles. I realized the other day that I have spent far too much time “saving” things like “good” candles or “good” plates etc for special occasions and I’ve seen what a difference it makes on other blogs when you just add a little candle light to your meal. It doesn’t have to be a special occasion and it truly DOES make the meal a little more pleasant and it has made the start to my day a little better too :-)

After I got into work, I was treated to a lovely cup of tea from Tim Horton’s with a little milk:

Ezekiel made an appearance today at Lunch too. I made an egg salad sammie on two slices of Ezekiel bread:

The egg salad consisted of half of this mixture:

• 3 hard boiled eggs, with two yolks removed
• 2 scallions snipped
• 1/4c shredded carrot
• 1 1/2 tbsp kraft calorie wise mayo
• S&P

I love these 60 calorie portions of Cracker Barrel light cheese too! They are perfect! They are thick enough that you can cut them into 6 reasonable pieces (cut in half “width-wise” and then into 3 pieces length-wise). Oh and since my second Lululemon water bottle dropped and smashed to the ground (boooo), I am using my water bottle from the Bluenose 5K that I ran last year :-) It feels good to be reminded that I ran my first 5K even though my doc still hasn’t given me clearance to run again :-(

And for an afternoon Snack I had a skinny vanilla bean latte from the Second Cup when I scooted over to the mall:

While I was some exhibits set up for the YMCA Immigrant Woman Project and there were lots of craft type tables set up and also some food! A Korean lady grabbed my attention who had some samples and I tried some Japchae (included sweet potato noodle, spinach, carrot, onion and mushroom) and Kimchi (included nappa cabbage, onion, green onoin, garlic, red hot powder, salt and ginger) which I ended up buying for Supper.

The Kimchi was spicy but I like a little spice now and then! She said that they eat Kimchi three times a day and is very healthy and high in fibre. That part was served cold and the Japchae was served warm. It was all really good!

I didn’t finish all of the Kimchi (too spicy). Maybe I should be added tons of spice to my food so that I refrain from finishing it!

I had all of the Japchae though and it was gooooood. There was definitely some sesame oil in there which I love, but she didn’t mention that on her note about the ingredients at the table, but it was in there for sure. I’d be disappointed if it wasn’t though because sesame oil is one of my favourite flavours in this kind of food. I’ve had these noodles before and they are such an interesting and yummy texture! I think they are the same thing as cellophane or vermicelli noodles?:

Then I had to “cool” down my mouth, so maybe the spicy kimchi which I didn’t finish turned out to be some added calories after all because I had TWO of these Tofutti Cuties Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream bars:

But I have to say all in all I didn’t snack at all for the rest of the night which was good because I got home way to late to get my workout in before supper and then I just didn’t get it done at all :-( Booooo me! I couldn’t seem to settle down and concentrate on one I had to get done. And I ended up watching a movie with hubs which was long overdue.

So I am happy to see a great response from you guys about a free giveaway. I mean of course you’re going to be interested, right? I’ve just never done one before so I wanted to gauge the “interest-o-meter” before getting to work on getting something cool to give away! I just love you guys so much for reading my blog and supporting me, so I want to come up with something to show my thanks :-)

If anyone wants to direct me to a starting point as to getting something donated for a giveaway, I’m all for that too :-) Please leave me a comment if you haven't already to keep my "interest-o-meter" ticking!

Free Give Away?

How many of you would be interested if I had a free giveaway? Um, okay that sounds kind of silly because who wouldn't be interested in something free, right?!

Before getting into such an adventure, please leave me a comment if you'd like to see me do one and where you're from!

Freudian Slip?

Talk about oatmeal on the brain! I was showing my boss something this morning on the computer and I attempted to ask her to click on her “outlook” and instead I asked her to click on her “oatmeal” lol :-D How funny is that?!

For Breakfast I had to have oatmeal this morning because I stocked up on large flake oats. Today I topped it with Chocolate PB2, toasted sliced almonds, blackberries and a few Peanut Butter Puffins for a little crunch on top:

I like the Peanut butter Puffins. There is a definite similarity between the crunch of puffins and corn pops!

