Tag Archives: losing weight

Aquafit Tuesdays

7 Oct

Normally Tuesday and Thursday evenings I am in a dragon boat, training. I’m so used to that schedule that when training season ends and I have those evenings free I feel a little lost…what am I supposed to do now? Usually, for a month or so I just have fun doing whatever, either staying in or going out, doesn’t matter what I do I feel like I am in the wrong spot, like I’m cheating on the team lol

Training has been done for quite a while now and I’m trying to find something to replace it, I’m much more likely to not skip a workout if it is planned and I’m expected to be there. Gotta love accountability! 😛

A teammate suggested I join her at aquafit class on Tuesday evenings. Normally I would have begged off, uh, bathing suit? No thank you! But ever since my cliff jumping and subsequent swimming in the ocean I have been wanting to get back in the water. I had so much fun swimming in the ocean that I spent the rest of the summer wanting to repeat the experience. Every body of water I saw while on the rest of my vacation elicited the question “can we swim in that?” and the answer was always “no!”…makes you think about just how horrible humans are to the planet that there are so many different water sources and none of them are safe to swim in, what’s with that?

When I got back from vacation I thought I’d hit up the pool near me but it was under construction and wouldn’t be usable for a couple months, sucky timing that. I have been waiting for the pool to re-open when KR texted me about going to aquafit with her at a different community centre and I figured, yes, go for it! Forget about the whole people-seeing-me-in-a-swimsuit-thing and go, swim, enjoy!

This has been my third Tuesday in a row going to aquafit and I’m really liking it. I always thought of aquafit as something old ladies did lol but this class is an intermediate to advance and has a wide variety of ages, oh, and there are guys there also, not cute guys, old guys, but whatev.

The class is an hour long with 40-45 minutes of cardio, the rest uses these dumbbell foam things to do resistance work in the water. It works the muscles surprisingly well! 🙂

the foam dumbbells

the foam dumbbells

This evening I messed up on the time and was an hour early, oops! Last week I purposefully went early to use the fitness room in the community centre, I hopped on a treadmill and went for a run before meeting my friend for the aquafit class. Apparently my brain is easily confused because when I was getting ready this evening I was remembering being there for 7pm but thought that was for the class, not for the run then the class *rolls eyes* I didn’t take my running clothes because I wasn’t planning on running before the class, and I didn’t realize my error until I was in the hot tub waiting for what I thought were the last ten minutes before class started. I wasn’t about to go get dried off and try to find something to occupy myself for a little under an hour just so I could come back and get dressed in a wet swimsuit lol So I sat in the hot tub for an hour, oh the hardships! lol I actually spent most of that time sitting with my legs dangling in the hot tub, but close enough lol 😛

I know some people scoff at working out in the water, everyone knows it is easier on the joints but somehow working out in the water, in a lot of people’s minds, equates to a less effective workout. Perhaps because you can’t see the sweat? Here are some facts about water workouts that may surprise you…

– Working out in water means your muscles are forced to work harder, burning more fat and toning them up faster than land-based exercises. This is because they are fighting the water every time they move.

– Jogging on dry land will only burn up approximately six calories per minute. But aqua jogging can burn over 11 calories a minute, giving you a better workout.

– The extra pressure of the water on your legs also pushes more blood back up into the top half of your body. This makes your heart work harder, raising your heartbeat and burning even more calories during your water workout.

– Aqua-exercises also have a cooling effect on the body. Because you are working out in the water, your body is not sweating as much to cool the muscles down. This means there is less chance of you becoming dehydrated during your workout.

– People with lower back problems can benefit from aqua-exercises as the water supports them, taking pressure off the spine.

So there ya have it! Don’t mock those of use that work out in the water, we’re getting in shape faster than you are! 😉 lol

I bought a ten visit pass and plan to go to aquafit every Tuesday, most Tuesdays I will go for a run first, might as well utilize as many of the community centre’s resources as I can. 😉

Now to find something to do the rest of my evenings…

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The Smell of Stupid

2 Oct

You might not think that ‘stupid’ can have a smell, let me assure you, it can.

