Tag Archives: exercise

Day 5 of 20

24 Dec

Day 5 of the 12 Days of Fitness!

Lemme tell ya, this was a good one! 😀

I had a bunch of stuff to do around my parent’s place and earmarked today to be the day of getting shit done. Before that all started though I decided to go for a walk, in -12C (that is before windchill, I’m not actually sure what the temp with windchill was but the wind was going at 11km/hr and I sure felt it!), while it was snowing…I never claimed to make smart decisions lol

So out I went and I have to admit, I kinda liked it. It was cold, at about the ten minute mark I seriously considered turning back because the wind was cutting through my pants in a brutal way and my legs were burning from the cold but I know from past winters that if I just keep going eventually the pain goes away. It isn’t that I acclimatize, it is that my legs stop feeling temperature, or anything for that matter lol 😉

I fast walked for about 20 minutes then had to turn around due to a road and weather. On the way back I decided to jog a bit so on the parts of sidewalk that were cleared I jogged. When crossing roads I walked because they were super slippy and I really don’t need to fall and get injured right now. Some parts of the sidewalks were un-runnable thanks to snow and ice but I think I got a pretty decent jog in there. I passed two people who were shovelling snow while walking in the one direction and when I was passing them on the way back at a jog they both looked at me like I was a martian lol Admittedly, I wasn’t dressed like a runner so maybe it was my outfit that was confusing them, and not that I was running in that type of weather?

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I got wicked windburn on my cheeks from this walk!

Once back at my parent’s place I shovelled snow from their back porch, the front path, and the driveway. By that point I was cold but wasn’t going to start feeling any colder so I figured might as well get it all done at once.

About an hour later you’d never know I shovelled since it had kept snowing and everything was white again *rolls eyes*

I did other things around the house that kept me busy but those two activities are what I am counting towards my fitness for the day for the challenge.

I’d say I can quite confidently check mark this day as a success! 😀

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Sky Zone

6 Oct

I was going to write this for a Try It Tuesday post but well, it is no longer Tuesday, not even close! Oops!

A couple of Tuesdays ago a friend and I went to Sky Zone which is a trampoline place in Surrey, BC.

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Here is their website…

http://www.skyzone.com/ca/surrey

They have a one hour fitness class that we tried out, they claim you can burn 1000 calories per workout. I gotta say, I think that is a tad bit of an exaggeration, but it was fun so really, who cares, right?

I was nervous at the beginning because I worried my bad knee would not be able to handle jumping on a trampoline, it isn’t good with activities that involve quick changes and a lot of stabilizing but it didn’t pop out of joint and I eventually got used to the jumping and had fun.

By the time you are done the class walking on solid ground feels funny, like when you get off a boat and have sea legs. 😛

When you get there you have to sign-in at a computer terminal, you answer a bunch of questions, nothing too interesting. Then you get to the counter and you fill in a paper form, more legal stuff, shrug. They ask your shoe size because you have to wear special socks when on the trampolines, they are a lovely bright orange with grip bottoms. You’re given a large sticker you have to attach to somewhere on your body so that employees can easily see it and then you’re let loose.

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My stylish socks

Because we were signed up for a specific class we were told which trampoline area to go to. There were two other people there for the class and one instructor. The instructor was nice but it wasn’t as organized or as fluid as a normal exercise class. By that I mean she kept forgetting what she should be having us do next so there were pauses as she tried to figure it out and she seemed hesitant to suggest certain activities and a couple times she mentioned she hasn’t taught the class in a while and couldn’t remember what to do.

If I was treating this class as a serious workout I would be upset that the instructor wasn’t more prepared but since I went to have fun and the workout was a happy by-product of having fun it didn’t bother me too much.

If it is your first class it is $6, after that it is $12, plus the $3 for the socks and the $1.50 for parking. All in all not a bad amount of money.

