Update-a-roonie

Hi to all those out in Blogland!

I really can't believe it's been more than two months since my last post. I have lots of updates for you!

In August, I traveled with my friend Michelle to Nashville and Memphis. Then I took an overnight Amtrak train from Memphis to Chicago, where I stayed by myself for a weekend.

Don't I look like I can sing?

Hunter Hayes was the headliner when I went to the Grand Ole Opry...  I must confess, I had never heard of him before, but he certainly had lots of screaming teenage fans.

I made a new friend. P.S. Do you like my Graceland outfit?

I took a Chicago Pizza Tour and it was the best decision of my life. That's whipped ricotta cheese!

Can you tell that I'm wearing the same outfit I wore the previous day in Memphis and all night on the train?

Needless to say, it was an amazing trip!

Soon after I was back in Canada, I had booked my road test to get my G2 driver's licence (I tried once before in July... let's just say that at that time I was "not up to ministry standards"). But I'm proud to say I'm now an almost-fully licensed driver (I have one more road test to complete under Ontario's graduated licensing system)! It was a great way to end the Summer of Katie. I feel like such an adult now. (Sometimes.)

I know that you're all waiting with bated breath to hear how my healthy eating and exercise is going. At the beginning of September, the personal trainer I'd been seeing all summer moved away. Since I really can't afford to keep seeing one anyway, I decided to sign up for a weekly bootcamp class at the same gym. So far, I've really been enjoying the class, but definitely have NOT been keeping up with exercising on my own. I'm still trying to get back into the habit of exercising regularly...

As for healthy eating, the lovely Ashley is hosting a clean eating challenge through Facebook next week. I quickly signed up, and I'll be sure to tell you all about it. For the past few weeks, my eating has been a bit all over the map. Mostly bad. But, I'm still feeling good and motivated. I'll get there. :)

In other news, it's my 29th birthday tomorrow! I'm planning on meeting one friend for lunch, then having dinner with a couple of other friends. I was also surprised with a birthday cake after Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's on Sunday.

Yes, it is an ice cream cake! Yes, that is pumpkin pie beside it, which I also ate!

On that note, I will end this post. I have a wild Friday night of knitting ahead of me...

Another Successful Week

I am proud to say I've just completed another week of 6 workouts! This week, I also tracked everything I ate using Weight Watchers (so far - I suppose there are a few more hours left in the day where it can all go downhill...). I don't know why, but tracking everything just felt so easy and natural. Maybe I was just ready to commit to something again? Whatever the reason, I'm feeling extremely motivated to continue. :)

My proudest moment this week was on Friday. I went out for an all-you-can-eat sushi lunch with a few colleagues. I was very worried that I would do what I usually do at all-you-can-eat sushi: eat all that I can, and feel gross and sick afterwards. But this time, I somehow avoided all of the deep-fried appetizers that were on the table in front of me and ate a seaweed salad instead. I ate a ton of sushi, but I counted roughly how many pieces I ate so I could track it later (which I did). I also avoided dessert. All in all, I had a great time, really enjoyed the food I ate, and I wasn't overly stuffed afterwards. Restaurants in general, let alone an all-you-can-eat situation, are always difficult for me to navigate. I was extremely worried going into this lunch, and I'm so happy I managed to eat reasonably.

I'm still seeing my personal trainer, and the workouts are getting increasingly... interesting. Last week, I had to push a 110-pound tire across the floor (on its side; I couldn't just roll it, unfortunately). Yesterday morning, I had to do TONS of stuff with battle ropes, alternated with lower body stuff. Brutal! On the bright side, it's getting much easier to get out of bed at 5:30 am.

I mentioned in my last post that I was trying a couple of recipes from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry. I ate some of the leftovers on top of some mixed greens. It was more appetizing than what I usually eat, so I snapped a picture:

Chicken thighs in barbecue sauce & mashed cauliflower

This morning, I knew I had to squeeze in a workout. Getting to the gym on Sundays is always a challenge for me. I don't know if it's because my gym is where I work, so I feel like I'm going to work on a weekend, or if I'm just very lazy on Sundays (or both), but I never want to get dressed and go out the door. Today was extremely hot, which made the walk to the gym even less appealing. 

