Yoga at the Ritz.

Happy Thursday, all!

A couple of weeks ago, I bought Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. It encourages a vegan lifestyle with lots of green drinks. I loved the book, and while I'm not going vegan (at least not any time in the near future...), I have been trying to incorporate some new habits... like lots of green juices and smoothies!

In February, my colleague gave me an extra juicer she had lying around. I used it for the first time when attempting the liver flush on Joshi's Holistic Detox. Lately, though, I've been using it for more delicious pursuits!

On Tuesday, I gathered up some produce from our fridge that was on the verge of going bad.

The mix of cucumber, romaine lettuce, celery, ginger, kale, pear, and lemon made four cups of juice!

I drank half right away, and put the rest in my new glass juice bottle, which I drank on the way to work Wednesday morning. So far my combinations have all been drinkable, although some were definitely tastier than others.

The only drawback is cleaning the juicer... ugh.

In yoga news, last week, my friend Megan and I each bought a Passport to Prana. The Passport to Prana is a $30 card that allows you to attend one drop-in yoga class at each participating Toronto location (there are TONS). For our first class, we went to a Level 1 Hatha class at yogagurl studio in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. We felt a bit out of place going into a super-fancy hotel in our yoga gear, but we were treated very well.

To our surprise, we were the only students attending the class! It meant we got a lot of personalized attention. We even did some partner work! I'm really excited about all the yoga in my future. :)

I've also been getting back to running, for the first time in AGES! I recently bought the Nike+ iPod sport kit for my iPod Nano, which I've been wanting to get for a couple of years. Today I went for my second run along the waterfront (which I live conveniently close to now).

Now, I'm off to swim in/lounge beside the outdoor pool! Jealous? ;)

In the groove?

The past few months, I've had many frustrating moments just trying to get dressed in the morning. I feel very discouraged because my clothes aren't fitting the way they used to (obviously - I've regained 20 pounds!). Sometimes, I go through a ridiculous number of outfits before I find one I feel comfortable enough in to wear in front of a classroom.

Thankfully, the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a better job of focusing on the positive. Instead of being discouraged by snug clothing that used to be too loose, I am using it to motivate me to stay on track and reach my goals. After all, this clothing is proof that I can do it! I've done it before, after all. :)

I'm cautiously optimistic that I'm back in the swing of things. Even though last week wasn't "perfect" (I had a couple of evenings where I didn't track everything I ate), it was still pretty good, and I worked out four times. At my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday, I was down 2.2 lbs! I still haven't gotten to where I was before Christmas, but at least I'm going in the right direction again.

This week is off to a great start. I made it to the gym yesterday and today, and I've tracked all my eats thus far. I've also been sticking with one of the strategies I discussed in my new year's resolution post - drinking enough water. I've been tracking my water pretty faithfully and have definitely increased my intake.

Today's workout was extra-fun: I took my mom to a Zumba class! She liked it so much, that she wants us to start going regularly! I'm really excited about this, because I'm much more likely to stick to a workout if I have a buddy.

Before I go unwind and get ready for bed, I need to share with you some very rude yoga behaviour I witnessed yesterday:

I was trying a yoga class at my gym for the first time. There were three girls sitting up at the front beside me. Before the class started, one of the girl's cell phones went off. She reached for it, and I assumed she was turning it off... nope! It continued to go off repeatedly (at least 4 times) throughout the class. I think she may have actually been texting at one point.

Not only that, all three girls were constantly whispering, chatting, and giggling at everything. It made it super difficult to actually focus and try to meditate. Towards the end, when we were lying on our backs and trying to clear our minds, they very noisily gathered up their stuff and left.

Those same girls were at Zumba today, but that's a much different environment. Hopefully they stay away from yoga in the future!

That's all I have to report today - I hope you all have a great week!

Obligation-Free Day!

Today I had no obligations! No work! No anything!

This morning, I was tempted to "give up" on trying to eat well because I've "failed" this week already and will surely gain weight on Saturday. I devoured a granola bar just to have something sweet with my coffee, which is what triggered my near-derailment. I came very close to eating the pizza pockets I have in my freezer (why do I have pizza pockets in my freezer????), but I didn't!

I haven't yet made the list of ways to avoid emotional eating that was suggested at my weight watchers meeting last Saturday. But I can share with you the things I did with this day off to avoid eating everything in the cupboard!

I decided to really have a good start to my day by trying some yoga (I do not have much yoga experience). I found a free beginner video on yogadownload.com, moved my coffee table, and got my mat out. But then I didn't really like it (um, well actually, it was more strenuous than I was expecting and I didn't want to "use up" my strength before boot camp haha) so I stopped after a few minutes and just did some stretching on my own.

Then I went for a walk around the block! Do I look refreshed?

(I took four pictures and that was the best one...)

I came home with a plan to make some chocolate chip banana muffins from one of my fave cookbooks: Rose Reisman's The Complete Light Kitchen.

But to my shock and dismay, I had no white flour! I was not in the mood for substituting whole wheat flour (I'm not a pro baker, and I didn't really want to experiment today), so the muffins went on hold. I had intended on making a green smoothie while the muffins were in the oven. I had to go straight to the smoothie:

It featured cooked spinach, half a banana, pomegranate juice, orange juice, and frozen strawberries. Yum!

I phoned my mom to see if she wanted to go to Canadian Tire with me to get an immersion blender and coffee pot (my coffee pot works, but each time I use it I risk electrocution. My mom says I'm not allowed to use it anymore). She was free, and also had some white flour to bring me! While I was waiting for her to show up, I watched some clips of Say Yes to the Dress online and had another snack.

It just looked so delicious I had to take a picture! Plain yogurt with an orange. Lately I've been having fruit mixed in plain yogurt a LOT. It feels like such a treat!

After going to TWO Canadian Tires and a Zellers (and a Home Depot, but they didn't even have small appliances), I ended up with zero coffee pots. I did however, get this:

I am SO SO SO excited about this. It's still in the box though, because when I finally got home from the shopping expedition, it was time to get to Booty Camp! I went early to get my measurements taken again. The muffins will have to wait until tomorrow.

Booty Camp was great tonight! I really pushed myself. Also, I was particularly happy about one of my measurements - they used calipers to measure the body fat on my upper arm, and it had gone down by 5... units... I don't really know what those numbers mean, and I feel like my original measurement may have been inaccurate (because that seems like an impossibly big difference), but I feel good about it all the same. My weight was higher though, haha.