Junk Food Overload

Today was my last day with the 2 boys that I watch as a live-out nanny and so they came over to my apartment to watch movies, eat junk food and go swimming.

The boys wanted pizza so we had pizza (and yes I know I could have had a salad or some other healthy lunch) and the boys wanted ice cream and so we had ice cream (see above re: salad) 

I didn't get any exercise in today either but I still didn't eat meat and we had a lot of fun and since I wont be watch them again next year it was totally worth it.

Tomorrow morning I'll get up and walk/run on the treadmill for an hour at least and I know we'll bike around the city too as its Canada Day and there is a lot going around the city.  I will have to schedule a nap though so that I'll be able to stay up and watch the fireworks show:)

Much Love & Healthy Living!!

GREEN MONSTER

I dont have a picture as it was early in the morning and I was still a bit cranky but I made my first "Green Monster" smoothie this morning 


Verdict: DELICIOUS!!

What I used:

1.5 cups of Blue Diamond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
1 cup of strawberries
1 banana
1/2 overripe mango that needed to be used up
2 cups of organic baby spinach

Even hubby said it was drinkable so I guess he'll try and have a cup once or twice a week too. 

Tomorrow I'll make one with some overripe nectarines and a banana with the baby spinach and see how that goes..I really need to pick up some more fruit. 

I'll make sure to have my camera in the kitchen so I can take a picture tomorrow!!!

Two Thumbs Up

The Yves veggie ground round was good.  I crumbled it up and added some taco seasoning and a 1/2 can of kidney beans.  It made a TON of taco "meat" mix.  I had some with my taco salad, YUM!, saved some out for tomorrow and froze two packages for later. 

Since I was so disappointed in the President's Choice green curry sauce in a jar I checked the jar of Pad Thai sauce and it too has some sort of meat ingredient in it too:(   Good thing I checked as I wanted to make Pad Thai this week. 

Vegan Chocolate Cake for dessert from Planet Organic and I'm a happy gal tonight

End of Week Update

I have my stats on My Fitness Pal set to 45 minutes of exercise a day for 6 days a week.

My end of week stats are as follows:

385 minutes out of a possible 270
or

2873 calories burnt out of a possible 2390

so I exceeded my goal quite nicely I think:) Its still early here in Edmonton though and I'll probably get a bike ride in later this afternoon that will also add in extra minutes.

Supper tonight is a huge vegetarian taco salad with Yves veggie ground round, kidney beans,and all the veggie accompaniments. I've never used the vegggie ground round before but I've heard good things about it.

I still need to make a better effort to get more vegetables in me.

I was also sad that I could not try the Presidents Choice Thai Green Curry sauce as it has fish sauce in it:(  

 

Polar F6 HRM

I bought this two weeks ago at a Fitness Depot here in Edmonton.  It was on sale, 30%, so I grabbed one. 

I was worried at first that the chest strap would be too small for me but hubby said it would fit and that I'm not as large as I think I am..LOL He was right and it fit fine.

I really love it and its very user friendly...Its a bitch though to upload information to the Polar site as its done via a microphone but it could be that the microphone is cheap too so we'll go and get another one and see.  Its not totally important for me to log my exercise stats on their site as it is getting an accurate calories burnt count entered into My Fitness Pal. That is the weight loss/food tracking site I use and like.


For a basic HRM I highly recommend it and if you shop around you can get a great deal on it.  I almost bought and F11 model but it was about 60$ and maybe had a few extra things the F6 didnt so I didn't worry about. If I do get more hardcore about exercising, running, cycling etc..I'll invest in a Garmin or a higher model Polar.




Mine is the black one as pictured in a previous post

Non Scale Victory!

I haven't had this great of a non-scale victory in a long time so I think I was due finally.

I biked over this morning to my favorite bike store to get my kick stand put back on and to pay for a bike I have on layaway so its a nice approximately 2 mile bike ride from my house, across the river and to the store. 

There has always been this hill coming off the bridge on the other side that I've never been able to completely bike up.  I've always had to dismount halfway up and walk the rest of the way

Today though I was able to bike COMPLETELY up the hill w/out stopping at all!! I was so freaking happy that I wish I had my hubby with me to take a picture of my victory!