There was something a little different added into the mix this morning though…

I saw this organic coconut flour and thought that I would include a tablespoon of it in my oatmeal to see if I noticed anything different. My mistake though was not adding it at the very beginning with the oats. Instead I added it in at the end with the flax meal, vanilla, cinnamon, salt and sf syrup. There was a slight “gluey” texture that I didn’t particularly care for, but I bet if I added it in the beginning to cook with the oats, it would be a different story.

All in all though, I bet this stuff would be great for baking! You can sub this for some of the regular flour used in most recipes apparently. I’ll get back to ya on that when I get some baking done.

Lunch today was another dip into the deep freezer to see what I had already pre-made and frozen. I settled on the last serving of the Italian Wedding Soup that I made a month and a half ago and if you’ll notice, I heated it up in a real bowl (for my anonymous commenter who pointed out concerns about microwaving plastic). I’m not perfect with following those kinds of rules, but every little bit is better than none at all, right?!). The soup froze extremely well and was great. I had a few crackers and a cut up 60 cal Cracker Barrell cheese portion and a sliced kiwi.

(I ate my lunch at my desk today)

I noticed that my pom seeds were reaching the end of their freshness, so I used up the rest I had in the fridge with a few blackberries and blueberries over a mini Strawberry Liberte No Fat Probiotic Svelte Yogurt and some drizzly Chocolate PB2:

I got home from work (car-pooled with hubby because the roads this morning were a sheet of ice and I ended up getting stuck sideways going up the hill out of my sub-division which was not cool and the 5 other people also stuck going up the hill didn’t think it was cool either). I did not want to do any exercise at all because I got home later than usual – just wasn’t feeling it. But since I really didn’t technically get a “workout” in at yoga last night, I knew I had to! So I got changed, turned on Jillian and then she, her two friends and I got shredded. She said so herself at the end that I was “well on my way to becoming shredded” :-D I can already feel my quads and biceps getting harder and stronger. My quads are always sore these days.

Before gettin all shredded, I got out a few things for Supper and one of them was a bun for my bella burger. While I was getting a good sweat on, down comes Lucy with half of the bun in her mouth doing laps around me taunting me knowing full well that Jillian is not going to let me stop because “I have to make those 20 minutes count” rather than just “calling it in at the gym” and the little frigger made away with my bun! Hubby chased her around a bit, but the little bugger won. Good thing I had more buns cause I would have been SAD if I couldn’t have had this:

I made my fav bella burger again and it was delish as per usual :-) On the burger from bottom to top:

• toasted foccacia bun
• arugula
• thinly sliced tomato, red onion
• portabella mushroom cap marinated in aged balsamic, EVOO, S&P, dried oregano, dried basil, grilled on the grillpan
• 1/2 roasted red pepper (from the jar in water)
• square of kiri goat cheese spread on the top bun toasted

I also had some leftover eggplant from last night, so I soaked up the rest of the balsamic and EVOO leftover from the mushroom cap and grilled those on the grillpan too. I topped them with a dolop of Liberty Tzatziki (OMG I loooove that tzatziki):

The only thing the meal needed was some added protein so I decided this time to top my salad with some chick peas. Today’s salad consisted of:

• handful of meslin mix
• a few thinly sliced red onion
• julienned carrots
• julienned fresh beets (I love my new julienne-r thing)
• english cucumber
• crumble of feta cheese
• 1/4c chick peas
• drizzle of aged balsamic
• dolop of tzatziki
• = awesome

I was totally full of course, but apparently my sweet tooth lately is still hanging around, so rather than dig into one of those awesome brownie cookies that I could practically see through the cupboard door, I finished off my blackberries from Costco. Methinks I need to make another Costco trip this weekend just for the berries & pom!

And here I am sipping away on another cup of the chocolate hazelnut stash tea (without sweetener) and blogging to you guys. I didn’t happen to notice any other chocolate flavours while I was at Planet Organic by the way, to the commenter who asked me. But PO does have a huge selection of teas, I’ll tell ya that! Note to self: I do not need to buy any more tea in the near future!

