What am I going to do with her? (Besides smooch her face off?!)
:-D
P.S. I totally rocked the treadmill tonight. I ran for 45 minutes kicking it up to HIIT for the last 10. I think I even pushed another 5 minutes out of the guy next to me because he was totally on cool down when I started my HIIT and next thing ya know he’s totally sprinting with me!
Muhahaha!
It’s nice to see that we Canadians are starting to keep up with our American friends in the product department. A while ago I received an email from Vitalicious asking me if I would be willing to try some samples for the blog and while I danced around in excitement, they realized that I was north of the border and were going to send me off to their Canadian folks. I had forgotten all about it until I received an email from their north of the border rep who told me all about the great Vitalicious products that are now available in Canada. Up until this point I had only ever seen the Deep Chocolate Vitamuffins, BlueBran and CranBran Vitamuffins and the Deep Chocolate Vitatops, all of which I have tried and liked.
I don’t usually buy them because they are definitely on the expensive side (around $6-7 for a package four) , but definitely not a bad cakey and chocolaty treat for only 100 calories.
I am not an advocate for “100 calorie packs” as a way for people to eat their daily calorie or points because typically they are void of nutrition, and in some cases, people will chose 2 POINTS of a cookie pack over adding their 2 POINTS worth of healthy oil for the day, but on the other hand, I am a fan of “portion control” and let’s be honest, a girl still needs her fix once in a while! lol
And upon inspection of the NI and the ingredients list, I was actually kind of impressed keeping in mind that the list was bound to be somewhat “long” regardless:
For what it’s worth, the flour is whole wheat and the sugar is organic! lol :-P
First up was a Fudgy Peanut Butter Chip Vitatop and it was the husband’s dessert.
They are kept frozen and I told him that they are better when you warm them up ooey and gooey in the microwave first, but since they were partially thawed in transit, he declined my suggestion.
I told him I had to try a “bite for the blog” :-D
He wasn’t a fan. I AM a fan. The reason he wasn’t a fan was because they are somewhat of a “healthified” lower calorie version of the “real thing,” they are a bit “dry” tasting and you probably aren’t expecting it because they look so “cakey.” This is why I find they are best consumed warm out of the microwave (and a schmear of PB2 on top!) It is a compromise I don’t mind because I think it’s a fair compromise. You can’t have it both ways unless you make a version for yourself fresh.
Normally I get my chocolate fix from 100 calories’ worth of dark chocolate after supper which I LOVE, but I certainly don’t mind substituting trying some of the Vitalicious products every other day or so at all! Bring it on I says!
Don’t worry I do have a husband who is more than willing to help me out in the taste testing. ;-) There were lots of chocolate variations in his honour:
AND underneath those vitatops there’s more! I never knew they also made brownies!
HAULT!!!!
Don’t worry I TRIED ONE FOR YOU! :-D
Definitely passed the test in my books! Warmed in the microwave is key!
And I scored me some VitaBrownie Mix too! This will be a true test to see if they are more moist when baked at home.
And a new kind of Vitamuffin that I haven’t seen available in stores here yet, Velvety Chocolate (Sugar Free):
And there is definitely a selection of Vitatops o’ plenty, so they will be fun to review for you guys. I have a large variety of different chocolate flavours, so it will be interesting to see if the chocolate flavours are truly distinguishable from one another.
It was a fun week as far as receiving fun blog & twitter-related packages in the mail, so I will share those with you this week too :-)
Follow me on Twitter and tweet with me tonight at 8p.m. EST while Paul Plakas joins in and tweets during the show in one hour from now.
In case you haven’t noticed, you can find us #xweighted !
Some days it's not about the motivation, it's about the discipline.
When I played organized hockey, our locker room had the quote "Discipline before Desire" written across it. I remember that always. It's what got me to 6am practice.
It's what got me to the gym today even though I just wanted to stay in bed.
It's what gets me up at 6am on Sunday mornings to the rink to play pick up with my friends.