Sky Zone is a bit too far of a distance from me to become a regular work-out place but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go again. Just means it would be more of a random, get a bunch of friends together and go bounce around for a while type of thing vs a weekly exercise class.

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Don’t mind me as I lounge here oh so gracefully…

Oh and fyi, if you wear a Fitbit be warned, Fitbit doesn’t recognize jumping as exercise so my activity level for the evening kinda sucked because apparently jumping up and down for an hour equates to nothing in the land of Fitbit. sigh. Does a workout count if Fitbit doesn’t track it? Something to ponder…

 

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A Lazy Connector

22 Aug

Weight Watchers has an app, as does everything else in the world lol. Part of that app is called Connect and it is sort of like a simplified, members only, Facebook. You make a profile, you post stuff, you like and comment on other people’s posts. I find myself going on there a lot! It is great for motivation, and ideas, and just to see and message people who are going through the same thing as you.

Something I learned from Connect is that I have got to be one of the laziest people following the WW program ever! Not including the people who sign up and don’t actually follow the program of course. 😛

These people blow my mind with how much daily activity they get. Long walks. Jogs. Training for marathons. Hiking. Swimming. Wall climbing. Gym time. Name it, they do it, and they do it often.

Because WW is partnered with Fitbit a lot of people on the program have a Fitbit, the apps sync with each other so you do the activity and the apps do the math to calculate how many fit points you earn, which is lovely cause I haaaate math lol. But yeah, these people are earning mad high fit points and I’m over here having afternoon naps and cuddle sessions with the cat. *rolls eyes*

I take part in Fitbit challenges but generally don’t push to try to win them, I get about three days in to the challenge and kind of forget about it and inevitably I don’t win. It doesn’t generally bother me because most of the people I engage in Fitbit challenges with are people I don’t see often, basically nobody who I get super competitive with.

That my friends has changed! A friend of mine at work got a Fitbit, the new one that I want sooooo bad lol, and I stupidly invited her to one of the Fitbit challenges. Turns out she is super competitive and is kicking my butt!…and it is driving me nuts! She walks at work more than I do, not too much I can do about that, but do you know what she did on her break? She went up and down 11 flights of stairs! Who does that?? Crazy competitive people, that’s who!

Then she did who knows what in the evening after work but she sure racked up those steps. I held the lead for a very short time and I gotta admit, I thought maaaaaybe I’d keep it since it was getting to be evening but nope, she went and started moving again and squashed me.

So now I really want to win, or at least beat her cause ya know, I may be a tad competitive at times… 😉

By 6:30pm I had worked 8 hours, walked for an hour and 15 minutes, done 80 squats, showered, cooked, and eaten. Who am I? What dimension have I walked in to? Normally by 6:30pm I have worked 8 hours, maybe run an errand or two, and would be having a nap with the cat or watching tv.

Insanity. I have obviously reached new levels of insanity.

competitive

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A Hike and A Workout

12 May

Wednesday was Day 3 of this new workout plan I am trying (you can read the deets on the plan by going back a post or two). Even though Day 3 is a body circuit day I figured that didn’t mean I couldn’t do other stuff as well, so I went for a hike. 🙂

I worked Wednesday, my normal day off, 10a-4:30p and when I was done I was sooooo close to this hike called Quarry Rock I figured I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to go. I used to climb this particular trail on an almost weekly basis two years ago, last year I didn’t climb it as much which is unfortunate. I didn’t do as many hikes in general last year, not really sure why.

So this was my first time on the trail in a while. It has changed a bit, not in a bad way or anything, just natural changes that you will find in a forest. It is definitely showing the signs of lack of rain though, which sucks. The trail is drier, there is less green, the bridges built to get over the water aren’t really needed since there is barely any water. It is kind of sad when you think about it.

But! On the plus side I took pictures, so lets focus on those! lol

New signs have been put up, I’m thinking because of the stupid people you see on the trail wearing flip flops (not even joking!). Or I suppose they could be because some people head in to the wilderness with no idea about what they might encounter, and might not be properly prepared for the possibilities. Meh, who knows!

