Blog Archives
Bloggers for Bagels
Yo! Long time no blog. I’ve been working extreme hours and hanging out with my mommy. I’ve barely touched the my computer all week. Much to my dismay, my mom returned to New Brunswick today. But not without meeting some of my blogger friends first!
Karen and Morgan! Two of my No Limits Canada partners in crime ;) Karen is in town visiting family and doing wedding stuff. I haven’t seen her since June when we were climbing mountains together in Banff!
As an homage to Morgan and her blog name, “Life After Bagels,” we chose What-A-Bagel as our meet-up location.
It’s a quick and easy stop with tons of bagel choices along with sandwiches, soups and salads.
Morgan is a bagel pro and advised me to get the marble bagel.
I had mine with dill cream cheese made in house (along with the bagel, of course), smoked salmon, tomato, lettuce.
Paired with an apple and diet snapple. Which I now realize rhymes. What a poetic lunch.
It was so nice to catch up with my bloggie friends! We chatted about travel and half marathons. Karen just completed her first this past weekend!
Of course, it was made even lovelier by two wonderful ladies.
Moms! My mom and Karen’s mom tagged along. What good blogging moms they are too, they put up with our picture taking and even snapped a few photos for us!
Even though I’ve been spending all spare moments with my mom, I have been dragging her out around town. I’m working on a freelance assignment on fruit stands in the city and got to play around with my camera.
Local and cheaper than a farmers market. I love fruit stands. Best budget-friendly find in Toronto so far!
And with that, this busy bee is off. I’ve got a full Thursday on tap so I won’t be back until Fitness Friday. It’s gonna be a good one. All about running shoe brands. See ya then!!
Question of the Day: What’s your favourite way to have a bagel? A true Canadian, I will always love my everything bagel with herb & garlic cream cheese from Tim Horton’s. Don’t hate!
Sweat It Out
Hiiii!!! Long time no *see*!!
I hope you enjoyed the kick off to my Blogger Interview Series with Tamzin and Tina while I was off gallivanting around Halifax. I’ve got tons more coming up in the next several weeks, should be fun :)
So this will be a short and sweet recap. I didn’t snap many photos as sometimes it’s nice to put the camera aside and live life outside of a viewfinder. Let’s see some of the highlights…
Friday morning I woke up and gave a stab at dairy free protein pancakes.
- 1/4 cup soy protein powder
- 2 tbsp whole wheat flour
- 1 tbsp ground flax
- 1 tsp benefibre
- 1 stevia packet
- 1 tsp baking powder
- lotsa cinnamon
- 1/4 cup egg whites
- 1/2 cup almond milk
Oh yeah, and I sprinkled some flaked coconut and walnut pieces on the batter while it was cooking. Holy yum. This batter may not work for waffles, but it makes good pancakes!
Friday morning I also did a full-body weight lifting workout which I quickly regretted upon my arrival to Halifax. The bestie has become a yogini since my last visit, and brought my to my first ever hot yoga class!
Moshka Yoga is a group of independent yoga studios across Canada and several parts of the world. It’s done in a heated studio, around 100 degrees Fahrenheit (or 38 C). It’s not a power flow based class, more static standing, sitting and laying postures.
We started out laying on the floor in savasana (corpse pose). As I laid there, I was already breaking into a sweat over my upper lip, and I was a little concerned I wouldn’t make it through the class. I’m pretty temperature sensitive.
We then moved into crescent moon, awkward pose, a warrior series and balance series, to name a few. All poses I know and am capable of doing, just with the addition of sweat pouring out of every pore on my body.
We also did a few bicycle crunches which was surprising, and ended back in savasana. I left feeling refreshed and peaceful, as well as thirsty and hungry ;)
We wolfed down some Subway (one occasion when the additional sodium is welcome!) and were ready to get our evening started ;)
The smudges on the mirror are courtesy this guy:
Griffin tends to fight his reflection. He’s also always exposing his manbits by laying with his legs spread like that :P
We started our night out at the Seahorse Tavern for some live folk-pop music. But somewhere along the way we ended up at a sports bar playing pool (where I whooped some ass, might I add). The only other group of people at the bar happened to include someone I went to elementary/middle/high school with!! Small world. Several pitchers of beer were consumed and the night may have finished off with a McDonalds’ Big Mac Snack Wrap.
Because after some draught and pool, I get classy like that ;)
Night turned into morning and I have a feeling it was 5am by the time I crashed.
We were hurting bad enough the next day that I even gave in to Tim Horton’s coffee.
I hate Tim’s. But the caffeine did wonders :)
A chunk of Saturday was spent running around town picking up food – including this place!!
They have some things that I can’t buy in New Brunswick, including some new-to-me bars.
Vita TOPS (we can only get VitaMuffins)
Fact: muffins are superior when ingested in “top” form.
Plus, the peanut butter is easier to spread on top :)
I also picked up some waffles that I was sent coupons to sample. Will feature in the next few days – I’m excited to try them!
Then we got cookin’! I taught Erika how to make guacamole.
I helped her come up with a meal plan for a 12-day detox (don’t worry, it’s safe and healthy). We cooked up a whack of fish and brown rice.
And let the kitty lick up the fish juices ;) She lives in student housing with a communal kitchen though, and we stank up the whole house with the fish. Whoops!
