Archive | January, 2014

Mish-Mash

30 Jan

I (quite unintentionally!) have not written in a couple days and it is driving me nuts! lol Not like some huge life altering thing happened in the last couple days just that I feel weird for having not written…go fig! 😛

So here’s a random mish-mash of thoughts that went through my head lately…

My mail for the day, wtf??

My mail for the day, wtf??

The above shows everything I got in the mail on Monday. W.T.F?!?! All ads for fast food, two are for pizza places, one for Quizno’s (and before you try to say Quizno’s sells subs and is healthy go look at the nutritional information, you might as well be eating at McDonald’s!). Why-oh-why don’t I ever see flyers with coupons in my mailbox for places that sell legit healthy food? Hmm? The ad industry is obviously trying to keep us all fat, *rolls eyes* lol I would go out of my way to use a coupon at a Pita Pit but I’ve never seen a flyer/coupon for them ever...

Which leads me to…Why are all the drive-thru food places only places that sell bad-for-me-food? When I was having all that hip pain I ended up going through a fast food drive thru because I (1) had limited food at home, what I had required being able to stand long enough to prep and cook it and I couldn’t do that (2) had been in the hospital for over five plus hours, was on my home and was really hungry and (3) wasn’t able to bare the pain of getting out of my suv, hobbling around a grocery store and then maneuvering back in to my suv to drive home. The only option for food that I had was various fast food joints that had drive-thru. Subway drive-thru? Nope. (and yes I know they count as fast food but at least you have healthy options there) Pita Pit drive-thru? Nope. Hell, a Booster Juice drive-thru? Definitely nope. Is it because if you are eating somewhere healthy you are supposed to be energetic enough to get out of your car to get your food? That seems discriminatory against people with mobility issues…just sayin…:P

Early Valentine's Day Gift

Early Valentine’s Day Gift

A friend of mine gave me the above slow cooker as an early Valentine’s gift and I am super stoked to use it! I got it Sunday and have yet to take it out of the box cause well, to be honest I haven’t been cooking much on these days off and it seems slow cookers take a bit of fore-thought. Not like pulling out a frying pan, tossing some stuff in it and boom! food! Nooooo, the slow cooker needs me to know in advance what I want to put in it and then use it. I don’t know that I am capable of that! lol 😉 I really wanted to use it before I go to work Friday afternoon cause I’ll be seeing the friend that gave it to me and I wanted a story of the epic meal I made in it but uh, I don’t think that’s really gonna happen…shoot…I should really go google slow cooker recipes, there might still be time?

My agent sent out some sides (that means copy of a script), I am to work on a couple scenes for a specific character, really nail it, then go film it at the office (he has studio space), it is to send to casting agents so they can see what I can do using a more recent script. I’m really psyched about it cause (1) it gives me something to work on not just that I came up with but that has a purpose and (2) shows my agent is planning/plotting/thinking which I loooooove!

My little sister and I met with the trainer again yesterday, makes for two Wednesdays in a row. 🙂 We had physical assessment tests done, he is going to email us our results but I haven’t gotten an email yet. I don’t know that I want to know the results lol I mean, I know how many push-ups I was able to do, and how long I lasted in the cardio-endurance test, I know I scored perfect on balance (which if you know me is funny cause I am always off balance lol) and I know how I did on some of the other things but I don’t think I want to know my body fat %, or my weight, or just how low I scored on my core strength (suuuuper low I am sure!). I just want all that to stay unknown to me and then when I get retested in a couple months or so I want to be told I improved…but specific numbers? That knowledge will just be depressing I think…We had homework for the past week, the food journal, I handed it in but don’t know what he has made of it yet, eek! This week my homework is to keep track of what physical fitness stuff I do and tell him next Wednesday, I feel he’ll be disappointed if I say I did nothing so I’m gonna hafta make sure I get off my ass and do something…

