Active Release

Lookie here!  Dog walking coffee.  Something about this cute ceramic mug is so much more appealing that a regular travel mug.  Thanks Janna!

Waffle love.  One waffle, double almond butter, double raspberries.

My produce all survived the weekend!  Survival salad!

In the big silver bowl:  red leaf lettuce, radishes, cucumber, celery, green onion, tomatoes, Honey Poppyseed Dressing, dried cranberries, pecans, and mixed seeds.

The salad was lacking protein which gave me the excuse to eat yet another Larabar this afternoon.  Half before meeting my new chiropractor and half when I got home.  What I really should have done was allowed myself a gigantor chocolate chip cookie because after the torture she put me through I deserved a real treat!

Since massage and physio didn’t really fix me I have decided to give ART a go.  Also known as physical torture.  In just ten minutes I now know what a pounded piece of meat feels like.  My ice pack is my best friend.

Dinner was a total overcooked fail.  Those green beans really have seen better days and the extra steaming they took didn’t help.

I picked up this salmon pinwheel from the grocery store.  I opted for the spinach and artichoke version over the cream cheese and shrimp, but I didn’t enjoy this at all.  Boooo.  It doesn’t help that I dried it out by cooking it way too long.

Clearly my cooking mojo felt beaten up today.

For dessert I tried to make banana soft serve but it tasted off.  Like a freezer burnt banana.  Hmmm….I wonder why!  Sadface.

So I tossed it and broke into my emergency flattened banana and smeared a piece with almond butter.  Thank goodness Jessica brought me this Trader Joe’s loveliness on her last trip to Portland.

I don’t know what I would have done without it.  A girl who has endured torture and a bad dinner cannot go to bed without her dessert!

What’s up, yo?!

Hello bloggies!  TGIF!  Hope you all have some big plans for the weekend.  I actually get my long weekend this week because I get Memorial Day on Monday instead of Victoria Day this past week.

Since no one else around here will be off I will use my Monday to lounge around, sort tax papers, walk the doggie, and work on my contract job. I know…big ol’ party over here!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately.  I think for the first time since I started blogging (almost 5 years ago!) I’m in a rut.  This whole “unable to work out” thing has really been taking it’s toll on me…and you’d think that if I can’t work out I would at least eat well, but guess what?  It doesn’t necessarily work that way.

I took a break from the “this is what I ate today” posts because I tried to eat the same things every day as a way to get back on track.  Trust me, no one wanted to see five bowls of fruit and yogurt.  And dinners have literally been of the “stand in kitchen with fridge door open until mood strikes” variety.  Again, nothing of interest to see here!

Also, it’s pretty hard to spout off about “embracing balance” when I’ve been doing a seriously piss-poor job of it myself.  It’ll come back, but until then you all will just have to bear with my random rambles, OK?

What have I been doing?

• Enjoying lots of hockey. Canucks for the Cup!!!  Woooooooo!

• Drinking a lot of iced coffee.
• Finally reading more books on my Kindle.  Clearly the key was getting “fluffier” books.  Castle for the win!
• Watching far too much old school Dawson’s Creek.
• Stockpiling recipes from Jenna and Jessica.  I’m never going to lose weight with all this bacon and cream cheese floating around.

This weekend’s plans…

• Hot yoga!  I’ll be the slowest moving, least flexible person in the room but at the very least I’ll sweat out some of the chocolate covered almonds I’ve been stuffing myself full of.
• Planters on my deck.  I blew my whole “fun budget” at the Home Depot garden center last night.

• Heidi’s Rhubarb Pie Things.

• Five month anniversary of Tiffaney’s birthday.  Any excuse for cake.
• Salad.  I promise.  Kinda.  Maybe.

Every day I wake up hoping that my motivation has returned and although I have my good days, the bad ones have been winning.  I’m actually kind of OK with it…except when I’m not. 

Thanks to everyone for sticking around!  I promise at the very least to have some fun photos for you this weekend.  xox :)

Celebrating Love

Saturday was dedicated to my friend Melinda and her upcoming nuptials.  Bridal shower!

Before heading out for the party I started my day with a double tall, extra hot, 1/2 sweet vanilla latte (I forgot the non fat part!).

And a quick banana and sunflower butter sammich on Squirrelly bread.

Because I live my life perpetually 5-10 minutes behind I was a tad bit late leaving the city and ended up stuck on the Malahat (the highway to the rest of the island) because some poor girl had flipped her car and emergency services were blocking traffic.

Needless to say the girls were already wrapping Melinda in boas and filling her glass by the time I arrived.

Typical of a gaggle of girls, we had five times too much food.  I brought my yummy Smoked Salmon Dip with multigrain Wheat Thins and sesame rice crackers.

