Good Morning!!

(Beware… this is a rather long post!!)

I hope you’re all having a fantastic weekend so far! I am already loving my Saturday (as per usual), and started the day with another stab at my Plank Challenge (which you can read about at the bottom of this post.) I am pleased to report that I managed to get 2 minutes closer to the 21 minute target, and held the pose for a whopping 10 minutes!!! Woot woot!

Next came my flippin fantastic breakfast. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I am usually a creature of habit with my breakfasts, and they typically involve a egg white and veggie scramble with some variation of protein smoothie. However, I decided to shake things up this morning. I decided on oatmeal and fruit, but it wasn’t just any oatmeal and fruit.

Yesterday, I bought my first watermelon of the season. (My absolute favourite fruit of all time – I will never turn down watermelon, and I eat it in mass quantities that I’m sure would shock you.) I was a little hesitant when I purchased it yesterday, because I find that early watermelons aren’t always the best – typically expensive and not very juicy. However, this was not the case. There was a little watermelon photoshoot in my kitchen this morning. Prepare, dear bloggies, for a little food porn.

What could make this bowl of goodness even sexier? I’ll get to that in just a second. First, a short side-note. So far in my clean eating regimen (which isn’t really a regimen anymore, it’s more like just the way I like to eat now), I’ve continued to purchase yogurt that is artificially sweetened. This is mainly because it comes in tasty flavours and the brands I buy are easy to pack for on-campus lunches etc. I was a little slow to jump on the Greek yogurt bandwagon. I suppose this is because I often slip back into my weight loss way of thinking from a few years ago (which you can read about here), which would lead me to choose low calorie foods because low calorie meant being able to eat more. Fast forward to now, and I try to keep my focus more on nutrition rather than quantity. So back to the Greek yogurt, not only am I on that bandwagon, I now feel like I drive that bandwagon (in the sense that I think it’s delicious and would gladly shout this from the rooftops).

Back to breakfast, I amped up the protein factor of my fruit bowl with some Liberte Greek yogurt, mixed with a few drops of vanilla yogurt and 1/2 a packet of stevia.

This was one of those little gems that I had to eat slowly because I had such an enormous smile on my face. Equally as tasty (yet nowhere near as photogenic) was my bowl of oatmeal: 1/3 cup oatmeal + 3/4 cup water + lots of cinnamon, microwaved for 2 mins. Then, I mixed in 1/2 scoop vanilla protein and gobbled it all up.

Now this breakfast pretty much beat the veggie scramble by a mile.

Yesterday I had a lunch date with one of the lovely ladies that attends my spin classes on a regular basis (who is also one of my main fitness inspirations – this woman is in amazing shape, and if I am anywhere near as fit when I am when I reach her age, my life will be complete.) We went to Vincenzo’s, which is a gourmet grocery store with a deli, bakery, and cafe. As far as I’m concerned, Vincenzo’s makes some of the best sandwiches you can get in the K-W area! I enjoyed a sandwich of roasted turkey, lettuce, red onion, cucumbers, green peppers, and roasted red peppers, on freshly-baked whole wheat bread.

The best part was the turkey…. Vincenzo’s has awesome deli meat. (Sorry vegetarians…. although they do have some delicious veggie friendly options too!)

Mid-afternoon I had a delicious bowl of fruit topped with yogurt and a mixture of Kashi Go Lean Original and Kashi Toasted Berry Crisp.

And finally, dinner was a variation of the veggie scramble. Yesterday was a particularly hot day, and I didn’t feel like cooking anything in the oven because my house was already a-scorchin and I’m trying hard not to put the A/C on yet. Now, beware, these photos are not the most appetizing. You see, my little frying pan is getting old and is certainly ‘well seasoned’ as my aunt would say. It’s definitely not as non-stick as it used to be, so the omelette flippage was not as easy as I would have liked. I have posted the recipe for this Protein-Packed Omelette on the recipes page, sans-photo until I make a more visually appealing version. Mine contained tuna, but if this combo is a little too weird for your liking, I’m sure grilled chicken breast would taste superb as well! This is what mine looked like:

Pre-disastrous flip

On a non-food note, yesterday was also a fantastic day because 3 of my 4 magazines came in the post. Women’s Health is the 4th one, but it’s always a little slower than the others. (Guess what I’ll be doing this long weekend?!)

I started Chatelaine this morning, and there was a great little feature about the best health blogs that I thought I’d share. According to the mag, the 5 best health blogs are:

• Well: New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope puts the latest health news in perspective, often with a light touch.
• Paging Dr. Gupta: CNN’s medical team sound off on health news and trends.
• The Checkup: A Washington Post health writer teams up with a science reporter to make health news make sense.
• Consumer Reports Health Blog: Unbiased advice relating to health headlines from a trusted magazine well-known for getting to the bottom of things.
• Women Talk Blog: A one-stop-shop for several blogs that demystify topics like pregnancy, aging and wellness.

I’ve checked them out and I have to agree, they’re all pretty fantastic!! This leads me to my questions of the day:

• When you’re looking for health advice, who/what are your go-to sources?
  
• Do you subscribe to any magazines?
• If you’re a Clean Eater, are there any non-clean foods that you just can’t give up quite yet?
  

OK, this was a monster post. We should both probably get on with our days! Have a good one and I’ll catch ya later!