Stepping Out…Rinse, Repeat…

This has been a really good week so far!  I have been an extremely good girl this week.  Well, ok, one day I was so good, I was bad.  Thursday was just one of those days where you get so preoccupied with doing stuff, that you forget to eat.  And by you, I mean me.  You know, that special kind of stupid when you actually forget about food…for most of the day!  I was way under in my WW points and my calorie count.  Oops.  I tried to make it up at the end of the day but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat that much in one sitting.

As many people know, there are a couple of storm systems who are up to no good and have started making trouble in our neighbourhood…uh…what…where was I?  Right, digressing into song lyrics just after I was talking about…uh…umm…

Oh yeah!  Weather!  Snow storms are wreaking havoc on the east side of N.A.  Where I am living, we did ok.  We got dumped on with a LOT of snow, but not really storm-like conditions.  No real windy madness or precipitation stinging my face as it hits me.

Gotta love it! (Apparently don’t gotta use proper spelling or grammar…)

I actually went outside in it.  TWICE.  Yeah, I am all kinds of tough, yo!

I couldn’t stay in and not at least attempt to get to my 10,000 steps today!  I split my jaunt up into two sessions/sections/portions/outings/trips/parts (yeah, that’s right, I read thesauri from time to time.  And know not only know that thesauri is a word, but how to spell it too.  No applause, just throw money.  Thanks.).  Of course, it was actually, shall we say, unintentional.  The going out twice part, not the reading of thesauri part…just so we are clear.

I went walking in the park.  The snow was about upper-mid-shin.  It was great!  The park was peaceful and quiet with barely a whisper of a breeze (<–flowery literary tendency alert) and fresh snow everywhere.  It was great walking through it even if my jeans got soaked.  It was such a good workout to walk through that snow!  The resistance was great!  And I worked really hard to keep a brisk pace going; no easy feat when working against snow and slightly slippery footing!  I actually got my heart rate up quite a bit, very quickly.  What an amazing feeling!  I made it a little over 5,000 steps before deciding to pack it in and head home.  Besides, the muscles in my thighs and even hamstrings told me I could be darn sure that I burned just as many calories as if I had walked double that in non-winter conditions.

Before

I came home, was bored and unsatisfied with the number of steps on my pedometer.  I decided it was time to head back out and put some more steps on it!  Oh, and to mail the thing I was supposed to mail on my first walk in the morning but just carried it around with me on the walk and then carried it home.  Because I am the sharpest knife in the drawer…or not…

I recreated my route with the sole exception of actually running the errand I was supposed to do the first time.  I just enjoyed every second of being out there!  I avoided paths where people had worn the snow down a bit because I found that made for slightly more tricky footing than just plodding through untouched, and now knee-deep, snow.  Walking through the deeper snow was not only easier on my feet, it gave more resistance, making my muscles work even harder.  And it allowed me to appease my inner five year old self!  But I was so focused on getting a good workout, I totally forgot to make a snow angel!  I will have to get outside to do that tomorrow before too many people are in the park to see me make a complete fool of myself walking through the snow.

After!

While we got tons of snow, we really didn’t get a mad storm.  Just the same, I was prepared.  See?  I remembered something from Girl Guides!  (I know no one actually asked if I did, but thought I would throw it out there preemptively…)  I had a survival kit ready, you know, just in case.  I know storms only last for about a day and it wasn’t an apocalypse, but never hurts to have my two item survival kit on standby.  I used it today.

If anyone else is affected by the storm, I hope it does not hit too badly and that you have your own kit ready, like I did.

I swear by this survival kit! Be safe, people! Be prepared!

 

Oh yeah….I did manage to get my daily 10,000!  Yay me!!

It’s Recipe Time, Guys!

Unbelievable!  I went out on my daily quest for 10,000 dollars steps and it was -8C!!  Practically a heatwave out there!  And sunny too!  What a perfect day for a walk, I tell ya!  It has been soooo many years since I was actually thought that -8C was “somewhat mild”!  I lived for so long in a land where 0C was practically armageddon.  It was an awesome feeling, breathing in cool, refreshing air and feeling the sun on my face…inspired me to walk even further than I had planned.