Speaking of getting off ones ass, I had wanted to go running today and had the perfect route! I had to go to work this afternoon for a meeting and thought I’d park at a grocery store then run to work, attend the meeting, and run back to my suv, perfect right?! 🙂 It would have been about 8km total (that’s 5 miles I believe) but it was crap ass weather, pouring rain, and while I was ok with attending the meeting being sweaty I wasn’t ok with attending it looking like a drowned rat. 😦 So that didn’t happen. I am just not a do-stuff-in-the-rain kind of person…unless it is dragon boating but hey, that’s a water sport, I’m gonna get wet anyways lol

I managed to steam a spaghetti squash tonight for the first time ever! Soooo happy it worked! I had to call my mom for some help and she very nicely ensured I didn’t screw it up lol I paired the squash with some feta cheese and a red pepper antipasto, it was ok. I also had a cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken breast which was super yum. 🙂 I took a picture but it doesn’t look good at all so I’ll leave you to your imagination on this one lol. 😛

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What I Don’t Like To Hear

27 Jan

Two posts in one day?! Say whaaaa? That’s crazeeee! lol 😛

I went to a new doctor today about my hip (catch up here) and it appears I am going to be dragged in to the world of routine medical care whether I want to or not. *sits and throws tantrum* sigh.

It’s not that I don’t like doctors, although that is what I say cause it is easier than explaining why I avoid them, it is that, unless it’s an actual crisis/emergency/I’m-gonna-die situation I don’t see the point. It seems that so many people go to the doctor for the littlest thing, it’s a waste of the patient’s time, the doctor’s time, our healthcare system *rolls eyes* We have immune systems! We have bodies that most times can heal themselves if you take care of them properly! Stop with the excessive visits to doctors!

phew! Sorry about that little rant…

Anyways!

I had to to the ER the beginning of January because of my hip, because of my mentality towards medical care it is safe to say that if I actually go for help I really need it. The end results of my two ER visits were inconclusive and confusing. If my hip got better on its own I wasn’t to go back, if it stayed the same or got worse I was to go back, all while being on some pills. The pills had nasty side effects so I stopped taking them and over time the pain decreased so I could walk without crutches, then without a limp, then fairly normally. I still have pain but it is a manageable level and I can function daily, which in my world means I don’t need any more medical care.

Apparently I am the only one who thinks that…

A friend of mine kept bugging me to go to a doctor for follow up, when I told her I don’t have a doctor I just go to walk-in clinics when absolutely necessary she got mildly disgusted with me, said there was no reason to not have a family doctor, and gave me the name of her doctor. Then she badgered me daily for over a week to call and get an appointment! Badgered!

I caved, called the doctor and today was my appointment.

Turns out the doc is pretty nice, she sat and chatted with me for quite a while about my hip, about what could be wrong, she can’t diagnose until she sees the X-Ray and CT results from my hospital visits so we arranged for her to get those and she already has me getting another X-Ray next week so she can compare the first one to a more recent one. Ugh. She explained a lot of things in terms a non-doctor can understand and expressed mild disdain for the lack of results I got from the ER docs.

However, she said things I really didn’t want to hear, like:

– we’ll almost definitely be getting you in to see an orthopedic surgeon

– next week get another x-ray of the hip done

– did they take blood at the hospital? if not I’m going to get some blood work done

– they prescribed those meds to you?? that is a really strong dosage! no wonder you had side effects

– let’s go over your family history

– you have a lot of risk factors we’ll want to keep an eye on

– once we’ve dealt with your hip I want to get your cholesterol levels tested and arrange for other exams/tests

– one of the causes of your hip pain is a vein could have been cut off and a part of your hip could be “dying”

– I’ll see you again soon

The woman wants to get me jabbed with needles to test my freakin cholesterol, wtf! It’s fine! Just leave it alone! No need to go digging for problems! Besides that, if people were meant to give blood so often we’d have all be born with valves in our arms, eesh. *flares nose*

The mention of an orthopedic surgeon disturbs me also but I’m trying to ignore that one…

After the appointment was over I was walking back to my suv and passed by a coffee shop I never get to go to anymore cause I’m not in that area often, they have a really yummy tea so I went in to get one and came out with not only the tea but this…

Best cinnamon bun ever!