I was cooking dinner this evening and two things happened. The first is this semi-yummy meal…

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

It is Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, no name mixed veggies, 9 frozen pre-cooked shrimp all mixed up with Classico Alfredo & Sun dried Tomato pasta sauce. I rate it a semi-yummy because I prefer a higher sauce-to-pasta ratio so to me it was a bit bland. I cooked 85 grams (1 cup) of pasta because the box said that is a serving, ummm, yeah, way too much! Next time I will half the amount I cook and that should be plenty, bonus is that I can keep the same amount of sauce (1/4 cup) and that should be a much better sauce-to-pasta ratio for me. 🙂

But really, the meal is not the most important thing that occurred during the cooking of dinner. This also happened…

How lovely, melted plastic!

How lovely, melted plastic!

Something you should know about my kitchen, I have almost no counter space. I don’t mean I have a normal sized counter and it is covered with stuff, I mean to the left of the sink I have a space wide enough to have two cups side-by-side (so, tiny space!) and to the right of the sink I have just enough space to hold a dish drainer…is that what it’s called? I mean the thing you put your just washed dishes in to so they can air dry. And that is it. That is all my counter space.

This means a lot of food prep happens on top of the stove because there is nowhere else to do it.

Soooo, this evening I have water in a pot coming to a boil on one front element, on a back element I have a pan heating up to eventually cook the shrimp in and on the other front element I have my kitchen scale, which I am using to measure out my veggies. The veggies are kept frozen so I kept having to pause in the pouring of them in to the bowl that is on top of the scale so I can hit the bag against the edge of the sink in an effort to break them apart.

Then…the smell starts. It doesn’t smell good. I couldn’t figure out what it was, none of my food should smell like that, but I don’t have any candles burning, nor is anything else in the apartment creating a smell, so what the heck is it?

Even though I don’t like the smell I can’t figure out what it is so I keep doing what I am doing, figuring whatever is causing the smell will stop eventually, or make itself known.

I take a look at the pan on the back burner and realize it isn’t warming up, which makes me take a look at the stove knobs which made me realize holy shit I’d turned on the front element and was cooking my kitchen scale! Ack!

I immediately pulled the scale off the burner and strings of melted plastic spread from the bottom of the scale to the element, like melted cheese on a pizza, but smellier.

Sigh.

I put the scale upside down on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t think of any better place it should be put to cool down lol and stared at it in horror. Horror! This oh-so-awesome scale was a gift from my brother yeeeeears ago! I’ve been using this scale at least 7 years…holy crap I feel old now…but that’s besides the point! This scale is awesome, and I cooked it! Who does that?!?! 😦

Not gonna lie, I started to get upset not only because I was stupid and cooked the scale but because now I was going to have to try to find money to buy a new scale asap so I can keep on with weighing out my food, sigh. Then I remembered I have a back-up scale, yay! Couple years or so ago my mom got given a scale from a friend and she passed it on to me, it is a Weight Watchers scale that can calculate the points of a food while it is on the scale, cool huh? I didn’t use it because I wasn’t following Weight Watchers at the time and if I did need to weigh something, well, I already had a scale, shrug. Me being me though I kept the WW scale, in the box, in perfect condition, in a rubbermaid container where it would be safe.

Point to me for keeping the scale! 🙂

I pulled the WW scale out of storage after I finished dinner and was so close to being relieved when I realized it didn’t have a battery and it takes a 9V battery, not exactly something I just randomly have lying around. I know, I’m so weird right? 😉 lol

But fear not! When I went to put my dishes in the sink I tested the scale. It had cooled off so I flipped it over and tried turning it on and holy crap it works! Wowza! 😀 I cooked the scale so much I can see clear through to it’s innards but that sucker still works! Talk about quality made! lol

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the melted plastic that has become one with the burner off the burner…and ideas?

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Monthly Round Up – April

8 May

Alrighty so I’m a tad late with this, what can I say, punctuality is not my strong suit lol To hold myself more accountable for my fitness related actions I have been tracking them on my calendar. Every time I do something fitness related I write it on the calendar and then highlight it in pink. The highlighting is so that at a glance I can see how much or how little I have been doing so far within the month and it will either (1) re-enforce I am doing well and help me to keep going or (2) force me to realize I am slacking and push me to get my butt in gear.

