When You’re Smiling

Hellohello! How is everyone’s work week chugging along? Or are you like me and unemployed? ;) I do have a job interview lined up for when I get to Toronto in a couple weeks… but I’ll spill the beans on that when the time comes. Of course, I also have to drop off a few resumes at Lululemon. Livin’ the dreeeeam people!! ;)

Moving on!

 
I was sonothappy to be awake this morning. Ask my sister, I was a grump. Best way to cure a case of the grumps?

Chocolate. Cooked up a pot of rolled oats with soy protein powder, cocoa powder, stevia, banana and almond butter. Paired with a french press of coffee, the world suddenly becomes a better place :)

I got some interesting comments on my last post about my 20-minute meditation challenge, and my use of an alarm to signal when it’s time to come-to. I decided to set the alarm because I had a feeling that 5 minutes would pass, it would feel like 20, and then I’d start opening my eyes and obsessively checking the clock. I told Leah that maybe next week I’ll try just meditating with no time goal and seeing how it goes.

Well today, something interesting happened.

Instead of doing a body scan during my meditation, I instead focused on showing love towards various family members. You see, someone close in our family is going for a serious medical procedure, and there’s been a lot of stress, worry and sadness surrounding it. As I was sitting there, I began to feel very anxious and unsettled. My breath got shallow and I felt like I just needed out. I decided to screw the alarm, opened my eyes and grabbed the phone. The second I picked up the phone, the 20 minute alarm went off. Weird, eh?

Hopefully tomorrow I won’t get so anxious. I thought it was supposed to have the opposite effect!

I eventually made it to the gym for a full-body workout. My sister lives about 15-20 minutes walking from the gym. Since I ran yesterday, I just walked briskly for my warm-up, then went straight to the weight room at the gym.

 

Exercise	Load	Reps	Sets	Target
One arm dumbbell snatch	20 lbs	8-12	3	Quads, Glutes, Shoulders
Wide-grip lat pulldown	60 lbs	8-12	3	Back
Single leg squat	10 lbs	8-12	3	Glutes, Thighs
Dumbbell bench press	20 ea	8-12	3	Chest, Front shoulders
Single leg romanian deadlift	10 ea	8-12	3	Hamstrings, Glutes, Hips
Dumbbell upright row	12.5 ea	8-12	3	Top shoulder
Curtsy lunge	12.5 ea	8-12	3	Quads
Dumbbell one arm extension	10 lbs	8-12	3	Triceps
Twisting dumbbell curl	10 lbs	8-12	3	Biceps
Cable horizontal woodchop	25 lbs	8-12	3	Obliques
Cable crunch	85 lbs	8-12	3	Abs

Colour coded!! Matching colours are alternating sets. I like to alternate upper body with lower body stuff so I can blast through it with little rest. Tis me! I can already tell you my triceps are going to be sore tomorrow…

Lunch featured another fabulous fridge find.

Contemporary Cuisine is a wholesale food company based out of Ottawa. I will tell you straight up – this stuff is fabulous. Wonderful flavour, but it’s all in the texture. It’s fluffy. How do they get hummus to go fluffy??

 

Paired with pita chips that I made by sticking pita bread in the toaster oven.

 

Pipsi (dried arctic char) and baby carrots.

 

T’was a fun dippy lunch!!

Another difference between my sister and I is that she’s a “natural vegetarian.” What I mean by this is she’s drawn to meat-free foods, and functions best on plants. While I initially planned bison burgers for dinner, I thought Sara may appreciate a homemade black bean patty instead.

 
I made up the recipe as I went along, and I am really impressed by how they turned out!

• 1 can no-salt added black beans
• 1 scoop (30g) unflavoured soy protein powder
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 a small red onion finely chopped
• 1/2 a small green pepper finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp tabasco sauce
• 1/2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tbsp cayenne

 
They were a little goopy, so I fried them in olive oil like savoury pancakes ;)

 

 
You couldn’t taste the soy protein powder at all! Impressive!!

 
Eaten with baked sweet potato crisps (aka cheetahs).

 
…and kale chips.

Solid meal!! I mixed up mayo and dijon mustard for our dipping sauce. I feel like I must specify that I exclusively use Hellman’s Olive Oil mayonnaise now. I used to buy that light crap, but my mother got me hooked on the good stuff while I was living at home. Now Sara is hooked too. Once you have the Olive Oil, you never go back. You’ve been warned.

After this lovely dinner, Sara and I went to an Intro Ashtanga class at the nearby yoga studio. Third yoga class in three days!! LOVE it. The intro class was really helpful too. The instructor went through and explained all the modified options for many of the more advanced postures in the Ashtanga series. I also learned how much farther I can fold forward when I engage my legs. The workings of the body never ceases to amaze me.

We came back feeling calm and refreshed. I had a hankering for the greek yogurt I splurged on today.

Paired with crunchy almond butter. Nut butter in regular yogurt is gross. But in greek yogurt it gets really rich and creamy.

Also added a packet of stevia, vanilla extract and cinnamon.

Heavenly!!

 

Goal for June

Remember my goal for June?? I set out wanting to accomplish only one thing this month…

to smile.

Clearly there were plenty smiles in Banff, although we’ll forget the tears shed when I left home. I’ll be spending the rest of the month here in Ottawa, and I think I need a reminder to spread my lips wide and show off those gums of mine!!

 

Question of the Day: How are you doing on your goals for this month??