Hungry Hungry Hippo
I’m so hungry all the time lately, I don’t know what’s going on! Maybe I’m not getting enough calories in? I feel like I’m eating lots but who knows. I should probably do a few days of calorie tracking (yuck!) to make sure I’m on the right track. I’ve been trying super hard to eat well and eat clean lately, and I think it’s going pretty well. Well, except for the 3 cheese biscuits and piece of cake I ate at my parent’s house last night…oops! I have been eating lots of meals like the one below though.
Veggie scrambled eggs with cheddar, hot sauce and ketchup, and a delicious juicy pear
I’ve also been eating lots of yummy whole grain pancakes.
Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes
I can post the recipe if anyone is interested…just leave me a comment!
Long time no post!
So I totally haven’t posted on here in well over a month. I kind of suck I guess, I just haven’t felt inspired to post or even take very many pictures lately. We’re still personal training, and it’s still awesome. Weight wise, not much has changed. I think I’m down around 5 lbs since christmas, bringing the grand total to 30lbs lost. I’m pretty happy with that, but it could be better.
Eating hasn’t been great, most of the time I eat healthy, balanced meals, but then on the weekend we’ll go out for dinner or lunch a couple times, which I feel throws the whole thing off. I think 1 cheat meal/week is acceptable, but we often go over that. And the worst part is that I KNOW it’s not good, but I feel like I can’t help myself. This is probably why I haven’t been losing as much weight as I’d like, I just need to get back into the swing of things.I need to start being more strict with myself.
Enough talking, on to some pictures. These were taken with my new camera I got for christmas. A nikon D3000! I love it, but still need to figure out how to use all the settings etc.
Apple-Banana Bread
Banana oats with granola and natural peanut butter
Open-faced veggie burger with sweet potato fries
New catten, Pixie!
I have more pictures to upload but that will have to wait until later tonight or tomorrow. I promise I’ll try to post more often though!
“So this is Christmas…”
“…and what have you done, another year over, and a new one just begun.”
Every time I hear that song it makes me think about what I’ve done this year. I was thinking about it in the car today, and I decided it would make a good blog post.
What I’ve Done this Year
- Finished university
- Got my Bachelors of Science in Nursing
- Started nursing at the hospital
- Moved into my own apartment
- Bought RRSPs
- Started paying into my pension plan
- Went to New York City
- Met some absolutely wonderful people
- Adopted Nori and Soba, the chinchillas
- Won a Youthline Award for Outstanding Contribution to Social and Health Services
- Began to love working on the floor I work on
- Started working out with a personal trainer
- Started this blog!
- Lost close to 30lbs in 3 months
- Bought our first Christmas tree
What I’m Going to do Next Year
- Lost 60+ more lbs
- Travel! Hopefully at least 1 big trip (San Francisco!)
- Stretch after every workout
- Consider getting a second job
- Learn how to use my new camera
- Keep the apartment neater
- Blog more often
Pictures I Took this Year
Times Square
Central Park
What have YOU done this year, and what do you hope to accomplish in the coming year?
Mmm, featherweight cookies
I’m really tired. Like REALLY tired, but tomorrow is going to be a busy day so I best be blogging tonight before bed or it might not happen for a while. Today was a busy day, but good busy. Personal training, cookie making, Starbucks (had a non-fat vanilla latte) and shopping with a friend. Lyndsey and I also picked out a few “fat pictures” for Angie to hang on her wall put in her portfolio, and got them printed out. I don’t really want to post them here yet, I don’t find it’s a big enough difference to make it worth it. I will someday, but not yet, I’m just not at that comfort level yet I guess.
I had a really good lunch today, it was really simple, but delicious and satisfying. I made a sandwich with Vermont maple ham, cheddar cheese, honey mustard and spinach, on a thin bun, and had a lunch dessert. I love lunch dessert!
A yogurt parfait! Fat free strawberry yogurt, raspberries, blackberries, all layered with a bit of Kashi Go Lean cereal, for crunch. So light and delicious! I forgot to take a picture of my sandwich, but it was fairly straight forward.
Who wants to see the most exciting part of my day?? You? ok fine, you convinced me.
Can you see it? It’s a tiny little green banana, lost in the middle of the big yellow bananas. It caught my eye from across the room this morning, and make me sooo excited. Look how cute it is!!