The next pics are views from the top…

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Isn’t it so pretty? Makes the hike up completely worth it! 🙂

While I was sitting up there, even with my sunglasses on, it felt like the sun was searing a hole through my eyes straight to the back of my head. Poor eyeballs. 😦 So I didn’t stay up there as long as I wanted to, but I did stay up longer than I used to. When I hiked this trail on a regular basis I used to get to the top, take a quick glance, then go right back down because I was hiking the trail primarily for exercise, not to enjoy nature. This time, it was such a harder climb than it used to be for me that I decided to enjoy being at the summit.

That climb really made me realize how lazy I have been. I used to be able to hike Quarry Rock without even thinking about it, which is why it was a great hike to do at the end of a busy work day once a week. It was exercise without being extraordinarily demanding. Now? Ha! Now it is hard apparently. There were parts where the only positive thing I can say about myself is that I was still technically going forward, felt like I was moving in slow motion through molasses, but I was still moving, so that’s something…

I have decided that I will hike Quarry Rock once a week, weather permitting, for the next couple months, get back in the groove of dealing with inclines and rocky surfaces an all that.

Here are a couple pics I snapped on the way back down to show you the shape the forest is in, see what I mean about drier than normal and a little sad looking?

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When I got home from the hike I immediately started on the exercises for Day 3. Each set included:

30 seconds jumping rope

15 squat jumps

10 bench dips

15 standing calf raises

20 shoulder presses

10 side lunges (each leg)

25 crunches

I had to make some modifications due to a variety of factors but I did my best to keep to the spirit of the exercise I was modifying so I’d still get the same, or at least a similar, benefit.

The exercises I modified are the jumping rope, the squat jumps and the shoulder presses.

The jumping rope I can’t do because my apartment has an extremely low ceiling, there isn’t enough clearance for the rope. Also, there isn’t enough open space for the rope when it is going around my body. So yeah, not happening. Instead I ran in place for 30 seconds, I didn’t half ass it or anything, I basically sprinted in place for the same amount of time I was supposed to be jumping rope.

As I learned on the Monday, squat jumps and my knees are just not friends. Instead I did normal squats. I didn’t realize until just now when I was re-reading the exercise list that the alternate for the squat jumps was a 30 second wall sit, oops. I’ll do that next time. I don’t think it was soooo bad that I did normal squats though…

The shoulder presses, ok, so this is a weird one. I have free weights, they are only 5lbs and 8lbs but whatever, it is a start! So I have the weights and I know how to do a shoulder press, but I can’t do them in my apartment because the ceiling is too low. I can’t raise my arms above my head when standing and straighten the elbows because I am hitting the ceiling. Instead I did a forward lunge, maintained the lunge position, and did 10 shoulder presses. Then I stepped back, did a forward lunge with the other leg, maintained the position, and did the other 10 shoulder presses. I figure it might even be better than just doing shoulder presses because I am utilizing my core more to maintain balance and using my leg muscles to ya know, stay in the lunge position.

So yeah, that was how the workout went on Wednesday. Haven’t quit the new program yet! lol 😛

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Now Comes The Exercise

10 May

I warned you in the last post this one would be about the new exercise plan so don’t blame me if you’re all “omg all she is writing about is working out, ugh” 😉 lol

I found the work out plan I am going to follow by complete and total fluke, such a pleasant surprise!

I can’t lay claim to any part of this plan, I found it here…

http://www.popeyescanada.com/strongtothefinish-en.html

It is the Popeye’s Supplement company website. I was on it seeing if my protein powder was on sale (sadly, it isn’t) and noticed they are having a contest. I can’t enter because it is already started but that doesn’t mean I can’t read the information they have on the site and learn from it.

You select your gender and from there check out four different workouts. I have made copies of all of them with the theory that once I have gotten good at the beginner level I will be able to move up to the more advanced workouts and well, might as well be prepared for that, right?

