Some Life Rules

Randomly I gave myself some new life rules this week.

• No more computer in bed.  I have developed a bad habit of catching up on missed TV shows and Google Reader after I crawl into bed each evening.  This leads to staying awake until 2-3am. 

For the last three nights I’ve gone to bed by 11pm and read until no later than midnight.  The result:  I’ve slept SO WELL.  Duh.

• No more late night snacking.  You know what happens when you stay awake until 3am?  You are starving at 1am.  And then you eat cereal, or crackers, or cheese, or all of the above.

For the last three nights I’ve been asleep so no wee hour snackage. 

• No more hitting snooze eleven thousand times.  Yeah.  That whole staying awake until 3am thing makes it really hard to get up when my alarm goes off at 8:30.

For the last three mornings I’ve been up, walked the dog, and poured my morning coffee by 9:15.  Yes, I do realize I have it good but hey man, that’s part of the reason I wanted this whole work-at-home gig.

• No more waiting until 11:30 to eat breakfast.  I always eat three proper meals each day but my timing has been ABSURD.  Eating in the middle of the night, combined with getting up late, and my usual sleepyhead bleary-eyed morning funk leaves me not wanting to eat right away.

For the last three mornings I’ve made a point of making breakfast as soon as I finish my first cup of coffee, then eating lunch by 1pm (instead of waiting until like 3pm after my workouts) and making dinner at a normal time.  All this with a couple of light snacks in between has left me completely satisfied.

• More reading, less TV. 

By not watching TV in bed I’m now behind on some of my shows but I’m not missing them too much since I have a couple of good books to read.  (Hunger Games anyone?)

None of these rules were on purpose really.  I had a good weekend and woke up on the right side of the bed this past Monday.  I felt motivated and my brain just formulated these plans for me without me having to really think about it.  I guess sometimes your body really does know what’s best for it!

Ever just wake up one day and feel like instituting some healthy new life rules?  Feeling motivated about life in general these days?  Share with us!!

No Go

It’s official.  My body doesn’t wish to ever work out again.  Yesterday was to be my official return to the gym and what happened?  I woke up with my neck all out of whack.  If it’s not one thing it’s another!

I consoled myself with coffee spiked with light egg nog…

And strawberry Chobani with sliced banana and toasted pecans…

After breakfast I took a muscle relaxant in the hopes of loosening my neck up enough to stretch.  All it did was wipe me out!  I became immediately exhausted and had to take a nap. 

When I woke up I stumbled into the kitchen to make lunch.  Greek-ish salad…

Tomatoes, cukes, red onion, and mixed greens with EVOO, white wine vinegar and coarse salt.  Served up with spanakopita and hummus.

While finishing up work for the day I got the munchies and went cupboard surfing. Seemed like the right time to break into the Trader Joe’s Flattened Bananas…

It’s like fresh banana fruit leather! I pulled apart about five “sheets” of banana and rolled two of them up with almond butter as my snack.

Hours later I was still trying to kick the effects of the muscle relaxant while dozing on the sofa watching back to back episode of SATC.  A dinner requiring any work was soooo not happening…thank gawd for soup in the fridge.

Corn chowder with chicken, and squirrelly toast on the side.

Followed by a little dessert…tiger butter fudge. nom.

DST and a Super Giveaway!

So I kinda slept in this morning.  Gah. 

This means I missed a prime Monday morning cardio session that I will have to try to squeeze in later.  It also means I started work late so I probably can’t leave early to enjoy the beautiful blue skies.

Hmmmm…maybe I should stay off blogging and Twitter today? ha!

I blame Daylight Savings Time.  Due to the extra hour in the day yesterday my body completely disagreed with me when I tried to put it to bed at 11:30.  It thought it was only 10:30.  Silly body. 

Not entirely sure why it thought it should stay awake until well after 1am though.  I really wish it would listen to me! 