Alfredo Sauce

I got this from the Betty Crocker Book Win at Weight Loss...It originally calls for chicken and a few other things so this is my modification

2 teaspoons butter or margarine (vegan becel now)
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 clove garlic, finely chopped ( I usually use two or three cloves)
2 cups of fat free half and half (sure you could probably use soy milk)
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup sour cream(reduced fat or even the tofutti sour cream)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used the imported good parmesan)
1/2 tsp salt( I usually leave it out because I'm watching my sodium intake)
1/8 teaspoon white pepper ( I just use black pepper)

I also usually add some chopped white mushrooms but it isn't in the recipe

In 2-quart saucepan melt butter over medium heat
Add Shallot and Garlic; cook and stir one minute  ( I also saute the mushrooms at the same time)
In a mixing bowl whisk half and half together with the flour; add to saucepan
Heat to boiling stirring frequently
Beat in Sour Cream with whisk.
Reduce heat to low; cook 1 or 2 minutes or until heated
Remove from heat and add Parmesan cheese salt and pepper

I usually serve this with fresh tortellini like Oliveri or something like that but the original recipe called for linguine  

Its quite filling though so this will probably also be regulated to an occasional treat or when I've burnt a lot of calories that day and need something more filling  

Enjoy:)

My Bad

Tomorrow I promise I'll post up about my Polar F6 Heart Rate Monitor.  Today was my rest day but I still had my very light cardio aka walking to pick up a boy I care for from school and then walking him home:) 

Also I had sushi for supper this evening so again not ready yet to give up fish though it may end up being a very rare indulgence if I do keep in my life. 


Also just because I am still amazed: Yesterday from biking AND walking I burnt 1012 calories!! Yea Me:)


Here is a picture of my nifty new HRM

Day 10

Tonight I completed my 10th day of no meat...In those 10 days I've not eating any Cows, Pigs, or Chicken or any other woodland creatures...I did eat some salmon once last week and I have a can of tuna the cupboard but honestly I think I'm oh so over fish/seafood too.  I'm not making official yet though. 

I haven't eaten a lot of veggies but I tried to supplement with Vega drinks that have greens and making sure I'm getting a few green things in me too. I had some lovely asparagus s part of my supper last night


Tomorrow morning I'll partially freeze some unsweetened almond milk and blend it with the Vanilla Chai Health Optimizer powder..I may also add a 1/4 of a banana.

I'm also learning that I need more for breakfast than 2 servings of cold cereal as I ended up having an early lunch because I was so hungry.  Ack!

I didn't bike to work this morning so I went to the fitness room in our building with the intention of walking/running on the treadmill for 45 minutes but it was so flipping hot that after 30 minutes I was hot, sweaty and exhausted.  Hopefully the local news is misinformed as tomorrow will be a nice day to bike to work:) I burn so many more calories with biking!!

Tomorrow I'll post about my awesome Heart Rate Monitor that I recently purchased to replace the Nike + I had been using:)

New Changes

I've had digestive issues for many years and while I always correlated to eating meat I usually only made half hearted attempts to fix the issue as I really really liked meat, lazy, scared of change etc.

This past week though, officially on June 13th I finally took the plunge and gave up meat, no more beef, chicken or pork.  I'm still eating eggs occasionally and cheese/dairy and sometimes fish but eventually I'll at least also give up fish too. 

So far I feel great with lots of energy!! I've never been huge or consistent on eating vegggies and salads but I'm supplementing that with greens drinks/smoothies now. 

I haven't weighed myself really and I plan not too until July 13 which will be a full month. My focus though has shifted a bit from weight to health but luckily they go hand and hand. 

I'm working out everyday, either walking/running on the treadmill or biking. Eventually when I figure it out I'll start strength training too. 

I'm reading these books or have read them or have them on my wishlist to read:)



All pertain one way or another to the new changes in my life.  I will be posting reviews up too as soon as my summer break starts at the end of the month:)

Much Love & Healthy Happy Living!

Brief Update

New blog name and new blog address so please update if you are still interested in following me:)  I'll post a more lengthy update tomorrow but needless to say I've had some recent changes in my health and well being and my blog will be reflecting that:)  I still have the goal of weight loss but now I'm looking at it in a different way.

One thing that has happened in my life is that I have recently given up meat.  Though I really don't care for labeling myself I'd say at the moment I'm a Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian:)   I tried this in the past but it was a major fail but I have a good support system set up this time too:)  I may or may not go totally vegetarian in the future but I'm not in a rush.

Much Love