Here is what the beginners workout plan looks like…

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For some reason the part that most appealed to me was that all the workouts can be done at home. Normally I don’t like working out at home, I like being lazy at home. Buuuuuut there are advantages, like, I don’t have to worry about making myself presentable to the world, I don’t have people in the gym watching me, I can work out at anytime of day or night, my shower is less than ten steps away so when I’m done I can get cleaned up super fast.

Oh, and the biggest perk is that I have no excuse to not work out. My gym closes at 10pm Fridays and Saturdays which means I can’t get there after work and I don’t care for working out prior to going to work so I have used those two reasons for more often than not skipping my Friday and Saturday workouts. Well, no more!

Something else I like about this plan is the alternate exercises. It is smart to not keep doing the same exercises for weeks and weeks and weeks in a row so having things to swap out to keep the body guessing is good. Also, as I get stronger I can add weights to the moves, add more reps and sets, make it more of a challenge. 🙂 Plus it alternates cardio with the full body circuit and even throws in a rest day and a stretching day. It’s a good mix.

I wasn’t intending to have Day 1 be a Monday but I wanted to start the program right away and I found it last night so right away meant Monday. Whiiiich actually turns out to be a good thing because if you’ll notice on Day 2 and 4 I will be doing cardio and in the alternate exercises one of the options is “sport” and those are the days I have dragon boat practice which means my dragon boat practice can be substituted in to this work out plan and count. Yay! I figure I am probably still going to do a separate 30 minutes of cardio on those days, cause why not? But if life gets in the way and one day I can’t fit in time for a run or hike I won’t be missing out completely cause I’ll still be going to practice. Maybe my logic is flawed but it makes sense to me…

So today after work I went for a one hour hike with a friend then came home and immediately did Day 1’s workout. I had to make some minor changes, after the second set my knees were hurting quite badly so during the third set I did 20 squats instead of 15 squats and 5 squat jumps, the squat jumps were killing my knees. Also, in set 3 I did my push-ups on an angle because I felt it was better to do angled push-ups with proper form than pathetic push-ups on the floor that weren’t giving me as good of a workout as they could be. I’ll get stronger and be able to do all three sets of the push-ups soon but until then I’ll do one set angled, build those muscles!

There ya have it, my new work out plan. Easy in the sense I can follow it and have no excuses to not work out. Challenging enough that hopefully it will start me on a lovely path of getting more fit. 🙂

Care to join me?

 

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Another New Plan

9 May

I feel like I am always coming up with new plans that never work out. New plans to eat healthier, work out more, lose weight, get stronger, blah blah blah.

I know I am not alone with this, this random stage where ideas are hatched, plans are formed and possibly even followed through for a while but then discarded for all sorts of “reasons” only to leave room for regret because follow through was once again not your thing. I read other peoples’ blogs, I’ve read this story many times over. And each time I feel for that person, because it is a sucky stage. Every time I start the cycle over again, and then fail, I get more demoralized and convinced I will never lose this weight…I’m pretty sure others feel the same.

Plus, it must be super boring to come here to see what I wrote about only to read about yet another Great Plan but a couple weeks later realize I haven’t commented on my new Great Plan in a while.

I firmly believe to be successful at any weight loss plan you have to hit your breaking point, or as a friend calls it, have your “a-ha!” moment. I had that back when I initially lost all my weight but this time around, with all these different plans, and ideas, and attempts I hadn’t had it. I don’t know why I hadn’t had it, it’s not like I didn’t want to succeed, shrug, but for whatever reason it just hadn’t happened.

Yesterday though, it happened.

Gotta say, it was pretty awesome. 🙂

I’d been toying with actually signing up for Weight Watchers, starting next month, cause I can’t afford it this month, if only to get me started. But for some reason that idea wasn’t inspiring me.