Waterfall in the park I walk through. The front is frozen and the water is falling behind the ice.  So pretty.

After exploring lots of paths, I made myself come back to reality, face responsibility and head to the supermarket.  Or the suupaa.  Or the grocery store.  Or the depanneur.  Whatever floats your boat. And I stocked up on lots of fresh goodness to make my food!  This is it!  Organization is kicking in somewhat!  Going to make meals for the week.

I came back home, ready and rarin’ to hit the floor, get my crunches, squats and pathetic push-ups out of the way.  Then I remembered I was going to use the slow cooker and had to get my butt in gear with cooking or I would be stuck eating my creation at 3am (<–perhaps a slight exaggeration)

Here is what I have achieved so far:

I have made a super-duper impressive version of something Mom used to make when we were kids (my brothers and I; not my mom and I…we weren’t actually kids together).  She used to bake chicken pieces in the oven after having marinated them in Catalina salad dressing and bbq sauce.  Yeah, you read that right.  And it was awesome!  I decided to get all adventurous and recreate it as a slow cooker dish (remember…multi-tasking, kids!  Slow cooker takes care of one thing while you do other stuff).  It is all very experimental at the moment and I really don’t have measurements to give you.  I just sort of throw in what I think will be enough.  If there is not enough of something, I add more of it.  If there is too much of something, I add more of something else to distract people from the first something.  Pure genius!

The ingredients are:

• Catalina dressing
• Bbq sauce (more Catalina than bbq.  Don’t ask me the ratio because I will just tell you that for this recipe, the ratio of Catalina to bbq is, “more”)
• 3 or so cloves of garlic, minced  (I am a garlic fiend.  I actually used 4 cloves…find your comfort level.  Mine, apparently is to be immune to vampires.)
• Grated ginger.  As much as you feel like putting in.
• Fresh cilantro, chopped.  Again, whatever you want.  I guesstimate I put in about 1/4 cup.
• Some onion.  How much?  I dunno.  I cut up some and you know…taadaa.
• Saute the onion and garlic with a bit of extra virgin olive oil in a pan first.  Just to soften them up and bring out the flavours.  Throw all that stuff in the slow cooker.  Then add the chicken and kind of cover it with the sauce so it gets fully marinated as it cooks.  Oh yeah!  Squeeze the juice from half a lime…or a whole one.  (Hell, three if you want…sky’s the limit!)  Add that to the sauce too.  You can do that before adding the chicken, so that you get everything mixed properly or you can do it like I did:  About an hour after into the cooking, think to yourself, “Hey!  I have limes in the fridge!  I bet some lime juice would be yummy in that…why didn’t I think of that at the beginning?”, then add it, awkwardly trying to stir it around the chicken breasts so the lime flavour is distributed evenly in the sauce.  Maybe.

Turboed up version of my mom’s old recipe.

I have no idea yet if this is going to taste any good or if I completely buggered things up.  I will let you know, if I survive it.  And if it does turn out to be good, I will make it again and actually measure stuff so I can call it a recipe.  I might even give it a name too…I can get fancy that way sometimes.

The other thing that I made so far was from an actual, real recipe.  Yeah, I have been known to do those.  Until I get used to them, then I don’t bother with all the pesky measuring nonsense anymore.  Measuring cups and spoons?  Pfft…those are for wimps.  (Ok, really, I don’t have a dishwasher and will cut corners where I can.)

My friend sent me the link to a blog that perhaps some on here might have heard of…I was probably the last on Earth to know about it:  Skinny Taste.  It is sooo well done!  It just might have more recipes than there are human beings on the planet.  Every recipe has the nutritional value breakdown, as well as the WW points from both the former system and the new one!  I love it.  It was an amazing find.  (Am I allowed to share my love of something that is not on WordPress??  I hope so, because I believe in sharing the love!)  What was really exciting was that the recipe called for mango and I had one.  That never happens, ever.  Those suckers are expensive but it just happened that last week, there was a sale on mango, so I actually had one just sitting around in my home!

