Crazy Day

I had every intention of blogging last night to update you all on how my Ease Into Summer Challenge is going, but my day took a crazy turn. Hearing about the Eaton Centre shootings was unsettling enough, and then my mom and I were in a small car accident. Fortunately, we're both totally fine.

When trying to merge onto the highway, my Mom had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of us (which had suddenly slowed down), and we were hit by the car behind us. After exchanging info with the other driver (in the pouring rain), we were able to drive home. Unfortunately, my Mom's brand new car (the first new car she's ever owned) is quite damaged... Anyway, these things happen, and it could have been a lot worse!

I think I've been doing well with the challenge so far. On Friday, I was volunteering at a high school math-a-thon to help the Grade 9 Applied Math students prepare for the EQAO standardized test happening on Monday. It was a lot of fun, and involved a pizza lunch. However, right as we were diving into our pizza, the fire alarm went off and we were all outside in the pouring rain for quite awhile. Since everyone was soaked, they actually ended up dismissing all the kids early! So Friday was rather crazy, as well.

On Saturday, I started my day with some delicious oatmeal, a la Kath Eats Real Food.

I cooked it with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, a banana, some cinnamon, and vanilla extract. I sprinkled some ground flaxseed on top. This is rapidly becoming my new favourite breakfast!

I can't remember what I had for lunch--I think I had a few snacks instead. I went to the gym, even though I was STILL sore from the workout I'd done on Wednesday. After the gym, I made myself a green smoothie. We were out of spinach, so I used arugula.

Note to self: In future, do NOT use arugula in a green smoothie. It will taste like arugula.

 For dinner, I made some black bean burgers. So simple and delicious!

Everyone was a fan! I put mine on yeast-free spelt bread with avocado, tomato, and arugula (I later remembered that Joshi doesn't allow tomato. Oops!).

Delicious!

Unfortunately, I went a tiny bit off-track when I got home after the car accident. I was really hungry (and shaken up), and in the mood for eggs. Eggs are allowed on the detox, but I had them with whole-wheat bread, as I had eaten the last of my yeast-free bread... A minor transgression, in my opinion.

This morning, I got myself to the grocery store.

 Lots of goodies, including bananas, black beans, and brown rice sushi for lunch!

I wanted to mention, also, that I was so thrilled by the comments on my last couple of posts. Thank you, everyone! I'm so happy to be back to blogging. :)

Set up for Success

Hello, all! I'm a happy gal because I finally have groceries. I managed to coast along without any food for a couple of days--surviving off of a lone box of Cheerios I picked up at a nearby convenience store, the kindness of my new roommates, and the orientation barbecue I attended yesterday--but last night around 6 pm, I set out to find food.

I wandered around my new neighbourhood, starving, when suddenly a small food store appeared. I ventured in, and it turned out to be a vegetarian take-out place that also sells some specialty food items! The store is called Bonobo's Foods. I bought some Silver Hills Sprouted Bakery Squirrelly bread (which I've been meaning to try for awhile) and I got a veggie burger with a salad for dinner.


This was maybe the BEST veggie burger I've ever eaten. The salad was also delish! I really lucked out finding this place. :)

This morning, the lovely Tiffany took me to get the rest of my groceries. I was a bit shellshocked by the amount of money I spent today, but I was really starting from scratch. Not only was I buying food, I had to buy laundry detergent, toiletries, some food containers, and other things that I couldn't bring with me on the bus. I won't need anything else for awhile!

I am really excited about doing some cooking, making healthy lunches to bring to school, and all that jazz. It's honestly been AGES since I cooked anything.

And what's this I see?!


Why it appears to be my Ultimate 3 Month Tracker! That's right, today I began tracking again! I have decided to stop going to Weight Watchers meetings while I'm up here to save some money, but I do have the tools to follow the program on my own for awhile.

There's just one thing missing... I have no scale up here! I think this will be a good thing, however. If I feel good and my clothes feel looser, I'll know I'm succeeding. And maybe I'll see a great number when I'm back in Toronto again!

My goals this week are to track everything, bring my lunch to school 3 days out of the 4 days I have classes, and workout once. I feel this is totally doable. My tuition fees include a gym membership, so I plan to take advantage of that.

Yesterday, I met a bunch of people from my program at orientation. Everyone was very friendly, and a few people mentioned they want to utilize the gym. Hopefully I will get some gym buddies asap!

I just love back-to-school season. Don't you?

Detox Prep

I had a bit of a headache this afternoon. I think my body was anticipating tomorrow's lack of coffee.