I toyed with trying to find the money to get a personal trainer for however many sessions to get me in to a routine and force me to be less lazy. But the cost of a trainer didn’t appeal to me and again, something about it didn’t feel right.

Then out of nowhere I thought about the old meal plan I used to follow, the high protein, high healthy fat, low carb meal plan combined with daily exercise. It was hard core, hard to maintain even when I was super dedicated, and kind of miserable at times because I was eating almost the exact same thing every day. Plus, the plan has you tracking your micro-nutrients and the amount of carbs I was allowed was soooooo low and I love carbs soooooo much, it was kinda sucky at times lol.

But…it worked!

When I started that plan I had already lost over 30 pounds, I was trying to get that last 5-10 pounds and tighten up. This means I was already in the mind set of watching what I ate, and working out often, and was used to following a healthy life routine. Plus, I was starting all that exercise when I was in better shape than I am now so while it was a challenge it was do-able.

This time I am starting farther away from my goal and I am trying to be realistic about what I can handle so I don’t end up quitting.

I don’t want to eat the exact same foods, in the same order, 7 days a week. I don’t want to never splurge. I don’t want to order salad with no dressing topped with a grilled chicken breast every single time I eat out because that is the only “safe” meal I can find on a menu.

I know to hit my goal I will need to make sacrifices and I am ok with that. I won’t get where I want to be without stopping habits I have formed and routinely doing things I haven’t been doing.

But I can’t just half-ass this. I need a plan, a detailed, written out plan that I can refer back to when my brain blanks on day 2 and I can’t remember what the hell I am supposed to be doing for breakfast lol

So I wrote down all the foods I ate on that plan, then I tweaked a bit. Instead of only eating chicken and tuna for my protein I added lean beef burger patties, fish steaks, hard boiled eggs, maybe quinoa (I’m currently researching to decide if the protein I’ll get from quinoa is worth the carbs).

I decided that I’d be allowed 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of dressing on my salads. I might even let myself have cheese every now and then…crazy huh? 😉

Then, after thinking of little tweaks I wrote down what I will eat and where (at work or at home) on the different days of the week. This might seem strange but I did it because three days of the week I have no structure decided by work. Two days of the week I work 3p-9p and 2 days of the week I work 7a-3p. When I started this job the transition to my odd work schedule threw me off, because this meal plan was not only food specific but very structured for how far apart the different meals were eaten and where in the day you exercised in relation to your meals. I couldn’t make every day the same anymore and I quickly spiraled in to not following a plan because I couldn’t follow my plan perfectly.

I’m hoping by being a bit more relaxed with the timing, and being willing to switch things up a bit, I can make it work.

For instance, I am supposed to start my day with 1/2 an apple and a simple protein shake. Then a half hour to 45 minutes later have one egg, 2 slices of turkey bacon and the other half of the apple. Well sure, that is fine on my days off and my days where I start work at 3pm but the days I work at 7am? Uh yeah, not gonna happen. So, the days I start at 7am I will have 1/2 cup of oatmeal for breakfast when I am at work.

Does it follow the rules of the plan exactly? No. Is it something I can actually do, that is relatively healthy, and maintainable? Yup.

I have to be ok with these little changes. And sure, maybe I’ll get more hard core as I really get in to things and revert back to how it was last time I followed this plan but I have to ease in to that level of dedication, re-drink the kool-aid so to speak lol

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I am so psyched to start this new plan but I won’t be following it properly until Saturday because I have to wait for Friday to be able to buy groceries so until then I will make do with what foods I already have. I can increase my protein since I already have protein rich foods. I can work on the timing of my meals, so I get used to that structure again. I can start to cut out unnecessary carbs (sadness 😦 ) and I’ve already got my grocery list written and ready to be filled.

