Trying New Things and a CHALLENGE

Hi Blog Friends!

It has been a while! After my crazy busy weekend two weekends ago, I haven't stopped! Work has been busy, tutoring has started up, and gymmage has been happening, and Professional Practice Exam studyage has been going down. Don't worry I still have time for fun things, like heading up to the Kortright Conservation Centre in Vaughn with my friend Brittany, and Mike. We went for the maple sugar festival, but also got to check out the super cool Archetype Sustainable House.  Click the link for a virtual tour to experience the AWESOMENESS. Warning: may only be cool to nerdy peeps like us who were pretty much kids in a candy store the whole tour. We also took super awesome photos:

After a successful woodland adventure, we went on another adventure to Vaughn Mills for le Shopping! 

As much fun as Saturday was it isn't the main focus of this post.

The point of this post is on Sunday I went to Hot Yoga. I wasn't feeling well but I made myself get up and out of bed, and I went. And it was awesome as per usual, and it made me feel 100 times better. 

What gave me inspiration for this blog post was from hot yoga. There is a quote on the wall:

"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still"

And then the instructor was talking about being proud of trying new things, and challenging ourselves by doing hot yoga. 

This got me thinking about how many times I have been at the gym and heard "I can't do Zumba", "Body pump is terrifying" "I can't, I won't" ETC. It drives me nuts! And the crazy thing is two years ago I was totally one of those people. I didn't want to do hot yoga for a really long time, and I didn't want to do body pump, and now I am obsessed with both of those things. 

I wish that anyone who said "I can't, I won't" tried whatever they were afraid of, just once or twice. Then if you don't like it that is cool, but just give it a shot. You may be like me and find out that you love it. At first I was painfully bad at yoga/zumba/body pump etc. I was "growing slowly" but I wasn't standing still. And now I am very comfortable with the classes, and want to share the love!

I hate being afraid of things. I always try the "strange" food, I always will go for new experiences, I guess I am slightly adventurous, within reason. One of my fave things to do is to accomplish something I couldn't do...run a 5k in 35 minutes, drive in Toronto etc.

 

Even during city chase, I faced one of my fears and held a tarantula...let's relive this:

It's so FLUFFY!

And now spiders aren't that bad.

But I have one big HUGE fear left. One thing I can't stand watching on TV and thinking about it gives me the Heebeejeebees. I am super afraid of needles, specifically needles in the arm, as in IV's and blood tests. 

So here is my new mission. Before I turn 24 I will try to donate blood. (I say try in case I go and have low iron before my bday. I will try again after that if that is the case.) That gives me a month to donate. At first I put before I'm 25, but that gives me too long of a timeline. It bothers me that I am so afraid of a completely normal thing. I bothers me to have something that could hold me back. And it bothers me that I could help someone by getting over my fear. 

So here is my challenge to you all. In the next Month you should try something new, whether it is easy as trying a new food or a new gym routine, or as extreme as facing a major fear. Do it and I am sure you will feel awesome..or weak and fainty after giving blood..ONE OR THE OTHER!

Please share your goal with me :)

So who is with me??? Who had to go get a glass of juice because they were so faint from writing about giving blood???...just me...uh oh.

Life in the Fast Lane

If there is one thing I know about myself is that I have two speeds, vegetable, and SUPER CRAZY BUSY. When my schedule is not packed to the brim, I tend to be really lazy about everything..apartment is a little less clean, Ethics exam studyage is a little last minute, gym time may get put off etc. But when I have less time to fit it all in, some how it all gets done. That's just how I roll. I blame 4.5 years of crazy busy-ness at school.

Luckily it is always busy at work, so that goes well with my personality, but at home I was starting to get bored. It started right after my trip to Morocco didn't happen. I realized that I had nothing major to do on my to do list, and that makes me sad. I can only go so long without having an plan.

So I made a list, every weekend I was going to tackle a project (organizing my photos, scrapbooking, dealing with some apartment things). Then I made my new fitness resolutions, so I had that plan too. I had a list again. But the funny thing was, now that I had made the list of stuff to do in my free time...my free time suddenly disappeared!

