A quickie before bed

I am SO tired right now! I almost said forget this I'll do it tomorrow, but with some encouragement from my hubby I decided to post to my blog before bed. So here goes...

This morning we were running late (it's been one of THOSE days), but I somehow managed to make some toast (my staple 'breakfast' apparently), pack a quick lunch and make myself look presentable before running out the door to drop off my daughter at summer camp and my husband at the skytrain then head to work. 

Shortly after arriving to work on my 'Starbucks off day' I was hungry and had a little snack. You guessed it. 20 of them!

I made a point of saying 'my Starbucks off day' because it really is a big deal for me to not drink Starbucks every single day. Seriously, I've been doing that for about 3 years!! One of the first goals I made when I committed to getting more fit, was to only drink Starbucks every second day...for the most part, I've kept that goal. However, I just want you all to know HOW HARD IT IS because I have not one but two Starbucks at the end of my street AND one in the lobby of the building I work in. God, it takes willpower!

A few meetings later and it was lunch time. The leftover minestrone soup (recipe on yesterday's blog) tasted even better reheated the next day. Got some protein and veggies with this lunch :-)

As I mentioned above, it was one of THOSE days. Stressful decisions to make at work made me want....food. Sigh. That's right. Coping with food *insert eye roll here*. I had two things left in my bag, a banana and a granola bar. Good news! The banana won. I didn't even eat the chocolate covered sugary granola bar. Yay me!

Time flew by in the afternoon and I looked up and realized it was time to go if I was going to make it to Burnaby Hit before having to pick up my chicklet. This morning I managed to throw some work out clothes in my gym bag to take to work - reason being, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to fit this workout in if I didn't go straight from work. My daughter has guitar lessons on Monday evenings, so if I don't go to the gym before picking her up and and making dinner so she doesn't starve, I run out of time to get to the gym! Because of this small but important decision (to pack the bag in the morning) I was able to get to Hit, where Zunobia showed me more ways to challenge myself in my workout. More punches, bigger kicks, intensifying cardio and crunches with medicine balls...oh my. I must say though, when I get through the circuit after thinking I'm never going to make through this, it feels AMAZING. I always somehow find the energy to kick the crap out of Bob at the end!

Feeling great, I rushed to get my chicklet, went home to make dinner and ate a protein bar (recipe here) while dinner cooked.

Tonight's meal needed to be quick and easy so I immediately thought of pasta when planning the menu. I wanted to make something new, with veggies and no thick red or white sauce, so I settled on pasta primavera. I had quickly stopped at Safeway on the way home because I had everything I needed except asparagus, but they were all sold out....so I made it without. One other thing I changed was to use only 2 tbs of balsamic vinegar 'cause I thought 3 might be too much. The verdict? I loved it, my daughter really liked it and my husband said it wasn't his favourite but would eat it again. Maybe if I add chicken to his next time he'll like it better?

I thought the roasted veggies and lemony flavour was amazing. I think I'll pack some for lunch tomorrow! One last thing...my husband and I were watching Hell's Kitchen before bed and he thought it would be a good idea to have a snack or two (again). It's really not fair that he can eat mad amounts of junk food and stay exactly the same weight with little to no physical effort. Not to say he doesn't get some exercise, but geez...I really have to work to stay thin! The longer I put off having a snack too, the more my mind started thinking about the ruffles chips in the cupboard. I started craving the crunchy texture, but knew if I had salty chips, I'd then crave chocolate and it would all be downhill from there. So...I had grapes!

They might seem like a weird midnight snack...there were 10 of them by the way...but somehow they satisfied my craving for crunchy and sweet and I didn't feel guilty taking the picture ;-)

~Shannon

On to other business

Now that I've posted my numbers for the world to see...I'm going to try to FORGET that I just did that and break down my day. As a preview...I think it went pretty darn good! Also, my daughter suggested I attach links for some of the different recipes I use with the photos, a GREAT idea in my opinion, so there's some links to check out if it looks good to you!

So I woke up early this morning and so did my husband who suggested we go for a walk. I first quickly put something in my stomach - my quickie breakfast of multigrain toast (yes. with butter. again).

