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Another 30 Day Challenge?

11 Feb

The other day I was bored and started searching for 30 Day Challenges. I was actually thinking I’d redo the 30 Day Squat Challenge I did last summer because I liked the results I got from it and well, I know I can do it lol Nothing like going in to a challenge knowing you’ve done it once and can do it again! lol 😛 Also, I’ve gotta get my act in gear and get in shape, these challenges are nice additions to an already existing work out plan but they are also a great motivator. I mean, if you go and do a bunch of squats well, you’ve warmed up your body, you’re revved up and thinking you can handle anything which in turn can quite easily lead to a gym session or a jog (weather permitting) or at least working out to an exercise dvd, right? Right!…well, at least for me…

So I was searching for the 30 Day Squat challenge from last summer and came across this little gem…

30daysquatchallengeSorry it is so blurry, I’ll try to get a better image up but for now this is the best I could find.

In some ways it is the same as any other squat challenge, it gets you up to doing 200 squats in a day within 30 days buuuuut the main difference is that instead of just doing your standard squat you do 5 different squat poses per session. I love it! This way you are getting a more well rounded lower body workout because you are working different parts of your legs by doing the different types of squats! Yay!

To give you an example yesterday I did 6 each of the five different squats:

-narrow squat (feet together)

-narrow squat with a kick back (legs together, do a narrow squat, when you come up lift leg backwards)

-standard squat

-standard squat with side leg lift (do a standard squat, when you come up lift leg to the side)

-sumo squat

For the narrow squats with kick back and the standard squat with side leg lifts one rep is both legs, for example, you do a narrow squat, get to standing position, lift right leg back, then do the same thing but lift the left leg back, that is one set. This way a set of 6 means each leg gets lifted back 6 times. Does that makes sense?

I haven’t done my squats yet today and it is already 1:30am, doesn’t mean I won’t do them once I finish typing this and right before I go to bed but they sure will suck that little bit more because I left them so late lol My own fault though, sigh. 😛

A friend at work saw the print out and asked what it was so I showed her and she asked for a copy, she seemed really gung-ho about it which inspired a sorta brilliant idea in my head. Why not invite the staff at work to take part in the challenge, we can all do it together! I don’t mean we all get together daily and do the squats at the same time, lol, that’d be weird! 😛 Just that if we all know each other is doing the challenge then it might make us more likely to finish, we can encourage each other and we can bitch to each other about how hard it is lol, stuff like that.

I thought it was a great idea, the others? Not so much. sigh. One of the girls said no, her reasons ranged from she is too fat to do squats, to she is too short to do squats to just plain no. Another girl already had a work out plan she follows and doesn’t want to add to it (fair enough). One wants to do it and was all “yeah, I’m in!” but when I asked her today how her squats went yesterday she was all ready with reasons why she couldn’t get them done. The girl who initially was all gung-ho didn’t start yet but said she would today after work so next time we have a shift together I’ll ask her how it is going…at this point I am wondering if any of them will actually do it, sigh.

oh so true

oh so true

I get it, you have to want to work out in order to work out, at least initially. You have to have something inside of you driving you to be uncomfortable, to get sweaty, to force you up off the comfy couch and out the door to the gym or at least to the middle of the room where you then start doing squats which, even if you are in shape are hard work. All sorts of things can be a persons motivation but if you don’t have at least one thing motivating you juuuuust enough you aren’t going to change your habits and actually find the time and energy to do the work. I firmly believe you can always find some time in the day to exercise, it is just a matter of using that time for exercising and not for resting, or reading, or watching tv, or napping, or talking on the phone, or checking facebook or or or. There are a lot of things pulling all of us in a million different directions and almost always the first thing to get dropped when you have a lot  of things to juggle is working out. Like we all forget taking care of ourselves is more important than going on facebook or watching tv.