Here is my calendar from the month of April…

Such a slacker! sigh

Such a slacker! sigh

As you can see, there are huuuuuge gaps where I had lots of days in a row where I did nothing that counts as exercise, sigh. Must. Get. Moving!

It is hard to tell from looking at the picture but some of those days I did two different workouts/activities which helps to make the month not quite as bad as it could be lol

In total, out of the 30 days I exercised 17 times. I am not impressed with myself *rolls eyes* I learned from tracking in the previous month that Fridays through Mondays are my worst days for getting my butt out there and doing something. It is due to my work schedule but I can’t let that keep holding me back, I have got to figure out a way to work around the hours and my laziness.

Tomorrow is Friday, a day I generally don’t exercise because of working but I’m hoping to at least do a workout dvd. I’ll only be able to go to the gym if I go before work since they are closed by the time my shift is over and I’ve shown time and time again I am not good at forcing myself to get up early and head to the gym before work. I go to bed with the best of intentions to get up and go but it doesn’t happen. Sooooo, I’m lowering the bar lol I’m lowering it to getting out of bed and following along with an exercise dvd. It may not be an amazing workout but at least it is something, and something is better than nothing, right? Right! I figure I’ll work up to getting my butt to the gym before work…

 

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Twice Yesterday, None Today

23 Apr

Yesterday I had a lunch date downtown and decided I didn’t want to drive to it cause (1) parking downtown sucks, especially during the middle of the day (2) gas prices are ridonkulous ($1.53 right now, arg!) so I’m trying to drive less and (3) I’m trying to not spend as much money which meant not forking over for high parkade fees or using the precious gas that is in my gas tank. So I bussed it and was horrified to learn bus fare is now $4! What the hell?? That’s crazy!…in my humble, non-informed opinion.

Because I have now turned in to a scrooge when it comes to spending money I decided to walk home instead of pay another $4 to take the bus. I couldn’t walk there because I wasn’t sure how long it would take but I figured I’d have plenty of time to walk home afterwards so why not? I am physically able to walk long distances and feel that if I can do it then I should because one day I will be old and won’t be able to walk a block without tiring myself out and I’ll wish I had walked more when I could. Right? Right!

I popped my earbuds on and started the long walk. It started off ok, interesting shops to look at, pretty cherry blossom trees in full bloom, random people to watch. I actually don’t mind walking places if the weather is semi-decent because you get to see so much more than when you are driving.

After a while, even with music playing in my ears that I love I started to get bored. sigh. The view was less interesting, just traffic on one side of me and non-interesting shops on my other side. The people on the sidewalk became fewer and far between as I left the bustle of the downtown core and was walking over the bridge, past the highway and onward.

I hit a stage where I wanted to stop. I didn’t. But I wanted to. My legs kinda hurt, I was bored, I just wanted it over. I gotta say, that part sucked. When I do long walks I do them as hikes on trails going up mountains, where I am surrounded by trees and nature and there is always that potential threat of running in to an animal that could kill me (bears I’m looking at you! 😉 ). Also, in the wilderness you have to pay more attention to where you are walking because of the uneven ground, twists and turns in the trails, sharp inclines and declines. Walking a mountain trail is way more interesting then walking along a city sidewalk.

Obviously I didn’t stop, who does that? Stops out of boredom? Not moi! lol I turned it in to a challenge in my head, sort of a can-I-maintain-my-speed-and-make-it-home challenge.

Whadda ya know, I succeeded! 🙂

The only times I stopped were at red lights, nothing I can do about that. Luckily I hit almost all green so there was very little stopping. I maintained my speed even when on the hills and I have proof of that thanks to my Runtastic App lol I want to upload a pic of the route I took with all the info but my phone has 9% battery right now so my Dropbox App won’t transfer the pic due to low battery life, lame! I’ll come back and edit this post tomorrow to add the pic so you can see. 🙂

In the end I walked 8.75km in an hour and a half. Not too shabby…I think? lol I never know what a good time is when it comes to how long it takes to run or walk a distance so I’m gonna go with a rating of “not too shabby” and hope I am right lol 😛

I thought I’d be home in time to chill before going to dragon boat practice and I sorta was, depending on how long of a rest I wanted lol I had enough time to have a cup of tea, sit, wish I could sit for way longer, then change, stuff my hair up under my hat, grab my gear and book it to practice. I was actually a little bit late and missed part of the warm up but didn’t feel too badly about it considering the walk I did.

