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A December Goal Check-In
Hello and happy Waffle Wednesday friends!
I have a non-protein version to share with you today. Whipping up waffle/pancake batters are easy peasy. All you need is a flour-like substance, baking powder to fluff it up, egg to hold it together and a liquid to get the right consistency!
A Whole-Wheat Waffle For One:
- 6 tbsp whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 stevia packet (if you like it sweet)
- 3 tbsp egg whites (double the recipe and use a whole egg)
- 1/3 cup almond milk
One waffle is 255 calories, 2g fat, 42g carbs, 4g fibre and 13g protein. Not bad for a decadent breakfast, no?
I topped mine with smoked salmon cream cheese, scrambled eggs and a drizzle of maple syrup.
My first time buying the Philadelphia smoked salmon cream cheese flavour and I really like it! It’s a great way to add that smoky flavour to things. It was a fabulous pairing with the waffle, eggs and syrup. Definitely a winning combo :)
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We are now officially halfway through the month of December. That means it’s time to check in on that December goal I set two weeks ago:
So instead, I am entering the month of December with one important goal. One that will take a lot concentrated effort to accomplish. Something I will have to nag myself about several times daily, but also help me end the month feeling like I’ve done a lot to better myself.
For me, December will be all about ending fat talk.
Ha. I can’t believe I just quoted myself :P
I wasn’t joking when I said this was a very important goal to me. That’s why I wanted to dedicate a whole post to it as a reminder to stick to it!
One thing I forgot to mention in the original post is that I don’t participate in fat talk vocally. For me, it’s all about the inner dialogue that is always going on in my brain.
I’ve never been one of those girls who turns to people and complains about my chubby tummy or most recent face breakout. But I am one of those girls who will look in the mirror and think to myself “Susan, you look awful today.”
These thoughts are not okay. I can exercise and eat as well as I want, but internally berating myself like this is probably the least healthy thing I could do.
After setting this goal two weeks ago, I made a concerted effort to tell myself I looked good every time I looked in the mirror. It wasn’t easy. It often felt contrived. But at least I was doing it and that was progress.
Towards the end of Week 1 I lost it. I forgot to consistently make the effort and I found myself looking down at my body and critiquing it.
In Week 2 I managed to snap out of it. I recognized that it would take more than just saying good things to myself. I had to do things that made me feel better too.
1. Wearing flattering clothing. My work uniforms are not flattering at all. This is a big contributing factor to my always thinking I look like poo. But I’m working on it! Wearing nice shirts underneath or cute jackets. My legs are my best quality, so showing them off in leggings or shorts at the gym.
2. Dressing up when I’m not at work. This is probably the opposite situation from most people. But I purposely have to dress down for my jobs. I essentially live in yoga pants. Mega comfy, but leaves me feeling like a shlump a lot. I don’t care if I’m overdressed on my days off – I wear my nice jeans, nice tops, do my hair and make-up. It leaves me feeling like a million bucks.
3. Eating fruits and veggies. Even when I’m chowing down on the world’s best pancake, surrounding it with snacks filled with fresh produce leave me feeling better about my indulgences. When I put good things in my body, I subsequently feel, well, good about my body!
4. Being active and not working out. Wearing a pedometer woke me up to the fact that while I may spend an hour working out 5 days a week, I don’t move my body much outside of those allotted 60 minutes. In the past two weeks I’ve been thinking more in terms of “what did I do to move my body today?” Sometimes it’s a sweaty cardio sesh, other times it’s a heavy lifting workout. But most of the time it’s walking, light elliptical, yoga. I feel better about my body when I move it consistency over the course of the day, rather than just killing it in one small chunk of time.
So that is where I’m at! Still a lot of work to do in the coming weeks. Especially seeing as I’m going home TOMORROW and will be facing a whole new set of challenges. I can already say I feel way better about myself than I did two weeks ago. This December goal couldn’t have come at a better time for me :)
Question of the Day:
1) How are you doing on your December goals?
2) What sort of things do you like to do to feel good about yourself?
It’s All About the Food
Hello friends!! Hope your weeks are off to a great start! I was all grumpy about returning to work yesterday, then I showed up and remembered how much I like it and had a pretty good Monday! :)
As promised, today’s post is all about the food. If you’re catching up, here are my other Chicago/Healthy Living Summit posts:
Chigaarrgoh
Deep Dish
The Summit
First off, I need to give props to my favourite treats provided during the conference. On Saturday, Athenos stepped it up for their sponsored break and had some delicious goodies.
All “my kind of food.” Tortilla chips with a feta dip (crazy delicious), hummus stuffed cucumber, chicken and feta skewers, watermelon/basil/feta skewers, legitimately tasty pita chips with more hummus. Thumbs up!
My favourite meal came on Sunday with the Bagel Thins sponsored breakfast.