Oh well, I have coffee now…

And Squirrelly toast.  With PB and Crofter’s Superfood Spread.  I know you guys are probably sick of seeing this, but it’s such a yummy breakfast! 

To thank you for putting up with several hundred pictures of PB&J toasts, I have a new giveaway for y’all!!

Those lovely people over at Crofter’s Organic are offering up THREE super-duper deeeelish prizes for my readers.  :)

Sample packs of all four of the Crofter’s Superfood Spreads I have been raving about. 

• Four Continents
• Ten Superfruits
• A World of Antioxidants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How this plays out…  THREE PRIZES:

• ONE sample pack for a CANADIAN reader.
• ONE set of coupons for purchase of equivalent products for an AMERICAN reader (can’t ship the samples cross-border).
• ONE surprise bonus winner from either US or CANADA.

As always, it’s easy to enter. 

In order to enter to win this great prize you can:

• Visit the Crofter’s website then leave a comment on THIS post telling me what Superfruit Spread you think you would most enjoy. Make sure you tell me if you are American or Canadian!!!
• Tweet this: “A Super giveaway! Win @croftersorganic from @balanceblog: http://bit.ly/aptbqT”
• Post a link to this contest on your blog, then come back and leave another comment here telling me about it.  (Make sure you include a link to your post.)
• Do all three things for multiple chances to win!

Contest is open to Canadian and US residents.  I will use a random number generator to chose the winners on Friday, March 19th at 12pm Atlantic Standard Time.

Good luck everyone!  Tell all your friends!

Rested

ahhhhhh, slightly shorter workdays meant I got to sleep in a teeny bit this morning.  Um, not that I planned it that way because it seems my alarm clock didn’t go off (or more likely I slept right through it) but either way it was awesome.  Considering it was like 2am when I fell asleep with the TV on. 

Oddly, the coffee in the pot was cold when I got to it.  I wasn’t THAT late getting up so I’m thinking I might have accidentally hit brew last night when I set it up…instead of auto.  Oh well, I drank it anyway!

Along with toast. 

Toasts with natural PB and Crofter’s Superfruit spreads.  Two different spreads, actually.  I’m kind of addicted (and as a general rule I’m not a jam person).

Since I started late, I got to work on a couple of lingering mini-projects for work and actually managed to bang a few things out quite quickly.  Funny how avoiding Twitter for 30 minutes can do that. ha.

Once I was happy with my workday, I threw together a small but protein packed lunch.

Liberte Greek yogurt with honey, bananas, and granola.

I put the granola on the side for photo purposes because I wasn’t quite ready to eat yet and didn’t want it getting all mushy.

Now, I’m off to complete a quick report and then do a little office floor yoga and stretching so as to earn my fitness sticker for today.

I let my tweeps pick this month’s sticker choice…frogs vs ladybugs.

Ladybugs won! 

False Start

Whoops.  Monday not off to a great start activity-wise!  Remember how last night I said I wondered how I would get out of bed without FH here?  Ya, um, well…

So I made myself a deal at bedtime last night that if I saw snow when my alarm went off then I would get to sleep and work out later.  Well there was no new snow but I went back to sleep anyway.  Can you say exhausted?  Yesterday’s ridonkulously early morning and hectic day totally caught up with me.

Now it’s 3pm and I still haven’t worked out for today (let alone made up for the missed workout on Saturday).  Gah.  I wonder if I have enough stuff around the house to do Intro to Iron Day 1 here?

What I have done is eat.  Of course.

Breakfast…something new & different!  Pineapple quesadilla!!  with light cheddar and ancient grains tortillas…

I used to work at a cafe where we included pineapple on the nachos.  Don’t knock it til ya tried it.  :)

With yogurt, strawberries and more pineapple…

And coffee…duh.

Followed a few hours later by lunch! 

Carrots, celery, and yellow pepper…

With the return of hummus! 

And Kashi Honey Sesame…which are rapidly replacing multigrain Wheat Thins as my favorite crackers. 