The rest of the evening was spent laying in bed watching Supernatural, and eating bbq ribs and coconut cream pie. I’ve never had the big kind of ribs before. Amazing.
Since we were in bed at a decent hour Saturday, we were able to get up for a morning yoga class today. Friday’s was 60 minutes long, but today we tackled the 90 minute one. I loved it! Felt gooood to sweat all that beer and pie out. Also notable was that I was able to do a whole flow series doing the high plank, chaturangas and cobra, instead of the modified versions on my knees. Getting stronger!
Arrived back to my mom’s place in time for supper.
A giant chicken salad – just what I needed after an indulgent weekend!
I like to throw all my usual “healthy” habits out the window every once in a while. It’s more for mental sanity than anything else. To be able to eat and live without any nagging thoughts in the back of my brain. I will say, my tastes have truly changed. While a Big Mac Wrap is briefly tasty, something like this salad satisfies me on a much deeper level. Afterward I can feel my inside smiling :)
Well, this girl is beat. I will do the goals check-in tomorrow, so you’re off the hook this time. I hardly went near a computer all weekend, I’ll be tackling my inbox tomorrow. Fret not if you haven’t heard from me yet! Heart you all! xoxo
Question of the Day: Have you ever done hot yoga? What are your thoughts on it? I was expecting to pass out, so I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it!
Bonus Question: What’s one dish you really want to try but haven’t because it’s not “healthy?” I’ve been dying to try a rack of ribs since I started eating meat again. A real rack doused in sauce. When I had the option of getting them this weekend, I knew the time was right. Worth the wait!!
The Good Stuff
In my next life, I’m coming back as a dog.
I could totally keep up with Archie’s schedule of sleeping all day. Instead – I studied all day!
Was up a little late watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution last night. That’s my new fave show. “The Naked Chef” used to air after school when I was in middle school, and I will always credit it for teaching me how to be passionate about food. The man doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll be leaving his wife for me :P
Anyways, there’s no clock in my room, and I magically woke up 8 hours after drifting to sleep. Perfection!
Dug through my mom’s fridge and came up with this for breakfast:
I found sesame ezekiel bread in the freezer! Better than finding a $20 bill on the side of the road :P
This bread is seriously like gold – two pieces have 160 calories, 28g carbs, 6g fibre, 8g protein. However, it’s also priced like gold – $5 a pop. Too rich for my blood, hence the joy when I discovered it.
Butter was used on both the toast and frying pan for the eggs. Mmmm…
My mom went off to exercise class this morning while I stayed home. Boo! My body’s due for a rest day, and my cold is progressing. I’ve gone from a sore throat, to sore throat and runny nose. It’s all pretty mild though, hoping it gets through all the stages quickly.
Instead, I studied! I studied all freakin’ day. There is SO MUCH material I need to know for my personal training test next weekend. I’m starting to get nervous I won’t be able to cram it all in my brain.
My morning snack did not fall into the healthy category – but I wanted a treat.
President’s Choice Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Equalizer bar.
The ingredient list might take a while to read…
Overall it was okay.
I don’t eat these types of protein bars much anymore, so when I do I want something that’s really good and worth the splurge. This, while chocolatey and edible, wasn’t quite worth it. But ya never know till you try!
Dug around my mom’s fridge some more for lunch and came up with this:
Turkey salad pita with celery, carrots and cream cheese (better than Cheez Whiz!)
I found this bouquet sale in my mom’s fridge. I have no clue what it is, a rub or tapenade of sorts?
Mostly made up of veggie bits, and only 5 calories a tablespoon.
Plus, it smelled darn good so I scooped a bunch into my turkey salad, which already had some mustard, cucumber dressing, onions and celery.
Whoooa nelly, it was salty. I got so excited to see it was only 5 cals per tbsp, I somehow missed the 510 mg of salt!! Whoops. My “palette” is sensitive to salt to begin with, so it was overload. Didn’t stop me from polishing it off though ;)
Mark (mom’s boyfriend) found some honey lemon tea for me to help the cold along.
Drank out of one of my mother’s famed monarchy mugs.
Yes, we are Anglican monarchists. I could also probably identify the characters on Coronation Street for you. Wished this tea was Earl Grey because honey lemon sucks. Blech. Tastes like Neocitran, Soothed the throat though!
Mom and I teamed up for dinner. She made baked chicken breast with a crazy good mushroom gravy.
For the gravy, she simmered 1/2 a can of Campbell’s low-fat cream of mushroom soup, chicken broth, mushrooms and onions.
Mommy dearest also assembled the Greek salad.
She buys the good olive oil as well. The stuff that’s actually green. Really, at this rate, she’s lucky I haven’t moved back home yet.
My contribution?
Cheetahs! Sliced sweet potato sprinkled with salt and chili powder, baked in a 450 F oven for 20-30 minutes. My mom also mashed some taters. Deeeelish meal. Even the kids ate it up.
That’s all from me today! I’m super stiff from studying all day, so I’m going to go stretch out a bit before hitting the books again. Hoping to get lots more sleep tonight so I’m good enough to sneak in a workout and visit to my Nana tomorrow. Will play it by ear. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!! xoxo
Question of the Day: What is one grocery item you must splurge on? What is one you won’t? Protein powder is always my most expensive grocery item, but it’s one I refuse to give up. I cannot bring myself to buy expensive frozen dinners though ($6 Amy’s bowls, I’m looking at you).
