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Mo Money Mo Problems
Is it just me or is this week dragging? I think there’s some law in physics that says as soon as you give notice at your job, the weeks that follow are the slowest of your life.
Or, I assume there’s a law. I failed the physics portion of grade 10 science.
But I do know that today was Waffle Wednesday!! The perfect way to perk up my hump day blues :D
Blueberry waffles! Using my usual protein pancake recipe (found under the Eats tab) and a handful of frozen blueberries.
Is that a peek of natural daylight I see on there!? I managed to sleep in till 7am today, so breakfast was photographed as the sun was rising over the river :)
I recently read an article by Tosca Reno in Clean Eating Magazine about all the benefits of wheat grass. I can’t find the article online, but she basically talks about how it’s a natural detoxifier, etc. I’m not always an easy sell, and this small article totally convinced me!
I don’t have any straight-up wheat grass, but I do have a whole canister of plain Amazing Grass SuperFood. It’s not a smoothie powder, but more of an “addition,” like a shot of greens to any smoothie. Anyways, I thought I’d just try it as a shot mixed with a little unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
Most normal people would take one look at this and back off. It looks disgusting.
Yeah, well it tasted disgusting too. I will not be doing this again. Experiments with SuperFood however will continue…
I was hoping the greens would give me a bit of a magical boost for spin class today. I actually convinced Chris to come with me this time! Chris is a hardcore cyclist. He does mostly road cycling these days, but he was also quite the mountain biker back in the day. The man is obsessed (and also taught me everything I know about bikes).
Ironically, it was Chris’ first spin class. It was funny to see such a pro on a spin bike. I forgot to tell him not to go all out at the beginning, because our class gets much harder as it goes on. Even if I had, I don’t think it would have mattered. The boy needs to go as fast as possible whenever possible :P
Afterwards, we went out for lunch. I had some turkey.
Except mine was in a pita… at Pita Pit. Anyone else creeped out that this bird has manboobs? I find the decorations in this place to be really trippy.
- turkey
- hummus
- lettuce
- green pepper
- mushrooms
- onions
- tomatoes
- olives
- pickles
- sprouts
Chris got a chicken caesar.
Caught mid-chew.
Caught mid-stuffing-face. I’m just replacing my depleted sodium stores from sweating in spin class ;)
Then I got called into work early. Boo. Managed to sneak home for a quick dinner though.
Grilled tuna sandwich and carrot sticks. That’s just one carrot! It was ginormous!!! Way bigger than a parsnip even. I ate it all. I’m a carrot fiend. No shame.
So I have a confession to make. I’ve been suffering from a little blogger envy lately. I’ve been comparing myself to others, and it’s not good.
No, I’m not talking about people running faster than me, eating healthier than I, or looking better in a bikini.
I found I was getting jealous that many bloggers seem to have the financial means to do and buy many things that I, at this point, could only dream of. I found myself wishing that I too could afford to just hop on a plane and attend a big event. I can hardly splurge on a new coat and yet every day I read about someone else buying a new SLR camera and fancy new lens to boot.
Truth is, I’m more poor now than I was as a university student. It will be a long time until I can afford even a decent food processor. I am by no means looking for sympathy. Growing up in a wealthy family, I learned that money does not buy happiness. As a result, I put little importance on it. But that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes wish for certain items, or dream of travelling when I can’t.
But I think it’s important to remember that I don’t need fancy plates to be a good blogger. I don’t need a dehydrator to be a healthy eater. I shouldn’t compare myself to these other people, but instead be content with what I do have.
Lunch may not have been a five course meal at a fancy restaurant, but dammit, it was cheap and good. And I know you guys can appreciate that ;)
Question of the Day: If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money? Travel is the obvious answer here, but for interest sake, I would also buy a really expensive bottle of whiskey, a commuter bike and PB2 :)
Looking for a brave soul (who likes free stuff!)
Loved hearing some of the other food rules you like to follow! Some extra ones:
- Try to get all food groups in at meals
- If you can’t picture it in a natural state, then don’t eat it!
- Be mindful of what you’re eating but don’t obsess about it. Enjoy it!
- When offered a dessert, rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. If it gets a low rating, then it’s not worth it.
- Eat breakfast
- Balance out your carbs, proteins and fats.
- Nothing is ever off limits.
And most importantly (drumroll please…) food rules are meant to be broken!! ;)
For example, who said you can’t have candy for breakfast? First thing in the morning sounds like a perfect time for a treat to me!
Candy oats.
- 1/4 cup oat bran
- 1/4 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup almond milk
- 1/2 scoop chocolate whey powder
- 1/2 a banana
- coconut
- M&Ms
- peanut butter
My gosh this was good!! I don’t care how many weirdo ingredients are in M&Ms, sometimes a little candy coating does the body good! Oh, and big news! Mini Eggs are now available year round! I know one boy, whose name starts with a C-h-r-i-s, who will be very excited about that ;)
I had a small snack before heading out for a chilly run today. I say small, because I’ve heard several people note that Larabars seem to be getting shorter…
This apple pie flavour was pretty dinky – and yet still 170 calories! I had a cashew cookie the other day that I swear was half the length of the wrapper.
Makes chopping them up into bite size pieces much more difficult.
Yeah, I like to play with my food :)
I was also excited to try out a new product before my run.
The fine folks at Sequel Naturals sent me a canister of Vega Sport in acai-berry flavour. It’s basically a natural sport drink, meant to be consumed before or during activity. Like most other Vega products, it’s chock full of wonderful and healthy ingredients.
The organic sprouted whole grain brown rice syrup and organic palm nectar are a combo of high and low GI carbs that are supposed to give you both immediate and prolonged energy. It’s also chock full of anti-oxidants, natural caffeine (green tea) and even a natural muscle relaxer! (kombucha).
