Simply Saturday

Happy weekend all! I hope you’re enjoying it! I’m working at the office, as per usual. I thought it would be fun to show you our break room! As you probably know, I’m not usually at the office throughout the week, so I have to be careful about the items I pack for lunch. On the weekends, I at least have a fridge and microwave to work with :P

It’s as basic as you get. We do have one of these fancy coffee makers though…

You just pop in a container of grinds and it brews the perfect cup!

Then there’s our fridge. It’s, ahem, well used.

And kinda stinks :P

Places to sit:

And nap:

We have windows in all the rooms – it’s a radio station thang. In case you missed it, I also did a tour of our newsroom a while back too :)

I usually don’t hang out in here, I much rather eat at the computer. I was in here this morning making breakfast though!

Can you see what’s in the toaster? I bet you can at least guess :P

I had absolutely no desire to prepare two meals and a snack last night, so I instead threw a bunch of stuff in a bag this morning. That included two Nature’s Path flax waffles with PB&J.

President’s Choice “Just Almonds” crunchy almond butter.

Crofter’s blackberry jam.

I fell in love with their blueberry jam and the blackberry does not disappoint!!

The waffles didn’t hold me over very well though, and I even purposely put extra almond butter on there. I needed some protein!

Good thing I was planning ahead whilst throwing things in a bag this morning.

Atkins Advantage peanut butter granola bar. By the way, I’d picked up a bunch of bars for my trip last weekend that I didn’t end up eating. So you may be seeing lots of random bars over the next little bit! I still have intentions of making my own again :)

Tastewise, this is my favourite Atkins bar. I think it’s just the peanuts on top though. It also has 17g of protein!

For “lunch,” I brought two slices of bread, a can of tomato & onion tuna, hummus, a tomato and some romaine lettuce. Assembled in the break room, it turned into this:

And a naval orange on the side. Anyone ever get gypped with these things? Here it is before peeling. What looked like a big and juicy orange.

Mid-peeling – look at the thickness of that peel!!

Post-peel – nothing but a dinky orange.

Boo naval orange. Boo.

There was some MEGA relaxing happening after work today, with a few chores thrown in. Okay, and many episodes of Real Housewives and Greek. It was some well needed down time!! I also had a glorious yogurt snack.

• plain yogurt
• stevia
• vanilla extract
• fresh strawberries
• ground flax
• shredded coconut
• drizzle of honey

Can you believe I’ve never sprinkled coconut on yogurt before?? It was divine!!

Okay. Enough yogurt love :P It was just one of those magical bowls where everything came together perfectly. I know you know what I’m talking about!!

Dinner was super simple. Guess I’ve just been craving simple eats today.

Gigantor pita with cherry tomatoes, red pepper, carrots, mushrooms and hummus. I also dipped the crunchy end parts of a romaine in the hummus too – it was really good!

The pita pretty much had the above mentioned veggies with turkey slices and Mediterranean cottage cheese.

 
Yuummmzzzz. I don’t think my love affairs with pitas will ever end…

 

Fun links!

Six exercise machines you should do without

Runner’s World Newbie Chronicles – “Going Long”

Public schools in Nova Scotia now offering yoga courses!

 

And with that I’m hitting the hay! I know, wild Saturday night happening over here :P G’night!

Have you seen my biking mojo?

Happy Monday…? Ha, I’m definitely not feeling it this week! I’m going away again next weekend (possibly Moncton again or my cottage) so I’m just doing my time this week so I can go away again :)

Let’s back this train up though and take a look at yesterday first. I had my favourite cottage/cheese fruit combo at some point.

Okay, technically by favourite combo is actually cottage cheese and pineapple. But my body also violently rejects pineapple for some mysterious reason, so pear it is!

I also made it over to my Nana’s which was fun :) My new goal is to make it home more often now that I’m no longer in university and have a working car. Now that I’m getting older, I really feel the need to be around my family more!

I came back to my apartment in time for a bike ride. But it sounded so unappealing to me. What is up with me lately? I have totally lost my biking mojo. It’s been a week since I went, and will likely be another week until I get the chance to go out again. Ah well, I’m sure it’ll come back. I napped instead and actually packed a box, so I wasn’t completely useless :P

I snacked on an Atkins bar. They were on sale this week so I picked up a peanut fudge granola flavour.

 

It was alright. Atkins bars used to be my favourite protein bar, but they’ve been replaced by PowerBars. I don’t like all the fake sugar or that they’re made with made with puffed “soy nuggets.” Puffed anything is not filling to me, no matter how much protein is packed in there.

Supper was a fun experiment with a new product my grocery store started carrying.

Fake chicken! Facken? Ficken?

Looks good, doesn’t it? I’m usually kinda iffy about simulated meat products that try to take on the texture and taste of real meat. Especially now that I’m a meat eater and can just eat the real thing!

I paired it with some leftover rice and chickpeas from the market, as well as a little market zucchini and tomato salad with sundried tomato dressing and balsamic vinegar.

Honestly, it was quite good! The first bite threw me off because it tastes nothing like chicken. But I really like the taste of soy, and enjoyed every bite afterward :) The texture is right on too. So even though I could easily eat the real thing, I will be buying this again. It comes in a package that you can pop in the microwave and is quite simple and quick to prepare. It would make for some great work eats!

After dinner, Chris showed up and we went for a ~40 minute walk along the river and back. So I at least got to stretch my legs a little yesterday. I felt much more like myself after that :)

Breakfast was a dark picture of french toast because it’s cloudy and miserable here today (when is it not?).

Some of my “light bread” dipped in egg whites and pumpkin pie spice. With an orange and almond butter on the side. It made me feel better about it being Monday and all :)

I hit up the gym today for another lifting workout. My biking mojo may be gone, but my pumping iron mojo is back!

Warm-up:
15 minutes on the elliptical, increasing resistance every 2 minutes

A1 – Front squat/push press:
3 sets @ 40 lbs x 8

B1 – Single-leg Romanian deadlift:
3 sets @ 20 lbs ea x 8 each leg

B2 – Bent-over dumbbell row:
3 sets @ 20 lbs ea x 8

C1 – Bulgarian split squat:
3 sets @ 20 lbs x 8 each leg

C2 – YTWL:
3 sets @ 5 lbs ea x 4 each letter

D1 – Hip bridge:
3 sets @ bw x 12

D2 – Prone jackknife:
3 sets @ bw x 8

HIIT:
15 minutes on the elliptical, 1 minute sprints, 2 minutes recovery

Duration: exactly one hour :)
Max HR: 165
Avg HR: 138
Calories: 418

 

Wonderful workout :D I’m a total gym rat by nature. Oh! And I wore my new workout outfit. Having fitted shorts makes a world of difference!

Recovery shake:

• 1 scoop Iso Lean peach-mango whey powder
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 cup frozen papaya chunks
• 4 ice cubes
• 2 scoops plain yogurt

Sooooo good! This was my first time trying the peach-mango powder and it gets a thumbs up. It is pretty sweet, and artificially so. But nice as post-workout treat. I don’t guzzle these things back every day anymore, so I don’t feel so bad about it :)

 

Well I’m going to wrap it up here, turned into a pretty long one! I’m working 3:30-10:30 today. Not fun considering 10:30 pm is what time I usually go to bed! Plus, I’ll have to eat supper on the go. Looks like there may be a pita in my future…

Have a great start to the week everyone! I’ll be back tomorrow ;)