I am so proud of making it, that I am posting my own pic of how it turned out.

Taadaaa!!

Well, I have more to make but now that I have gotten that far, it is time to tone my tush, flatten those abs (someday, someday!), and try to regain some semblance of strength in my arms (I miss teaching little kids, I had pretty good endurance and strength from running around chasing them and having to pick them up all the time, no gym required).  Working hard to hopefully see a couple of more pounds gone when I jump on the scales in a few days!

I would love to get fitted with new abs. Galvanized ones.

Happiness Is…Good Food and Progress!

Yesterday was a good food and nutrition day.  I had some really awesome food!  I made a delicious veggie, quinoa and egg scramble, inspired by another blogger, Mel, when she did a seven day cleanse.  She posted the food she ate that week and it all looked really yummy!  Thanks for the inspiration, Mel!!!  It was actually my first time ever, to eat quinoa.  I love and eat other healthy things, like couscous.  But quinoa…I have never eaten it.  It freaked me out.  I couldn’t look at it…it reminded me of, well, fish eggs.  And I don’t like fish eggs, hence my aversion to quinoa, even though I am fully aware that fish eggs, it is not.  (<–apparently Yoda is guest blogging today…)  But it was pretty good.  Obviously, I got over the appearance aversion.  Although I doubt I will ever eat it plain, on its own; I need to disguise it a little.  Don’t judge me, guys!

Quinoa.  Not fish eggs.  Really.

I have also jacked up my snack supply.  I stocked up on more fruit.  Grapes were on sale, so I jumped on that bandwagon and got me some!  Great to have sitting around to grab pop in when feeling peckish, or snackish, or something.  Bought bananas too.  Love those.  I keep buying lots in hopes that they will get to the point that I will be forced to make banana bread.  From a healthy recipe, of course!  But they don’t stick around here long enough.  Nom, nom, nom…

Having divulged a dirtly little secret earlier about my love of gorgonzola (oh gawwd, with wine….drrrooool), I will divulge yet another dirty little secret.  Incidentally, if a dirty little secret is divulged, does that make it a dirty little public knowledge?  Or a dirty little divulgence?  (Omg, spellcheck didn’t underline that!  “Divulgence” is a real word?  Who knew?)  Annyyyway, my other little secret is this:  I didn’t just buy grapes and bananas for snacks.  I also bought…prunes.  There, I said it.  I was even embarrassed to ask for them when I couldn’t find them…I said I was “sent to get” them, as though they weren’t really for me.  I didn’t want people to think I had any problems for which I needed them or that I was elderly.  (Because, apparently I think that mentioning prunes fast forwards my face several decades, until I stop mentioning them, returning my face to its rightful age…)  But the fact is, I like them.  I think they are yummy and they make me happy.  Not because they are the drug-free way to regularity, but because they are a comfort food from childhood.  My grandparents always had prunes in the house and would give them to my brothers and I as a treat when we were kids.  So I have loved eating them since I was a little girl.  And to this day, I feel good inside when I eat them (I mean psychologically and emotionally, guys!)  I guess if I am going to turn to comfort food, I could do worse than prunes!  Phew…there, did it.  I am out of the prune closet.  I feel so much better now.  Thanks for accepting me as I am.

Pre-prunes and prune-prunes.

And best of all, our Japanese food arrived!  Holy happy dance, guys!  Woohoo!!  So much goodness, so little space in the freezer and cupboard.  We have tofu, konnyaku (yeah, you gotta look that up!), mochi, rice, snacks, tea, curry…and on and on.  And of course, we ordered bentos for each of us…good, home-cooked bentos!  The delivery didn’t get here until suppertime, so perfect timing!

The bounty

The bento. It was sooo yummy! So much goodness and so little guilt! (Like, none!)