I’m a big fan of the Vega Smoothie Infusion, so I had high hopes for this stuff. Well, I did until I mixed one scoop with one cup water as the packaging instructed.
Ummm…it looks like sewage.
And honestly, it kinda tastes like it too. I’m sure this stuff is wonderful for some people, but I refuse to choke down food or drinks that my tastebuds don’t enjoy – no matter how healthy! I took a few big gulps, then dumped it down the sink. I then proceeded to burp it up throughout my run :(
My run however, was still stellar! It was around the freezing mark (30-ish F?) again today. I just wore some spandex capris, long-sleeve running turtleneck, running hat and gloves, and I was quite comfortable in the cold! I think I should pick up some ear muffs though, as they were getting chilly toward the end.
No big goals for this run today, just wanted to get the ground under my feet :) Ran 5.25 miles in 50 minutes. I love my easy mid-length jogs, but I think it’s time I start bringing some more short n’ speedy runs back into my routine too!
Lunch featured some more of my coveted honeycrisp.
I mixed up one can tuna, 1 tbsp plain yogurt, 1/2 tbsp mayo, pepper, 1 tsp lemon juice, chopped apple and onions. Loaded it on bread and melted some old cheddar on top.
Everything tastes better with melted cheese on it.
I chopped up the remainder of my honeycrisp and sprinkled some pumpkin pie spice on it to munch on.
That’s only 3/4 of the apple!! Mind you, I slice it up reeeeal thin :)
I spent the rest of the day “oot and aboot.” I made a Starbucks pit stop to try out Meghann’s drink.
Grande nonfat awake tea latte with 2 pumps pumpkin spice syrup. It was okay. I love tea lattes – but I always found the Starbucks pumpkin syrup to taste like rubber! Anyone remember the chantico? Now that shit was goooooood :P
I then immediately went home, and a turkey and hummus pita from the Pita Pit magically fell from the sky and onto my coffee table.
I couldn’t just send it back! :P
I got almost every vegetable they offer…
- spinach
- romaine
- tomatoes
- onions
- green peppers
- mushrooms
- bean sprouts
- olives
- pickles
I had just enough time for this to digest before heading to yoga! I thought it was a BodyFlow class tonight, which is a pre-choreographed mix of tai chi, yoga and pilates. But Thursdays are the regular yoga nights. It was a mix of hatha and yin, filled with lengthy pigeons and spine twists. It was wooooonderful.
Question of the day: Want a free canister of the new Vega Sport?? I’m not going to drink the stuff they gave me, so I’ll send it to a brave soul who’s willing to try it!! It’s open and missing one scoop, otherwise I even still have all the packaging it came with :) Just leave a comment and I’ll pick a victim random person in my post tomorrow!
An Ode to Pets
Happy Waffle Wednesday!!
Did you celebrate?? Let me know!
Thank you for letting me vent a little yesterday. You know I am always honest on this blog, so I had to just be real about where my head was at. I’m also reeeally bad at keeping secrets. Seriously. Do not ever tell me a secret, I will blurt it out to the first person who is willing to listen :P
I jumped out of bed when my alarm went off at 5:30 this morning. I was pumped for spin class!! It was definitely the thing that brought me the most joy today. No better reason to get out of bed :)
A fancy celebration of Waffle Wednesday was out, due to my empty fridge. So I went for something a little more rounded.
I put soy nut butter (fat) and fake-syrup on my waffles (carbs), then had an egg white pillow (protein) with parmesan on the side. I find breakfasts that are macronutriently balanced keep me full the longest. This one had 33g carbs, 22g protein and 12g fat :)
Work was another long one, with my arse planted in a court bench all day. I’m covering a murder trial all week. The circumstances aren’t all that heart wrenching, but still pretty brutal. The victim was stabbed a dozen times and we had to look at the autopsy pictures today. I will never understand how someone could do that to another human being. Court is my favourite thing to cover, but it can also be emotionally exhausting sometimes.
Which may have led to another cop out on dinner. Except today, I sunk even lower!
Pita Pit! I had to run some errands downtown after work, which happened to be right next to this fine establishment. It sounded a lot better than trying to scrounge up something from my empty fridge.
I got a turkey and hummus pita with every vegetable available. Including pickles and extra bean sprouts, but minus banana peppers. No cheese.
And when in Rome…
I needed a little sucralose to chase down my sodium ;)
It was de-licious too. Pitas are such comfort food for me.
I was needing a little extra comfort today. My beloved Fergus passed away.
We got Fergie in October 1998, when I was 12. It was mere weeks after my dad moved out, and my mother and I joked he was my “daddy replacement.” My dad is allergic to cats, so while the separation was tough (understatement), we were at least able to welcome this furball into our home :)
He was a fat cat who didn’t care. He would pounce and crawl on things as if he were a creature half his size. He was an outdoor cat by nature, so my mom and I decided we couldn’t deny him the great outdoors. He would spend the nights prowling the neighbourhood, returning home in the morning hungry and wild-eyed.
Over the past several months, he’s been losing weight and becoming more attached to us. We attributed this to old age. But my mom called me this morning saying he was having trouble breathing. A trip to the vet revealed cancer had taken over his body and he was put down.
I realize he’s just a cat. But we bring pets in our lives for a reason! For love and companionship. Both of which he provided to the fullest. So rest in peace Fergus.
Do you have pets?? Tell me all about them!!
My mom also has a miniature apricot poodle, Archie. We got him when I was 10. He still acts like a puppy and will follow me wherever I go in the house. He loves being around people, and is happiest sitting proudly on someone’s lap! :)