I used to be good at prioritizing working out, I always found time for it. If my social plans couldn’t be worked around my working out then I changed the social plans, not the work out session. Whereas lately I’ll cut the work out session at the drop of a hat and find a way to make any excuse sound legit. *rolls eyes* Pathetic. 😦

I’m trying to fix this, and I’m hoping this new 30 day challenge will help me. I hate failing and that will help push me to complete the challenge. Also, I am looking at this as work towards training for the 8km I signed up to run, as well as helping me get back in shape for dragon boat season (which starts soon) and just in general helping me feel better about myself. I always feel better about myself when I am living a more active lifestyle but I am a naturally lazy person and have to really fight my lazy nature to get out there and do stuff lol. Since I can do the squats at home I have no excuse to not do them each day and the confidence I will start to feel the farther in to the challenge I get is something to look forward to!…so is the muscle definition! Don’t forget the muscle definition lol Last time I was surprised at how noticeable the change was in my thighs for muscle definition, it’ll be nice to get that back. 🙂

 

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A New Fruit, A New Chocolate

11 Feb

I got given a new-to-me fruit today, I thiiiink it’s a papaya?

What are youuuuuu?

What are youuuuuu?

Luckily I was given instructions on what to do with it, I was told to peel it, cut it in half, scoop out all the black seeds, and enjoy. Sounds easy enough right?

And guess what? It really was easy lol

The poor fruit had an unfortunately hard ride home in my purse so there were some super soft spots but hey, it happens, shrug. I used a carrot peeler, for some reason I was expecting the skin to be thick like an orange but it wasn’t, it was thin and really easy to peel.

The flesh was firm on the outer parts, the parts that were right under the skin but the farther inside you go the softer the fruit. I didn’t handle it very gently so it kinda turned partially mushy by the time I put it in the bowl, hence the unattractive picture below…

not the prettiest looking food...

not the prettiest looking food…

I’m not sure if I like it or not lol At first I was all “hmm, ok, it’s alright” but the more I ate the less I enjoyed it. I also got a tummy ache out of the blue, not sure if it was from the fruit or not but the pain coinciding with the eating of the fruit makes me suspicious. I ate a little under half of it and then quit it. I’m tempted to chop it smaller and put it in oatmeal tomorrow for breakfast, maybe it’ll be better then…or maybe it’ll ruin the oatmeal? Oh the horrors! lol 😛

I also tried a new hot chocolate this evening and Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! 😀

My Uncle (who is all kinds of awesome!) sends me various goodies from England. He knows I am trying to lose weight, actually, I don’t know if he does know that…but he knows I like Weight Watcher products and that every other country in the freakin world has a wider variety of Weight Watcher foods than Canada. sigh. What’s with that??

Anyways!

He sends me these great hot chocolate packages and this evening I tried a new one, it is Caribbean Coconut and holy cannoli did it smell delish right from when the water hit the powder!

2014-02-10 16.04.50

 

It had a subtle coconut flavour, oddly enough the coconut smell was stronger than the taste but that’s ok cause the taste was still good. They have an orange chocolate that is da bomb! I only have one of those left so I am holding off on drinking it cause once it is gone it won’t be replaced soon and that is all kinds of sadness. 😛 The packages are small, and I like my hot chocolate to be strong so I either use one package and only half a cup of hot water or two packages and a full cup of hot water. This evening I did two packages, to be honest I usually go the two packages route, I mean c’mon, who wants half a cup of hot chocolate? Not me!

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Stir Fry Sunday: A Cancelled Guest

10 Feb

I had a friend coming over Sunday evening, I warned her Sunday is Stir Fry Sunday in my world so if she came over at dinner time the food I would be offering her would be stir fry. She was cool with this so yay! Or not yay? Gotta say, I was pretty much instantly worried that (1) I would kill her with food poisoning or (2) it would suck and I’d be feeding her something disgusting. Neither was really something I wanted to happen so I almost chickened out and suggested the veggie soup I made but then I decided to suck it up and make the stir fry.

Turns out she had to cancel so I was making the stir fry just for me, which while it sucked she couldn’t make it I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit relieved I wouldn’t be potentially poisoning my friend. I mean c’mon, I like her, I don’t wanna make her sick! lol

This weeks stir fry wasn’t all that exciting, and yet it was tasty. 🙂

It had chicken that had been marinating overnight in a tangy Thai sauce, Mmm!