So there we have it, yesterday I exercised twice, the loooong walk lol and dragon boat practice. I was really happy with myself for doing that. 🙂

Today however, hmm, lazy much? lol I was supposed to go for a walk with a friend who only goes cause I drag her, she haaaates doing any of the physical stuff I like to do, sigh. We ended up going to Costco instead and after we were done hanging out I ended up at home, sitting, doing nothing of importance. Normally I’d of at least done the laundry or something so I could justify not going for a run or to the gym buuuuut nope, nuthin. So lazy! Boo! 😦

lazy

I’m trying to pretend that because I exercised twice yesterday it is ok that I didn’t exercise today, like it will somehow all balance out at the end of the week lol I don’t think it really works like that but for today I am sticking with that illusion. 😛

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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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Day-O-Birth

24 Dec

This is a day late but better late than never, right? 😉

Yesterday, December 23rd, was my birthday! Yay! We will not discuss how many years I have been on this planet thank-you-very-much! lol

The day did not go quite as planned but I don’t care, it was my birthday which means no matter what the day will be good. 🙂 Or at least that is my mentality. Logical? Nope! Do I care? Nope!

My flight was supposed to arrive 10:30pm the night before but I got in around 4am the day of. I did not anticipate any of my birthday being spent en route to my parents place for Christmas but not like I could do anything about it. The plane was coming from Montreal, landing, going to Prince George then coming back to take my flight to Alberta. The storms on the Eastern end of the country held up the plane when it was coming from Montreal then when it got to Prince George there was some sort of trouble so all in all my flight was late by 7 hours. Some people were pretty cranky but I don’t see the point in that. Nobody can control the weather, and when travelling in winter you are pretty much guaranteed to have flight delays, and I’m sorry but being passive aggressive to the people who work with the airlines is ridiculous.

Ok, rant over!

I got to my parents place just before 5:30am, chilled with them for a bit then crashed. By that point I’d been up over 24 hours and was in desperate need of sleep. I didn’t want to sleep my whoooooole birthday away though, just part of it! lol, so I got my mom to wake me. She woke me by bringing me a cup of tea 🙂 Best. Mom. Ever.

My birthday gifts to myself were exercising and a new purse. Yes, you read that right, exercising was one of my birthday gifts to myself. Normally when I go on anything I can deem a vacation I slack when it comes to exercise and even if I have the best of intentions I end up eating poorly. Bad habits sure but at least I know myself and know what I’m gonna get up to lol For this trip I brought the Insanity workouts on a memory stick and my laptop with the full intention of working out daily, or almost daily (I’m thinking it won’t happen on Christmas day but who knows?) and so far I am two for two. A Christmas miracle! lol

I got up (eventually) on the 23rd, made a healthy breakfast, digested for a bit, worked out, showered (and pampered myself) then enjoyed the rest of my birthday knowing I had done something good for myself. That’s gotta be a first…and what’s even weirder is I liked it lol

I spent the day with my family and loved it. Got to see my nephews, my bro and sis, obviously my parents since I am staying with them lol All in all, a perfect day! 🙂

Oh, and I got a whole lotta books as presents which made me squeal like a little girl and literally hug the books to my chest lol I looooove reading and haven’t been able to afford to buy a new book in ages so getting a whole stack of books, and all of them the newest book in various series that I read, was amazing! I also got a beautiful silver chain which is perfect for my dragon boat pendant. 🙂

Happy birthday

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I Just Don’t Care

19 Nov

I can’t bring myself to care, about anything, it just seems too exhausting. It is like every emotion I have has been muted, or covered by a blanket, stifled in some way. I know they are there, just under the surface, wanting out, I just can’t be bothered to make an effort to try to feel them anymore.

I’m doing a pretty decent job of faking it, sorta. At work when I’m at the desk interacting with residents or guests or most of the other staff I’m able to put on a fake smile, make my voice sound cheery and do my thing. There is one staff member that for some reason I don’t feel the need to put the mask on for, it is much easier being around her, less effort needed ya know?