 
On the way, he decided he wanted to get a starbucks. And there was my first dilemma of the day...it is my "starbucks off day". I figured out real quick that taking me into a starbucks is like taking a drinker to the bar. I had to have one. So I caved and justified it with "I'll make tomorrow my off day". I wasn't too upset about it, because I think I'll be able to have an off day tomorrow. I'll just make a point of not going into a starbucks!I can walk by, just can't enter. I'll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile....here's the evil culprit.

I must say I got a really nice walk in, soy chai latte and all. It was about 3.9 kms with LOTS of uphill. When we got home it was lunch time. My family wanted homemade egg muffins so I made those first while I contemplated my own lunch...I don't like eggs. My hubby and daughter say that my homemade egg muffins are way better than the McDonald's ones and they ate them all up quickly. Makes me happy, 'cause I'm sure mine are also healthier than the McD's ones too. While I was trying to figure my lunch situation out, I made the protein bars I mentioned in yesterday's blog...but more about that later. In terms of lunch, I really didn't want salad again, so I decided to use up some leftovers in my fridge and had a salad size plate of last night's Pineapple fried rice.

After I ate my lunch on the couch, I walked past my daughter's room on the way to the kitchen and saw that someone had obviously set off a bomb in her room, 'cause there's really no other possible reason for the way it looked. For those of you that know my chicklet, she is a book hoarder. She LOVES to read, in addition to dancing (tap and jazz) and the obvious preteen girl hobbies of fashion, music and boy bands, which in many ways is fantastic. However, her love of books means getting her to clean out her bookshelf every once and awhile is similar to pulling teeth. Seriously, the girl has hundreds of books  and magazines leaking out of her bookshelf and all over the floor! So it was time to clean, and rather than fight about it, we cleaned the shelf out together. I'm proud to say my chicklet is parting with and donating a pile of books! Good girl :-)

While we did this we had a little snack. Because I'm OCD like that, I counted out 10 almonds and 10 grapes each.

After the chore was done, I was feeling positive and decided I was going to go for a run. One of my goals is to run a 5km race again (haven't done that since high school). I used to distance run in elementary and part of high school and it's something I'd really like to get back into. There's a super fun-looking run coming up called Colour me Rad and it just so happens Burnaby Hit is entering a team. Maybe...  

Anyway, I left the house and went for a run. I pushed myself really hard (could hear Sarah and Zunobia in my head saying don't give up, breath through it, push yourself, you're almost there)...and ran 4.86 kms!! It took me 30 minutes!! I was stoked. I remembered the advise I received the other day from Teri and decided to feed my body some protein after my run, and tried out the protein bars.

My verdict? DELICIOUS! I'm actually kind of skeptical that these could possibly be good for you...they taste way to good to be healthy! For add-ins I put sliced almonds, dried cranberries, unsweetened shredded coconut, flax seeds and sunflower seeds. Seriously yummy. My hubby and daughter even had some. My only concern with them? I'm not sure I did it right! Mine were almost like the consistency of fudge, rather than a bar...not sure if I did something wrong, but if so - I'm okay with that, they're good! The only problem is trying to limit myself to one per day...that will be hard!

Next up, dinner time. I decided on soup for me and soup and sandwiches for my husband and daughter. They chose the sandwiches: chicken salad on croissants, and I chose the soup: homemade minestrone soup. This is my favourite minestrone soup ever. The only things I do differently is that I use all vegetable stock instead of part stock/part water and I also add in 1/2 cup red wine or some balsamic vinegar during the last 20 minutes of cooking. We also top with a little bit of shredded Parmesan cheese, though you can eat it without for sure.

I had two pieces of a baguette also, with a little bit of butter (very little I swear) because I have this thing with soup and baguettes. Plus I wasn't having a sandwich, just soup! After dinner was relaxation time, big brother (yes I watch that show), and a glass of wine. For the record, it was 6oz, I measured.

I thought this Lolita glass would be fitting. It says "Inside me is a skinny woman trying to get out but I keep her quiet with a glass of wine..." Fits my sense of humour perfectly!!

Finally, the one last thing I'd like to say is that I'm proud of today. I think my eating was pretty good for the most part. I went for a halfway uphill/halfway downhill walk with my hubby, ran almost 5 km in 30 minutes, and drank way over my water goal. My energy was up, I cleaned my house with my husband (he did all the dishes which I HATE doing), helped my chicklet clean her room/organize her bookshelf, and made my protein bars and a delicious dinner. All in all a great day!

