Tag Archives: christmas

I’m Back and I Can’t Breathe

28 Dec

I’m sick and I can’t breathe and I have no appetite and I have to work tomorrow and I’m going to bed soon. *yawn*

I managed to catch a cold the day before I left Alberta, boo! Every time I go home for Christmas I get sick. Every. Time. I was so sure I’d managed to ditch that particular tradition but my immune system apparently had other ideas. Stupid immune system. lol

If you take away the getting sick part of my trip I had a great time! Got to hang out a lot with my parents which I am sooooo grateful for, I miss them lots and was glad to have a whole bunch of quality time with them. My last full day there I hung out with various friends. It’s always good to catch up and gossip with my peeps. 🙂 I wish I’d been able to have a longer trip but even as I miss my family and friends that are in Alberta I also miss here. This is where I live after all, where my cat is, my BC friends, my soon to be awesome career (please please please let the acting gods be with me! lol).

One other thing I miss when I’m not here in BC? The weather! I left -21C weather (and colder) this afternoon to come back to +5 with nooooo windchill! wOOt! 😀 Also no snow, no icy roads, no winter in the traditional Canadian style lol

Normally I get sicker earlier in my Christmas visit and as a result two things happen. The first is my mom takes care of me for a couple days and that is always nice. The other is I lose weight. I’m the only person I know who loses weight every Christmas and ya know what, I don’t care if I lose it cause I am sick, I lose it and I keep it off and all is merry and bright. lol 🙂

This year however I got sick late in the visit, the night before I had to leave. Which means that while my mom (and dad) were sympathetic that I was sick there was no coddling cause I had stuff to do before leaving. I did however get a nice big bowl of my mom’s homemade turkey soup, best soup ever! It was delish! Also, I didn’t lose weight this year. *gasp* In fact, I think I gained weight. Who am I kidding, of course I gained weight there is no “I think” about it!

this would be me if I was a cat

this would be me if I was a cat

I exercised two of my days there but I ate ridiculous amounts of food all but one of my days there sooooooo weight gain. Guess I can’t gloat about how I always lose weight at Christmas anymore…sigh…

I am not worried about it thought cause (1) I’m sick now which means I won’t have an appetite till I am better which translates in to lost weight (yay!) and (2) I was researching before I even left for Alberta a new workout schedule for once I got back to BC which means before I even gained the weight I had a plan to get in better shape. How awesome is that?! It’s not even some weird kooky trend type of thing but a solid work out plan, blatantly stolen from a legit fitness website. Crazy days!

So sure, I have a bit more padding on me (which fyi, did nothing to keep me warm in the -35C weather!) but I’m gonna get rid of it soon so, meh, who cares? 🙂

i-will-finish-what-i-started

 

Yeah I have to start over again after Christmas but I didn’t quit, I just paused a little bit lol Tomorrow I will start back eating healthy and as soon as this cold starts to go away I’ll be at the gym so this is me restarting for perhaps the billionth time lol but at least I am restarting!

If you stumbled a bit over the holidays don’t fret, just get up tomorrow and restart. 🙂 You’ll get to your goal eventually as long as you keep going. Think happy thoughts everyone!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

An Awesome Christmas

25 Dec

It is ten to midnight which means Christmas is almost over…wait! no, I’m wrong, damn. My laptop is still on BC time so in this time zone Christmas is already over. Boo!

I hope everyone out there had a great day doing whatever it is you do on Christmas. You may celebrate it or not, that doesn’t really matter, what matters is that you had a good day. 🙂

Mine went a little something like this…

Mimosa in a nutcracker glass? Don't mind if I do!

Mimosa in a nutcracker glass? Don’t mind if I do!

I feel I should insert here, I did actually eat prior to Christmas dinner, I just forgot to take a picture of the food lol My mom made me a croissant-wich, super yum! Basically a croissant with an omelette, melted cheese and turkey bacon on it. 🙂

Mmm! Christmas dinner!

Mmm! Christmas dinner!