That’s why I haven’t been writing, just the thought of opening my laptop was too much, let alone logging on to wordpress and writing something. The only reason I managed it tonight was because I was going to watch a movie and when I logged onto the computer wordpress popped on to my screen, musta been the last place I was when I closed the laptop last time. I wasn’t going to log on, wasn’t  going to write, was just going to ignore wordpress but then I decided to read other people’s blogs and it made me realize I should probably write in mine…don’t know why, not like this is a happy, cheerful, entertaining post…generally my posts are upbeat and mildly entertaining (at least I hope they are).

I managed to follow my eating plan for the most part since the fiasco that was Friday. Saturday and Sunday were perfect. Followed my eating plan, tracked everything in my Lose It! app, I may be going through a tough time but at least I didn’t add guilt to my shoulders over messing up my eating plan. Monday however I screwed up, but since I’m still in a cloud of not caring, I can’t bring myself to feel badly about it. I’m sure I’ll feel like that eventually, but for now, no guilt over choosing bad for me food. shrug. I ate according to plan while at work but when I got home I just couldn’t get the energy to make dinner. At first I wasn’t really hungry so I figured wait a bit, when I’m hungry then I’ll want to eat and I’ll go make something but nope. By the time I was hungry I was in no mood to go messing around in the kitchen so I did what I absolutely should not have, I ordered pizza…and dessert bread sticks. Damn you Panago for having such tasty food! Mostly I wanted the dessert breadsticks, I am a carb junkie, when things go bad that’s what I aim for, not good I know but I figure it’s better then gambling or drinking, right?

dessert breadsticks from Panago, just dip em in frosting and enjoy!

dessert breadsticks from Panago, just dip em in frosting and enjoy!

I ate the breadsticks and a bit of the pizza, it was super tasty. Mmm! The low level headache I’d been having for days went away and for a little while I actually felt like I had energy. I didn’t do anything with that energy mind you, just chilled watching tv and cuddling with the cat but at least I felt a bit energetic. That quickly faded and I ended up napping on the living room chair by accident, oops. I’m putting that down to a long day at work on very little sleep.

Today (Tuesday) I met up with a friend around 5pm-ish. I slept most of the day, having gone to bed around 3am, so I had a protein shake before meeting her and then we went shopping, had dinner and watched a movie. For dinner we had sushi, I know if you order carefully sushi can be a healthy meal, but I order like a born and raised North American which means not healthy. We split some spicy agedashi tofu, then I had an avocado roll and a philly roll. The philly roll is my favourite, smoked salmon and cream cheese…so not on my eating plan! Then, just to make things worse, I had a small frozen yogurt at the theatre. *groans*

Even while sitting here typing out what I ate and knowing I should feel badly about messing up my eating plan I just…don’t. I’m not even trying to justify the food choices, shrug. I made them. I ate the food. Whatever, it’s done and there’s nothing I can do about it now. I am however trying to figure out what to do with the left over pizza in my fridge…can I freeze that so the next time I crave pizza I can just thaw out one slice? I’ll hafta google that…

So eating hasn’t gotten me out of this funk, neither has shopping. Weird huh? I bought some Christmas presents today, and some stuff for myself yesterday and the day before and while I am glad I made the purchases the usual giddy happiness I would feel over some of the stuff I bought isn’t there. I’m just all meh about it.

Tomorrow I will go to Zumba class no matter what, maybe that’ll help shake me outta this? Gotta try something since my usual ways of cheering myself up have failed.

The only positive thing I am getting from all this is since eating the pizza, and the breadsticks, and the sushi and the frozen yogurt didn’t make me feel better I might as well make the effort to eat according to my meal plan. Since the high calorie, carb laden food is doing nothing for me emotion wise or body fat % wise I might as well ignore it and eat only what I am supposed to. Least when this is all over and I am back to my normal self I won’t be looking in to the mirror at someone who let themselves go and gained a bunch of weight instead of reaching her goal of dropping a size by Dec 22. Cause even if right now I don’t care about that, I’m sure I will care about it again soon and I don’t want to be kicking myself for making my goal even harder to reach all cause I couldn’t keep it together.