Evil Costco cream puffs.  For future reference, these are perfectly delicious!  I kept my snacking very under control until I realized I’d eaten about six of these. Ah well!

Don’t worry, we didn’t just eat!

We played games!

Including the traditional creation of toilet paper wedding dresses. :)  I am sure Mel will love that I’ve posted this picture of her. ha.

Don’t worry, I’m making it up to her with this gorgeous shot.  Look Mel, you make a good looking pseudo Mama! tee hee.

Here we are!

Before I headed out the door I couldn’t resist the chocolate cake.  De-freaking-licious Kristen.  I’m Googling Wacky Cake as soon as I finish this post!

Since Melinda lives in Chemainus…which is 3/4 of the way to my Mom’s place…I decided to venture up to Nanaimo and visit for the night.  I warned my Mom ahead of time that I’m diligently sticking to my Jump Start plan and told her no traditional Mother-Daughter Chinese take-out.

So she shopped and cooked for me!  Steamed broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts served with these stuffed chicken breasts we baked up.

One seafood, and one bacon & chive.  In reality, these were HUGE!  So we split them in half and I ate about half of a half (um, I guess that’s a quarter…ha).

Mom actually made a beautiful bigass salad but we had so much other stuff that we saved the salad. 

Later on we watched a movie while sipping hot tea and munching Lifestyles cookies.  I’d totally forgotten about those delicious Cranberry-Citrus biscuits! nom.

All in all a fun day full of friends and family!  And I’m quite pleased with how my eating went.  I was mindful of pretty much everything I ate and feel good about how it all went down.  Even those rogue cream puffs.  Totally worth every.bite.

Congratulations Melinda!!!

Desktop Confessions

The motto around here is “Keep it Real” so in all fairness to myself and to you all I have decided to come clean about a few things.  Lately, my undocumented snacking has been on a downward slide…and this weekend kind of sent me over the edge.  Being Monday I’m feeling all good about getting back on the wagon so I figure the best way to start off is with a confession.  Seeing the junk right here in black and white should help make it easier not to do it again anytime soon.  Right?  Yikes!

Midnight Snacking

For the last…oh I don’t know…three? weeks I’ve been staying up WAY too late.  Not unusual for me really, but the new twist is that I have developed the habit of bringing a snack along to bed with me while I read or watch TV.  It started out with the occassional bowl of cereal or granola…and quickly degraded to cookies, popcorn, or now…get this…effing Cheetos.  WTF are those even doing in my house? I should know better.  Hello TRIGGER FOOD!

The Crunchits STOP HERE!!

In fact, ALL bedtime snacking STOPS HERE!!

Weekend Decisions

Basically I just didn’t hold myself accountable.  I left my camera at home a couple of times, and it’s truly amazing how my choice-making thought processes are tied to that little thing! 

No camera…no balance!

Saturday started out all lovely.  A great morning yoga session with Katie.  A yummy non-fat latte…

A protein packed breakfast including fresh fruit…

Some crazy amounts of paperwork…

Fuelled by a deeeeelish spinach salad…

With red grapes and gouda.

And then I hit the town with a long lost friend and choices degraded rapidly.  Strongbow cider, nachos, spinach dip, pita, chips.  And people, there was no moderation…I attacked that melted cheese like it was going out of style. 

And yes, I topped that off with a 2am bowl of Cheetos on my way to bed.  WHO AM I?

Gee, I wonder why I’ve been constantly dehydrated and waking up feeling like death???  Duh, right?!

Sunday again started out on the right foot.  Crazy deeeelish and healthy smoothie…

In the KA: fresh frozen raspberries, frozen banana, ice, light coconut milk, honey, UVAB, Amazing Meal.

On my way to our friends’ daughter’s birthday party I grabbed a coffee and a piece of chocolate chip banana loaf from Starbucks.  I even had both of my cameras and still didn’t take a picture.  Lame.

At the party things were all good because the snacks of choice were veggie and fruit trays and pita chips with dips.  Of course, there was a little piece of cake too!!  Funny enough, I took 300+ pictures of the kids and the party…but you guessed it…I didn’t take pics of any of my food.  Not that there was anything wrong with it, but the point is that for the first time in almost a year I completely neglected my food blogging!

After the party I met that long lost out of town friend for a quick drink and I could have had dinner at the pub but I opted to skip it and head home for a healthier choice.  Go me, right?!

Um, ya…not so much.  Once back at the house we decided that we’d head out for dinner as I didn’t really have anything prepared.  I could have made a healthy choice…but what did I go for?

• Mozza Sticks appy!
• BLT
• with fries, and mayo for dipping!

I mean really?  I totally didn’t need that appy…and there’s nothing wrong with a BLT and fries but after the weekend of over indulging I already had…I probably could have made a better choice.  And the side of mayo?  Unneccessary!!  and unphotographed of course!