Maybe this lull before I can start this plan full time is a good thing, it will allow me to prep and plan and psych myself up even more. 🙂

meal plan

This is an example of my meal plans for the different types of days I have. It isn’t exact or set in stone. The proteins can be swapped out and moved from one day to the next. For ease of making the document I put in mostly chicken but I have another page written up with other meal ideas that are high protein, low carb, high healthy fat. Plus, I’ll have to work on the timing, figure out where my exercise fits in to each day and maneuver some meals around that – my large protein shake for instance will best benefit me if I have it after I exercise. So I will probably end up moving that to when I am home after my 3p-9p shift because I tend to work out after that shift rather than prior. But it is a framework for me to move within, which is what I know I need to succeed.

So ok, sorry to bore you with the food portion of my “Great Plan”. But writing this and putting it out in to the world helps me, it helps me stay committed to the plan (theoretically) and helps me believe I can make it work.

I feel I should warn you my next post will probably be about the exercising portion of my new plan, especially since I’ve already started the workouts lol

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Hiking Pics

28 Apr

I’ve been hiking a handful of times since the weather got nice and each time there have been some definite kodak moments…some of which I actually pulled my phone out and took pics of. Look at me, remembering to take pictures of things so I can share them with you, go me go! lol 😉

Well ok, I remembered to take pictures twice and one of those hikes I’ve already shared the pics of but if my Drop Box will ever finish uploading the newest pics from my phone then I will post some of them here…

Let’s all wait together shall we?

-Insert Jeopardy music here-

Aha! Finally! 🙂

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This was taken from around the halfway point on the staircase. I hate stairs. Stairs are evil. Having said that, when I got to the top I realized they weren’t as bad as I anticipated. Lesson learned! Always try something you think is gonna be hard, it might turn out to not be that bad… 🙂

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A lovely little spot where people go swimming in the summer. Despite how warm we had gotten from our hike it was definitely nowhere near warm enough in the water to dip a toe in. You can’t tell from this pic but to the right the water gets deeper and extends quite a ways up until it meets with a waterfall. There is a ledge where people jump in to the water from that currently has a tribute on it because someone jumped about 3 weeks or so ago and died.

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This is a man made lake that sorta just appears when you’re on a certain trail. It is super calm and relaxing and I could sit on the bench and enjoy the spot for hours. Well, except that just behind you is the trail so you hear people going past. A bench that is a bit off the trail and more secluded would be nice, only, how would people know about it? Oh the dilemmas! lol Apparently there are fish in the lake and people go fishing here, I didn’t see any but maybe they are deeper in the water where it is warmer.

I feel a little bad about the fish, I mean, c’mon, people make a lake and stock it with fish then let people fish there. It is kinda mean. The fish have no way to escape, they didn’t choose to be there and you are almost guaranteeing they get killed…just doesn’t seem right to me. If people want to fish I think they should fish somewhere the fish have a bit better odds of not dying, but that is just my opinion, shrug.

All in all, lovely hikes. 🙂 Lisa and I go every Sunday after work and we are upping that to also going every Monday after work, so guaranteed two hikes a week, yay! They aren’t crazy intense hikes or anything but they are still nice. I’ll leave the crazy intense hikes for a day off so I have more time and energy to enjoy them and go farther in to the back country…bears here I come! 😉

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First Time This Year

3 Apr

Get your mind out of the gutter – not thaaaaat kind of “first time”! lol

I’m talking about my first hike of the year…or I guess I could word that as first hike of the season…either is accurate, shrug.

A friend and I went for a walk last Friday before I went to work and decided we enjoyed it so much that we made plans to go for a walk / hike Sunday afternoon when I was off work. I oh so responsibly packed a bag the night before (cause nooooo way would I remember at 5am to pack a bag with hiking appropriate clothes in it) and once I was at work texted her asking if she wanted to come walk the trails near my work or go to the trails near her or if we should go somewhere completely different. I had to be sneaky because we have an unfortunate habit of saying we are going to go for a walk or a hike or to a fitness class or whatever and instead we either (1) cancel completely or (2) go for tea and sit and gab.