I did some grocery shopping on my way home from work to prepare for the detox. I started off at my fave bulk store, Better Bulk (at Danforth & Woodbine). I picked up some wild and brown rice, Mary's Organic Crackers, chicken broth, slivered almonds (stay tuned for their appearance in tomorrow's lentil pilaf!) and cardamom.

Not pictured: the chocolate-covered coffee
beans I am snacking on while I write this post.

Then I went to the normal grocery store to get a few more things.


Look how happy my fruit bowl is!


I'm actually really excited to get this show on the road! But I can't help but wonder how excited I'll be when my morning coffee is replaced by my morning warm-water-with-lemon.

Tomorrow: Day one of the detox, including an attempt to measure the acidity of my saliva (using pH test trips). I can hardly wait, can you?

Long Walk & Weigh-In

On Thursday, I had big plans for a bike ride.

I rarely go for bike rides, so I was pretty excited about it.

I packed up some healthy bike snacks and I was ready to go!

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. My back tire was flat and I have a feeling it has a puncture. I moped a little about the turn of events, but then decided to walk through Taylor Creek Park instead.

Luckily, the beautiful weather cheered me up after my bike let-down.

I stopped for a picnic and to read a bit. I picked up a sub on the way for a treat!

I had a delicious peach for dessert.

On my way home, I stopped at one of my favourite bulk food stores, Better Bulk, as well as the East Lynn Farmers Market. I picked up lots of goodies, including almonds, dates, kale, raspberries, bagels, and edamame!

All my walking must have paid off, because I was FINALLY down for my weigh-in on Saturday morning. I was down 2 pounds exactly, to 200.2 pounds. Here's hoping it's the last time I'm in the 200's EVER. :)

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Grocery Haul

Happy Friday!

In an effort to offset the damage of 1.5 weeks of gluttony before my weigh-in tomorrow morning, I bought some healthy groceries yesterday (it's been awhile!).

I included some "treats" to help motivate me.

Yum, watermelon!

I don't have high hopes for my weigh-in tomorrow morning. I have a strong feeling I will be at least as much as (if not higher than) what I weighed when I started going to meetings in November. Yes, folks, it's that bad. I've regained about 20 pounds!

But it's never too late to get back in the swing of things! Do I spot a pink Green Smoothie in my lunch from today?

Alongside chicken & avocado on a pita and some raw cauliflower. :)

I will report my weigh-in tomorrow morning, no matter how ugly. It's time to start being accountable for my unhealthy ways!

In other news, my dad is home from the hospital! I really have NO EXCUSES to be eating junk.

Have a lovely weekend!

I love the smell of chlorine in the morning.

Don't hate me. I currently have Mondays off. It's pretty great.

As of this morning, I had not worked out since last Tuesday. That's 6 days off, people!! Almost a week!! My Thursday Booty Camp class was cancelled because our instructor was sick. Instead of doing another workout in its place, I... didn't. And I didn't exercise all weekend (unless you can call eating multiple heaping bowls of cereal exercise).

Yeah, did I mention that I went way over my points this weekend, too? I really struggled yesterday. But, I'm very relieved to find out that my lack of desire to eat well OR work out was short-lived, and today I was feeling like myself again.

I decided to work up the nerve to go swimming at a nearby community centre. I've felt an urge to go swimming for WEEKS, but never managed to drag my butt to the pool. But today was different! I found the pool without any trouble, and made my way to the slow lane. I stayed there for a little while, but then brazenly moved over to the medium lane! I did about 20 (slow, lazy) lengths after a brief warm-up. I didn't try to get an intense workout, I just treated it as a nice, relaxing, enjoyable swim.

After my swim, I went to the grocery store right by the pool (it's fancier than the one I usually go to). I found some steel cut oats, which they didn't have at my grocery store yesterday, and a few other things. I also saw a product that was a mixture of peanut butter and white chocolate, from Peanut Butter & Co!! I really really wanted to buy it, but I gave up junk food for Lent and decided that qualified. But come Easter, watch out!!

I ALSO saw a coupon for this Liberte Greek Yogurt that everyone is blogging about lately--but could not find the actual yogurt!! In my zeal to find it, I managed to knock over a stack of yogurt and split open a container, spilling yogurt everywhere. Oops. Luckily, the man who had to clean it up didn't seem too angry, and told me the greek yogurt would be in on Wednesday.

I came home and made a delicious lunch! I bought some salmon yesterday that I wanted to try:

While it was cooking, I ate a huge salad. It had cucumbers, grape tomatoes, avocado, mixed greens, spinach, and feta cheese. I'm not usually a salad person, so when I do have one, I need a lot of "extras." In retrospect, I think this one had too much going on, though!

Then, the salmon was ready! I had it with broccoli and cheese sauce. Delicious!

Pilates tonight! My workout break is definitely over!