Let’s see, that one plate held turkey, vienna sausage, carrots and parsnips, mashed yam, stuffing, sauteed mushrooms, two roast potatoes, cranberry jelly and gravy. omg talk about a lot of food! I ate every single bite! I really wanted seconds but didn’t want to risk not having room for dessert which was…

Traditional Christmas dessert, sherry trifle made by yours truly!

Traditional Christmas dessert, sherry trifle made by yours truly!

It is now my responsibility to make Christmas dessert. 🙂 I’ve been making it for about three years now. You may not think that is a big deal but you don’t understand how important this dessert is to my family lol It is cake mixed with fruit and of course sherry for the bottom layer, custard, then whipped cream.  To. Die. For.

Pretty Christmas tree

Pretty Christmas tree

Me fiddling with filters lol

Me fiddling with filters lol

An epic dinosaur battle!

An epic dinosaur battle!

I’d say obviously we have children in the family but the dinosaur battle was between my six year old nephew and my over 40 year old brother sooooooo it’s not just the kids in this family that like to play lol

Guinness and scrabble

Guinness and scrabble

What better way to end a day then in similar fashion to how I started it? By that I mean with alcohol lol. Prior to the scrabble there was a Wii bowling competition in which I slaughtered my brother…not that I am competitive or anything! lol 😉 To be honest it took no skill, I have no idea how I got so many strikes except I must’ve found a sweet spot for the sensor but hey, I’ll take it! 😛

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’m Being Frozen To Death

20 Dec

I may not survive the next two weeks, it’s just too cold for my poor body to deal with. As I type this I am staring mournfully at my empty tea cup, I held off drinking the tea as long as I could so I’d have the hot cup to hold but I so badly wanted the hot liquid inside me I of course caved and downed the tea. So now my tongue is a bit singed, my hands are blocks of ice and I have a delicate shivering taking over my body in what I suspect is going to be a permanent manner.

I am not a person meant for winter. I’m sorry to break this to my international readers but just because I was born and raised in Canada and am a proud Canadian this does not mean I like snow, ice, slush, cold temperatures or any of the other winter type conditions we deal with for over half the year. Brr!!! Give me tropical weather anyday!…no seriously, can somebody pay for me to go somewhere tropical so I can thaw out? 😉

The only plus side to dealing with this whole freezing to death thing is that I will die surrounded by my more hardy friends and family, ya know, those who didn’t move away and can still handle the winter weather without wanting to break down in tears. *rolls eyes*

What makes this whole thing worse is…it’s not even that frickin cold!!! Compared to where I live now it is, and it’s a different type of cold (don’t mock me, that actually matters! lol) and the longer I am away from here the less I can handle the cold. I could barely handle it when I did live here, so having even more trouble handling it, well, it sucks. 😛 But global warming is soooo in effect cause the weather that this city is having is nothing compared to what winter weather is normally like…it’s usually way worse…which is why I packed long underwear lol.

I can’t decide if this is going to be beneficial to my weight loss or not…on the one hand I am constantly shivering so that might help me to burn some extra calories. On the other hand I find I am constantly wanting to eat something, not out of hunger but out of an instinctive need to put on more body fat to help me survive the cold. Hey man, I didn’t come up with animal instincts, I am just driven by them…to a point lol. I’m drinking lots of tea in the hopes that will help me get warm, instead of snacking away like a crazed barbarian…cause ya know all those crazed barbarians totally had access to Christmas baking. 😉

On the food front, I had the yummiest dinner tonight, my mom made meatloaf and it is one of my fave dishes of hers. Yeah I know, meatloaf? I personally think meatloaf gets a lot of undeserved grief, my mom’s is great and I was so happy when I found out that is what she made for dinner. 😀 Heck, I’m already looking forward to the meatloaf sandwich I am hoping to have tomorrow for lunch. Mmm! It was a nice healthy meal, I had the meatloaf, veggies and two baby potatoes. Look at that, food groups! wOOt! lol

I have decided for this trip that while yes there are a lot of events and occaisions that I’d normally pig out at I don’t have to go crazy at every one of them. I have my birthday, then Christmas, then New Years and I gotta decide which of those events I want to splurge at and which to be more careful at. And really, even when I do splurge at one of those occaisions I can still splurge carefully thereby not derailing my weight loss…well, not completely derailing it lol, I’m aiming for maintaining while on this trip.