Yup, we are enablers of each others laziness.

So I figured if I worded the text to her today as if I assumed we were still going it’d be harder for her to bail.

Turns out I was wrong. lol She wrote back saying she was way behind for the stuff she had to do today because of things happening in her townhouse complex (loooong complicated story that and not really essential to my story, which is of course the important one 😉 ) and basically she couldn’t make it.

I, in a non-bitchy way, said no worries but since I’d brought my change of clothes with me I was still gonna go. At this point I still had some energy left so I meant it when I said it.

Well, by the end of my work day I was tired and had almost completely decided to not go for a walk or a hike and instead go home. Before I could though my friend calls, turns out by my saying I was still going to go it got her thinking that she really should find time in her day to do something active and good for her so she once again decided to join me.

I couldn’t very well tell her that I’d decided to bail *rolls eyes*…and that is how we ended up here…

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The shots of the water were all taken from the suspension bridge. If it wasn’t for other people being there I could easily stand on that bridge for hours watching and listening to the water.

As for the hollow trunk picture, I thought it’d be fun but in actually I look like I have no neck lol silly shadows. 😛 And before anyone who is thinking about my eyes freaks out (which really that would only be my mom) I only took my sunglasses off for the picture, otherwise they are always on when I am outside – I am following all my eye care rules, honest! 🙂

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A Delayed Dinner

29 Apr

You know when you wait too long to eat and you are no longer hungry but you know you have to eat? Yeah, sigh, that was me this evening.

I went for a nice long walk (4.94 miles or 7.95 km) and when I got home I decided instead of showering, doing my hair, picking out a semi-decent outfit and running out to take care of a quick errand I’d just go in my workout clothes, that way I could keep my baseball cap on and since it had been raining while I’d been outside I just looked damp, not sweaty. Well, after the errand I got back to my place, showered, got in to comfy clothes, threw a load of clothes in the wash and realized I had missed my “hungry time” and was no longer wanting any food. I was super tired though, which I was attributing to the lack of food in my system. Crap. I hate eating when I don’t feel hungry, ugh.

I figured if I made something yummy it’d waken up my tummy so I popped some salmon in the oven and got to work building a salad to put the salmon on top of. I figure it’s almost May, break out the summer salads! 🙂

Well yeah, my plan failed, lol, I get the meal ready and am staring at it like it is something disgusting instead of something that’ll taste good. Stupid stomach. Obviously I ate it, I knew my body needed the fuel but there was not as much enjoyment out of the meal as there should have been. Also, by the time I was done eating I felt so overly full, even though it was a normal sized salad, that I sat on my living room chair and actually groaned. Groaned! From too much food, that is so not my style lol 😛

I found some snap peas in the grocery store the other day that are a “complete kit”, it is already washed snap peas with a little package of peanut sauce and a second little package of sesame seeds. According to the instructions on the bag you can either eat the snap peas hot or cold, well, duh lol. I opted to heat up the snap peas and use some of them as topping on the salad, the rest I put in the fridge and will eat tomorrow.

I bought them cause they were on sale lol

I bought them cause they were on sale lol

Second from the top layer of the salad

Second from the top layer of the salad

Underneath the snap peas there was half an avocado (sliced), yellow pepper (diced), mixed raw veggies (corn, carrot and beans), pumpkin seeds, and mixed greens. Everything except the snap peas and avocado had been mixed with a small amount of light ranch dressing. The snap peas had the peanut sauce and sesame seeds on them and then for the final touch I put the salmon on top.

The final product!

The final product!