They had a table set up where you could pick plain or low-fat cream cheese and choose all sorts of mix-ins for it. They then whipped up your speciality cheese on the spot. I thought it was a really neat idea.
This breakfast was already in line to be my favourite because I showed up starving after getting lost on the fun run. Any food at that point would have been scarfed down and claimed as the best meal ever! :P
Above photo credit goes to the amazing photog Arnold/Oroweat had around all weekend. Check out the photos here.
I was feeling something savoury after the hot and sweaty run. I called mine Upstream Cheese and added salmon, capers, cucumber, carrot, scallions, and a pinch of salt.
Taking pictures of taking pictures ;)
The bagel thins were just okay. I’m not a huge “thin bread” person. If I ate more bread it may be an issue, but I only have a couple slices a day, so I like to have the real hearty stuff when I do.
Where’s the rest of my bagel?? :P
I also jumped for joy when I saw Sunday’s breakfast had eggs + sausage. Saturday’s breakfast was all carbs and left me feeling icky after. This body needs some protein :)
A lot of bloggers were also handing out goodies over the course of the weekend. So happy I ran into Valerie! ;)
The only thing better than homemade business cards are business cards that come with chocolate…
After the satisfying breakfast on Sunday, Callie and I hit the road. But not without a very important stop first…
Sad fact: there are no Trader Joe’s in Canada. I’ve been reading about this store foreevveerrr on blogs and on the internets and was superduper pumped to finally check it out. For Canadians that have never heard of it, it’s just a healthy/organic store that carries a lot of neat products under the Trader Joe’s brand.
Happy shoppers!! (ps the above photo was taken with Callie’s camera!)
I got tons of great TJs suggestions from you guys, but I tried to keep my goodies to a minimum. First, because I already had two full bags of food to bring home with me. Secondly, it had to last the nine hours back home!
I picked this up to eat for lunch in the car.
The whole container was only 100 calories and 14g protein. The taste was a little off though, egg salad needs mayonnaise and egg yolk, this had neither.
Eaten on top of these crackers, which are quite tasty.
Callie and I then proceeded to snack on our Trader Joe’s goodies for the whole drive home. Me more so than her because I had both of my hands free and nothing better to do ;)
I had some of Callie’s peanut butter filled pretzels. I purposely did not buy these because I knew they would be a “danger food” to have in the house. They were beyond delicious, reminding me of a better version of peanut butter Ritz crackers.
I’m not crazy about these, but they make for a good quick chocolate fix, and the stats are a million times better than peanut M&Ms.
We have dried mango in Canada, but it’s always really hard to find dried fruit that isn’t sweetened. Why do they always add extra sugar to it??
Reminds me a lot of fruit leather, and very mango-ey.
The first time I saw this stuff on Paige’s blog, I freaked out. It looked amazing.
I was so amazed when I pulled out the banana and realized it was one big flattened piece! 
At first, I sandwiched some almond butter between it…
But the flavours weren’t quite right, so I added a little more AB and rolled it up.
Omgamazing. I can see this being the perfect pre-workout snack.
Callie and I also had a bunch of coupons in our swag bags that could only be used in the U.S. We stopped at a Krogers in Michigan to put them to use, but unfortunately they didn’t have a lot of what we were looking for. I decided to try out a Chobani for $1.19 (which is a crazy good price for Greek yogurt compared to Canada)
Topped with a Mix My Granola sample also from the Summit swag bag.
Loved the texture and flavour of the Chobani, plus it was super filling!! I wish we could get little tubs like this in Canada, it’s such a great way to get a little protein in.
Also bought at Trader Joe’s…
Clif flavours you can’t find in Canada, also at half the price they’re sold for in Canada.
Suflower seed butter and corn salsa.
New blue cheese Laughing Cow flavour that hasn’t made its way up north yet.
I always wondered how the U.S. Laughing Cow slices are 35 calories a piece while the Canadian ones are 45 calories for two. Check it out!
American version on the left, Canadian on the right. Who knew??
I combined my new Laughing Cow and corn salsa for lunch yesterday.
On a sandwich with smoked tofurkey.
Maybe an odd flavour combo, but it was positively delicious.
Meanwhile, I tried out the sunflower seed butter for breakfast this morning – on top of a yogurt bowl mixed with protein powder, blueberries, oatmeal cinnamon and syrup.
I’ve had plain, natural sunflower seed butter before and found it to be good, but a touch bitter. The Trader Joe’s stuff is lightly sweetened and salted and so much better. My gosh, I really loved it.
Last but not least, I picked up some new gum flavours!!
It’s a well-kept secret that I am an obsessive gum chewer. Truth of the matter is, I really love gum. So finding these new-to-me flavours was really exciting. So far the Stride citrus mint is my favourite!