Best cinnamon bun ever!

They advertise it as “the best cinnamon bun ever” and I gotta say, they could be right. I was going to slack, eat it when I got home, then use it as an excuse to not cook dinner but as my previous post shows I didn’t do that, I made stir fry, so this became dessert. Thing was, after dinner I was so full that for hours I was convinced I wouldn’t be eating the cinnamon bun tonight cause the tummy was full but luckily my stomach’s dessert compartment opened up and that cinnamon bun fit right in lol 🙂

Another thing I got was this…

pretty dreamcatcher

pretty dreamcatcher

I know I know! You aren’t supposed to buy a dreamcatcher for yourself, you are only supposed to get them as gifts or make them for yourself but I have been dreamcatcher-less for a while now and I really needed one. For those who don’t know a dreamcatcher is placed above your bed and during the night bad dreams get caught in the webbing, then when the sun comes up the sun destroys them, thereby ensuring the sleeping person only gets happy dreams. The dreamcatcher I had for years and years (seriously, it was a gift in high school from a friend) became so ragged the leather was breaking and the feathers were coming off so it had to be replaced. Someone I knew bought me a new one and it was lovely but we no longer speak and I wasn’t comfortable having something from them guarding my sleep so I took it down hmm, over a year ago. So all this time I have had nothing guarding my dreams, sadness. I saw this in a window of a shop I passed and I dunno, it felt right, like I was meant to have it, I wasn’t even actively looking for one so it was odd I felt so connected to it. Great, now I sound like a hippie lol I went in and it wasn’t expensive so it became mine and is now hanging over my bed. 🙂 I feel better having it there, especially with words like “orthopedic surgeon” running through my head lol

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Stir Fry Sunday: A Day Late

27 Jan

Alrighty, so it’s not that I didn’t want to make a stir fry last night for dinner, I like the idea of Stir Fry Sunday buuuuuut after work I had a long phone convo, when that was over I wasn’t hungry so thought I’d wait twenty minutes or so before making dinner and I uh, hmm, kinda…well…I fell asleep…oops? 😛 By the time I woke up from my unplanned nap I was in no mood to cook, or eat. I eventually had toast and some warm almond milk with nutmeg and even that seemed like a lot!

Soooooo, I made stir fry tonight, yay! A delayed-by-one-day Stir Fry Sunday! 🙂

This weeks stir fry had the same frozen stir fry veggies as last week (why wouldn’t they? the package is already open and I gotta use em up lol), extra water chestnuts cause I have a weakness for them, mushrooms, fresh red and yellow peppers thinly sliced, beefless tips, shrimp, peanuts and a sweet and sour sauce. This was all served on top of vermicelli noodles. Mmm! Well, I think it was Mmm! lol You may not, shrug, but that’s cool, we all have different tastes after all.

I was a little let down by the vermicelli noodles, the package said put in boiling water for a couple minutes then add to the stir fy pan so that is what I did. The noodles tasted good but were so entangled with each other when I put them in the pan they didn’t really mix well with the rest of the ingredients, nor did they move around the pan easily. I’ll keep using them, mostly because I love that particular type of noodle, but next time I might not put them in the pan after boiling them, I might put them directly on the plate then top them with the vegg mix. I’ll keep trying new things till I figure it out. 🙂

I was happy with the veggies, how could I not be? lol There was a nice combo and I love veggies so it was a win-win.

I am oh-so proud of the shrimp! As in ridiculously proud! I was back to worrying I’d screw it up, give myself food poisoning or maybe over cooking them to the point of them not being edible buuuuut I did neither! How awesome is that?? I put the amount I wanted in to a ziploc bag and had them sit under running cold water for 7 minutes (as the package instructed), then tossed them in to the pan when the veggies were at an almost done stage and go fig, it worked…weird…but sweeeeeet!