This weekend was one of the busiest weekend's I have had in Toronto and I loved every minute of it. I hit up Body Jam on Friday as per usual, then came home and chilled. On Saturday I had to get up early because I had an interview with the Tutor Doctor Program (same company I tutored with in Halifax last spring). I decided that one of the things I could do on my free time (and make some spending money) was tutoring. So I met up with the tutor doctor guy, and signed up to start tutoring 2-3 students, that will definitely keep me busy!

After the interview, which was near Yonge and Bloor, I had to go to HOT YOGA at King and Bloor. I had a lot of time to spare, so I grabbed a coffee, read a paper, and then walked over to the Subway. I had just paid my fare, when the subway BROKE (there was a flood at one of the stations, so all south bound trains weren' t running) so I decided instead of waiting for a packed shuttle bus, to walk to Yoga. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, but I just googled mapped it and it was only 2.5 km, which is a good hike, but nothing insane. The insane thing was doing that and doing a hour and a half of SUPER hot Yoga. I was done by the end of the class, but it felt amazing!! (Side bar: I did 4 hours of exercise last week! Yay!)

After yoga, and recovering from yoga by eating an entire Mango, Mike and I hit up Costco for copious amounts of meat. Seriously we bought enough meat to last us 2-3 months. Crazy! After Costco/ normal groceries we quickly drove home unpacked the copious amount of meat and went to a lacrosse game! We splurged at got a hotdog and some beers. It was the best hot dog ever. After that we came home and watched Unstoppable on Netflix, it was actually a pretty good movie.

Whew writing all that makes me tired. And it didn't stop there! On Sunday one of my friends from Halifax was in town visiting her sister, so we met up for lunch at a really good Japanese noodle place near Bloor and Spadina, and then we walked around Kensington Market. All the hipsters were out. It was a pretty cold day and this one hipster was like "I don't like wearing jackets" as he froze to death wearing a blazer. Oh Kensington market.  I came back home and pretty much immediately headed back up to Spadina and Bloor to meet up with a childhood/highschool friend who is doing her Masters in Toronto. It was really nice to reconnect with her! We grabbed a coffee, and chatted for a few hours!

I came home and had a quick phone chat with my friend Lynsey, and then with my famjam, then I finally got around to cleaning and prepping for the week. Even with doing all that I (with big help from Mike) had a delicious steak, sweet potato, and asparagus supper (favorite supper ever!) and then I put together a cabbage roll casserole in the slow cooker for tonight's dinner. Whew!

Today I went to work and then went to Zumba, and then I tutored, then I came home and ate the above mentioned cabbage roll casserole, and then finished up the dishes. And now I am blogging. And very soon I will be asleep. Whew.

The crazy thing is all the laundry is done, groceries are done, dishes are done, and gymmage is happening even though I was that busy! Nutso. Only thing I didn't get done was taking pictures for the blog. Oh wells! Can't do it all!

At some point this week I am planning a more fitness/gym related post, so stay tuned!

Anyone else get more done the busier they are? Anyone else buy a copious amount of meat this weekend?

I'm on a Boat!

After randomly taking the full week off from the gym last week, I was itching to get back to the gym this week. Last night I was out for dinner with a friend from work and our respective others, and Mike and I ate a boatload of sushi..no seriously, a boat load of sushi:

EPIC SUSHI TIME

But after that minor distraction I went to the gym tonight.  First class back was BODY PUMP. It was great. The instructor, who is very pregnant (as in due in two weeks) was making jokes about going into labour during the class. If she is there next week I will be impressed/think she is crazy!

As much I loved the class, there was something nice last week about not going to the gym. For example, last night I came home from work, got ready to go out, and had a nice dinner, and was home around 8:30. Today I went to the gym, came home ate, and vegged because I was tired from the gym and it suddenly was 8:30. My initial reaction is that it would be so nice to just not care. 

But I can't. After my good scale result last week, even though I took a week off, I am more motivated than ever. I was tempted to do two classes today, just because I had the time, but I think that would have been a bad way to come back after a week off. I also have decided that starting March 1st I am going back to my rule to not eat junk at work (with a one day a week grace period). So for example today there was tons of baked goods at the office and I had some, so for the rest of the week I am not eating any! So that is my plan for March: Gym 4/5 times a week, no treats at work, and HOT YOGA (starting on Saturday!). That should be realistic enough to stick to!