I still have a lot of leftover coupons from the Summit that I can’t use in Canada. Once I get them organized I’ll be giving them away on the blog as a little consolation prize for those of you who couldn’t make it to the Summit – so stay tuned!
Question of the Day: What would be in your specialty cream cheese? I wish they had maple syrup at the table, because maple salmon would be mine!
Weekend Delight
Hellohello!! Hope everyone had wonderful weekends :) I went MIA yesterday, but hopefully my new Fitness Friday series was enough to hold you over! I’m trying not to get all bent out of shape about posting every single day anymore. When it comes to writing, I’m a true believer in quality over quantity. But I’m happy to finally be sitting down to share my weekend with you!
Let’s get to the highlights, in a topical and orderly manner.
Breakfast
I like to think of Friday’s breakfast as the black & white cookie of oatmeal.
Dark chocolate dreams + marshmallow fluff atop protein oats.
Post picture, I swirled together the two melted toppings. My father said marshmallow fluff is not appropriate breakfast fare. I beg to differ.
I can’t get my new protein waffle recipe off my mind. On Saturday, I made another fluffy batch with date pieces cooked in. Dipped in a sauce of syrup and almond butter. It was nothing short of amazing.
This morning, I wanted more waffles, but was missing an ingredient.
Next best thing – coconut walnut french toast. Bread dredged through a mix of two eggs, almond milk, vanilla extract, cinnamon, flaked coconut and walnuts. Ohyes.
Snacks
A dark chocolate vitatop smothered in my Easy Peasy Cream Cheese Icing and flaked coconut.
Just how easy is it? One wedge of laughing cow cheese + one tablespoon marshmallow fluff = instant deliciousness.
New tasty snack thanks to Lynn – dates stuffed with cream cheese. Sugar and cream cheese were meant to be!
Music
My friends rocked it out on Friday night. I’m trying to learn how to take decent band pictures. The low light and movement makes it pretty damn hard! The pictures don’t do them justice either, you can listen to The Station Agents here ;)
Exercise
During my fitness assessment last week, I realized that I’ve been ignoring my core a little too much. Okay, I hate working my abs. But I know having a strong midsection is so important to not just sports and exercise, but everyday mobility. So here’s the ab-focused full-body strength workout I came up with:
| Exercise | Sets | Reps | Load | Target |
| Assisted pull-up | 3 | 12 | 70 lbs | Back, biceps |
| Push-up | 3 | 12 | – | Chest, triceps |
| Swiss ball crunch with dumbbell pullover | 3 | 12 | 10 lbs | Abs, upper back, chest |
| Curtsy lunge | 3 | 24 | 30 lbs | Quads, glutes |
| Swiss ball leg curl | 3 | 12 | – | Hamstrings |
| Prone jackknife | 3 | 12 | – | Abs |
| Front raise with lateral open | 3 | 12 | 5 lbs ea | Shoulders |
| Back extension on roman chair | 3 | 12 | 10 lbs | Lower back, glutes |
| Captain’s chair | 3 | 12 | – | Abs, hips |
| Cable pushdown | 3 | 12 | 40 lbs | Triceps |
| One arm cable bicep curl | 3 | 12 | 12 lbs | Biceps |
| Cable horizontal woodchop | 3 | 12 | 25 lbs | Obliques |
I did these in mini-circuits of three exercises, indicated by the different colours. With a 15 minute cardio warm-up, whole thing took me 65 minutes :)
Beer
I did pretty well in terms of beer this weekend. I went out both Friday and Saturday nights, which provided ample opportunity to consume mass quantities of alcohol. I waited till Saturday night to splurge on any, and they were worthy splurges indeed.
Mill St. Lemon Tea Beer: “Sunset-coloured (orangey-amber) slightly sweet, malty palate with dry lemon-tea finish. Beer made with addition of Black tea leaves and lemon in aging tank. Very smooth and quenching; unfiltered.”
Smelled like tea, tasted like beer! A good tasting beer, thumbs up.
On an impulse, I treated myself to my new favourite beer, Fruli.
I know how some people feel about fruity beers, but this strawberry white is downright delightful.
The view at Sin & Redemption pub isn’t too bad either. Nice bike, no? ;)
Sausage
Because you can’t attend a barbecue without grilling up some of the delicious sausage prepared by your neighbourhood butcher. Featured here is a handmade garlic mushroom sausage. Probably one of the best sausages I’ve ever had. No joke. Not pictured is the sauerkraut that was eaten on top. Not audible are the “MmmMMmMmmms” made while eating this.
Salad
Because there’s no better way to wrap up a weekend than with a giant bowl of greens. This one here included some kale, tuna, olives, mozzarella cheese, and a dressing made up of pesto and lemon juice whisked together.
Last but not least, I bought a watermelon for two dollars today. A pretty stellar end to a pretty stellar weekend, I’d say :)
Question of the Day: What are your weekend highlights?