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The Aftermath

13 Nov

It is amazing how being sick can throw everything off kilter, and I mean everything! 

"No More Sick Days Allowed!" says me to me

“No More Sick Days Allowed!” says me to me

This past Monday was my first day feeling healthy, yay! 😀 I only had one coughing fit, I got to the end of my work day and still had most of my voice and energy, it was all kinds of good. This means that my days off are being used to get back on track food wise, exercise wise, errands wise, acting wise…you get the idea lol.

I have to go agent hunting, sooooo stressful! There is a lot that has to be done prior to submitting your info to agents when going agent hunting. You need new headshots, you need to get those headshots printed, you need to revamp your demo reel and resume. Submissions are all done electronically now so you have to take care of that.  For some people this might not be a big deal but for me it takes a while because it all costs money, sigh. And not small amounts of money, nope, decent chunks of the stuff, something I don’t have randomly lying around. I got my headshots done a bit ago but haven’t been able to afford to print them. I’m finally able to do that so I’ll be placing the order soon (as in tomorrow when the shop is open). I started the process of revamping my online account so I can electronically submit to agents, I’ll be working more on it after I finish typing this post. I decided I can’t afford to redo my demo reel so I am going to continue using the one I have, luckily I still look the same (for the most part) and I am also working on memorizing a monologue to perform if the agents want to see something a bit newer. Luckily I’ve been working on some independent projects and can provide links to them, or at least to one of them (its on YouTube) and I juuuuust might be able to get a copy of something else I have been working on if I’m lucky! *crosses fingers* So that’s all good, I’m working on getting my submissions out there and while I wish I was moving a bit faster with it I am doing the best I can. 🙂

Food wise, well, hmm, a lot of food went bad while I was sick, oops! What can I say, when I am sick my appetite nose dives, shrug. I did a clean sweep of my fridge this evening and oh wow, soooooo much stuff had to be thrown out (well, technically, it was composted, but still!) I have been talking to a friend at work who is a personal trainer, asking for her help with getting in better shape. The way I work is easy, I need rules, I need someone to give me a list of rules, better yet an eating plan, a very specific eating plan, and I need for them to say “follow this, don’t deviate, deviating is cheating and you won’t lose weight if you cheat, just follow it even though it sucks and I guarantee it will work” or something along those lines lol. I had a friend who isn’t a trainer but who is in really good shape and he did something along those lines a long time ago, I think it was almost 2 years ago, wow, I can’t believe I’ve known him that long, crazy! Anyways! lol When I followed the eating plan he gave me it was hard, it was restrictive, it was not conducive to having any kind of social life but it worked. Something that works is what I want, I want that more then a huge wide variety of food, I want that more then a social life that revolves around eating, I want that more than anything (well, what I want most over anything ever is for my acting career to take off but that’s a slightly different topic…although still related…) I told her this and her response, after asking me a lot of questions and learning my eating habits as they are now, was to go Paleo. Ugh. I will do a whole separate post on what I think about Paleo but rest assured, it is not going to be a sunshiny review, I have not “drunk the Paleo kool-aid” so to speak lol. I started re-reading about Paleo, (I researched it last year), so I could refresh myself on the rules and basically skipped to the back of the book to read the recipes lol After reading the recipes I realized that this wasn’t gonna happen, not because the recipes seemed particularly hard or complex but because I just don’t want to cook that much, shrug. My fix for this whole needing-to-cook issue was to revert back to the eating plan my friend gave me two years ago. What he put me on was Paleo but Paleo gone hard core, as in oh.my.god. crazy hard core! Once I get back in to the routine of my hard core Paleo I will once a week try one of the Paleo recipes. This way, my food won’t be quite as boring, but I’ll be easing in to the whole cooking-in-a-whole-new-way-with-all-kinds-of-different-ingredients-thing while still following a strict but good eating plan. To accommodate my return to this hard core Paleo eating plan I went grocery shopping today, with a list! An actual list! lol It actually felt pretty good, going in there with a plan, getting just what I needed,  knowing that what I was buying was going to be used in a healthy way. I haven’t had that in a while, it was nice getting that back. 🙂

