The Awesome Post

I thought I'd do a post on the awesome things that I've seen, done or had happen to me in the past week or so. There are always things to be grateful for!

1. Losing your wallet and having the person that found it hand it it to the local police station with nothing taken. Not only awesome, but bloody awesome.  It restored my faith in humanity a little.  If I could hug the person I would!

2. Home made pizza. Observe:

ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, buffalo mozzarella, onion, tomato, green bell pepper, fresh torn basil

you know you want me

3. Christine from For The Love Of Cookies, squatting 215lbs for 5.  Awesome.  She's only a little thing at 114lbs!  Most women can barely squat their own bodyweight once.  She's squatting almost double her body weight for reps!

  4. Trying a new beer.  Awesome.  I really enjoyed this one, and like the label suggests it has a hint of honey in the flavour.

a thing of beauty

5. Spiders.  Especially when they eat the flies that come into your house.  I am actually scared of spiders but I adopted a spider and named him Harry.  We try and feed him now and again. He's awesome.

6. Upcoming annual leave. Enough said.

7.  Food blogs, in particular Angela's blog at Oh She Glows.  Her blog really inspires me to eat better.  I tried her lentil walnut burgers the other day and they were awesome.  Even my husband thought they were really good and he looooves meat (as most men do).  Thanks Angela!

burger in progress

I know the burger is the focus of the conversation, but do you see the beer in the background??

8. My new vacuum cleaner.  Either my house gets incredibly dirty after a week or it is picking up a crapload  stuff in my house.  That's what I'm talkin' about. 

9. Today.  It is spring at the moment and it was a perfect spring day: sunny, lovely temperature, birds singing, flowers blooming *sigh*

10. Massage.  I had one today for the first time in over one year and it was AWESOME.  I feel so good right now.  I saw Shelly at Bodyneed. I used to get them every 2 weeks a couple of years ago and I felt the best I have ever when I did that.  I want to try and do this again.

11. My bunny being bunny. She is so cute!

12. Going for a run and beating your time from last week by one minute. Awesome!

In My Lunchbox

Steamed Kale, Radish, Tomato, Grated Carrot, Yellow Pepper, Avocado, Sea Salt, Pepper and a side of chicken breast (not shown).

Yum, I love big salads.  I find that if I use a variety of vegetables and a couple of juicy ones (like grated carrot and tomato) I don't need any other dressing apart from salt and pepper.  The vegetables just taste so good.

What was in your lunchbox today?

Today I got my hair cut.  I woke up this morning looking like Medusa, then I couldn't be bothered straightening out my hair.  I went to work with it tied up in a pony tail, but looking boofy.  By the afternoon I was fed up with it and went to the hairdresser on my break and got it cut.  She didn't do as good a job as my last hairdresser but it was better than when I went in for sure.  I am happy with it for now, but I think I will go back to Laurie next time.  He made my hair look fantastic!

I don't have a workout to post today.  I got up a little too early then went back to bed and when the time came for me to actually go to the gym, I was all dozy and couldn't get up.  I will have to do both my workouts tomorrow - focusing on clean & press and deadlift.

Ta ta until then!

Day Of Food

Green Monster made with 100mL coconut cream, 3/4 cup water, 10-15 kale leaves, 2 celery sticks, 1 tsp chia seeds, 1 nectarine, 1/2 banana

1/2 Banana

Essene Bread

Rainbow Salad

Beef Stew with Chickpeas and Honey Roasted Yams

Saturday

Not much to report today.  I had a full day and work and I don't usually train on Saturdays so again it was a rest day for me.

I have got my hands on a Yoga DVD and a Pilates DVD.  I got Rodney Yee's Yoga for Beginners and then the Stott's Pilates Core Challenge.  I do feel I need a stronger core.  It is strong already, but I don't feel like I have a good mind-muscle connection for that area of my body like I do other muscles.  It actually takes a lot of mental energy for me to focus on keeping my core/midsection tight when I am performing exercises.  I'm hoping that by doing this Pilates routine regularly that I will improve the mind-muscle connection and therefore I'll be stronger and be able to lift a little more.  The Yoga DVD is to get me into a routine of stretching and relaxation because I can be SOOOO lazy with stretching on a regular basis.