Bedtime now!

My measurements...gasp!!

I received some messages suggesting I do a before/after image/weight etc. I've decided on inches. I'm definitely not putting up a before picture until I have an awesome after picture to go beside it haha! In terms of weight, I'll let you all in on a little secret. I threw my scale out about 2 years ago! All the weight conscious people's jaws probably just dropped right? Why you may ask, did I throw out the scale? Because it was ruining my life. No seriously, it kind of was. Let me explain what a typical day looked like for me when I had my scale.
Wake up, check my weight. Go pee, check my weight. Shower, check my weight. Dry off and get dressed, check my weight. Eat, check my weight. Go to work. Come home, check my weight. Eat dinner, check my weight. Get undressed, check my weight. Go to bed. Repeat. I was obsessed!! Because I was literally driving myself crazy with weight checking OCD, in a moment of strength I threw out my scale and decided I would use the "do my clothes fit tight or loose" method of watching my weight. Honestly, it's a pretty good indicator of when you've gained or lost! I found a great article about this on the 30 minute hit blog if your interested.

Anyway, to the details. Here's what I was at when I started. Don't laugh.

Hips: 40 (barf)
Waist: 28 (I can deal with this)
Thigh: 23 (Ok now I'm really going to barf)
Bicep: 11 (Insert eye roll here)

So basically? Bottom heavy. I'm a pear. Sigh. Ok, now I know some people may look at these numbers and think that it would be fine or good to have some of them. I don't deny that. However, others might think along the lines of me! Keep in mind my frame - 5'1.5 with quite small bone structure. Pre-baby and most of my 20's I weighed between 110-120 max. I'm fairly certain I'm somewhere in the 130 range, but it's a guess. So anyway...there's work to be done! And the good news? I've already lost an inch or two...but I'm not telling yet, wait and see/read!! Maybe I'll do this once a month?

~Shannon

I almost didn't make this one

I watched a movie, stayed up late and considered just going to bed and doing this tomorrow, but then I thought putting it off until tomorrow is the first step towards "getting too busy", so I sucked it up and here I am!

So remember yesterday when I said sometimes I'm a slow learn for a smart girl? Well clearly that was the case today. I woke up and was determined to go to Burnaby Hit but I was TIRED. I thought about making something to eat first, full well knowing I should always have something in my tummy before working out. But I was also kind of thinking if I put off going to Hit for any reason, there was a good chance I'd say "there's always Monday". So...I left before I could change my mind. I exercised away my guilt when I got there and Zunobia pushed me to work harder as always, which was great! Despite my poor food decision, I felt good! Luckily. Shortly after, I looked at my phone and saw a message from Burnaby Hit with some great advise on my eating habits...starting with EAT MORE PROTEIN! I decided to head into Save On foods, to correct my earlier lack of eating mistake and to finish my grocery shopping. On my grocery list...almonds. But before I went home to snack, I stopped for this:

It was my "starbucks on" day after all! I love soy chai lattes what can I say? While I was at Save On, I also decided to pick up some things I needed to make protein bars I saw on a posting on the 30 minute hit blog. So the plan is to have them available for workouts or for a snack starting tomorrow. I'll get back to you on how they taste and if they really are delicious. Anyway, upon arriving home I ate this, hopefully not too little to late!

For the record...there were 20 almonds. I counted. I showered up, did some chores then ate some lunch. I'm going to be honest I stood with my fridge door open for what seemed like an eternity longing for the leftover scalloped potatoes from last night. It was a yummy and convenient option. But then I remembered my earlier poor food decision and decided to try to fuel my body properly, so I settled for a salad instead.

You know, it really didn't take that long to make. For some reason I thought it would be much more work than it really ended up being. Some romaine, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, marble cheese and sunflower seeds with a little bit of Italian dressing = a yummy and satisfying lunch. Since the day was looking nicer than the crappy rain this morning, my family and I decided to go for a walk at Barnett Marine Park. It's beautiful there! We walked along the trail, took in some scenery and checked out the people crab fishing off the pier. Did you know you can use chicken for crab bait?! It works...I seen. My question...when the hell did a crab ever acquire a taste for chicken?? Anyway, after an interesting outing, we headed home, I was hungry and I had some multigrain toast. With butter again...but only a little bit!