2014-02-09 19.49.13

I was short of cash so the only fresh veggies in the stir fry were sliced mushrooms. The rest of the veggies were frozen Europe’s Best Imperial Blend, which is a mixture of edamame kernels, snow peas, bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, carrots and red peppers. I also added some grilled red and yellow peppers, the combo was quite good though I would have liked more water chestnuts.

2014-02-09 19.49.20

topped with peanuts of course

topped with peanuts of course

I cooked some brown rice, added a bit more of the Thai sauce once the veggies were cooked then topped with peanuts cause I like peanuts in stir fry, and if that isn’t the perfect reason to put them in there then I don’t know what is lol. 😛

I’m getting better at knowing how much to make. What you see in the pan was split in two, I had half Sunday for dinner then the other half was my lunch Monday. When I ate it Sunday it was perfect but when I warmed it up Monday at work the chicken was a bit dry. The flavouring was still really good but yeah, the chicken was a bit dry and chewy…I don’t know if that means I overcooked the chicken or if that is just because of heating it in the microwave. Anyone know?

For dessert I had a mini Panettone, quite possibly the cutest thing ever! lol I love Panettone but they are always so huuuuge that I don’t buy one for myself when they come out at Christmas time but from work I got this mini one. Turns out the mini one is better than the large ones I have had in the past. It was more moist (generally I find them a bit too dry), was just the right size so I didn’t have to worry about weeks of eating the same thing everyday or freezing it and it was cute. Hey, there is something to be said for enjoying what your food looks like lol

Look how cute and adorable!

Look how cute and adorable!

So there we have it, one more successful Stir Fry Sunday, wOOt! wOOt! 😀

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A Lovely Mountain Day

6 Feb

I spent a chunk of my afternoon up on a mountain today and thoroughly enjoyed myself. 🙂 This may not seem odd but anyone who knows me knows I don’t like being outside during the winter, it’s cold, and there is snow and ice, and it’s cold! Yes, I know, I am a failure as a Canadian *rolls eyes* 😛

I decided to go snowshoeing today, yay! It was zero degrees Celsius, which is, um…gimme a sec, I gotta google…it’s 32F…so nice n warm and perfect for spending outside. 😀

We haven’t had a lot of snow this winter (yes, I’m in that part of Canada lol) so I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the trails to get snowy enough to make it worth my while and decided today was a good day to try em out.

There was snow, and a decent amount of it, but none of it fresh and none of it even remotely powdery, which, if you snowshoe you know is the most fun type of snow to trek through. Todays snow was all packed down, partially icy because the snow keeps melting during the day then freezing overnight – vicious loop that.

For part of the trail my snowshoes looked liked this…

2014-02-06 14.59.31yup, that’s right, they were being carried not worn cause the snow was just that packed down that there was no point putting them on my feet, sigh. I felt like an idiot carrying them and was really wishing I’d left them in my suv but obviously I wasn’t going to go all the way back to my suv to put them in the trunk so in my hands they stayed.

Until…

2014-02-06 15.23.23

 

I finally got to put them on! Yay! 😀

And hey, don’t judge the pants! They are super warm, fit well and my friend sold them to me for a measly $60, I heart those pants!…even if in this pic they do make my legs look huuuuuge lol

snow...

snow…

Me...

Me…the most unattractive cold person ever, sigh.

more snow...

more snow…

omg, me without makeup, on the internet, ack!

omg, me without makeup, on the internet, ack!

Do you see the damage to my toque? The loose threads that make it look old and worn? Well, lemme tell ya the story of that damage. This toque is brand new, this is only the third time I have gotten to wear it and I take good care of my stuff. So how did it get to look like this? The cat. *glares at the fur ball* I came home from work and discovered my toque at the base of his scratching post, it normally hangs on a hook on the wall by my front door. So he got it off the hook, brought it through the kitchen, in to the living room, killed it, then dumped the carcass somewhere I was sure to find it. The sadist. I’m trying to figure out how to fix or hide the damage but don’t know how…so right now, if you are keeping score, it is Cat-1, Human-0.