Food Today, in order of appearance
Green Monster
Chicken Breast & Large Salad
Handful of Raw Almonds
A few Marshmallows
Home made pizza - I made two flavours: caprese (tomato, basil & buffalo mozzarella) & Chicken, Camembert & Cranberry
Sparkling Wine & 2 beers

I love making home made pizza but I hate making the crust.  It's not really labour intensive, but it is so sticky and I hate how the dough sticks to my fingers.  You almost need a helper to sprinkle flour for you.

Today's Food

I haven't posted my food for a while so I thought I'd do that today.  I ate a few things today I don't normally eat, but I like them so much I will definitely keep them in my diet regularly

Pre Workout - Air & Water
Post Workout - A quick protein shake with water (about 50g protein total)
Breakfast - Sprouted Quinoa with Cinnamon Apples & Coconut
Snack - Baked Sweet Potato Chips & Blue Cheese Dip
Dinner - Chicken Enchiladas
Dessert - a small slice of Chocolate Cinnamon Parsnip Cake
Snack - Green Monster Shake (since I haven't had anything green today!)


I absolutely loooove the sweet potato chips.  They're easy to make.

Sweet Potato Chips with Blue Cheese Dip

• Wash the skin of the sweet potato thoroughly then slice into small disks about 1/8" thick
• Lightly oil a baking tray and arrange the potato on top.  Lightly brush the tops of the potatoes with oil and then sprinkle sea salt and pepper over the top.  
• Bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes until the edges are browned and starting to curl a little.  
• To make the Blue Cheese Dip cut up about 50-75g of blue cheese, place in 200g low fat cottage cheese, a little water or milk and blend with a stick blender until it's a smooth consistency.  Serve at once.

So good.  Try it out!

Meal Planning

A while ago I mentioned wanting to start planning my meals for the week.  I figure it would be a good idea as it would allow me to shop only what I need for the meals therefore saving money and wastage of food.  Even though it's been ages since I read about it and decided to do it I've not put my thoughts into action. So this week I have FINALLY got off my ass (so to speak) and made a plan for this week.

Tuesday - Pumpkin Curry with a side of Beef strips and Spinach
Wednesday - Slow Cooked Chicken (whole) with roasted vegetables (potato, sweet potato & carrot)
Thursday - Mexican beef in Tortilla shells
Friday - Coconut Red Cod, Oven Chips & Broccoli
Saturday - Spicy Parsnip Soup, Almond Crusted Chicken & Mixed Vegetables
Sunday - Slow Cooked Roast beef with mashed potato
Monday - Sweet 'n Sour Pork

I think how most people meal plan is they find out what's on special that week at the grocery store and plan their meals around that.  That's how I'm planning to figure out my meals.  I'll get hold of the flyer on Monday's and on Monday night work out my meals for the week and go shopping on Tuesday evening.  I'm hoping I'll be able to save a bit of money on food by meal planning too!

Herb and Garlic Salmon Salad

I got this recipe from Christine's blog.  I made it tonight for dinner.... so good.  Luckily the herbs she suggested I already have growing in my garden (yay!).  I made enough for two big serves.

500g grilled salmon, flaked

Half a packed of baby spinach (about 60g)

Half a large head of broccoli, cut into small florets

3 smallish carrots, cut into sticks

1 large tomato, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced (or dried garlic)

Fresh Dill

Fresh Thyme

Olive Oil

Steam the broccoli and carrots.  Mix the dill, thyme, garlic and olive oil.  Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix through the herb garlic oil mixture.  Serve immediately.

Thanks again Christine.... I have another go-to recipe.  I don't have one for salmon actually because I don't normally eat it, but it was on special this week at the grocery store!

The Weekend is here!

Ahhh, it's the weekend!

I've actually been quite tired this week - it must be the low calories. I've been ready for bed at about 10pm every night this week. Normally for me that doesn't happen until about 11-11:30pm.