Eventually I left my apartment. By the time I got to the gym, I was already drenched in sweat. I put in some time on the stationary bike (my left foot has been acting up, so I've been avoiding the treadmill so I don't aggravate it further), and I was EVEN SWEATIER afterwards. Despite the fact that my shirt had very interesting sweat-patches all over it, I then hopped on the bus to go to the grocery store. Thankfully, no one seemed too offended by my appearance...

I made it home in the heat successfully!

Now I'm in the middle of a new cooking adventure (and I may or may not still be wearing that sweaty t-shirt, hours later). I have some seitan simmering on the stove (I used this recipe) which I'm planning to use in this noodle salad. Let's hope it turns out! I don't think I've ever had seitan before...

Time to Regroup

Well, as you may have guessed, I will not be completing the full 28 days of the Fast Metabolism Diet. It got too hard to follow all the precise guidelines and food restrictions. And if I'm being completely honest, for most of the weekend I ate complete junk. BUT let's focus on the positives about last week:

• Compared to a few weeks ago, I ate much more food that I'd cooked myself, instead of buying breakfast on the way to work, lunch at work, etc.
• I worked out SIX TIMES! Have I ever worked out that much in one week? Maybe once a few years ago? Anyway. Insane, y'all.
• I accomplished a lot even though my week was super busy. I wasn't home much to cook/clean, and I didn't get as much sleep last week as I needed, but I still mostly stuck to my meal plan and got all my workouts in.

Yesterday I sat down and made a rough meal plan for this week. I picked recipes I know that I'll like, and didn't base anything on a particular diet. A few of the groceries I picked up:

Bananas are back on the scene! They weren't allowed on the FMD :(

I made the first recipe last night. Potato Enchiladas from The Starch Solution:

I ate one for breakfast this morning. They may not be attractive, but they're pretty tasty!

Tonight, I was back in the kitchen to try a couple more recipes. I started with lots of chopping (fyi, I think I'm the slowest chopper in the world):

I made a coconut Thai stirfry based on a recipe from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry.

This was delicious! I had it over basmati rice (I was planning to use brown rice but I didn't have enough). I'm very excited about all the leftovers.

Next, I quickly whipped up some turkey sausage with brown rice pasta, which I first made two weeks ago when prepping for the Fast Metabolism Diet.

I'm feeling pretty happy about all the meals in my fridge/freezer, just ready to be eaten! In other news, my kitchen looks like a disaster zone and I bought some new clothes yesterday so I can put off doing laundry for a couple more days (also because there was a 40% off sale). But as long as my eating is under control, it's okay if I'm not totally together. Right??

I'm off to bed soon - meeting the trainer bright and early tomorrow! Good night!

Summer of Katie!

Hello friends!

As you can probably guess from my post title, I am feeling pretty psyched about the upcoming summer. A few things seem to be falling into place for me, I've set some good goals for myself, and I feel like I am finally "getting my life together" in some sense (not that it's been falling apart or anything... I just often don't feel like as much of a grown-up as I should). Before I get to that, perhaps I should update you on what's been going on since my last blog post, which was apparently in October.

Firstly, I travelled around Europe over Christmas with my mom and sister! We went to London, Wales, Liverpool, Venice, Nice, Paris, and Amsterdam.

Dinner overlooking a canal in Venice

On the beach in Nice with my sister

Christmas morning in Paris!

The trip was truly amazing and while I was on it I was already thinking about where I wanted to travel next. Travelling certainly is addictive!

Winter was fairly busy at work for me, but I actually kept up my running somehow. I signed up for the Toronto Yonge Street 10K back in November, and no one was more surprised than me that I actually ran it in April! Right up to the race itself, I REALLY wanted to quit. About two weeks before the race, my shins started giving me a lot of trouble. I rested a lot, and my shins felt better, but I couldn't do my last two scheduled long runs. The longest distance I'd run beforehand (and by "run", I mean "jog slowly with lots of walking breaks") was only about 8.5km. However, I had convinced my dear friend Martina to do the race with me and she was coming all the way from Ottawa! I couldn't let her down.

Of course, I didn't die during the race like I worried I might. I ran some of it, and walked some of it, and I finished in 1:24:33.7! That's actually faster than I expected.