It's what helps me chose butternut squash over general tao chicken. Somedays the chicken wins out though. ;)Hang in there. Know, that I hardly ever have motivation. But I do have discipline.
Think about that for a second. Isn’t that the ultimate truth?! It is the discipline in every single aspect of life that makes the difference, not the desire.
I thank each and every one of you for your comments (always) because there were some excellent words of encouragement and wisdom found there that helped me to feel like I’m on my way back “up” (and not on the scale!) :-D
Carol said:
Our leader likes to say, "when you've had a 'bad' week (for what ever reason) that's when you need your meeting...when you've had a 'good' week, that's when your meeting needs you!" All you can do is deal with today (another one of Faye's pearls of wisdom)...so don't worry about what happened yesterday, as it's done, and none of us have any idea what tomorrow is going to bring.
You are a great motivation to all of us out here in Blogger-land, and don't you ever forget how awesome you are, regardless of what the number on the scale says!
:)
Thank you Carol, that is sooo unbelievably true! I am a new meetings member, but I see the truth in that even at this stage.
So last night was Zumba night again for the Halibloggers and while not all of us made were able to make it, Tammi was there all ready to Zumba with us too. It was Lynn’s first class and god love her is all I have to say. You could tell she just didn’t like it and was gritting her teeth through it, but she did it and she sweat and that was the main thing. She’s not a fan, but at least she gave it a try!
It ended up being a lower intensity class (so says my HRM), but I also wasn’t into it very much. I had a really unfortunate incident on my way there where a kitty cat ran out in front of me and I hit him with my car! *sobs* I ended up reacting hysterically (of course) and thought the worst, pulled over onto a side street and ran trying to find him. I called Lesley because she was just up the road (she and Lynn and I met for a coffee at Local Joe’s beforehand) and she came to help me find him. I was all crying and everything and thankfully there was a pedestrian there to saw us and who also saw me hit the cat and he said that the cat ran away over to some houses and it couldn’t have been really hurt by the way he ran away.
I love that guy.
I of course still cried all my way to Zumba and I contemplated not going, but I went because my girls were there and I thought that was the place I needed to be the most in all aspects of the situation. Thank you ladies for helping me feel better. Tammi even had me laughing more than once. That girl cracks me up ;-) Lesley deserves some sort of crisis friend award by the way she just showed up out of no where like a friend superhero hugging me on the street and talked to the pedestrian while I was all crying!
Thank you, you superstar friend *mwah*
Soooo, back to this “discipline before desire” stuff. Tonight when I got home from work, I had the usual ideas and plan to get to the gym. I decided that I would make supper first because I’ve recently discovered that I have a waaayyyy better and harder workouts after I’ve eaten supper and am sufficiently fueled and I can focus. For supper I had a delicious salad, steamed beets and a fish cake (homemade from a place in spring garden place mall) and a side of chow (it was awesome!) and then my “old” thought patterns attempted to emerge where I would try to cop out and not go to the gym.
I now live about 8 minutes from the gym so it’s really not that big of an ordeal to go.
Then I got on Twitter and told all my tweeps that I was having a hard time feeling motivated to go and sure enough, my tweeps did not let me down and next thing I know I’m getting changed and I’m out the door!
I decided I’d hit up the treadmill and I did 45 hard minutes plus cool down. I was a sweaty beast and I outran a guy and a girl on either side of me who got on after me and got off before me. 10 minutes of it I ran it HIIT which had me HR in the high 170’s and there was only once when I slowed down enough so I could take a drink without poking myself in the nose! lol I ended it all off with some upper body weights.
During the workout, I was able to clearly recognize how much differently I was thinking during the workout compared to before. Normally I’d be watching the time tick by soooo slowly and hating it. This time, and really for the last 4 weeks, I’ve been grinning and beaming from the inside feeling so strong and athletic that I almost don’t recognize myself!