I think I should be able to get through the Christmas and New Years season without gaining weight, don’t you? If I make responsible choices and pay attention to what I put in my mouth that’ll go a long way to not gaining and I’m even hoping to get in some exercise while I’m at it, no guarantees on that though (due to access to facilities and my schedule, not due to laziness which admit it, some of you were thinking 😛 )

Course, by midway through this trip I may be saying “screw it, bring on the hot chocolate and cookies!” but for now I am optomistic I can keep a leash on my hand-to-cookie-to-mouth behaviour. 😀

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sugar Overload

17 Dec

*groan* oooohhhhh my poor tummy, and taste buds, and fat cells *double groan*

The past couple days I have been Christmas baking, not for me, it’s all to give away but that doesn’t mean I haven’t nibbled myself into a sugar coma. It doesn’t help that my roomie also did some baking so I’ve been nibbling on her baking as well as my own. Now, nibbling on her baking makes sense to me but nibbling on my own? Weirdness! I never eat my own baking! But I dunno, this year, I have been nibbling. *shakes head*

So my roomie made Gingerbread cookies, I made: 2 coconut cakes (both with cream cheese icing), chocolate brownies with frosting, coconut cookies, meringue kisses…um, I think that’s it, like that isn’t enough? 😉 lol

So I’ve nibbled on the brownies, the coconut cookies, the first coconut cake and for sure the meringue kisses. The meringues are my absolute fave thing evah! My mom only ever made them at Christmas time so even though I am an adult and could make them whenever I want I only make them around Christmas time, makes them more of a treat this way I think. 🙂

But yeah, so yesterday I ate a bowl of cereal to get my day started and then all I ate after that was nibbles on various baking treats while I continued to keep on baking. Then today I was making icing and cake decorating, oh and brownie decorating lol, so I again started the day with a bowl of cereal and then ended up nibbling on various baked goods while I frosted and iced my way through the kitchen lol.

I did eventually eat “real food” somewhere around 8pm, I had sushi – something as far away from baked goodies as possible lol. I wasn’t actually hungry but I knew I had to eat something that wasn’t a cookie, brownie or meringue and I couldn’t face stepping back in my kitchen and cooking something so take-out it was!

The sushi was yummy, I got a phili roll and a yam roll and a veggie spring roll. Not the best choices but it’s a new sushi place (er, new to me, not new restaurant) so I wanted to stick with dishes I know how they should taste so that I could judge the yummy level of the food against other Japanese restaurants I’ve been to.  Make sense?

I really liked the food, the look of the restaurant, the people there, the menu options and how close the place is to me so I’m for sure gonna go back. 🙂 After I placed my order I noticed hand written signs on the walls advertising house specialty rolls that were all quite unique sounding, and since I love trying new foods I definitely want to go back and try some of them…well, ok, all of them lol. They have one that has a frozen filling that supposedly melts in your mouth! How awesome sounding is that?! 😀

In case you are wondering about the distribution of the baking, one cake was for my roomie and her friends for a Christmas party, the other cake was for my old landlord and his family, they also got some cookies, brownies and meringues (they are the nicest people ever and we still keep in touch), the rest of the cookies, brownies and meringues are being split between friends and my current landlady as presents. I’m fairly poor and can’t afford to get everybody awesome presents so I am supplementing my lame ass purchased presents with baked items cause well, as boastful as this sounds my baking rocks, shrug, and people love it and they always want it anyways so why not give it as presents?

I’m kinda worried people will feel I skimped out cause I didn’t buy stuff but I just can’t afford to buy everyone stuff…as much fun as giving presents can be isn’t it weird how it can also be quite stressful?