So anyway…there it is.  Ewwwwwwwww.

Today Balance shall be Embraced!  And by that I mean no ridonkulous food choices, no disgusting late night snacking, and more activity than running up and down the stairs to my kitchen!

Right? …  Right!!

Question & Answer

A bazillion years ago I had planned to include regular Q&A posts but somehow I just never seem to find the time.  (by a bazillion years I mean a few months…haha).  I always think I won’t have something to write about so can use a reader question to fill in the gap, but wouldn’t you know I’m really never lacking for things to blather on about! 

Now, I admit that I forgot to note who asked this particular question so if it was you give us a holla and take the credit.  :)  Going forward I was smart enough to save emails so I know who left the comments!

Question:

“You are so healthy!  Does everything you eat make it to the blog?”

Answer:

Honestly, HELLS NO!  :)  You all know my motto is “keep it real” and this Q&A seems like a good time to come clean.

• it’s not always possible to include every single thing I eat.  Bites of ‘this-n-that’ are not always photo worthy, are often forgotten, or I sometimes don’t feel like sharing.  Sometimes I’m pressed for time or a post is already too long.
• sometimes a girl doesn’t want to share her dirty little (*cough* evening snack binges) secrets with the world.  sometimes I eat a lot of chips that you all don’t see…which is why once in a while I get hard on myself about not working out. 
• if I’ve already finished blogging for the day, i’m done. so if I feel like having a snack, I’m not going to edit or throw up another blog post just to document a bowl of cereal or extra cookies with my tea. 

Now, this is not to say that this happens all the time or that I’m hiding anything.  It’s just a little insight behind the life of this food blogger.  You are all aware I’m human, correct?  :)

And since no post is complete without food porn and/or a recipe here’s the little drinky-poo that snuck into my belly after last night’s post… 

Light Egg Nog with Diet Ginger Ale

This is a family thing…I think my Grandma may have started it.  She was diabetic so obviously wasn’t supposed to have egg nog but would have a bit mixed with Diet Sprite as her Christmas treat.  My Mom and I started doing it too, and now I can’t go back.  I like it with Ginger Ale as opposed to Sprite, but to each their own.  Yes, it sounds weird…but try it!  It makes your egg nog frothy and fun…and cuts that thick, sickly sweetness that a lot of folks don’t like about egg nog.  Deeeeeelish!

(and FYI: this particular glass is only about 50 calories.  Light Egg Nog is 80 calories per cup…I used just over 1/2 cup.  And Diet GA is zero cals…so there you have it.  I don’t do diet pop too often, but this is one time that it’s a “must have”!)

The One Where it Dawned on me…

So here’s the deal…

I don’t know who that anonymous commenter was a while ago…the one that told me they don’t like my Friend-ly post titles…but whoever you are I owe you an apology.

Today I left a comment on another blog…and the response I got was less than stellar.  I wrote my comment intending it to diplomatically ask a question about something she wrote, and her response was curt and patronizing (and she never actually answered my question).  I spent the rest of the day seething about this thinking that she shouldn’t be a blogger if she can’t handle constructive criticism or negative comments (even though mine wasn’t negative, but it certainly hit a nerve for her).

Then it dawned on me that I reacted in a similar fashion.  I’m so used to getting lovely, supportive comments from you all that when I got one comment that didn’t blow roses up my bum I got all defensive and snapped at the commenter for being anonymous.  And their comment wasn’t even all that negative! 

So anonymous…if you’ll let me, I take it back.  Thank you for keeping it real!  (although I’m keeping my titles for now!)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now that we’re through there, here’s my tasty lunch…

White Bean & Salsa Quesadilla

That’s fancy talk for mixing navy beans & salsa together, smushing that onto a small tortilla, topping it with cheese and baking it until melty.

With some carrots, apple, and hummus.

Simple yet deeeeeelish.

Didn’t even need an afternoon snack.  Instead I chugged two litres of water.  My Twitter water challenges are still pretty lonely so make sure you come join in.  #waterlogged

Another evil pumpkin tempted me as a pick me up as the work day ran late again…I bit his little head off.

For dinner I had planned a burrito from the freezer but since I had beans & cheese for lunch I decided I better eat salad.

Just a smallass salad tonight. :)  Baby spinach, orange segments, pomegranate.  Used the juicy orange drips as dressing. 

And then this is where you’ll all shake your heads at me. 

I had a chip craving.  And when a chip craving hits there is nothing else that get rid of it.  Chips it is!!

The one and only Old Dutch Rip-L chips. Made in Canada!  With only three ingredients!

With homemade onion dip (and by homemade I mean I stirred onion soup mix into light sour cream).

Sometimes when there’s a craving you just have to take care of it.  And that’s OK!  nom nom nom  haha.