Hormones - Sheesh!

Seriously. Hormones SUCK! I deeply apologize to my male readers - I know you're there ;-)

But seriously, the last 6 months or so, poor Kevin has been subjected to some pretty dramatic mood swings. I go from my normal happy go lucky positive outlook-self to overly clingy, to crying (I cried at a RADIO news report this morning about the poor family from Montreal that died when their house was swallowed up in a muddy sink hole the other day - see here -), to extreme bitchy. So last month I actually started marking these dramatic shifts in my agenda.

Well today after my workout, I started to feel really depressed that I didn't workout harder and longer. Rationally I know that after doing a 2 hour 1235calorie burning workout yesterday warrants a more relaxed less strenuous 1.15 min 350 calorie burning kind of day. I know my body needs to rest.

So I got to work and I marked it in my agenda. Then I looked back to last month. Hmm... Started to feel the same way last month on the 16th. 3.5wks ago. Hmm... Might be starting to see the starting of a pattern here. Time will tell. And if it does tell, I will be asking my OBGYN to change me to a new birth control pill to help regulate this.

Before the gym at the early hours of 5:10am, I made myself some scrambled eggs. Funny how I miss scrambled eggs in the morning. They just take so much more time I find than an GM or oatmeal.

• 3 Egg whites
• 1 whole large egg
• 4 grape tomatoes
• about 1/2 cup chopped spinach
• 1/4 cup UVAB

* the 3 egg whites are from the liquid, boxed, egg whites. On the box it says 1/4 cup is about 2 egg whites. Well I have a 1/8cup measuring cup, so I just used 3 of those to make up 3 egg whites.

At the gym, Kevin and I did a muscle moves class. It's all weights or rather strength training. Today we didn't use the free weights at all. We all did strength training using a floor mat, a stability ball and our own bodies. Lots of ab work, which what woman doesn't love to work her abs to get that 6-pack going?!

Once muscle moves finished I hit the pool. OMG my arms and shoulders are tired today after yesterdays double Jillian workout vids. I did a measly 6 laps of the pool, and they were brutal formed laps. lol.

After showering, while Kevin and I walked to our cars (yes we both drove. Only because he went home and I went right to work from the gym, which is a 10 min drive from home), I realized that I left my lunch at home. And being that today is Wednesday, that means I go from one job to the other, so lunch isn't just lunch, it's, am snack, lunch, pm snack and dinner.

Kevin being the amazing husband that he is, reassured me that he would go home, unpack our gym bags, grab my lunch and bring it to me at work. What a great guy.

However being that I was feeling down in the dumps this morning, I thought that I would treat myself to some Starbucks to try and boost my spirits. In my own tumbler (to save the enviro and .10cents) Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte & an oatbar.

Seriously I have never had any foods from Starbucks before other than their fruit parfaits. This thing is De-lish! I think there might have been some nut butter in it somewheres. Mmmm dangerously tasty.

Question: Do you find that you have a lot of mood swings? Have you ever tracked them from week to week or month to month?

Looking for a Garmin

I have recently in the last year started to run. I started early last summer, however once the heat got cranked up, unless it was raining, running pretty much came to a halt, hmmmm maybe this is where my love of running in the rain comes from!

This past spring, I have reconnected with my love affair with running. I have been doing the same route and minor variations of this route since last year. Originally I ran to my parents and circled back to my place for a 4.3K run. Then I added an extra 1K to the run by taking an alternate route home. How do I know the distance? I reset the trip meter in my car.

I do not like this. 1. it is not environmentally friendly to go and drive your running route just to get an accurate distance read. 2. it really kills any spontaneity that I could be incorporating into my running.

So I have been drooling over Garmin GPS watches, via blogs, The Running Room, and Amazon. However the prices are all too rich for my blood. Plus Kevin would kill me for getting one priced at over 300$ after getting a Polar HRM several months back.

So this morning I had an idea. Kijiji! Well I was lucky this morning and found a posting for a 2 year old Garmin Forerunning 305 with a HRM. So I've emailed, and they have responded that they still have the item, and now we are just trying to arrange a time and place to meet. I am super excited!

So today it is ab-so-lute-ly frigid in my office. Everyone has their coats and and are keeping their arms crossed across their bodies to keep the heat in. I am lucky that Kevin bought me a 20$ space heater from WalMart before the cold set in over the winter. So my heater is cranked and like everyone else, my office door is closed today.