I didn’t get to go all the way to the top of the mountain due to timing issues. I got up there a bit later then planned which would’ve been alright except I was going on a trail I haven’t gone on before and accidentally went on the wrong trail to start with, oops! In my defence, there are two trail entrances, fairly close to each other, the first trail entrance turned out to be the wrong trail but the other trail entrance is hidden from site when at the first trail entrance so I thought there was only one trail…does that make sense? lol

Anyways! I went on the first, incorrect trail, and fairly quickly thought I was gonna die. It was super icy, lots of rocks, not a lot of snow, steep decline the entire way and of course the rocks were covered in ice so every part that had some serious decline trekking to do left me feeling I was facing certain doom. I don’t do awesome on ice, thanks to my stupid knee, and I didn’t even have my hands free thanks to having to carry my snowshoes. The trail was seeming like one super bad idea. I didn’t get all that far in to it when I decided screw it and I turned back. I felt like a bit of a failure but figured better safe than sorry. Since I thought that was the path I was supposed to be using I was deciding how I was going to get my exercise for the day since snowshoeing obviously wasn’t going to work out but when I got back to the start of the trail I noticed some people seemingly pop out of nowhere on my left side who had snowshoes. Being the nosy person I am I went to investigate and found the real trail, yay! and phew! lol

The second, and correct trail was way better because (1) it had snow (2) it was meant for snowshoeing (3) it was uphill and (4) way less icy patches.

Oh, and can I say people who take part in outdoor winter sports, super friendly! Every person I passed on the trail (by passed I mean they were going the opposite direction as I not I was faster than them and scooting around them) said hi, or asked how I was doing, a couple people stopped and we chatted a bit. Messed up my timing (I was tracking my distance and speed) and also shortened the length of time I was active but I don’t mind. People look out for each other, and that’s nice. This one lady checked to see if I was going up the mountain alone, I said yes so she gave me a recap of what I was in for (she was on her way down), reassured me about how many other people she had seen, where there were some rough patches, stuff like that. Nice lady. 🙂 I notice the same thing when I am hiking in the summer, people say hi as you pass on the trail, sometimes stop and chat, things like that. Maybe it’s all that sunshine people are getting, makes them friendlier lol

 

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Words I Don’t Like

4 Feb

Sepsis.

Blood work.

Urine testing.

X-ray.

Fluid in the joint.

Specialist.

Urgent.

Inflammation.

Fever.

ER.

.

.

.

There are a lot more words I don’t like but those ones in particular, being used in a convo with me, in regards to my hip, well lets just say those words are my current most hated words.

I had my doc appointment today to learn the results of my CT scan, the results aren’t exactly awesome. I’m not dying, so that’s good but I have to go for more blood work, rushed blood work, and I have a rushed referral to a specialist whose title I can’t recall right now and if my hip gets red, warm to the touch, more painful (or a bunch of other things) I am to immediately go to the ER and tell them I have fluid in my hip and two calcifications or bone chips (or something that reads like those) in the joint and well, presumably they will know what to do. Eesh. This is all becoming a tad overwhelming.

I appear to be a bit of an anomaly, apparently the fluid in my hip usually indicates an infection but I don’t have a fever nor have I had a fever recently so it seems unlikely I have an infection…I’m confusing the doc lol

It was explained to me that I have two, let’s call them calcifications, in my hip joint, they aren’t sure if I was born with them or if my hip underwent a trauma that caused them, but either way, I have them and they are causing the pain and that is causing the fluid in the joint and the infection that isn’t an infection. Oh, and I have a cyst but that appears to be unrelated, it just happened to show up on the CT scan. Lovely.

I’m wondering if I forgot anything but I don’t think I did…as if all that isn’t enough? *rolls eyes*

I’ve calmed down since I’ve been home, I’m not freaking out nearly as much as I was before. I’m in a tests-are-being-done, specialists-are-being-called, steps-are-being-taken so why worry frame of mind. It’ll get sorted and no point in freaking out about it. Right? Right!

So after the appointment I went grocery shopping, dropped a tonne of money (ugh, poor bank balance) but I stocked up on frozen foods that were on sale aaaaaaand I bought the ingredients for the Weight Watcher’s veggie soup (the recipe is above under the Recipes Page) and that is what I did when I got home. I made a huuuuge batch of veggie soup, most of which I will freeze in individually portioned out sizes but some I will keep in the fridge to eat this week. Not to be tooting my own horn but I make a pretty good veggie soup so I’m looking forward to eating it. 🙂 😛

how veggies become soup!

how veggies become soup!