And who needs treats when you can have CRAB DIP for Suppa!

I know what you are thinking, crab dip is super rich, and high and fat, but you would be wrong! Tonight I created this concoction of what I had in the fridge, and it was a success!

Pita w/LF Crab Dip

I had some leftover fake crab to use up (from making sushi). Fake crab has no fat, some protein, but contains 50 million ingredients. Something I only like to use once in a while. If I had the skrillz I would make this with real crab!

Ingredients:

3 sticks of Fake Crab

Three handfuls of Spinach, chopped

Few forkfuls of Low Fat Cottage Cheese

Few Squishes of Low Fat Mayo

Palm size of Green Onions, chopped

Dash of Pepper

Pita

Mixture waiting to be nomed

Directions:

Cook spinach to wilt, let cool. Mix with rest of the ingredients. Chuck mixture on top of pita. Chuck Pita in the microwave for 30 seconds. Nom. 

Writing detailed step by step recipes is so not how I roll.

Seriously though, that is how I cook. I actually tasted the cottage cheese/mayo combo before adding it to the spinach/crab mixture. I didn't want to ruin the whole thing if it tasted bad. And it didn't taste bad at all. I think people get freaked out by cooking...for example, check out this recipe for crab dip:

From Here

This recipe looks delicious, but for a simple meal on a weeknight, seems a little bit much. I for one don't have water chestnuts lying around...or cream cheese for that matter. But that is a whole other issue. 

Also note what I am multi-tasking with in chrome, I have pinterest, facebook, two blog copies open, I am a social media fiend hehe. 

Don't get me wrong, I love making crazy extensive meals, and then I follow a recipe. But when I cooking to eat, post gym and work, I just throw whatever I can into some sort of meal form. And most of the time it turns out ok!

Anyone else making March healthy living resolutions?? Does anyone actually know what is in fake crab???

Waffles and Seaweed...but not at the same time!!

Sometimes you just have to eat pizza, and Waffles, and Chinese food, and...ok you get my point.

Why is it that when everything is going well with the healthy eating bidness, a week like this one happens. WHYYY!

I didn't make it to the gym at all due to various reasons and it is driving me nutso, and can't wait to go this week! And I ate all the stuff listed above..it was delicious.

Case in point:

Waffles for Lunch!

Mike and I made waffles last weekend, and we found the leftovers in the fridge, so waffles at work was born. Included was some fruit and peanut butter and honey. Nom. Problem was it was super not filling for some reason, so I was starving for the rest of the day. My normal lunch of salad or soup may not look like much, but it actually is really filling!

This Friday I had pizza, and it was delicious. 

And Saturday I headed up to the Pacific Mall in Markham with my friend Jackie and her BF, and we spent the afternoon shopping, well mostly window shopping. Pacific Mall and the Market Village next to it "offer visitors a grand Asian shopping experience."  We had lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant, and good thing Jackie can speak Mandarin, I would have had no idea what we were eating :). We also had some dessert tofu..it was kind of like pudding, but tofu, with a syrup, and it was super filling. 

It was a successful shopping trip. I picked up a french press coffee maker, some pocki and seaweed snacks, and a pretty dress! 

Random yet awesome

Pocki is a skinny cookiesque stick, with chocolate, if you haven't tried them before they are delicious. I finally bought a french press because I realized that I am not a good hostess if people who come over who drink coffee/I like a coffee here or there myself. Later in the day I bought timmies coffee, and I made myself I nice big cup of coffee today. It was delicious! The dress was 60% off..nuff said.

The seaweed is my new weird snack. I tried some snack seaweed with salt/pepper a few weeks ago, and bought some from the market last week. I like it as a snack because it is salty, and has nothing bad in it! No bad fats, very low calories, and pretty low sodium considering how salty it is. So after spending $1.50 for 12 little pieces at the fancy market...I found this pack at the mall. It was 400 pieces for 5 dollars. Way better deal! (10x a better deal, actually...I did the math. I am a nerd.)