I also made delicious cookies today. They’re very rich and sweet, but they taste like the chewy edges on brownies (which is the best part, in my opinion!).
Chocolate Featherweight Cookies
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup cocoa nibs
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper, or a silicone baking mat (what I used).
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder, sugar, and salt. Make sure there are no lumps.
Combine the vanilla and egg whites in a measuring cup, and slowly add them to the cocoa mixture, whisking as you go. After adding all the wet ingredients, keep mixing until your batter is smooth and glossy. Add extra ingredients, such as chocolate chips, cocoa nibs and pecans (or use whatever other nuts you’d like).
Using an ice cream scoop or measuring spoon, place 5 mounds of batter (about 2tbsp each) about 3 inches apart on the baking sheet. The batter will spread. Bake the cookies until thin cracks appear on the surface, about 14-17 minutes. Remove them from the oven, and cool them completely on a rack. When they are cool, peel them gently from the parchment paper or baking mat. Repeat the process with the remaining batter. Enjoy!
Makes 12-13 cookies
Sorry the picture is kind of dark, the sun had already set by the time I took the pictures. They’re seriously gorgeous cookies though, so shiny! Definitely not part of the diet plan, but I only had 2!
Tomorrow I’m going to hit the gym in the morning (hopefully I can drag my butt out of bed at a reasonable time), come home and get changed/make my hair presentable, go pick up Kail, run some errands, make some foods for our snacky time, pick Lyndsey up from work, and then we’re having a girls night of drinking and going out. I haven’t actually decided if I’m going to drink or not, all those extra calories…plus I’m not a big drinker to start with. I like to be in control too much I think. I guess we’ll wait and see tomorrow!
Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!
Busy week!
I meant to blog on monday, but then I was tired. I meant to blog after work Tuesday, but I didn’t feel inspired. I meant to blog yesterday, but was didn’t have any pictures to post. So here I am, posting 4 days after I promised a post. Sorry everyone!
Today I woke up nice and early! I really love waking up early, I’m not sure why but I seem to be more productive and the day seems so much longer when I wake up earlier, even if it’s just an hour earlier. I don’t feel rushed, I can check my email/read all the blogs I follow before even getting out of bed. So after I got showered and dressed, I decided I need a nice warm bowl of oatmeal.
I melted half a banana in a bowl in the microwave, added oats and skim milk, microwaved again until done, then topped it with the other half of the banana, sliced, a tbsp of natural peanut butter, and a tbsp mini dark chocolate chips. Mmmm it was really good!
I actually ate ALOT today. I did 45 mins of elliptical and some ab stuff at the gym, and it made me really hungry. After the gym I had some almonds and half of a protein bar, while I ran some errands. I needed new pants, apparently the ones I was wearing were 3 sizes too big. oops!
When I got home from shopping, I was starving! I knew I had an Amy’s Organic bean burrito in the freezer, calling my name. So that’s what I had, with salsa and a bit of cottage cheese on the side.
Yeah, it’s pretty ugly-looking, but it did the trick! Then later in the afternoon, I had a whole wheat english muffin with a couple slices of maple ham and spinach, because Lyndsey was working late, therefore dinner would be late. Well it turns out Lyndsey ended up picking up an extra 4 hours of work (overtime!!), so I had to pick something up for dinner to bring her, and ended up grabbing something for myself too. We had Arby’s and it totally wasn’t worth it, well, at least for me. I had an Jr Roast Beef sandwich, which was totally gross and made me feel ill, and 3 jalapeno poppers (my weakness, love them!). For the same amount of calories I could have had such a GOOD dinner at home. Oh well, could have been worse I guess, and I learnt my lesson.
Also, lately my “dessert” has been a single square of deliciously dark chocolate. I’m really loving this kind right now, it’s so delicious.
It has little grains of salt in embedded in it. So good, and fairly guilt free. I only even have 1 square, which is only 1/3 of a portion.
Oh, I guess I should write a little something about personal training/weight etc for this week. I thought training was so much better now that carbs are back in my life, so much more enjoyable (yes, really!). I ended up gaining 2 lbs this week, but it was all water weight. This also happened to be that “special” week, if you know what I mean, so I wasn’t too worried about it. I feel better about our diet now, so I’m not worried about gaining a couple extra lbs for one week.
P.s. Loving all the comments everyone! I <3 you all!!