I know the salmon looks a little suspect but I promise it tasted good! It is from M&M Meat Shops, you can buy these great salmon steaks individually packaged and they come with a variety of sauces, this one was herb & garlic. The reason the salmon is cut in half is because when I took it out of the oven at the 17 minute mark, when the packaging said it would be done, it was so obviously not cooked that I cut it in half and put it back in the oven. I am always paranoid about not cooking my meat or seafood properly and giving myself food poisoning so I’d rather cut something in half so I can be sure it is cooked and risk my meal not looking pretty if it means I can feel safe putting the food in my mouth lol 😛

Despite the random combination of flavours (the fish being herb & garlic, the snap peas being coated in peanut sauce and the rest of the salad being tossed in a small amount of ranch dressing) everything gelled quite nicely and tasted good. 🙂 …trust me, I wouldn’t have shown it to you if it didn’t lol

I was shocked at how filling it was, I mean c’mon, it is salad! *rolls eyes* but there ya have it, the salad that made me groan because I was so full after eating it. I didn’t even have room for dessert, and that’s just crazy talk! 😉

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Dragon Boat Shoes!

26 Mar

It seems like every dragon boat season I go through shoe drama. Over the years I have tried wearing converse, flip flops, Skechers walking shoes and going barefoot. None have been perfect, all have had their pros and cons, as most things do.

Last season I was wearing Skechers walking shoes, I was super psyched for them because they seemed like the perfect shoe for dragon boating. They had a normal sole, so good grips in the boat and good for our on land warm-up. The fabric of the shoe was this quick drying, mesh but not mesh stuff – quick drying is important because nobody likes putting on a wet shoe, *shudder*. Sadly though, the shoes let me down. No matter how much I cleaned them they eventually had a stench that was impossible to ignore. The smell was because of the water in False Creek, it is naaaasty! Then, one of our away festivals had the paddlers tents on a beach and I got sand in the shoes. You wouldn’t think it’d be such a big deal but no matter how much I cleaned and rinsed those shoes I could never get all the sand out of that mesh-but-not-mesh fabric. By the end of that festival weekend my feet were destroyed! I had blisters and areas of my feet had been rubbed raw from wearing the shoes when they had sand trapped in them, omg it hurt!

It was so close to the end of the season I didn’t bother replacing the shoes last season, instead I waited, and the waiting proved fruitful! For Christmas my parents gave me a gift certificate to buy a specific shoe that I wanted for dragon boating. Some of my teammates have this shoe and swear by them.

My new dragon boat shoes.

My new dragon boat shoes.

The company that makes these lovely shoes is Native, their website is here if you are interested. They come in many styles but I didn’t pick them because of what they look like, though, I do like how they look so that’s a bonus lol They are awesome for dragon boating because they are made of rubber. Can’t get better than that for a water sport! They have a great grip in the boat, are comfy, despite the holes my feet stay warm even in rainy cold weather and as a little bonus there are these little bumps inside that sorta massage your feet while you are wearing the shoes. 🙂

The company amuses me, a couple of days after I got the shoes (I bought them online) I got an email from them that started with “Dear Human” lol, an enjoyable sense of humour don’t you think? The email was about proper care for my shoes so they last as long as possible.

Oh and the tags on the shoes made me laugh…

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The tag says: No sasquatch, unicorns, doves, jabberwoks, cows, werewolfs, whales, dogs, mermaids, pigs, yeti, anteaters, cats, antelope, cobras, possums, dragons, porqupines, owls, sloths, ostrich, crocodiles, bears, mice, pegasus, slugs, or any other beast was used in these natives! (the spelling mistakes are the company’s fault, not mine!)

There was another tag that lists one of the features of the shoes as being “beast free” and the third tag gives instructions for how to ride an escalator lol

I know its dumb but stuff like that makes me smile. 🙂

I’ve worn them for a couple of weeks now and they’ve been good. I haven’t gone running in them, because I haven’t been running during warm-ups, I think they’ll be ok for running except for the little problem that the heel of the shoe fits a tad too big so even when walking the back of my foot slips out of the shoe a bit, it’s not a huge deal, just an annoyance at this point.

I’m trying not to be too excited for these shoes, since every year I end up replacing what I’ve been wearing, but I’m hopeful these ones will last longer than one season! 🙂

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