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L-I-V-I-N

Preamble:

Hi y’all!! (I’m a Canadian, can I get away with saying “y’all?”)

I’m a busy bee studying tonight so instead of rambling about the giant bowl of oatbran I ate for breakfast, I’m re-posting a guest post I did for Kristin’s awesome blog a little while back.

I feel kind of weird, guest posting on my own blog…

Anyways! Back to the books. My personal training test is tomorrow. Eep!! :\

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Hiya! My name is Susan and I come from a land called The Great Balancing Act. When Kristin asked me to do a guest post, she left the post topic pretty open. Actually, to quote, she said “your lifestyle, a favorite exercise, recipe… whatever you want.” Dangerous words Kristin, I could ramble about anything! :P But I figured I would instead do something that falls more into the “lifestyle” category, as that’s what I try to focus mostly on my blog.

There are a lot of lifestyle choices I make on a daily basis. I work out every morning before work. I pack a healthy lunch every day. I sometimes have a cookie, I order my salad dressing on the side. I even take the stairs at work.

However, my most recent lifestyle choice has been a little more difficult. Yes. More difficult than getting my heart rate up at 6am. At the beginning of 2010, I vowed to LIVE life. I woke up one day, six months after graduating university, only to realize I’d let the last four years pass me by. I was simply “surviving” each day that passed, rather than being an active participant in my own life.

I am a creature driven by fear. And laziness. I do not like to step out of my comfort zone. I do not like to work harder than I have to. I don’t like to put myself in situations that could at any point turn into something horrifyingly embarrassing.

So I took a giant leap and quit my job. The job I went to school four years to get. The job most people in my situation would have killed for. I don’t think so many butterflies have infiltrated my stomach as when I sent in my letter of resignation. I was taking a ginormous leap into a pool of absolute unknown. I had no career plans, no financial stability, no idea where I wanted to live. But it got the ball rolling. My life has been a series of unexpected twists and turns ever since.

What kind of twists and turns you ask? I’m taking a 180 in career direction and getting certified as a personal training specialist. I live and breathe fitness, and thrive off helping others. Now I’ll get paid for it too!

I stumbled into an awesome job at my alma matter, where I get to brag about my university on a daily basis.

I’m leaving my small province and moving to the big city. Jumping from 60,000 people to 2 million. Holy crap – that’s 33 times the size!!

I am travelling! I’m going home to visit my parents more, travelling to see friends, and even flying cross-country to gallivant through the mountains with fellow bloggers!

If you’re wondering if all of this is scary – you betcha! But I find myself soaking up every single day now. I live every moment the best I can. I’m not just going through the motions any more, but looking for ways to enrich my time on this earth. Learning, listening, experimenting, failing and succeeding. I may be a health and fitness nut, but THIS lifestyle change is the biggest and best I’ve ever made.

Thanks for the ear! Err, eye. I had a blast filling in for Kristin while she’s off living life to the fullest too!

Question of the Day: What’s one fear you’ve recently overcome?

Keeping it Sweet

Aahhhhh, it was so hard to leave this face this morning!!!!!

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I got up even earlier this morning (5am) to take him outside before going to spin class. He was so upset when I left, it tugged on my heart! Archie’s been following me everywhere, kinda like a poodle-shaped shadow ;)  But my mom says it’ll get better once he realizes that I actually come back.

Spin class today was probably my worst. I don’t know what happened! It definitely felt tough, but halfway through I started feeling sick. Thirsty, but the thought of drinking made me want to throw up. I felt okay on the bike, but knew I’d be in trouble once I got off. Sure enough, during the stretching, I got a ringing in my ears and started seeing black dots everywhere. I quickly wiped off my bike praying I wouldn’t topple over before getting out of there. I immediately went into the air-conditioned hallway and sat by a window until I felt like I could stand again, then took a cold shower.

So frightening! I didn’t do anything different from my usual routine, except perhaps ate my pre-workout snack (bread + PB + jam) 15 minutes earlier than I normally do. My gut tells me I was dehydrated/undernourished. Perhaps lacking in electrolytes, as I lose them quickly compared to most people. Just when I think I’ve got it down to a tee, my body throws me a curveball! Going to try weightlifting tomorrow with extra food/water. If it happens again, I will leave and take a few more days off.

Breakfast was nourishing to say the least.

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Clementines, boiled eggs, Taste of Nature Persian Pomegranate Garden bar.

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Nutritionals for the bar found here. It was better than I was expecting!! The first two ingredients are sesame seeds and fig pieces so it had a wonderful gooey, crispy texture. Thumbs up!

Morning/afternoon snacks were homemade dark chocolate s’mores protein bars.

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Oooohhhhh yeeeaaahhh. Recipe at the end of the post!

Lunch!

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Sundried tomato tuna, hummus, feta, black olives. And the usual plethora of baby carrots.

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Carrots are high in sugar, I think that’s why I like ‘em so much ;)

After eating, I proceeded to drive to the grocery store, shop, drive home, put the groceries away, take the dog out and drive back to work all in a 60 minute lunch break! This is me tooting my own horn. Toot.

Getting groceries at lunch meant I could rush home after work and get started on this feast right away.

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Two chicken thighs off a rotisserie chicken. Heated up in the oven.

The real star of the show was the veggies!

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I sprinkled sweet potato, broccoli and cauliflower with garam masala before roasting them. I used the Clubhouse kind which includes a mix of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, coriander, red pepper, onion, carrot, garlic, etc. SO good. It was such an amazing flavour, loved every delicious bite.

The chicken was good too – I love dark meat!

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The skin was given to the pooch :)

Archie by the way has a really funny way of eating. He grabs one piece of food, brings it into the living room, then starts playing with it like a cat.