The beefless tips, you’re probably thinking that is a typo lol but nope, it is not! They are made by a company called Gardein (www.gardein.com). The product looks like cubes of beef that you sautee, they have a texture of tender beef and almost taste like beef, kinda…I tried them on a whim years ago (I wanted beef but was scared to cook it and poison myself lol) so I tried these, figured I couldn’t mess up a fake meat product and so far I haven’t. Each time I cook them they turn out perfect even though each time I cook them for a different amount of time and have cooked them in varying ways. Versatile, I like that in a fake meat lol. I randomly tossed some in to the pan (as a back up in case I messed up the shrimp) but ended up with the bonus of having two protein sources in my stir fry cause both the shrimp and fake beef were great.

Stir Fry Numero 2

Stir Fry Numero 2

On a whim, and after I snapped the above pic, I decided to put half an avocado on top. Why did I do this? Cause I had half an avocado in my fridge and didn’t think it would last another day lol. I figured it’d either taste good or I wouldn’t like the combo of flavours so I’d eat the avocado pieces first and as alone as I could get them on the fork and it wouldn’t contaminate the rest of the stir fry. Turns out I liked the flavour combo, avocado makes everything better! 🙂

I’d like to think that even with the one day delay my second Stir Fry Sunday was a success…it must be, I ate until I was stuffed lol 😛

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Attempting A Healthy Work Lunch, Oh Dear…

25 Jan

I don’t cook.  Well, that’s not entirely true since last Sunday I made a stir fry but in general cooking isn’t my thing. My idea of cooking meat is taking something frozen, putting it on a baking tray, throwing it in the oven, following the instructions on the package and being happy if it turns out edible. To me that is cooking.

None of this messing with raw meat stuff, nuh-uh!

Well, I had this oh-so-brilliant idea that I would change that so when I was grocery shopping the other day I bought two raw chicken breasts. I was inspired by the flyer showing there was a sale, I’m a sucker for a sale. Stupid sale! I also bought some Creole Dijon Sauce for the chicken, I’ve had it before and it is yummy…course I used it sparingly on cooked rice but let’s not get in to how I chose to use the sauce designed for chicken k? 😉

creole dijon sauce

I know there is some sort of a timeline when it comes to how long raw chicken can sit in the fridge and I’m fairly certain that timeline is short which has had me paranoid since I bought it that before I could figure out how to cook it it’d go bad. To me this is a completely valid concern! 😛

The website for the marinade had some recipe ideas but didn’t explain how to marinate the chicken, it just said to do it, sigh. Do they not realize some people are reeeeeally dumb when it comes to cooking? Eesh! I wanted to call my mom when I got home from work this evening to ask her what to do but thanks to lame time zones I couldn’t. She’s an hour ahead of me and I hate calling her and my dad any later then 10pm their time because I worry I’ll wake them. So it was left to me and internet to figure it out!

I found conflicting information for how long the chicken has to stay in the sauce, anywhere from 20 minutes to overnight, wtf, pick a time people! With the help of google I learned once the chicken is soaking up that marinade it has to go back in the fridge, covered, while it becomes flavourful so that is what I did. I drowned the two pieces of chicken in sauce, using a shallow glass pan, covered with saran wrap and put it in the fridge. I gave it an hour then popped one piece of chicken in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. The second piece I am marinating overnight and will cook tomorrow, not like I really want two pieces of chicken with the same flavouring two days in a row but I don’t know if I can let it sit soaking up the yummy creole dijon any longer without risking death…ahhh lovely food poisoning, how you cast a shadow over everything I do in the kitchen! 😛

The oven is about to beep at me saying the chicken is done, let’s cross our fingers it really is done shall we?

Since we’re already crossing our fingers let’s keep them crossed that this works cause this piece of chicken is the main attraction of the lunch I am taking to work tomorrow and I have no more time tonight to cook anything else, it’s this or bust! No pressure or anything…

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Easy Low Carb Breakfast Casserole for Busy People

25 Jan

Um yeah, this looks waaaay tasty! Can’t wait to try it but didn’t want to hog the recipe lol Cheers, theamazingshrinkingwoman! 🙂

Milk, Men and Mayhem

24 Jan

I know that saying about not crying over spilled milk, everyone in the English speaking world knows that saying and I’m sure there are other versions for other languages lol but what about milk going sour overnight…is it ok to cry a little over that? or at least swear a bit?