And after all that fun, I came back to the apartment and immediately left again to go do groceries. This week Mike and I only spent 35$ on groceries..I think we are going to starve this week. Just kidding, we had a lot of stuff in the freezer to eat so we didn't have to get as much. To get back on track I am trying to eat really healthy this week, and go back to my normal gym schedule! No more waffles for lunches!

Anyone else buy things mostly because they are on sale?? Any one else crushing on seaweed?? 

Friends, Family and A Mountain of Laundry

The long weekend is over. Boo. But today flew by, and the weekend was fantastic!

On Friday after the blog post, I promptly went to bed. Good times.

On Saturday I got up and went to the St. Lawrence Market with my friend Brittany, and we spent the afternoon sampling food, and buying some veggies and elk jerky. That reminds me I still have some left (runs away to get a piece), it is pretty delicious! Then we transited back to my apartment, and then realized we wanted to go see a movie..over by the market. So we went back to the market, and watched The Artist. If you haven't seen The Artist I highly recommend checking it out. Very different than most movies, but good. Then we went and got some food, came home and made some salads, and Katie and Travis joined us for games night.


On Sunday Mike and I went to the Canadian International Automotive Show. Does anyone else think Canadian International sounds strange..anyway it was 5 hours of crazy crowds and lots of things on wheels.

This was one big room out of 5. This place is GIANT

It was actually pretty cool. My favorite part was the concept cars, and the eco drive test. The eco section was the emptiest and this made me sad face.

Where are all the peeps???

Then we came home and made sushi!

Prepping the table...love when we bust out the big table in our tiny condo

 We made brown rice before the car show, so when we got home all we had to do was a little chopping and some rolling

Carrots, fake crab, cucumber, avocado 

Final product! Sushi rolls and Edamame!

I just found edamame in the grocery store freezer. I may eat it all the time. I love the stuff.

I look like a child in this photo due to the giantness of the table. 

Sushi is actually not too bad to make. I have made it before, but googled to remind me what to do. It may not be perfect, but it tastes good, and it is 10 x cheaper than going out to eat!

Then we had to clean up everything, that wasn't as much fun!

Messy Kitchen

After sushi we went over to Katie and Travis's for another games night, where girls were victorious! Very good night :). 

On Monday (YAY LONG WEEKEND) we went to my Uncle's house where his wife was having a party for her sister. Her sister's baby was 100 days old which is a big celebration in Korean culture. We visited with my cousins, and we ate delicious Korean food, and more sushi. Sushi twice in a weekend is just awesome. 

After spending time with the family, we came home to deal with this....

MOUNTAIN OF LAUNDRY

Luckily it was all clean, so we folded and ironed, and put away clothes the rest of the evening. 

Moseby helped

I also started the process to make some Lentil Curry Eggplant Burgers for tonight's dinner. They turned out really good! They definitely weren't dry like some veggie burgers. We added a side of wilted kale with garlic. Healthy noms. Not as good as sushi though.

Anyone else have a great weekend (long or otherwise)? Anyone else think that laundry expands the longer it sits unfolded???

The 650 Day Totally Typical Weight Loss Challenge

IT’S FRIDAY!!! OF A LONG WEEKEND!

Fun fact..Ontario has Monday off and calls it Family day. I’ll take it.

After a crazy busy week at work this past week, I am definitely in need of a long weekend. I also just went to a body pump class, then a body jam class, so now I am being a vegetable on my couch. I think that is a good excuse to not have any photo's in the post.

I started my day by checking out the scale. As much I have blogged about healthy living and my goals, I didn’t really go into details about my progress so far.  Right after Christmas with a strict no sugar diet I dropped 5ish pounds. BAM. The for the next little bit I kept hovering around the same number. I was weighing myself way too often, and I was hoping for a big change like that.And after a few weeks of no change, or going up a pound or two, I was getting frustrated.

This is a recurring trend in my life. And it is weird to me. For YEARS I didn’t even look at a scale. I had no idea what number I was at, and I didn’t care (that much). And I always estimated my weight 5-10lbs lower than what it probably actually was. Oops. But one thing was for sure, I didn’t know/care if on Tuesday I was 2 pounds heavier than I was on Monday.