By the time I ate this it was basically time to start making dinner. My sous-chef hubby made some homemade meatballs for him and our daughter and I made a sweet and sour sauce to go with it for them. I also made pineapple fried rice, which is what I ate for dinner.

Another lovely piece of advise I received from Teri at Burnaby Hit was to try to eat off a side plate to ensure healthier portions. What a great idea! I realize that maybe my meal wasn't the most balanced, but I ate what was on my plate...and stopped....and realized I was full. If I had put it on a big plate, guess what? I would've ate the whole thing and not realized I wasn't hungry! For the record, outside of the obvious rice and pineapple, this dish has peas, jalepeno pepper, raisins and cashews in it...yum.

I managed to not become hungry again after dinner and once my daughter went to bed, decided to have a glass of wine and watch a movie with my husband.

As a side note, I LOVE these glass and want to thank my BFF Marcey for getting me my first one. They're Lolita glasses and I want them all! My current collection consists of four. Anyway, my hubby and I watched the movie Takers and after watching him eat a bag of chips with dip AND ice cream, I couldn't handle it anymore and made myself a snack. I wanted to munch out too! I tried to be good, but geez, how much can one girl take? So I settled for some popcorn (I think it's a healthier choice) and even ate it without butter or salt.

 And the part I'm happiest about? Here's my before....









And here's my after! I ate only what I needed to satisfy my craving and didn't go overboard on the bowl. To be honest, I think a big part of that relates to this blog. I wanted to show myself and everyone else that I do have control over my portions and eating, even if it's not perfect control. But hey, it's okay to cut loose every once and awhile. I mean how boring is perfect? Plus...one of my favourite and most inspiring postings says:

Goodnight!

So...day two!

I started off this morning's chaos with a piece of toast. I am a huge fan of Cob's multigrain bread, and it tastes even better toasted with butter. I know I should probably put peanut butter on it instead, but I like it like this.

And on that note, I dropped off my chicklet (daughter - not quite old enough to be a chick, so she's a chicklet) at summer camp and headed to Burnaby Hit where Zunobia tortured, I mean pushed me to complete an intense and rewarding workout.While throwing a medicine ball on me when I was doing crunches on a exercise ball she told me something along the lines of "when your mind is telling you to quit that's when you get the best workout". I came to realize that there's much truth in this!

The good news? I finished even though I felt like I was going to die at any given moment. At this point I realized that I should probably eat more than a piece of toast before working out. Lesson learned? Maybe. For a smart girl, I'm sometimes a slow learn! I went home starving and decided to have a lil' snack.

Shortly after it was time for lunch so I had my leftover pasta.

I realize it looks like a hugely stacked plate, but it was a salad size one. Yes I realize it's not as healthy as if I were to have an ACTUAL salad, but remember...one step at a time!

Next on the agenda? Work. Hopped in the shower, went to work for a bit, picked up my chicklet from summer camp and hit up the grocery store. I figured if I'm going to eat dinner at home instead of grabbing fast food, I should probably buy food. I decided on Walmart for grocery shopping expedition part one, got about half of the things I needed and then proceeded to wait in one of three checkout lines for roughly 25 minutes. BRUTAL! It took every ounce of my will power to not buy  something from the evil temptation of the checkout stand. I also am proud of myself for not giving in to passion flakies. I put them in my cart, thought about what I'm doing here (umm hello, I have a hard enough time with this whole fitness-healthyish eating thing, I really don't need passion flakies sitting in my cupboard calling my name) and ultimately stuck the evil but delicious treats back on the shelf. Anyway, needless to say by the time I dropped the groceries off at home I was STARVING again. So I caved and ate this:

Have I mentioned that chips are my real weakness? In this case it was Jalapeno Cheddar Doritos that tripped me up. On a more positive note, I was able to stick to my one handful, which really is progress as I would typically end up eating most if not all of the bag. Again, public shaming works 'cause there was no way I was taking a second picture of chips to post on this blog!! And I didn't cheat. I promise.

After my poor attempt at fueling my body, I went to pick my husband up in Richmond, made a pit stop at the liquor store and Safeway, then managed to get home. It was now roughly 7pm and....you guessed it....I was SO HUNGRY again! Unfortunately I was also feeling pretty lazy by this time and my good intentions of making a salad to go along with dinner fell through. So I settled for 'side dish stuff'.