I ask this because last night my milk was fine, this morning when I went to put some in my morning tea (well, ok, afternoon tea cause I slept in but still! it’s my first cup for the day and in my world that is practically sacred lol) it had gone bad. Ugh. When I opened the lid I got a whiff of that horrible smell nobody wants to experience but I tried to pretend I didn’t smell anything and poured some milk in to my tea…where it curdled. Double ugh. A lovely cup of tea wasted. Sadness.

I’ve never been able to understand how something seems to go instantly bad. Sure sure, I know it didn’t happen in an instant, it has sloooowly been going bad since it was packaged and shipped to the store but it feels like an instant process…is it only me that feels that way?

On a completely different note I would like the world to stop associating all of Canada with that annoying Bieber kid who is constantly embarrassing us and instead focus on these guys…

Canada's Mens Bobsled Team 2014

Canada’s Mens Bobsled Team 2014

These fine gentlemen are the Canadian Mens Bobsled Team for the 2014 Olympics. I now have a new sport to pay attention to lol 😉 The guys posted this pic on one of their Twitter feeds, apparently they had to weigh in hence the lack of clothes, I wonder how much the beards weigh? I also wonder when bobsled athletes became so muscle-y, I always thought they were super skinny, like in the movie Cool Runnings (ya know, the movie about the Jamaican Bobsled Team competing in Calgary, AB, if you haven’t seen it you should, it’s a funny movie 🙂 ) Not that I am complaining about the muscles, or the uh, skin show *blush*, just curious if the increased muscle mass has any adverse affect on speed or aerodynamics…and of course that curiosity is the sole reason I will be watching the bobsled races once the Olympics start…that sounds convincing…right? 😉 teehee

The cat is causing mayhem this evening. He is in an especially hyper mood and chasing a stuffed ladybug all over the place. Keep in mind the toy doesn’t move on its own, he is chasing it because he is flinging it places, it’s really cute to watch lol. He flung it in to the air and it landed in a cloth bag that has various items in it, he couldn’t get it out because the sides of the bag are too high for him to reach to the bottom so he knocked the bag over but then couldn’t get the toy out because one of the items was squishing it. Watching him try to find a solution to this problem made me appreciate his cunning even more then I already do…it also made me wonder why he hasn’t killed me in my sleep yet because I’m certain he could lol. While in pursuit of his ladybug he has knocked over countless things and created havoc in my tiny apartment. I don’t reeeeally mind cause he doesn’t do this all the time and hey, it’s his home too right? Why shouldn’t he be allowed to go a little nutso sometimes? What sucks is he doesn’t clean up after himself, the spoiled brat lol, which means tomorrow I shall be cleaning his mess. I know I know, I should be cleaning the mess up now but it is just papers etc and I’m busy watching Criminal Minds before I go to bed lol Sleep first! Cleaning some other time! That’s a good order don’t ya think? 😉

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Nervous Nelly…Nellie?

24 Jan

I just changed my Gravatar pic on WordPress and it has me nervous, a stupid thing to be nervous about I know but there ya have it, nervous.

well ok, I'm not this nervous!

well ok, I’m not this nervous!

Why am I nervous? Cause now people can see what I look like! Ack!

Sure, I sometimes post pics that have partial shots of my face, and yeah ok, if you are even vaguely observant you can look to the right and see my face on the Twitter Widget and if you actually read my Twitter feed you will see the occasional picture of me where I’m not at all trying to hide my face buuuuut I dunno, this feels different…is that weird?

Now, when I leave comments it’ll be my picture beside the comment instead of my former Gravatar which was a purple fairy (I like fairies, don’t judge! that’s just mean 😛 lol), if someone wants to see who I am on WordPress they will actually see what I look like…even though it was my decision it has me mildly freaking out which in turn is making me laugh at myself lol

Anyone tech savvy could have followed my blog to my LinkedIn account, my tumblr account (which is super new!), my facebook account, my twitter account, my google+ account…omg I have a lot of online stuff, what is scary is I know people who have waaay more! My point is, on some of those other accounts I haven’t been as cautious as I have been here when it comes to my image being attached, but because I write about my life, and personal stuff on here, I try to keep it a bit more anonymous.