I’m now on a no-sugar kick cause seriously, I am so over sugared that the idea of eating anything sweet makes me feel icky inside 😛 I’m not gonna do some cleanse or anything, I’m not that freakin out about all the sugar I’ve been eating, but I am gonna stop eating the baking and any other goodies I come across for the next couple days or so…huh, I just realized that timeline puts me back to eating sugar type items right when I get back to AB lol, geez, you’d think I’d planned it lol 😉

Tags: , , , , , ,

Christmas Phase 1

13 Oct

Yes, I am aware that Christmas is still far away (73 days!) and most people if they are thinking of it at all think of it in passing or in a “meh, lots of time to get ready” kind of way. I am not that person. lol. I LOVE Christmas time. The music, the way people are nicer on a daily basis, the decorations, the ice skating, the hot chocolate, the buying of presents, the wrapping of presents, seeing the pretty wrapped presents sitting under a tree just waiting to be opened, having an entire day that is guaranteed to be spent with family, the love I swear I can feel emenating from the households and wrapping the earth in warmth, the magic that is in the air…heck, on that one day I even love the snow! lol

Christmas though (in my world) must be dealt with in phases…or I suppose you could say stages…because not only do I want to be able to get gifts for all those I will be visiting when I go back to AB I also want to send gifts to my family in England…this takes a bit of planning though. If I want to send a parcel to England cheaply and have it get there in time for Christmas I have to mail the package in October…crazy huh? I very rarely manage to do this so I spend an exhorbitant amount of money to send the packages quickly so even though I mail them late they get there on time. I am determined to not have to do that this year, determined!

I’m also that crazy person who shops for Christmas presents year round…starting with the boxing week sales that pop up every-frickin-where right after Christmas. Before the first week of January 2011 was over I had already purchased many of the presents I am giving to people for this year, what can I say, I love a good sale. 😀

It’s hard shopping for people that are overseas, because you might find the abso-perfect gift for them but it’s heavy, or an ackward size/shape or explodable and all of those conditions make hassles for shipping.

Luckily this year everything seems to be working out, I only have 2 more presents to get and I already know what they are and where to get them from so I’ll be doing that tomorrow then it’s off to the post office to get the parcel in the mail, yah!

Mailing the first Christmas parcel always makes me feel like the season is that much closer – and I can’t wait! 🙂 I spent this evening writing Christmas cards and wrapping presents and it was so much fun I can’t wait till I can do it again…course Phase 2 won’t happen until end of November or sometime in December when I will wrap the gifts I am taking to AB or giving to friends who are here…something to look forward to! 🙂

I almost made some hot cocoa to drink while I was wrapping presents cause hot cocoa and Christmas just make a good pairing in my opinion but I resisted cause I wanted to use my points on actual food…although, I ended up eating some chocolate buttons so that’s not exactly food lol.

I also almost dipped a spoon in to the Nutella jar while waiting for my water to boil for my evening cup of tea. I was all “go for it, I exercised, one spoonful won’t kill me or derail my entire healthy eating plan” but after I sorta shouted/groaned out loud (not even kidding!) I turned away from the cupboard that has the Nutella jar in it and reminded myself that I don’t need the Nutella, and if I have a spoonful of it then I will feel like a failure for not sticking to my points. Now, in all honesty, I could have had a spoonful of Nutella and not gone over my points, well, not eaten all my exercise points, but I didn’t want my food journal to reflect that. I feel stronger mentally if I don’t cheat with my food and the more days in a row I go without cheating the easier it is to resist the various temptations that pop up…does that sound crazy?

It’s like how the more days in a row I exercise I get physically stronger, the more days in a row I follow my eating plan and don’t cheat I get mentally stronger (uh, in the food area of my life anyways lol). That strength is a good thing to build up because when something truly tempting comes along you can lean on that strength and it’ll get you through the hard part. If I have followed my eating plan properly for 5 days (for example) and on day 6 someone puts a slice of cake under my nose it’s easier to say no to the cake because I don’t want those 5 days to be overshadowed by my giving in and eating the cake…I probably sound cooky…lol

Today I ate:

1 Hearty Medley’s = 3 points

1 pc toast = 1.5 points

1 fried egg = 2 points

1 cheese slice =1  point

1/2 C maple baked beans = 2 points

1 chicken breast = 2 points

1 tbls olive oil = 2 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1 light babybell = 1 point