I went to the water cooler and got a plastic cup of hot water (I wasn't feeling coffee or tea today), to drink to help warm me up.
See the little steam condensation. This was the best I could manage.

My morning snack was some Nordica Non Fat Cottage Cheese. I really love cottage cheese, however two things. I like cottage cheese when it is dryer, I do not like the wet cottage cheese (pictured blow). Also, man cottage cheese does not picture well.

Life in the office is pretty boning today. Not much to report with every ones doors closed. Lunch came fairly quickly, which was good because I was pretty excited. This is my last installment of this lunch for a little while as my supplies have dwindled.

Miranda's Capreses Salad

Ingredients

• 10-20 cherry or grape tomatoes
• 10-15 Tre Stelle - Mini Mini Bocconcini
• 5-10 Fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 TBSP balsamic Vinegar
• 1/2TBSP EVOO
• 1 pinch of sea salt (however I do not add the salt)

Directions

• If you are making this to serve right away, combine the tomatoes, cheese and basil together and mix in a bowl.
• Mix together your balsamic and EVOO
• Pour your EVOO&Balsamic dressing over the salad.
• If you are putting this together to serve later, do not pour your dressing other wise you will have a soggy salad.
• Also as I am usually out of fresh basil, I do not add it until I am about to eat it, keeping it as crisp as possible (you can find packaged fresh basil at in your produce section).

I also had some veggies to take with me for lunch. I however opted to not transfer them from their fridge storage container to another glad lunch container. I seriously freaking love these things. They are genius. I have 3 pepper shaped ones, 1 tomato, and one onion. I store my avocados in the green pepper one I have after using a section of avocado. It really works to keep your produce fresher longer. Some red pepper, some orange pepper, and some baby carrots. I just got an email back, I am meeting the seller, Erika this evening between 6-6:30pm to scoped out the Garmin. So EXCITED plus we are meeting at Startbucks!

Question: What toys do you have that help you workout? Is there something out there you have been dreaming and saving for?

Happy Free Starbucks Coffee Day!

Starbucks is the coolest. Today they hosted a free coffee day. What's the catch? You need to bring in your own travel mug to get said free coffee. So You know I grabbed my travel mug from home and headed right on down to Starbucks. What they are continuing to do is, encouraging people to always use their own travel mug in place of a disposable paper cup. If you do this, you will save .10 cents on your purchase. Check out this link, so see how many trees you could save over the course of 50 years if you always use your travel mug in place of your disposable paper cup. For me as I do not drink coffee every day, never mind use a disposable cup everyday, I entered 1 cup of coffee a day. That means I would save 7 trees over 50 years. So far 43332 people have pledged to use their travel mugs in place of the disposable paper cups.

So when I went to get my free coffee, I thought, I wanted to be able to show off my Starbucks love, so I bought a new travel mug. It's one of the new ceramic styled mugs. So my free coffee after taxes cost me over 13$ lol. But I love the new mug. For breakfast I made a yogurt granola cereal melange.

1/8 cup Kellogs All Bran Buds

1 palm full of Natures Path - Flax Plus Multigrain Cereal.

1/2 cup Kashi - Honey Almond Flax cereal.

Add a few cashews and raisins to the party.

Cover in 1/2 cup of Liberte Greek yogurt and let it sit in the fridge for 10 minutes. Eat and enjoy!

I was out of the office the morning with some meetings, so I packed something that would travel well. Perhaps my newest batch of 5 minute no bake granola bars. I added raisins this time around.

Back at the office for lunch. I was pretty light headed and jittery from the coffee, so I mowed down my lunch. Thankfully not too fast, so that I was able to enjoy it and feel satiated after eating it.

I was going to make a wrap, but I didn't want the hassle of having to pack everything separately so it didn't go all soggy. So I made a salad instead!

• 3 cups baby spinach
• Artichoke Hears
• Avocado
• Quinoa
• Bell Peppers
• Feta cheese

Topped with EVOO and Balsamic and toss.

After my salad I had some of the last of my berries. Time to go get more groceries!

Did you get your free Starbucks coffee today?

That wasa fail!