Apparently I decided to change that a bit lol 😛

I’m probably nervous for nothing, most likely nobody will even notice it has changed, or care that it is a picture of me now, but for me it is kind of a big step in my being alright with people who aren’t personal friends knowing a bit more about who I am. I’m so judgmental about what I look like I didn’t want to offer up my image for judgement by others but for some reason, tonight (well, technically early this morning as it is 2:25am Friday but I haven’t gone to bed yet so to me it still feels like Thursday night lol) it feels like it is a good night to make this little change to my WordPress account.

So hi there all my WordPress friends! You now know what I look like…ack! 😛

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Peering Over My Shoulder

24 Jan

Today is day two of my Food Journal and I am surprised at how much my food choices were affected by the knowledge someone was going to be reading (and judging!) my eating habits. Who’d of thunk it? lol

I wanted to eat pizza but didn’t because I didn’t want the trainer to read that I ate pizza, just like I didn’t eat a whole whack load of other things today because of the judgement that will be passed on my food choices.

It’s like Big Brother or George Orwell but in a smaller way. 😛

Normally I try to not let other peoples judgements of me affect my behaviour. I mean yeah ok, I know it does but I try to not let it affect me too too much. This time though, I am choosing to alter my behaviour because I know what I want to do is “bad” and having someone figuratively looking over my shoulder keeps me from indulging in the self -destructive behaviours that will do nothing good for me. It’s like having a little coach on my shoulder helping me to resist the foods I shouldn’t be eating. It’s so much easier to decide to not eat something when I know he will be reading my food journal on Wednesday.

Lately I’ve been eating foods I shouldn’t be, I’ve been eating foods in larger quantities than I should be and to top off those oh-so-lovely decisions I haven’t been exercising nearly as often as I should be. This has resulted in me feeling icky, slower than normal, fatter…even though I know my food choices are making me feel this way I can’t seem to stop my behaviour, or at least I wasn’t able to until today. Today though, when I thought about eating pizza, even though I wanted it, I kept thinking “nope cause he’ll read it”. Even though I know I shouldn’t be eating it, and normally that knowledge would be enough to stop me, lately knowing that isn’t enough, buuuut knowing someone else is going to know what I was eating was enough.

I don’t know why I am needing an outsider to help me have self-control over my food but I do and luckily for right now I have one, yay! 😀

Don’t think I managed to eat perfectly today, I didn’t, but I did manage to minimize the screw ups which is nice, lol. 🙂

I didn’t make it to the gym but I did go for a nice walk to the grocery store which I am going to pretend counts as exercise lol I used my Runtastic App to track the walk there, paused it while I was shopping then restarted it on the walk home. I’m cranky with myself because I forgot to restart it right away so the info is a bit wrong because it didn’t track the entire walk home. What I have from it says I walked 3.16km and it took me 1:07:17. It is a pathetic distance and if I was going running or hiking I’d put my nose in the air at such a short distance but hey, I can’t control where the store is lol and I’d like to point out that the walk home had me carrying two fairly heavy grocery bags. Not like I didn’t know I was going to be buying food but I didn’t take in to account how heavy some of the items would be, especially when they are stuffed in to two bags lol

The walk home got me thinking about weight I have already lost. I don’t know the exact weight of the two bags but I know they weighed enough my arms were hurting from carrying them, the straps were digging in to my hands and my breathing became a bit laboured. Not hugely laboured, if I’d been walking with someone I’d have still been able to talk but I was breathing heavier and faster than normal. I made sure to walk the same pace I normally walk, even with the addition of the bags, hoping to turn the walk in to a bit more of a work out.

