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It’s Not All Sushi Boats
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Happy Waffle Wednesday :)
Rather than bombard you with photos of yet another sweet breakfast concoction this week, I’ve got a savoury waffle combination for you. I had it for lunch and my oh my – it was good!
Spinach & Feta Waffles with Hummus
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup unflavoured soy protein powder (I like mine protein-y, but this can be subbed out with more whole wheat flour)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 cup egg whites
- 1/2 cup almond milk
- 1/4 cup cooked spinach
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
Batter makes two full-sized Belgian waffles because of the added volume of spinach and feta.
I ate both. Because that’s how I roll. Along with hummus, carrots and pickled beets.
I love how the cheese got crispy on the edges. It smelled divine when cooking.
Hummus made the perfect dipper for the waffles. Definitely adding this new recipe to my regular waffle rotation!!
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I would like to thank everyone for their sweet comments on my gaining what I’ve dubbed the “Toronto Ten.”
However, I feel as if I should have left a bit of a disclaimer on that post.
You see, I don’t weigh myself. I’m one of those hippies that never steps on a scale. So I actually have no idea if I’ve gained 10 lbs, the title just sounded catchy ;) It’s more like I can fit into most of my pants, except those two pairs of capris I wore while triathlon training last summer. My mom said I was too skinny to start with. And Mother Nature has given me some of my old boobs back. So this is why a girl can’t complain too much ;)
Also, while I do eat out 1-2 times a week. I also put a lot of work and care into making fresh food at home.
Most days I need to have breakfast, lunch and dinner ready to transport with me to work in the mornings. Some days I’m gone from the house from 6am to 10pm.
When I was able to find time this week, I made sure to whip up a few simple dishes that would leave leftovers to grab the next day.
The above is a very un-photogenic spaghetti squash pesto. Essentially a cooked spaghetti squash with sautéed veggies (any and all I had in my fridge) and canned tuna for the protein (all I had on hand).
Monday night after work I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a few things for a big ole’ pot of Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili. No recipe here, just a pound of ground turkey, chopped sweet potato, can each of kidney beans and black beans, some veggies and spices!
On Sunday, I boiled a huge pot of eggs. Instead of having to prep a breakfast the night before, I’ve been able to just grab a couple eggs and toast. We won’t mention the looks I get when I eat them on the streetcar…
Another stinky food! Instead of buying expensive, overly processed protein bars, I’ve taken to snacking on little cans of tuna. Not every day of course. But when eaten alone, they make for a great protein-packed snack!
I work by some amazing fruit stands. Produce is both local and cheap, so I’m always stocking up and have lots to munch on.
Including persimmons for 99 cents a pound. That is a steal my friends.
This is a “sweet” persimmon, as not all of them are. The texture is similar to a plum, but the taste is a lot milder. The outer skin is a lot thicker.
I chopped it up on my late morning this week and added it to a bowl of yogurt.
Over the summer, yogurt messes became one of my favourite breakfasts. They fill my belly soooo much! This particular one also had some protein powder, oats, coconut, cinnamon, chia seeds, raisins, maple syrup and sunflower seed butter.
So there ya go, it hasn’t aaallll been boats of sushi and ooey gooey pizzas around here. As my blog name would suggest, it’s about a little balance sometimes ;)
I’ve got two new killer workouts to share. Will post them tomorrow – see ya then!
Question of the Day: What is your favourite dish for leftovers? Mine is chili, duh. It’s best on salads with tortilla chips!
Favourite Food Pairings
Well, we are at the hump. A little more frightening than usual, because I only have 8 days of work left! Jeez louise. I’m trying really hard to finish up all my ongoing projects so I don’t leave a bunch of half-finished stuff for the girl coming back to the position (I was filling in for her as a communications officer for 4 months). So much to do! I’m also kinda bummed I won’t get to be involved in some of the fun future projects. There’s never a shortage of things to do at the university!
So as I alluded to in my last post, I decided to try out a different gym this morning. I’m quite lucky here as my gym membership allows me access to four different locations in town, and on top of that, I can use the facilities at the university I work at.
I am very attached to my campus gym. It was inside those walls that I fell in love with exercise during my undergrad. It’s a little bare-bones, but full of memories nonetheless. I got there right when they opened at 6:30am, and immediately noticed some of the same regulars from when I was a student!!