With my exercising, I went to a boxing class with a friend last night. I love boxing! I’ve always loved it but it is so pricey, sigh. It was a one off, I wasn’t actually intending to join the club lol but don’t look at me like that, the friend I went with was intending to join, and did join so we didn’t waste the trainers time. 😛 I maaaay have slightly over done it though, kind of a pushed a bit too hard too soon kind of thing, oops! This morning my voice was not quite all there and the throat was back to hurting and today I’ve been way low on energy, more so than normal. Because of that I didn’t go to the gym today like I intended but will for sure exercise tomorrow. Maybe it’s better to start back with the exercising by going every second day, don’t push the body too too far until for sure it is 100%? At least this is what I am telling myself lol

So the aftermath of my cold is slowly being dealt with, errands caught up with, eating plan back on track, exercising starting back up again, agent hunting preparation underway. That cold put me behind for 2 whole weeks but I’m back in the game now and will make up that lost time quick quick quick! Brace yourself for the awesomeness that I am going to be bringing, it will be epic! 😉

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8km, 2hrs

19 Sep

I did a hike yesterday that I oh so enjoyed! I wish I had taken some pictures of the beautiful scenery for here but I was using this app called Runtastic to track my hike and started with less then half my phone battery life left and I had doubt that the battery would last if I also took pics lol. Next time I will make sure the phone is fully charged, promise! 🙂

I was soooo excited for this hike, had been wanting to do it since before I went to Los Angeles but I just never had the time…or thought I didn’t!

All the Provincial Park info said the 8km hike that I was planning would have a total time of 4 hours. Now, I don’t know how they calculated the time it would take, I assume that takes in to account terrain, averages from other hikers and a bunch of other stuff I don’t generally think about lol. I took the Park’s information as fact and that is why I hadn’t gotten around to doing this hike yet because I had to make sure I had minimum 4 hours available and that I started early enough in the day I wasn’t risking getting caught in the woods after dark.

Now, you may be thinking I am being overly dramatic about being in the woods when it is dark because how much wilderness could it possibly be? Lemme tell ya, this is Canada, there is a lot of wilderness and the head of the trail is full of info for keeping the bears etc away and all the gear you are supposed to take with you “just in case”…I took almost none of the gear cause that’s just how I roll 😉 lol I took two bottles of water, a Clif Bar, ID, chapstick, sunscreen…that’s about it. I mean come on, how much do you really need to survive for 4 hours? Not that much! And if I was in there for longer then the 4 hours I was most likely in some sort of trouble and that extra gear well, would be helpful but I’d be holding out for a rescue team lol 😛

The trail started off flat and easy then I took a turn that leads to a higher intensity trail…who wants easy? Pfft! Not I! 😛 The majority of my hike was spent alternating between steep inclines and windy smaller inclines…if that makes any sense? I lost the trail in a minor way once or twice and in a serious way only once. For me that is pretty good because my sense of direction is generally sucky and not like there are that many markers in the forest lol trees all look the same!

Sad to say I encountered no wildlife…although, since I had none of the gear meant to help me in animal scenarios I guess that’s a good thing? lol Less interesting but good. 🙂

During the 7th km I tripped and scraped up my right knee and left hand, sigh. My right knee now looks like it belongs to a 12 year old tomboy, soooo not attractive! Thank goodness my body clots well lol The knee itself isn’t as bruised as I thought it would be but I’m in that unfortunate phase of healing where pants hurt cause of the friction but wearing a dress or skirt means showing off an ugly knee and having to repeatedly explain what happened. I’m not happy with either of those options but not much I can do about it *rolls eyes*

Left side is in the car right after the hike. Right side is the day after. And yes, I am just that pale! :P

Left side is in the car right after the hike. Right side is the day after. And yes, I am just that pale! 😛

Back to the timing of the hike, like I had mentioned above, all official information I had for this hike said it would take 4 hours. That seemed like a long time for 8km but I figured if the terrain was hard enough that could make sense, right?