Have a wonderful evening my lovelies!

Tasty Tzatziki!

I decided that since I didn’t feel too hungry yesterday, I would try going with the cinnamon Puffins for Breakfast again today. I had a serving of those with some Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze with a side of strawberries and a cup of coffee with cream and sf syrup:

I really like this cereal! It is soooo crunchy! There’s no soggy squares here at all! I even poured the before I had my camera ready so by the time I had the pictures done, a few minutes had passed and they didn’t lose their crunch at all. I was at Planet Organic again today to pick up some more large flake oats and the Puffins were on sale, so I decided to go out on a limb and buy the peanut butter flavour which I will try too.

Breakfast didn’t have as much staying power as yesterday, so I had a Snack that I was happy to have :-D Another Deep Chocolate Vitamuffin topped with PB2:

Lunch was something from the freezer. I figured that I had better get to work on using up some of the frozen portioned meals I have in there, or there’s no point in making them, right! I used up the last portion of the seafood corn chowder that I made a while ago and I had it with some multigrain artisan loaf and some good ol’ water:

Then I scooted over to PO for a few things and well, a few things turned into more stuff than I need and which also included these sinful chocolate chip brownie cookies *gasp*:

Now crucify me if you will, but here’s a perfect example of how your mind tricks you. Hubby had wanted to buy some cookies on Saturday. I convinced him otherwise with promises of me putting my new KitchenAid Stand Mixer that I got for xmas to use and do some baking and I would make some cookies. He fell for it er, I mean, I didn’t end up getting to the baking I had in mind. So then I thought I’d pick him up these cookies. and before ya knew it, I had opened the bag (before getting home) and I had one and didn’t even get a photo op! Pffffffffft!

So needless to say, that was my afternoon Snack if I at all deserved one. Frig.it.was.good. I suppose it has been a while since I just had a plain “cookie” though ya know?

So I also picked up an eggplant, kale and some Liberte Tzatziki which I had never tried before. What started out being having no idea what to make for Supper and winging it, ended up being one to dog ear for a definite repeat! It was a souvlaki platter of sorts:

I sliced and grilled some eggplant and some zucchini drizzled with a little EVOO, S&P on the grill pan, and then the chicken skewers. I steamed my leftover green beans and the kale together and added a little bit of butter and S&P at the end and voila! (look at me eating kale again!)

I had some of the best tzatziki I’ve ever tried to go with it (there was also some munching on some lime guiltless gourmet baked tortilla chips dipping into the tzatziki to test it before dinner too :D) Oh and one of those feta stuffed pimento jalapeños finished it all off perfectly:

DELISH and SOOOO EASY!!! Unreal!

FarmGirl and I were supposed to go and see a movie tonight, but due to the bad snowy weather we stayed home. We figured that it wasn’t a good idea to be emerging from a theatre and be driving on the roads at 9:30ish at night. But since my yoga teacher didn’t cancel class (I was originally going to switch it and go to her class tomorrow night), I went to yoga and there was 5 of us, so she went ahead with it.

It was a good class and we focused more on sun salutations and more instruction on flowing the postures together correctly. That is what I love about that class. It’s not about getting a workout, it’s about learning the proper way, which isn’t that easy! Just when you think you’re doing it right, there’s something else to focus on to do better.

So thanks to one of you lovely commenters, I couldn’t get the idea of “chocolate tea” off my head and when I was at PO today, I picked up a pack of Stash tea (one of my favourites) and it’s a Chocolate Hazelnut flavour. Tea is turning out to be one of my favourite evening “treats” these days and tonight when I got home from yoga, I have it a try with a squirt of Amaretto Agave Nectar:

And here I am sipping away and it’s quite good! There is so much enjoyment to be had from an aromatic cup of herbal tea and it can be just the think to curb that even snacky time! I should have thought of that before having another cookie after supper before leaving for yoga! agh!