When I started breathing heavier I started thinking about the extra weight I was carrying, how at one point, not all that long ago that extra weight wouldn’t have been weight in a bag but weight that was on my body. I realized that if I was doing that walk a couple years ago I might have been breathing heavily not because I was holding something but just because my body was that much larger, and more out of shape then it is now, and if walking that distance/elevation would have made me out of breath just from walking how much worse would it have been if I was carrying my groceries back home? It’s an unsettling thought…

It’s easy to forget how far I have come, how much I have changed (for the better), how 3-4 years ago I would have been so happy at the thought of being how I am now. Because now, all I think about is how much farther I have to go and how I never seem to be able to get there. I think about how much I still want to change and how I seem to be at a level that asks more of me than I am able to give. I know I won’t get results without putting in the work, I know I won’t reach my dreams without making an effort, I know I have to do more than I am doing now to get where I want to be but in the day-to-day act of living I seem to forget the larger far-reaching goal and I focus on the in-the-moment gratification.

how far

A small sacrifice now will make for a happier future me. I used to know that deep in my bones, I didn’t even have to remind myself when offered something tempting because it was one of the mantras I lived, but lately, sigh, lately I don’t think that automatically, I don’t even remind myself when having to make a choice, I just say “screw it” to having impulse control and eat whatever – or at least that is how it feels to me.

It’s important to remember how far I have come while not letting go of the lessons I have learned along the way and using that knowledge to keep me on the path to a healthier, fitter, happier me. I guess sometimes I just need a kick in the butt to remember! 😛

 

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A New Beginning?

23 Jan

I volunteer as a Big Sister, my little sister is 16 and we get along really well. The Big Sisters Organization sent us some gift certificates for a local gym that specializes in you working with a personal trainer. The gift certificates entitle us to an assessment, having a program made for us (individually I mean) and two training sessions. It’s a pretty sweet deal actually. 🙂

Today the lil sis an I went for our first consultation and oh wow were there a lot of questions lol The entire time was spent answering all types of questions about well, anything and everything concerning injuries, past and present physical activity levels, eating habits and more.

We were given homework, we each have to keep a food journal for a week and take it to the trainer when we see him next Wednesday so he can see what our eating habits are like and give us advice on them. He said there are two ways to go about the food journals, (1) eat what we think he wants us to eat and write that down, the trick there is that we have to be able to maintain those eating habits for longer than the week or (2) write down the truth. 😛

I have opted for writing down the truth and I’m almost looking forward to seeing the reaction he will have when he reads my eating habits lol Except for when I tracked my food for weight watchers and wrote that down on this blog waaaaay back in the beginning of this blog nobody has seen what I eat on a day to day basis. Which admittedly isn’t all that odd cause really, how often does somebody see or read about every morsel of food you put in to your mouth? 😉 I know my eating habits are all over the place and I’m actually looking forward to having an expert help me figure out what I should be doing food wise. Mildly nervous but still looking forward to it lol

Next week we will undergo physical fitness assessments, so we’ll have to do a bunch of different activities that will measure cardio, strength, flexibility and, hmm…I’m sure there is one more…nope, totally blanking on what that is, shrug, oh well. lol We will also have our body fat % figured out and we’ll each be given an exercise plan and taught how to do the various exercises in that plan. Then I guess we go back once per week for the next two weeks to actually work out with the trainer and after that I dunno what happens, I guess that is when we decide if we want to keep working with him and paying for his services our go our own way and hope we learned a lot.

I know my lil sis won’t be able to stay with him because even though I don’t know what he charges I know it’ll be a lot and she most likely won’t be able to afford it. Frankly, I can’t afford to work with a trainer on a regular basis either, which kinda sucks cause I really wish I could. I think knowing I was accountable to them, knowing I had to show up or lose the money I was paying for that session, knowing that someone was actually tracking my improvements or lack there of would help me to stay motivated on my lazy days, heck, on every day not just the lazy ones. If I like how the rest of our sessions with him go I might see about meeting with him once a month to keep me on track, depending on how much that would cost. But that decision is a while away so no need to really think about it yet! 🙂