20 gram Vegetable Thins crackers = 2 points

28 grams pretzel crisps = 2 points

1 pck chocolate buttons = 3 points

Total points eaten = 21.5

Exercise points earned = 7

The olive oil was used to cook the veggies, they were the last of my grilled mixed veggies from M&Ms Meat Shops. Normally I cook them in the oven but they cook at a totally different temp from the chicken so I tried cooking them on the stove top this time. They turned out pretty decent and I kinda wish I’d tried cooking them that way earlier on. I have always stuck them in the oven and even though I cook them for a shorter length of time and on a lower temp then the package says to some of the veggies always got burned…as in to a crisp, they were black charred pieces that fell apart when I tried to move them. lol. Cooking them this way, none of them burned, they all tasted yummy and they took a lot less time. Bonus!

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I Ate Cake?! Shit…

14 Dec

I started off this week with the intent of being uber strict – No cheating, very careful counting of points, possibly exercising more then once a week – drastic stuff! lol. Well, the week is going doooooooown hill quickly, *rolls eyes*. I am learning to hate this time of year! Ack!

Let’s see, Monday I ate two chocolates which alright not the end of the world, hell, I didn’t even use any flex points to fit those in so not good I nibbled at work but it didn’t negatively affect anything. Coolio. Today (Tuesday – duh!) cake at work! CAKE?!?! FUCK!!!!! I have been sooooooo good at not eating all the various goodies that come in to work – especially the cakes! Well, the cake was cause Friday it is IF’s bday but she’s not here Friday so we celebrated her bday today – she’s like the office fave, she’s so awesome. You know how every office has that one person that knows the answer to every question? She’s that person and we all luv her cause sure, she knows everything but she’s not snotty about it at all! 😀 She’s our rockstar. 😀 There was no way I couldn’t eat a piece of her cake, she would have been insulted…I am not even kidding, she really would have been!

The cake came from China Town, yum, so it went like this: layer of sponge cake, layer of whipped cream with fresh fruit, layer of sponge cake, layer of whipped cream with fresh fruit, layer of sponge cake, top layer of whipped cream then lots more fresh fruit. So, I was able to delude myself that it wasn’t such a bad for me cake cause there was fruit, LMAO! Let’s just ignore the god knows how many eggs are in that cake and all the whipped cream, *rolls eyes* At least I took a small piece, that should count for something right? lol. Ok, I know it doesn’t but whatever! No way am I insulting IF!

I had to guesstimate the points for the cake, cause yeah, no way to figure that out, shrug, so there we go…the so-called-uber-strict week started off with chocolates, now cake…and even if tomorrow goes all good Thursday is a catered lunch we had to rsvp to and we are being kinda forced to participate in cause it’s a company we deal with who is bringing lunch to us to say thanks for our business…why does not insulting people seem to always revolve around eating food? eesh. It’s apparently a Christmas Lunch so everyone seems to be expecting a turkey meal but we don’t actually know for sure what we are getting…hmmm…this could be bad. Erg. I am toying with eating a healthy lunch right before the catered lunch arrives and then just pretending to eat what they bring…I haven’t decided for sure yet what my action plan will be…guess we’ll find out Thursday! lol

Today I ate:

50 grams Shreddies = 3 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

1/2 cup Maple Baked Beans = 2 points

1 piece toast = 1 point

2 triangles light laughing cow = 1 point

1 Activia yogurt = 2 points

1 piece IF’s bday cake = 4 points?

3 chicken strips = 4 points

mixed cooked vegg = 0 points

1 tbls honey mustard sauce = 0 points

2 Hershey’s York cookies = 3 points

Total points eaten is 21. That could be off if the cake was worth more points then the 4 I guesstimated but let’s leave me with my delusions shall we?

Now, for the honey mustard sauce, it is 1 point for 2 tbls, when I first ate it (on the weekend) I measured out 2 tbls and didn’t use even half of it, so this evening I measured out 1 tbls and again, I didn’t use near all of it…so I maybe used half. I decided the small amount I use isn’t enough to be even worth 1 point hence my couting it at 0 points. Even if I am wrong and I used a bit over 1/2 tbls that is still only 0.5 point and not gonna kill me….well, least it won’t kill me quickly…:P

Tags: , , , , , ,

Newer Entries →