So I decided for the past little while to not look at the scale. I know I am doing well with exercise and diet (yay!) so I shouldn’t have to look at the scale EVERYDAY. And it is just crazy to expect to see any major result when looking at the scale EVERYDAY!

I just kept going to the gym, and eating well, and then suddenly (within the past two weeks) I have noticed a significant difference in the way clothes fit. SUDDENLY I am no longer a size 6/8 like I was when I moved to Toronto, but now I can fit into a 4 again, like I was when I started university.  And after checking the scale this morning for the first time in a while, I am down 9 pounds from Christmas. Even crazier is that I have lost 18 pounds since moving to Toronto. I have 7 pounds left to get to my goal weight. 7. That is a very tiny little number. 7 is way closer than 25 pounds away.

I am saying suddenly because it does feel like it did happen overnight, but in reality this has been an ongoing process for almost 2 years. Almost 2 years ago I was walking to school, and I realized that I was out of breath from a 2km walk. This scared the beejezus out of me. After that I joined booty camp fitness, got a gym membership, and tried to stay in shape. Then after school finished, a year and a half ago, I started the first “100 day challenge” then I went on vacation and gained it all back, and THEN I moved to Toronto, did my 2^nd 100 day challenge, and plateaued, and now FINALLY, when I have gotten to a point where going to the gym is normal (and needed), eating healthy is routine, and I AM FINALLY SEEING SIGNIFICANT RESULTS. So much for a 100 day challenge, I needed the 650 day challenge :P.

The kind of funny thing is that my goal date for my “goal weight” is the end of April, which is exactly around the 2 year mark of that day when I walked two km and got winded. Hopefully…no scratch that.. not hopefully…I WILL be on a beach in the South of France, healthy, fit and actual comfortable in a bathing suit, AND I WILL BE MY GOAL WEIGHT.  And I will totally be able to walk more than 2 km without being winded.

I think that people need to realize that to lose weight/get healthy in a sustainable way it isn’t going to be a month long quick fix, it isn’t going to be a week detox, and it isn’t going to be super easy. But the rewards of sticking with something, and trying again when you fail (hello NYC trip) is what makes it worth it.

P.S. And the crazyness in all this is that I’m just now in the “Normal” BMI range for my height. Stupid BMI. 

HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEKEND!!!

Anyone else FINALLY noticing results?? Anyone else kicking off the long weekend with pjs and Storage Wars??

Happy Day After Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day (one day late)!!

Fun fact, started writing this blog an hour and a half ago, and now it is almost time to get ready for bed...ooops. I guess having actual phone conversations with real people is more important than blogging.

So I get to keep it short and sweet.
Valentines Day is not really a big deal to me. I don't want/expect a 5 star restaurant/ bling/ fancy gifts etc. I think anniversaries /birthdays are WAY more important and special...and Halloween is already my fav minor holiday. But it still like the idea of valentines day, in all its pink hearty glory.

So this is what happened for my Valentines...well actually Valentines Day happened in four phases in our house...


VDAY #1- A week and a half ago:
So in preparation for the Morocco trip that never was (lesson learned, don't tell anyone/fb/blog about it until plane tickets are in hand) I thought I might have been away for VDay, so I gave Mike his gift ahead of time... I also thought he would find it and ruin the present.

So thanks to pinterest I found this cute idear:

FISHIES

The deal was this year to keep things under 5 dollars. So I bought mike his favorite snack food, and added a cheezey quote. Dawww

VDAY #2

Mike and I have Chinese food for Vday. Its our own little tradition. This past weekend we ended up going to Manderin buffet and ended up eating a lot of food. Since 2 times Chinese food in one week is excessive, we made Manderin our Vday dinner with friends. Yay!

VDAY #3

I arrived home on Monday to Mike in a suit and one of my favorite snacks:

Noms!!!

Mike also cheated and spent more money..and bought me this:

Awwww

And that brings us to yesterday...actual Valentines.

I had a sexy date with a French Wind Code and a 12 hour work day, while Mike was studying for a midterm. Super fun.

Anyone else like keeping thing simple? Anyone else have a sexy date with an Engineering Code?