I mean GOD you guys!! It’s only taken what? THREE YEARS?! But seriously, it’s come when I was ready to let it come. I am pretty sure that having suffered some pretty serious injuries in our car accident 3 and a half years ago when I was still extremely overweight played a major roll in my reluctance in pushing out of my comfort zone, for fear of re-injuring myself or hindering my rehab. It’s a very difficult and fine line to walk, but I’m getting there I’m trusting myself and what I am capable of and it feels empowering.
So much so that I think the Bluenose Marathon this year holds quite a bigger race for me in May 2010 ;-)
So I was tracking my meals one day last week when I simultaneously remembered I had an entire head of cauliflower to use up in the fridge. How’s this for a coincidence?
Here’s the thing: I don’t really “like” cauliflower that much, but it was on sale at Avery’s Farm Market and I aint ‘fraid a no veggie.
But this looked like a pretty good way to put it to use as a side dish, so in the oven it went:
I also added some smoked paprika that I bought at the craft fair as well. I had been wanting to pick up smoked paprika forEVER but just never came across any. I’m convinced it was the secret ingredient in the chili I made a while ago which ROCKED even though I used frozen vegetables in it!
The final result:
I’m sure if you like cauliflower this is a great recipe for you to try, but I dunno, it didn’t scream “popper” to me!
It’s a good thing that I had my brussels sprouts to fall back on too. I still cannot believe how much I love brussels sprouts and it took me 29 years to even try them!
So tonight a bunch of us girls are hitting up Zumba again to shake our booty and get our sweat on. I’m tellin’ yas we are going to have to fight the crowd to get our ticket for the class because since the class only accepts the first 30 people, we alone take up 25% of it!
I am looking forward to great workout and I really need it because yesterday I had a day off and I tried to go for a run, but my knee started shooting pains. I had to walk. I didn’t like that at ALL! I have been feeling so great about being able to just pound out an hour of running. Hopefully it was just a temporary problem and I won’t have any trouble with our Santa Shuffle coming up next weekend.
Plus I’ll be honest with you guys, I’m having a rough time this last week. I stayed OP last week and did well on my WI, but I’m just not feeling it right now. I’m already out of Flex for the week until Saturday and I feel like I’m just Eyoring my way through it right now. That’s what happens to the good ol’ motivational high that comes and goes. I can still remember the incredibly motivated feeling I had just a few short weeks ago and I wanted to bottle it so that I could have some later when I needed it!
I just hope that I can get my head in the game again because a bad WI result certainly isn’t motivating!
I think I need to get organized to try some new recipes because that is always something that helps me feel good about being on track.
(It pays to know the right people ;-) )
hahaha
greensHey guys! I am so sorry that I haven’t posted since Wednesday and especially my WI videos from yesterday. I just wanted you to know that I’m trying to get my videos uploaded, but am having a few problems. I now have to run out to visit my cousin in the hospital, so I will most definitely have a mother of a post up for you later on when I get back!
xo
Gossip Girl
It was impromptu. but impromperfection. Ever since our fabulous out of town blogger buddies came to visit for thanksgiving and we had a daquiri and cheese nibbler night at Farm Girl’s house, I have not been able to get the yummy thought of the cranberry goat cheese outta my head! I picked up a package a while ago trying to figure out how I wanted to work it in a recipe, while leaving some for a treat on crackers for another night.
I had fresh chicken ready to use, then it dawned on me that poultry and cranberry are a match made in heaven! And, well, cheese is pretty much a match for anything, so low and behold, I decided to stuff up my chicken with it!
1. Cut a little slit in the breast
2. Measure out 15g of goat cheese per chicken breast and stuff it inside the slit:
3. Tie it up with cooking twine or these super cool silicone elastics and dredge in egg whites and coat all sides:
4. Add the Epicure dip mix to the Panko crumbs + S&P:
Tip: I bet you could use summer savory instead and have an excellent festive flavour combo too!!
5. Coat all sides of the chicken breast to cover
6. Bake at around 425 until cooked:
7. YUMO for 6 POINTS (depending on the size of your breasts :-P)
Enjoy!