I still can't believe I actually crossed that finish line. One of the coolest parts was when a woman came up to me after the race to tell me I'd been pacing her for the last two kilometres or so. Apparently she would run whenever I ran and I got her to the end! It was so crazy and amazing to hear that. I was helping this woman and I didn't even know it!

I have to confess, though, that I haven't run since the 10k. And, given the nature of this blog, I should also tell you that overall, my eating habits have been terrible. Just... garbage. The worst. Like, buying breakfast on my way to work several times a week. And buying lunch. And buying dinner. And just generally eating lots of junk and feeling blah. I have had no motivation to cook, for the most part. I'll buy groceries, but they'll mostly just go bad in my fridge. Sometimes I'll have a green smoothie for a few days in a row, but I haven't been consistent at all, and my weight is still at the highest it's ever been.

I don't really know the reason for this. I think I fell out of the habit of cooking, and I don't know how to get back into it. I also still read and think SO MUCH about nutrition and eating, and it's overwhelming when I try to start eating healthfully again. When I do try, it feels like this big production, because I feel like I have to do everything perfectly, or else why bother at all? Which is of course totally insane.

But something does have to change. So.... I got.... a personal trainer!

Yes, that's right, I actually got a personal trainer. Last Sunday I went for a consultation and then I bought 10 sessions to see how it goes. It was definitely expensive, but I KNOW it will force me to work out, and I think help with my eating habits as well. I've already had two sessions this week, and despite the fact that it now hurts to move at all, I am feeling really good about it.

My first session was on Tuesday at 6:45 am (it seemed like a good idea when I scheduled it...) It was embarrassingly brutal. I don't think I ate enough beforehand, and I kept having to stop and take breaks because I felt nauseous. It wasn't even that hard of a workout! My trainer was very nice though, and told me not to apologize for taking breaks. My second session was Wednesday morning at a more civilized hour. This time, I ate more for breakfast, and I didn't feel sick during the workout. I worked MUCH harder and did way more than I would have if I'd tried to exercise on my own (a big if, seeing as I haven't been exercising at all on my own lately).

My trainer also asks during my workouts what I've been eating. I think this will help keep me accountable. She suggested that I try the Fast Metabolism Diet if I am up for doing a lot of meal prep and crazy food planning. I got the book from the library, and I think it seems slightly ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated. Not the foods themselves, but rather the claims about it taking exactly 28 days to "repair" your metabolism, and cycling through certain foods on certain days of the week. It's definitely a fad diet, in my opinion, but it does consist of whole foods and is definitely much healthier than the way I've been eating now.  It eliminates caffeine, dairy, and sugar, among other things, which are all things I would like to cut back on or eliminate anyway. You know I love a good strict diet to blog about, so I think I will actually give this one a try. If it gets me back to regular cooking and meal prepping, and jump starts some weight loss, then I think it will be a success. I just want someone to TELL me what to eat for awhile and not have to make any decisions myself.

My personal trainer and healthy eating plans aren't the only reasons that this is the Summer of Katie (although they are the biggest reasons). Some other things I've been up to:

• I have been practicing my driving whenever I can and hope to get my G2 this summer! I am SO TIRED of not having my licence. Last weekend I had to get to Kitchener from my friend's house in Port Elgin... let's just say the trip ended up taking ten hours by bus (it's about a two and a half hour drive). Alright, I'll admit that the bus broke down in Orangeville and we were stuck for 3 hours, but still!
• Dating! I've been on a few dates over the past few months. Luckily it hasn't been too traumatic, and I've gotten a few funny stories out of the experience. For example, I was on a date with someone, and then all of a sudden he said "there was something I have to do today... what was it... oh yes, I need to get to the grocery store before it closes so I can buy lettuce and make lunches for the week!" I was ditched for LETTUCE! So weirdly specific. Like, dude, just tell me you're not interested. But part of me thought he was telling the truth and we might be really well-suited for each other, because buying lettuce to make healthy lunches is the kind of thing I might have to do on a Sunday afternoon as well... anyway, we never spoke again.
• I have another trip planned! My friend Michelle and I are going to Nashville and Memphis in August. Afterwards, I think I will go to Chicago by myself for a couple of days (although I haven't finalized that part yet).

I think I've written enough for now! Stay tuned for more this weekend... perhaps another meal prep video is in order?!