 

And that 10,000?  Nailed it!  And I got in a few sets of crunches, some push-ups, worked on toning legs and even did some planking…the exercise kind, not the internet kind.  That would just be weird.  🙂

Now to nail another 10,000 today as well!!  (Did I mention that it was -16 again yesterday?)  Gotta keep that momentum going!!!

It is going to happen!

 

 

Tempura, Panic and Progress

 

Oh dear.  Yesterday I fell off the wagon.  I fell off and landed with a thump right on my arse.  It was my husband’s birthday but I had no intentions of cheating because I did the day before.  We were planning to go to a restaurant for his birthday where I could have happily ordered grilled salmon and veggies.  But he decided he wanted to stay home and cook.  It was his birthday, what he wants, he shall have.  I was happy about not going out.  Until I realized he wanted to stay home and make tempura.  Deep fried food.  Eeek!

 

Sooo good!

It was not sooo bad, compared to eating deep fried food at a restaurant…I guess.  We had tempura eggplant, carrots and onions and string beans, potato, and shrimp.  I did well with not eating as much of it as I thought I would but still…my points went through the roof.  Funny, on the day I planned to cheat, I managed to stay within my points but on a day where I wanted to reign it all back in a little, I went over…waaayyy over.  In my opinion.  I still had lots of those crazy extra points, so, taking those into account, I was technically still within my limits.  I was probably about 25% over my regular daily allowance.  It really made me feel guilty!  Thank goodness he did not want a birthday cake!  (I know…what kind of man did I marry?  After all, who doesn’t want birthday cake???)

Mmmmm…caaaaake.

While I went to bed feeling really horrible about how much I went over my regular daily points, I woke up today with a bit of insight on it.  I think.  Perhaps part of the point of this program is to make you really aware of what and how much food you put in your body.  I didn’t just dismiss yesterday as no big deal.  I took it very seriously and I actually felt more determined to stay on track.  For the first time, I didn’t just shrug it off and give up on the refination (<–look kids, new word!) of my eating habits…I have even more resolve to make it up to myself!  Impressive!  I kind of like this feeling!

 

As a result, I got out of bed this morning, got dressed and didn’t leave my room.  I did jumping jacks (yeah, that’s right, going old school.  Keeping it simple and bringing it back, my peeps!!), crunches and push-ups.  Or a reasonable facsimile thereof…it’s been a while…the push-ups were kind of pathetic.  I also could only do the push-ups on my knees…I am bound and determined to get back to being able to do them on my toes.  Also bound and determined to not refer to them anymore as girlie push-ups and guy push-ups, because gals are just as able as guys when it comes to push-ups and vice versa.  But I digress…

 

Keeping it simple but strong.

THEN I allowed myself to leave my room.

 

Since then, I have already clocked about an hour of hard-core walking today (yeah, that is right, all you runners, I said it – hard-core walking.  For realz.) and to keep that momentum for at least this week.  At the end of the week, I will take a step back and have a look at what I might want to change up for the next week, and so on.

 

So I spent the day sinning on Sunday (gasp!!) and today was my day of truth.  My weekly measurements.  After all that panic, I am the same around the waist (booooo!) but lost another inch on the bust (that never happens for me!  Thank God!) and half an inch around the hips (yay!)  So I am still on track.  Phew!

 

Sometimes, it is necessary to remind ourselves of this.

I know I said the measurements are most important to me, but I decided I would love to be able to brag about just how much weight I do end up losing by the time I am done.  SO, I went out today and bought some scales.  I also bought a pedometer and am going to commit to getting in 10,000 steps per day.  Minimum.

 

Heh heh!

So, stayed tuned with how I do getting those steps in, how my measurements are going and how much weight I am losing.  I do promise that I will take and put up my “beginning of the journey” shot.  I didn’t want to; I would much rather put up a pic after it is all said and done.  But whenever I look for someone else to follow, subscribe to, relate to or be inspired by, it makes such a difference to me to see how much they worked, where they started and where they are.  The least I can do is the same.

 

I think this “being accountable” stuff is working.