Yes. That's right. I ate corn and scalloped potatoes for dinner. Sigh. My family had it a bit better with their BBQ chicken, but since I'm a vegetarian, that wasn't working for me. So I stuffed my face with carbs. If nothing, today has made it loud and clear to me that I need to do something about my carb habit. But on the more positive side of things, I committed to my workout today, blogged everything I ate and remained passion flakie free. My opinion = partial success!

My day ended with a super late dinner, my chicklet passed out on the couch full of chicken and potatoes, some television, and this....

I love me some Merlot! G'night all!! :-)

So if this is going to work, I'm going to need to follow through

So...here's what I ate today.

Started off the morning not so right with my vice...Starbucks Chai Latte - Tall, soy, no water, no foam.

 For the record, this is a habit that I'm not trying to kick per say, but am trying to 'manage'. For the past two weeks I went from drinking one (or two) a day, while subsequently killing my bank account, to drinking one (only one) every two days. My debit card is happy now.

Anyone who has spend a morning in my house knows that the catchphrase for that time is "chaos". How we managed to get out of the house on time is beyond me, and even more mind blowing is the fact that I managed to quickly put this together for me. 

Can someone please explain to me why I always seem to have time to make my daughter's lunch but rarely ever my own? Anyway, the fact that I threw this together was good because by mid morning I was starving! And no guilt! It's fruit! Lunch time rolled around and I went for lunch with some coworkers for a birthday celebration. We went to a sushi restaurant on Robson called Junsei River. As in most sushi places the first thing they put in front of you is Miso soup...so I had some.

Next up, my order. I love the bento boxes with the yummy rolls, rice, teriyaki, tempura, and salad but I can never finish them, then bring them home telling myself I'll eat the rest later, and then end up throwing it out and feeling stupid for wasting money. (Side note...you'll notice rather quick I'm not huge on leftovers except for maybe pasta reheated for lunch). So, I ordered off their lunch menu
http://junseiriver.com/lunch_1.html and chose tofu teriyaki and cucumber roll.

So I ate all the tofu teriyaki, half the rice and 4 of the rolls. It was good! Back to work I went and about an hour or two later was craving some chocolate. Luckily, I had also found time to throw this in my bag, so I had a little snack.

 Worked, worked and worked some more, then my lovely husband picked me up and we went home to have dinner. I made a menu for the week, which I'm hoping to stick to and first up was Rachel Ray tomato basil cheese baked pasta. Tuesday and Thursday dinners are always a struggle because I work late and my family usually wait until I get home to eat (I love my husband but if something ever happens to me, please...feed my daughter good dinners 'cause otherwise she'll be living off kd, hamburger helper and microwave dinners!!). Anyways quick dinners are a must on these days and this one is quick. It also doubles well for leftover lunch.

What's pasta without a baguette right? Anyways, you're probably thinking "that looks gross" because clearly it either doesn't photograph well or I don't photograph it well. Reality is it's DELICIOUS!! I would've (and usually do) have seconds, but somehow the idea of having to take another picture and post it online made the thought less appealing. SEE!! IT'S WORKING ALREADY! PUBLIC SHAME!

So that's my dietary day. Not great, but I suppose not horrible either. For the record, I drank 3 glasses of water today. I'm not going to take pictures of water...that's boring. My goal is to drink at least 4, knowing that 8 would be ideal...but one step at a time! Exercise consisted of walking all over downtown for work. Not much in other words. Tomorrow's plan is to go to 30 Minute Hit kickboxing class ( http://www.30minutehit.com/ )which I love, highly recommend and am determined to make time for. And if I can't...then I refer to the first post's photo: http://shannyatewhat.blogspot.com  

:-)

Some of you know I'm starting a new journey to fitness.

I'm the kind of girl that most people roll their eyes at when I say I feel fat because I'm not drastically overweight. That being said...I've put on some pounds on my small frame over the years! I've tried unsuccessfully to change my lifestyle (read: exercising and eating) habits, but usually give in because "I'm too busy" or some other excuse. Then I got to thinking after seeing this picture:

I'm hoping that by blogging this lifestyle change, my motivation will stay up and maybe you'll be motivated too! If all else fails, nothing works better than public shaming!! Comments, criticisms, and inspirational messages welcome!