The finished product - veggie soup!

The finished product – veggie soup!

 

Tonight however I googled how to bake a potato in the oven (turns out it is really easy but takes a while), when it was cooked I split it open, put some marble cheese on it, waited for it to melt then topped the whole thing with maple flavoured baked beans, Mmm! It’s a comfort food dish I don’t eat often but I guess I’m a bit more thrown by what the doc said then I want to fully acknowledge and I ended up with comfort food for dinner. *rolls eyes* Oh well, not like it’s gonna kill me! 😛

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Freaking. Out.

4 Feb

I am freaking out about three different things right now, all completely different, all on different serious-ness levels, and all messing with me, arg!

The first is on a stupid level: I seem to be a bottomless pit today, constant hunger (except for one period of time earlier this evening that I will tell you about farther in to this post), I don’t want to be eating like a crazy person today, but it seems to be a choice between eat more than I think I should be eating or feel starved. Oh and I don’t mean a little nibble “starved” but as I type this my tummy is rumbling and I am at a level of hunger that is super uncomfortable. I am at this level of hunger even though I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner aaaaand a snack three hours or so after dinner. Maybe I should have eaten more protein today, that fills a person up longer, or…what? I don’t know…something…I feel I should have done something throughout the day to prevent this constant hunger buuuut there is only so much food I am willing to eat so I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with feeling hungry. sigh.

By Mr Crocker via Deviant Art

By Mr Crocker via deviantArt

The second things I’m freaking out about is on a fun level: I signed up for the BMO Run, the options were 8km, half marathon or full marathon…I chose the 8km which I know to most will seem like a ridiculously short distance and not even worthy of a person’s time but the most I’ve ever “run” was a 5km and I didn’t run the whole thing, both times I did the 5km I did it with a friend and each time we ended up walking a good chunk of it. I’m excited because I’ve been wanting to run some sort of marathon type thing for a while now but I know I wouldn’t be able to run a half marathon let alone a full marathon cause I am sooooo not a runner lol 8km seems perfect, long enough it will be something to work towards and require me to do some training so I don’t suck on the day but not so long it kills me or I feel like a failure or terrified about not being able to complete it. Despite picking the shortest distance I am still freaking out a bit because like I said, I am not a runner, I don’t know for sure that I can actually do this, what if I suck so badly I can’t finish? That would be mortifying! Plus, I signed up for it alone, which will suck cause I’ll have no one to share the fun of the day with but I really want to try my best for this and if I suck I don’t want to be able to say it was cause the person I was with wanted to walk (or some other type of excuse), how well I do will rest solely on my shoulders…but it won’t be as much fun without a friend to share it with.

8km run bmo

The third thing I am freaking out about is kinda serious but I’m hoping I’ve blown it out of proportion: The doctor’s office called about my x-ray and CT scan results. I forgot my phone at home today, (felt like I was missing a vital piece of my body all day! lol), when I got home I checked my messages and I had one from the doctor’s office saying the doc wanted me to come in today as soon as I could to discuss the CT scan, I was to call them and they would fit me in. Um, what? Don’t they only want you to go in when it is something bad?? So, freak out part one! I called, as soon as I said my name the receptionist knew why I was calling (I’m hoping they were having a quiet day, not that she knows something bad is up and it is so horrifying it burned my name in to her memory…), I told her I forgot my phone and didn’t get her message till then and sorry but there was no way I could get there before the office closed (it was 4:40pm and they close at 5pm). She put me on hold, comes back and says the doc can stay till 6pm if I can get in before then to which I responded I am in the middle of cooking a stir fry so can’t really leave it, could I please go tomorrow? Freak out part two! She’s willing to stay late to see me?? OMG! She puts me on hold again, then comes back and asks if I am feverish (what?? weird!), I said no, so she said ok then tomorrow would be fine. A tad random don’t ya think? So now I have an appointment tomorrow at 4…crap, at 4 something, I can’t believe I forgot the time of the appointment! I’ll have to call them tomorrow to confirm, only me! lol 😛 Anyways! I now have an appointment with the doc tomorrow to talk about my hip and the results of the CT scan and I am freaking out because in my world you only have to go in to discuss test results when it is bad news. 😦 I don’t wanna go. *pout* If I ignore it won’t it go away? And before you say “no it won’t” I already know that cause I am the one sitting here with hip pain which I keep trying to ignore and it keeps not going away, stupid pain. Oh, and to make it worse, the pain is now in both hips not just the right hip, what the hell is going on in there? Stupid hips. sigh.