Well first off I just want to say that I have found out where I got my 5 Minute No Bake Granola Bars, here. I am working on sourcing my recipes more and more. What I was doing was just copying and pasting them into a word document and printing them off to put in my recipe book. But now I try and make sure that I throw a link at the bottom of the recipe so that I can remember where I got it from. Give credit where credit is due.

Sadly for breakfast I couldn`t find the exact link to the recipe I got this from, but it sure was tasty. Very very filling, more filling than just a regular bowl of oatmeal.

1/3 cup oats, 1/2mashed banana, 1tbsp almond butter, .7cup of almond milk, 1tbsp rough ground cashew, sprinkling of coconut. Yummo!

I was pretty tired half way through my Cario Bosu class today. Allison had us doing circuits again. I love doing these, but today was the start of new routines. It was challenging for sure. Especially after all of yesterdays hard working out. But I pushed through and even after went and swam for 22 mins in the pool.

At work, I took about an hour to snack on my morning snack.

Honey dates, almonds, cashew & walnuts. Yes there is 1 hazelnut in there but I just wasn`t feeling it this morning, so I didn`t eat it.

This morning I just don`t feel quite myself. I feel tired, so tired that if I blinked a little too long I could very easily just fall asleep. My appetite is also a little wonky today. I just couldn`t wait until lunch time I was marvin`. So I went and grabbed my wasa that I had packed.

FAIL!

Looks good eh! Pumpkin with pumpkin pie spice on wasa light crackers. I have prepacked wasa before with cream cheese and huumus before, and I know that it gets soft. Wasa is normally a very crunchy brittle crack normally.
Hmm not looking to brittle now is it! Whatever like I said I`ve eaten soft wasa before. I took a bit. The pumpkin was divine. The wasa on the other hand, inedible! I have been trying to figure out how to best describe it to you. Chewy, but not in any good kind of way. Chewy in the kind of way that its like chewing on soggy cardboard, it`s just not breaking down.

I wasn`t eating the rest. What a sad waste.
It felt like a soft pillow. LOL
So I needed something to eat. I still had yesterdays granola parfait from Starbucks in the fridge. I went and grabbed that. Now with this I knew what to expect from my granola, having been in the yogurt all night.

So hit the spot!

For lunch I couldn`t wait. But I was a good girl and did. Actually got caught up doing something and didn`t eat until 12:20. I knew that my lunch was going to fill me up and keep me feeling full all afternoon.

Vegan Lentil Soup. So good. perfect replacement for the tea I`ve been having to keep me warm through this week long April Shower.

Lovin' the * $'s

So you're all caught up on what I had going on this morning.


As for my afternoon, well I had planned on getting some tea to keep me warm. I can't seem to beat this damp chill the last couple of days. Darn rain.


So I work a 2 minute drive (I question if it is even a full kilometer between work and the Tim's) to the closest coffee shop.

Did I stop there?

NO!

I drove the 5k to the closest STARBUCKS (* - $'s).

Sheesh, it's so gloomy out. I don't mind the spring rain, it's great for washing all the winter dirt and grime away plus it really does wonders for rejuvenating our lawns, but MAN it's hard on the spirits. Keep reading to see what I got from *$'s

For lunch I had some more left overs. I kind of feel bad and uncreative when I blog my left overs, especially when there is just so much of it I end up with 3 or 4 servings.

Mexican Rice Casserole

I love how the salsa mixed with the Greek yogurt give it a pink hue.


Tall non-fat, sugar-free 2 pumps, not 2 of vanilla chi tea latte.

Two notes: It looks so tiny in this picture and I really hate that my hand looks kind of gross and skeletal, it's just the angel I swears!

I also grabbed this. Partially because I was so hungry when I went to Starbucks, and also because I know that I will be going to hot yoga later tonight and rain or shine I plan on hoofing it there (burning more calories = needing to eat more).
Peach Raspberry Yogurt Parfait with Granola.

Love that the granola comes in it's own separate casing so that the granola on the bottom (would be touching the yogurt), doesn't get all soggy from sitting for days. Don't get my wrong I like to let my granola sit and soften up before I eat it, I just don't like mushy granola.

This is seriously how the peaches came in the parfait. How am I supposed to just eat that in one bit, camon people! lol

Problem easily solved.

Starbucks love!

Hmmm.. What are we thinknig of my playing around with colours throughout my blog? Send me your thoughts in the comment section.