Well here is a picture of my results from my Runtastic App…

Screenshot of my Runtastic App

Screenshot of my Runtastic App

I did 8.62km in 1 hour and 57 minutes…a much more respectable time but not at all what I expected! Sooooo, perhaps the people who came up with the timing for the hike went along the trail backwards? How else could I cut the time in half? I double checked the info at the head of the trail, thinking maybe I read the time needed to complete the hike incorrectly but I didn’t, it really said 4 hours. I just don’t get it…My dad suggested most people take the trail at a slower pace and aren’t zipping along trying to be the fastest to complete the trail lol I pointed out I wasn’t trying to be the fastest, just get a good workout (which I did)…and I suppose other people might use the trail for a more social outing but I don’t think so. The easy part of the trail sure! I saw people there with dogs, walking at a slower pace while talking with whomever they were with but the harder trail? I saw one other person on it the entire time and she was like me, hiking gear, obviously working out, not lingering anywhere…I guess this will be one of those things I remain confused about but hey, who doesn’t like having some mystery in their life? 😉 lol

All in all I really enjoyed the hike, am very glad I finally got around to doing it. Now that I know it only takes two hours I have hope I will be able to hike it again before we lose our nice weather. I won’t hike it in the winter because parts of the trail were already partially washed out when I went yesterday from the rain we had earlier in the week. I had a couple times I detoured around the trail to avoid walking through water…wet feet is so not a thing I enjoy 😛

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A New Kitchen Toy

9 May

I bought a microwave. It’s still in the box, sitting on my kitchen floor waiting to trip me tomorrow morning, hmm, maybe I should move it to the side or something…

It’s not some super fancy microwave, it’s not even a brand I recognized lol but it was on sale, and is small, and is black, so there ya go. 🙂

what mine looks like

what mine looks like

I wasn’t intending to buy one, personally, I’d rather a new blender but my dear mom insisted I buy one, her dime, because I have been without one for quite a while lol.

My old microwave died an electrical smelly death randomly one day so I took it to the recycling place, where past their prime electronics go to pass on to their next incarnation. I almost felt guilty as it was a present from my brother, a reeeeeeally nice microwave, and so pretty! Stainless steel with black accents, sigh. Oh, and it was big, as in bigger then anything I would ever need lol but I live in North America so isn’t bigger supposed to be better? 😉 I had it for over 5 years though and it moved with me many times over those 5 years so I guess it did it’s job.

But yeah, so, old microwave died, and oddly enough I didn’t jump in my suv and go right to the store to buy a new one. I figured, sometime a long time ago people survived without microwaves right? So, theoretically, I could do that…I could survive without one…This would (1) save me the money of buying a new one, (2) give me one less thing to pack the next time I move and (3) force me to cook more using the actual stove. These are all good things!

Well ha-bloody-ha!

(1) I still ended up buying foods usually heated/cooked in a microwave but instead of stocking up on Lean Cuisine when it is on sale I was buying those pre-packaged at the deli meals at Safeway and Superstore, so even though I saved money on not buying a new microwave, my food bill went up a bit I am sure.

(2) I still own a lot of shit so seriously, packing one more thing is not gonna make that big of a difference lol.

(3) I ended up eating even less if you can believe it! If I didn’t feel like cooking something in the oven or on the stove top well, there was no other way to cook it, so I either ordered in take out or didn’t eat…and of those two options I usually chose the not eating. So by not having the microwave, I actually ended up eating less food because my laziness is just that impressive! *rolls eyes*

It was number 3 that got to my mom I think. She didn’t like the idea of me not eating soooooo she insisted on my buying a microwave. And! She knows me so well! When I said ok I would search to find one on sale she went and did the searching for me and then told me where I could find one for sale…I guess she figured out my “research” could conceivably take a long time cause well, I’d keep forgetting to do it. *looks guiltily at the ground*

I actually got the one smaller then the one she told me about, same brand, mostly the same features, but like I said, smaller and therefor cheaper. I would have automatically got the one she told me about but the friend I went shopping with noticed the smaller one and pointed out the smaller one would most likely be big enough for me. He was right, so smaller I went! With the money I saved I bought a food splatter thingy to put inside of the microwave, I feel so grown up now lol 😉

I don’t envision my eating habits changing a whole lot super quickly but I’m sure before I realize it I’ll be using the microwave more and more…if only so I can eat popcorn! Mmm popcorn… 😛

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