Stupid hip bones! Grr! by Elcadia on deviantArt

Stupid hip bones! Grr! by Elcadia on deviantArt

I don’t have any idea what might be wrong, which means my brain has been flying off in 20 different directions coming up with all kinds of ridiculous things it could be, none of them are positive of course lol I was so freaked out that after I got off the phone and finished cooking my dinner I stared at it for a while cause I wasn’t hungry, the news actually messed with my appetite, nothing messes with my appetite! Least not to suppress it so ya know I’m worried when I don’t want to eat…I eventually did eat but only because I didn’t want to waste the food, not out of hunger…which is ironic considering I’ve been a bottomless pit all day…

So there we have it, I am in full freaking out mode, mostly about the doctor visit and her level of insistence at seeing me as soon as can be arranged. I keep thinking it’ll end up being nothing serious and this freaking out will be for nothing and I’ll be pissed if I get a wrinkle or white hair from this but then a little part of my brain starts with the “what if it isn’t a little thing” and I’m right back to freaking out.

I think I’ll try to concentrate on the BMO Run, least that is a fun freak out topic…

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Stir Fry Sunday: Turkey Bacon Makes Everything Better

3 Feb

Once again I didn’t make my Sunday stir fry on Sunday, but hey, I’m only one day late…again…oops! 😛

Sunday normally has me working the morning shift, 7am – 3pm but I swapped yesterday and worked 1pm – 9pm so that the girl who normally works the evening shift could be home in time for the superbowl. I prefer evenings so the swap worked well for me. 🙂 I had vaguely intended to make the stir fry for lunch on Sunday, or at least make it then take it to work to have for dinner while on my shift but this is me and that didn’t happen – too much pre-planning! lol

So instead I made my weekly stir fry Monday after work. 🙂

It is only week 3 and I was at a bit of a loss for what I wanted to put in it…a tad concerning since I am hoping to make a different stir fry every week but oh well, I’m sure I’ll keep managing to come up with variations for a little while longer *crosses fingers*

I opted for an all veg stir fry, protein schmotein right? 😉 I had the veggies in the pan and the water coming to a boil for the vermicelli noodles when I had inspiration, turkey bacon! Yup that’s right, I cooked two slices of turkey bacon, then cut it in to bite sized pieces and put that on top of the stir fry once it was in the bowl and ya know what? It was really good!

Turkey Bacon and Veg stir fry on vermicelli noodles

Turkey Bacon and Veg stir fry on vermicelli noodles

The noodles turned out better this time, yay! I let them stay in the boiling water longer and that seemed to help. Also, when I added them to the pan I pushed all the veggies to the side and didn’t try to mix the two, seemed to work. I used the sweet and sour sauce again, it is one of my faves, also, I’m not going to buy a new sauce every week or I’ll end up with a fridge full of condiments which is kinda crazy…well, crazy if it is all the same type of condiment lol  I tried not to use too much sauce and ended up not using enough, sigh. I put some in with the veggies when I was cooking them and then poured some on the noodles when I put them in the pan but I didn’t taste it all that much. I’ll have to use more next time…or use a protein that actually absorbs the sauce flavour *rolls eyes*

All in all I am happy with the results, it was a little plain tasting but that is easily fixable by using the right amount of sauce lol I was pleasantly surprised by how well the bacon topped the vegg and noodles, I guess that saying about bacon making everything better might be right, as long as it is turkey bacon! 😛

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Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