Of course I had to taste test the Chocolate Cranberry Almond granola bars…

Um, while typing this I just made an agreement with Jess that I will indeed run 3 miles 5km tomorrow morning.  She’s checking on me!  Guess I just found my incentive.  :)

Knock Wood

We seem to have kicked the insomnia around here!! Both FH and I had decent, solid sleeps last night.  Yay!  You have no idea how exciting this is.

Last night I put together a second variation of a breakfast cookie.  This one was a little drier and not very sticky so I was worried it wouldn’t hold together, but it totally did!

• 1/3 cup whole oats
• 1 tbsp White Chocolate Wonderful PB
• 2 tsp flax meal
• 1 tbsp semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze

This morning I topped it with some nice, thick, tangy plain yogurt mixed with a drizzle of local honey and 1/2 of a banana…

Hit.the.spot.  2 for 2 on the breakfast cookie adventure!

With coffee…

This mug is fun to photograph because I can adjust which bean the focus is on!

Another successful gym trip early this morning.  As much as I hate getting out of our warm, cozy bed to drive FH to work…I LOVE the routine it creates for my workouts.

• 20 minute treadmill run, 2.5 km
• Lower body strength training:  2 x 15:  squats and plie squats with 5lb ball, single leg squats (each side), single leg reach (each side), lunges with 10 lb bar (each leg)
• PLUS: 2 x 30 sec wall sit and, 1 full set of Eurydice’s bum exercises.

On the way to the gym I snacked on half of this Clif bar.  New flavor to me!  Peanut Toffee Buzzzzzz.  nom nom.

After much tweeting about #waterlogged and sipping back about a litre or so myself, it was time for lunch!  Remember the Apple, Walnut, Brie Quesadilla?  Well, I did and couldn’t wait to make it again!!

Now I must get back to work so I can head off to The Running Room soon and pick up my new running shoes!  Oh please fit.  My knees will thank you!

10 Minutes

Well someone around here must have been tired…ME!  I slept for 10 hours last night.  I didn’t turn out the light until around 2am, but slept in until noon!  Wow.  Now if only poor FH could do the same thing…he’s still struggling to get a whole night’s sleep.

I had intended to hit the gym as soon as I got up…and almost nixed the idea because of my late rising…but I didn't!  Yay!

Made a green smoothie to start the day out on the right foot.  I came up kinda short in the veggie department yesterday and we have a party to attend tonight so a little extra green seemed like a good idea.

In the KA today:  1/2 banana, 1/2 packet Amazing Grass Chocolate Amazing Meal, flax meal, 3 handfuls baby spinach, 3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze.

I love how fast the Kitchen Aid blends things up.  No little bits of spinach getting stuck in my straw either!  I was telling FH last night how much I love the blender.  He still thinks I’m nuts but is glad I’m happy with my giftie.  LOL.

I let the smoothie settle for about 20 minutes then dragged my butt off to the gym.  Ate the rest of the banana on the way out the door…

At the gym:

• 10 minute warm-up on rowing machine
• 10 minutes x 2 running on treadmill
• 10 minutes incline training on elliptical
• 10 minutes core work (crunches, reverse crunches, side-to-sides)
• Mucho stretching

On my way home I stopped at Starbucks.  Have you noticed I haven’t had Starbucks in over a week?  I know, the world must be revolving backwards or something.  :)

Double tall vanilla non-fat latte.  No more Christmas cups.  Sad.

I chewed on half of a Lemon Larabar in the car.  Traffic was insane.  Our neighborhood is on the opposite side of a shopping district from where my gym is…I had planned to stop at Chapters but seeing the traffic I opted to just get on the highway and go around. 

 

Once home I heated up a cup of homemade Corn Chowder and made some quick cheese toast for lunch. 

Like I said, tonight we are off to a party!  It’s our friend Bonnie’s 40th bday and her hubby has rented out a whole pub for the night.  Crazy right!?  If I know them, it will be a grand time!!  Live band and everything.  Yay!!