Went in planning on doing an upper-body workout, but felt like doing some squats (what??) once I got there. Here’s how it went down:
Warm-up on treadmill:
| Minutes | Speed – MPH | Incline |
| 0-3 | 3.5 | 0 |
| 3-4 | 5.5 | 0 |
| 4-5 | 6.0 | 0 |
| 5-6 | 6.5 | 0 |
| 6-7 | 7.0 | 0 |
| 7-8 | 5.5 | 1 |
| 8-9 | 6.0 | 1 |
| 9-10 | 6.5 | 1 |
| 10-11 | 7.0 | 1 |
| 11-12 | 5.5 | 2 |
| 12-13 | 6.0 | 2 |
| 13-14 | 6.5 | 2 |
| 14-15 | 7.0 | 2 |
| 15-16 | 5.5 | 3 |
| 16-17 | 6.0 | 3 |
| 17-18 | 6.5 | 3 |
| 18-19 | 7.0 | 3 |
| 19-20 | 3.5 | 0 |
I pretty much made up the weightlifting as I went along. I started with a compound move that works my whole body, opting for a lighter weight to warm-up my muscles a little more. Then I did alternating sets between lower-body and upper-body moves. The justification behind this was to get my heart rate up working my legs, because it goes down during the arm moves. Here we go!
| Exercise | Weight | Reps | Sets | Area |
| One arm dumbbell snatch | 20 lbs | 10 | 3 | Legs, Shoulders |
| Alternating Sets: | ||||
| Step-up | 40 lbs | 10 | 3 | Quads, Glutes, Hamstrings, Calves |
| Barbell bench press | 45 lbs | 10 | 3 | Chest |
| Alternating Sets: | ||||
| Stiff leg deadlift | 50 lbs | 10 | 3 | Hamstrings, Glutes, Lower back |
| Wide-grip lat pulldown | 50 lbs | 10 | 3 | Back |
| Alternating Sets: | ||||
| Sumo squat | 55 lbs | 10 | 3 | Quads, Glutes |
| Dumbbell shoulder press | 15 lbs (ea) | 10 | 3 | Shoulders |
| Alternating Sets: | ||||
| Cable bicep curl | 25 lbs | 10 | 3 | Biceps |
| Cable pushdown | 25 lbs | 10 | 3 | Triceps |
I finished of with one set each of plank, roll-up, side knee drops, bicycle crunches.
Awesome, awesome workout! When I was thinking about going to the gym to lift weights last night, I was feeling really uninspired (and lazy) about it. But then I had the idea to go to a different gym. The thought of something new immediately energized me and I was looking forward to this. Sometimes a change of scenery is all it takes!
I don’t have a picture of breakfast, but it made me realize kiwi needs to be added to my banned foods list along with pineapple. I had some with yogurt this morning, and abdominal distress immediately followed. Something that happens often with kiwis. While my reaction isn’t as bad as pineapple, I don’t believe kiwi is tasty enough to endure a couple hours pain. Also, it makes my mouth feel kinda itchy??
Moving on! Here’s a picture:
Leftovers. Salmon and quinoa to be exact.
Paired with one of the best pairings there is.
Carrots + salsa. Better than carrots and hummus, or carrots and almond butter.
Afternoon snack was another killer combo!
Orange + almond butter. Spread a little AB on each slice. Y-u-m.
Dinner!
A monstrous omelet. Rawr.
Stuffed with turkey, hummus, feta, olives, spinach, tomatoes, among other things. Hummus + eggs = another winning combo!
After dinner, I finally took my antsy poodle for a walk. The skies cleared up and it was even warm!
Archie is actually really good at walking right beside me. Sometimes he gets hold of a “scent” so I humour him while I pees for the 105th time.
“Scent” in quotation marks, because I don’t think he has much of a sense of smell. Of course, this coming from a girl who grew up with a basset hound.
Heyyy, what’s up.
I think it’s time the trees start growing leaves already…
Getting impatient for summer to arrive!
We were out for about an hour, and both crashed when we came home (after a few downward dogs, of course). My legs are beat after these past few days of exercise.
Now I’m just nibbling on some more no-bake protein cookies.
Made with an extra tbsp of protein powder tonight, but otherwise the same. I sense a new snack obsession!!