I had a good day at work today and a discussion with one of my work mates gave me an idea of pursuing a slightly different career path.  I've been thinking about it for a while actually, but the discussion put it more into action in my mind.

No training or cardio today.  I was going to go for an optional brisk walk, but when I got home it started raining quite hard so I didn't bother.

Meals today:

M1 - Protein Shake

M2 - Sundried Tomato and Capsicum Tuna

M3 - Baked fish and Spinach Soup

M4 - Raw Fish Salad (Oka)

That spinach soup is really good.  It tastes pretty good and it's really filling!  One of the members on the Extreme Physique forums added salsa/tomatoes to it and she said it was very good.  

Don't know what I'm up to tomorrow.  One of my friends invited us to go for lunch on a little island - still debating whether to go as I don't feel like watching them eat food and drink beer :-( Ah well.

A second day

...there was PSMF (again).

Pretty straight forward today.  I set my alarm for 6am to go for a morning walk, but when morning came around I discovered it's still dark at 6am (who knew?).  I don't like walking outside in the dark, so I decided to sleep in.  I'll try again tomorrow for 6:15am and leave at 6:20am!  But do not worry!  I actually did go for my walk after work - a 30 minute brisk walk.

The supermarket sucked today.  I went there to stock up on chicken breast, eggs, broccoli and cottage cheese.  I got the eggs, I had to get the steroid chicken (not my normal free range) and there was no broccoli or cottage cheese!!  Bloody hell people!!

Diet today was spot on:

M1: Protein shake with a shot of espresso

M2: Chicken Spinach Salad

M3: Jelly Fluff

M4: Chicken & PSMF Broccoli Soup

M5: Grilled Lamb Loin + Rest of Jelly Fluff as dessert

Supplements: 10 Fish Oils, 1 Centrum, 1 Calcium

For those of you that have not experienced the glory of Jelly Fluff, behold:

Jelly Fluff

1 packet of jelly/jello made to packet directions

250-300g low fat cottage cheese

Add cottage cheese to set jelly and blend with a stick blender (the easiest option).  Place in refridgerator to set.  Enjoy!  I swear, this stuff keeps me sane when dieting.  My favourite flavours are lemon, lime and orange.

And for those of you not dieting: please try out Pioneer Woman's Cauliflower Soup for me. I love soup so much and that one looks glorious!

Happy Beer Day

Well, I didn't end up going to the gym today. Instead, I went to the bar *lol*

Had a breakfast of eggs, hash browns and spinach then in the afternoon we hopped off to the bar to practice my one arm beer curls.

Dinner was some shared nachos and Thai Beef Salad. Yum!

I am looking forward to the gym tomorrow! :-D

First Post!

Today marks my first day off my "offseason". I just finished a long stint of contest dieting for a bodybuilding contest. My goal this year was to surpass my condition from last year and have a good time and I achieved both, so I consider this year very successful. Unfortunately my contest season was cut short due to a tanning mishap but I think I have that all figured out for the future should I compete again.

I went to the supermarket today and it was the most glorious affair I have experienced for a while. I was actually a little disgusted by how happy grocery shopping made me. Although I don't really restrict food groups while dieting, being on a strict calorie allowance really restricts your choices sometimes. It was nice to just be able to get the stuff I had been missing: a variety of fruits, feta cheese and sun dried tomatoes in oil, whole grain rye bread, hummus, camembert
mixed dried fruit, greek yoghurt. I only bought one "bad" thing... the Christmas goodies are out for sale already so I got this packet of mini chocolate Christmas puddings. Okay, I did go back later and buy some of those pudding cup things and a Christmas Cookie (see below).

Now that I'm not dieting I definitely intend on honing my baking and cooking skills. I *love* trying out new recipes. Gordon Ramsay is one of my favourite people. He makes healthy, simple but yet tasty food. I'm quite intent on trying to make as much of my own food as possible to avoid those hidden preservatives and badness. Home made always tastes better anyway!

So anyway, if you're interested in heavy weights, good healthy food, beer and having a good time then stay tuned!