1 Feb

The other week I bought the Ripped In 30 exercise dvd by Jillian Michaels. Not gonna lie, I bought it not knowing if I would actually try it, stupid I know lol. *rolls eyes*

Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

I’m torn on my feelings for Jillian Michaels lol She is one of those people that I, in equal parts, want to meet and fear to the point if I saw her on the street I might run away lol 😛 When I watch her pushing someone on The Biggest Loser to the breaking point I always think (1) I have never had a workout that intense before and (2) I don’t think I’d survive a training session with her…I’m pretty sure I’d die…just sayin…

So this dvd, I know it is only a dvd but I thought, if it is anything like the Insanity workout dvds I won’t make it, just not gonna happen! My hope for this dvd was an intense workout that doesn’t have as much jumping as the Insanity workouts (so I could stop hitting the ceiling lol) and that pushed me but was also do-able.

The ’30’ in the title refers not just to the 30 day program but also to the length of time that is each workout, 30 minutes (or a bit less) for each workout and there are 4 different workouts so with each week your workout gets harder. Apparently with just 30 minutes a day 6 days a week I will get the body I want in 30 days…somehow I doubt this…cynical? Maybe. Realistic? I’d say so. 😉

This evening when I got home from work I decided to try it, sheer food guilt led me to my decision to work out, I ate pasta for dinner then had two shortbread cookies, sigh, and I wonder why I am fat?? *rolls eyes*

I cleared floor space, put on my work out gear and prepared to be yelled at a lot and feel like I wouldn’t be able to make it. I also was looking forward to that feeling of satisfaction I get after I have completed a good solid workout.

Welllll, it’s not that the workout wasn’t good, it just…well, wasn’t great? It was better than doing nothing, and some of the moves were good, but I didn’t feel like I was doing any kind of intense workout, I didn’t feel pushed, I didn’t feel exhausted by the end…shouldn’t I be feeling those things?

Part of it was because I only have one set of dumbbells, ten pounders, which admittedly aren’t huge but for some of the moves I was supposed to have smaller weights, like three or five pounds. I made the executive decision to use no weights for some of the moves because my ten pounders were too heavy, makes me sound like a wimp huh? I swear I’m not!…well, not completely lol Next time I will have some canned soup or beans or something near by and use those in lieu of small weights, random I s’pose but it’s what I have lol

She has two women working out with her, one to show a modified simpler form for the moves and one to show a more bad-ass form. I tended to land somewhere between the two, never needing the super simple form but not always doing the bad-ass version either. I am a bit of a dummy and didn’t realize the workout was only 30 minutes (I thought the 30 referred only to the length of time the entire program takes, the 30 days) so I kept thinking “don’t do the bad-ass moves, save energy to get you through the entire workout”. I think next time I will do the bad-ass moves since the workouts are only 30 minutes lol.

The bonus to the workouts being so short is I should have an easy enough time fitting them in to my daily routine! 🙂 I’m not anticipating getting ripped in 30 days, but a little slimmer wouldn’t hurt lol.

Her plan of attack is a good one, she goes in sets, 3 minutes of strength exercises, 2 minutes of cardio, 1 minute of abs. You do each set 2 times and then you never do those moves again during that particular workout. I like that she doesn’t have you doing the same things over and over and over cause that gets soooooo boring, especially if you use the dvd often – which I will be in this challenge!

There is also a meal plan that I can get online, I haven’t checked that out yet but will tomorrow. I’m not sure if I will follow it (since I haven’t read it yet) but knowing me I’ll take some of the recipes or meal ideas and ignore the rest lol. 😛 I find meal plans that come with exercise dvds usually have a lot of foods in them I don’t generally buy and it is too costly to stock up on what they say I need. shrug. I want to get in better shape but I’m on a budget and I have to take that in to consideration when planning meals. 😛

So yeah, I don’t have a finalized review of the Ripped In 30 since this evening was my first workout with it but I’m going to try to do as she says (workout 6 days a week using her dvd, and each week advance to the next workout so it gets harder) and maybe by the end I’ll be more impressed then I am right now. We shall see!

Oh, fyi, if you are looking to buy it Wal-Mart was selling it (and other of her workout dvds for $10) 🙂

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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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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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