I’ve also got a new batch of homemade protein bars setting in the fridge – chocolate banana peanut butter! Will share tomorrow :)
Question of the Day: What are your favourite food pairings? I really want to know! This is something I think about a lot. Some of my faves are:
- dates + cashew butter
- butternut squash + peanut butter
- salmon + maple
- chickpeas + cumin
- tofu + eggs
- turkey + hummus
Oh, and you’re not allowed to say banana and peanut butter, chocolate and peanut butter or PB&J! Haha.
See ya tomorrow for Waffle Wednesday! xoxo
Back to School
Greetings from Saint John!! A little bit of background about the city – it’s a dank hole. Sorry to any Saint John-ers out there, but let’s be honest with ourselves ;) It’s a smelly port city with a giant oil refinery. It’s my province’s largest city, but also my least favourite.
Since my grandparents don’t have the internet, I am currently blogging from Starbucks.
They told me the first two hours of wifi was free – that better be right!!
So. My personal training class! For those of you with bad short term memories: I’m here for personal training specialist classes with Can-Fit-Pro (Canadian Fitness Professionals). The course is available entirely though distance, but it’s strongly suggested that you take the classes. They’re being offered here in Saint John for the next two weekends – so here I am!
These pictures are all taken from the Nubodys website, as there are understandably no cameras allowed in the club.
Nubodys is a chain of Atlantic Canadian gyms that falls under the Goodlife Fitness umbrella (ie my gym!). I of course think my gym in Fredericton is the best, but this one’s pretty nice too ;)
Our class is in a small studio with tables and chairs, etc.
I broke down yesterday and splurged on a bunch of store-bought bars. I didn’t want to bring a cooler to my Grammie and Grampie’s, I’m trying to stress them out as little as possible. My Grammie was downright flabbergasted that I brought my own oatmeal for breakfast!
As per usual, I entered the day armed with snacks. I usually get strange looks for this, but what didn’t occur to me was that everyone in the class would be the same way! At 10am and 3pm we were all digging into our snack bags. One guy was even mixing up protein shakes and had a container of cottage cheese :P
We only had 30 minutes left for lunch, so I was also able to make use of my backup snacks instead of rushing out for Subway for something.
A couple small cans of tuna, a few pieces of rye crackers and an orange. I actually ate an apple with my morning snack, so the orange got pushed over till lunch :)
So! I bet you’re what you’re wondering what the hell we’re doing in that classroom! :P Well, there are about 15 of us, an even split of guys and girls ages 18-35. We have an instructor, or “PRO Trainer” who is essentially going into detail about all the course materials with us.
This weekend will be all about the textbook. So today we went through the training principles, respiratory system, bioenergetics, and muscular and skeletal concepts. Basically all the headache-inducing stuff and it cleared up so much of it for me! Our instructor is super knowledgeable and really keen for us to all have a good understanding of how and why the body works. For example, I learned that the lower back shouldn’t twist or bend backward (ahem! back extension machine!) and I learned sun salutations are pretty much the best way to stretch ever, by combining static and dynamic stretches and hitting all the muscles. Fun!
Next weekend we’ll move on to the practical stuff – including a fitness assessment and determining our VO2 max. Eep.
For the record, I did just have to pay for internet. Stupid Starbucks.
But at least they gave me a grande instead of a tall by accident ;)
A vanilla rooibos tea latte made with skim milk and sugar-free vanilla syrup.
Despite all my snacks today (which included the half a Builder Bar, apple, Simply Bar and beef jerky), I’m starving!!! It is a rest day after all. I’ve been munching on some nuts & fruit.
I have dinner plans with an old friend in about 30 minutes. She lived on my couch for a few months in university. I’m excited to see her again! After that, it’s back to my grandparent’s place so all of us can make our 9pm bedtime ;) It’s really nice seeing my grandparents, but I’m not entirely comfortable staying with them. I feel like I’m causing them TONS of extra work and stress. Contemplating just commuting the hour drive next weekend… we’ll see!
Hope y’all are having a great weekend and that the weather is gorgeous where you are too :) xoxo
Question of the Day: Have you done any sort of further education? I have an undergraduate degree in Journalism & Communications, and now I’m doing the PTS certification with plans on doing the Nutrition & Wellness certification asap. I lovelovelove learning and was my very happiest as a university student. I think if I won the lottery, I’d spend all my money on taking courses!!