I’m trying to look at this personal trainer experience as a new beginning in my weight loss/strength training world, I’m hoping what I will learn from him and knowing I will be seeing him again in a week and wanting to be slightly better than the last visit will help get me on track. I think once I am back in a routine, back on track so to speak, I will be able to maintain it, I usually can. I do so much better at exercising regularly during dragon boat season, I just need to get that drive back and have that drive push me in to the gym, or on to a hiking trail, or running around the neighbourhood lol Anything! *rolls eyes*

I keep trying to remember this

I keep trying to remember this

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Stir Fry Sunday

19 Jan

I officially declare Sunday: Stir Fry Sunday! *insert parade here* 🙂

I don’t know why but I got the random idea to make stir fry for dinner tonight, I made a list of all the various ingredients I needed, hit up the grocery store on the way home from work and bam! cooking ensued! wOOt!

Because I was down about not getting to film the commercial today I wanted to make sure I did something that I would enjoy, well, either enjoy the act of or the result of during the time I would have been filming. I don’t particularly like cooking but I do enjoy stir fry, and eating lol I used to make stir fry fairly often years ago but I don’t really remember what I did back then so I was approaching this task as a newbie.

Normally I don’t use raw meat, unless it is frozen and requires minimal touching. Raw meat = yuch! Also, if I am not throwing a frozen chicken breast or frozen piece of fish in the oven then my protein usually comes from tofu, fake meat, eggs, things like that. I am always so certain I will under cook the meat and give myself food poisoning and duuuude, that would suck! …obviously lol…Well, today a friend gave me a look, you know the look, the kind that is clearly labeling you as a dumbass in their eyes when I told her I don’t cook raw chicken, she then gave me a thawed, raw, icky chicken breast, told me to cube it, throw it in the wok first with a bit of oil and I’d be fine.

Since I can’t lose face over this I…cooked the chicken! *gasp*  I’m sure to you this is ho-hum but to me it’s a big deal cause ick, I had to touch raw meat, and cut it, and cook it well enough I didn’t get sick from it…that’s a lot! I also then had to bleach the sink, knife and cutting board cause there was raw chicken touching all those surfaces, or the juices from the raw chicken, and now I envision salmonella spawning all around my kitchen. Double ick! 😛

I used a bit too much oil, I drained a whole bunch before putting any veggies in the pan, but other than that the cooking went really well! I tossed in some frozen veggies from the Europe’s Best brand, there were orange carrots, snow peas, yellow carrots, water chestnuts, red peppers, baby corn and bean sprouts in that mix. I then added more water chestnuts (you can never have too many! lol), raw sliced red and yellow peppers, sliced mushrooms and at the very end some baby spinach (I just warmed it up, didn’t cook it), oh and I put some stir fry sauce I bought at Safeway in there for flavour. For plating it, I put the veggie and chicken mix over some brown rice, sprinkled a bit of soy sauce on and topped with peanuts.

Holy cannoli it was gooood! 😀

I made that! whoa!

I made that! whoa!

There is even more of a bonus to this delish meal, because I didn’t measure anything, just added stuff, I made enough for two servings, as you can see in the picture, so I now have lunch for tomorrow sitting in my fridge. How great is that? I have no idea if this was healthy or not since I didn’t measure anything, just poured in amounts of things that looked good lol I figure it can’t be too too horrible since it was a meal made up of mostly veggies, with some protein and a bit of starch. There is probably a healthier alternative to brown rice but I don’t know what that is. But hey, that is what Stir Fry Sunday is for! To experiment with different combinations of things on a weekly basis, fair warning, this could get weird lol

I had a distressing discovery when cooking, I no longer have my wok…I have no clue where it went to and I’m kinda cranky about that. I had a really nice wok, I can’t remember getting rid of it, and I can’t imagine why I would have, but since it is gone I must have decided at some point to give it away, sigh, stupid stupid move! This was made in a large frying pan and it just wasn’t the same, even though it did turn out delish lol

I’m going to wait to buy a new wok, see how consistent I am with Stir Fry Sunday, I figure if I make stir fry weekly for a month or so then that justifies buying a new wok, until then the frying pan it is! Which makes me a bit ghetto but oh well lol

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