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He throws it around, gets down and starts wagging his bum like he’s going to attack. One piece at a time… :P

Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying decadent protein desserts.

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I’ve been adding a tablespoon of cocoa powder and a stevia packet to my usual protein pudding (1 1/2 scoops chocolate protein powder mixed with water to thicken). I kid you not, it tastes just like brownie batter. I feel like I’m licking the brownie bowl eating this!! It’s almost too rich. Almost ;)

Ooooh, speaking of rich and decadent, my new protein bars!

 

Homemade Dark Chocolate S’more Protein Bars

  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 4 scoops chocolate protein powder (I use whey)
  • 4 tbsp almond butter
  • 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 packet stevia
  • 1/2 – 3/4 cup water
  • 2 tbsp marshmallow fluff
  • 1/2 tbsp mini chocolate chips

Mix everything but the fluff together, adding water until powder is just dissolved and sticky. (the more you mix, the more it dissolves, so add sparingly). Lightly stir in fluff. Flatten into a square pan and let harden in fridge.

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Makes 8 rich, knock-your-sweet-tooth-out bars.

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And with that, it’s someone’s bedtime!

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I apologize if I’m MIA from blogland this week, I’m spending all spare minutes cramming my brain with personal training info before my test on Friday. Wait a tick, I don’t apologize. It’s important that I pass!! (and can pass all my knowledge on to you guys ;) )

 

Question of the Day: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you grade your sweet tooth? (10 being the sweetest) Umm, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, it should come as no surprise that mine comes in at a solid 9.2. Chocolate of course is my favourite, generic candy a close second.

A Sign From the Gods

I lovelovelove reading the comments when I ask food questions. So many tasty answers to what foods make you go OMG.

I have some really pretty food pictures to share today (yay for more natural sunlight!), however, I am going to start off with the ugliest one on my card.

IMG_5545 In a mug, that would be:

  • 1/4 cup soy protein powder
  • 1 stevia packet
  • 1 benefibre packet
  • cinnamon
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 banana
  • 2 tbsp egg whites

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The mix was still thick after that so I added about 2-3 tbsp of almond milk. Popped in the microwave for three minutes and voila, a protein cake!

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Sliced in half and toasted a la Deb. Figured I might as well keep up with the theme and topped it with some of Deb’s OMG OMG OMG nut butter (spiced chocolate hazelnut).

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First attempt at doing this with soy powder, liked it much better without that weird whey texture. But it was too egg-y! Experimentations will resume this evening ;)

Oh yes, and my jazz concert was lovely last night. The university I work at has a 21-piece jazz ensemble and they just released a cd I played a small part in promoting. I love hearing large ensembles like that perform live – and I’m a sucker for jazz/blues/swing!

I also used my spare time when I got home to prep my apartment to show, again. Here’s hoping the next subletter doesn’t back out! Anyways, it didn’t leave me much time to prepare my gym stuff, so instead I worked out at home this morning.

It was nice having Jillian Michaels as a workout buddy today, she makes sure I don’t “phone it in” ;) I did Levels 1 & 2 of the 30 Day Shred. Fifty minutes of butt-kicking! Each level is made up of three circuits of 3 minutes strength + 2 minutes cardio + 1 minute abs. The squat thrusts in the second level get me every time.

I treated myself to one of my fave breakfasts after – the breakfast cookie! This one is strawberry banana.

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  • 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 1 scoop vanilla whey protein powder
  • cinnamon
  • banana extract
  • 1 tbsp almond butter
  • chopped strawberries

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Frosted with marshmallow fluff of course!

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Oh breakfast cookie, how I missed you. It was so lovely to be reunited.

Work was kind of interesting this morning, I got to go to an event celebrating all the different faith communities in my city. I got to hear speeches from representatives of each faith explaining what they’re all about. So many different kinds of faith here I never even knew about! I would love to go visit all their places of worship until I find one that fits. It would be nice to be a member of a church some day…

Dinner this evening was a remake of yesterday’s salad, except this time I threw it all in a pan first.

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  • spinach
  • red onions
  • mushrooms
  • bell pepper
  • garlic
  • black olives
  • rotisserie chicken
  • feta cheese
  • hummus

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I debated putting hummus in this, as I didn’t know how it would hold up in a stir-fry…

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Silly me, hummus is good in everything! Two very big thumbs up :D

And check out what arrived in the mail today!

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As a member of Can-Fit-Pro (Canadian Fitness Professionals), I get their magazine. This month’s is all about personal training in relation to running.

I note this because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what aspect of fitness training I want to specialize in. I think it’s a field where it’ important to find a focus and hone your skill in that one area. Well, I’m pretty sure I want to focus on weight training for endurance athletes. The idea of strength training to aid in long-distance running, cycling, swimming, etc, really interests me. I love how weight lifting can help improve endurance, and correct imbalances and injuries caused by it.

Anyways, I got all excited when I saw this, and it’s almost like it was a sign from the gods. Now if only I could go find a church to thank them/him/her/it! :P

 

Heyhey! It’s almost Friday! I’m going home after work tomorrow to hang with the fam. The highlight will be bringing my mom’s poodle back with me! I’m looking after the furball while she’s in Florida for a couple weeks. I’m pumped to have the little rascal come stay at my place. I could use a furry friend!

 

Question of the Day: Do you belong to a “faith community”? I was raised Anglican, and in some ways still feel very connected to the Anglican church. There’s an old-school ritual about it that I love – not to mention, the hyms are rockin ;)  (sarcasm!!)

Click click!

Alyson wrote a great post on sports and genetics

Caitlin/Operation Beautiful is on Oprah’s new web channel!!!

Be your own nutrition expert

The history of the waffle!!

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