You know the feeling when you wake up in the morning and your body just doesn’t want to get going? (Who doesn’t, right?) Even though I certainly consider myself a morning person, this is how I felt this morning. It’s no mystery as to why – I’ve had 2 late nights (which for me during the week is 11pm!) and the past weekend wasn’t exactly restful, so I’m definitely looking for a bit of a recovery this weekend!

Sex and the City 2!

As I mentioned yesterday, I finally got to go and see SATC2 last night and it was great!! I have to admit, I still have a slight preference for the first one, but this movie was still pretty hilarious! The outfits were just as good as usual too. When I go to the cinema, I love watching the previews. Recently I’ve been a bit disappointed, but this time there were 2 that I can’t wait to see! The first was Going the Distance with Justin Long and Drew Barrymore…

… and the second was Life as We Know It with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel:

What can I say, I’m SUCH a sucker for chick flicks!

Re-Cap of Yesterday’s Eats:

My baseball team had a match right after class yesterday, so I packed a Lemon Zest Luna Mini to snack on while I drove over to the diamond. I love these ones – you know the taste of the icing in the middle of lemon cookies? That’s what these beauties taste like.

Lemon Zest Luna Mini

Lunch was a little leftover Mediterranean Barley Rice Salad. For some reason I felt the need for a few more greens, so I also had a monster salad with loads of veg, sliced hard boiled egg, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Mediterranean Barley Rice Salad

Mid-afternoon, I snacked on some veggies and roasted red pepper dip, as well as a homemade granola protein bar. I stopped for a minute to snap a photo and admire the little apricot and cranberry chunks. YUMMM.

My roomie and I went to the 7pm Sex and the City 2 screening, so I had to eat a quick early dinner. I wasn’t that hungry so I opted for a grilled veggie and chicken sandwich and a salad with strawberries, almonds, and Walden Farms raspberry vinaigrette.

Chicken, grilled zucchini, roasted red pepper and red onion, and red pepper dip.

What about dessert?

Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about this! I was so pleased with my strawberry rhubarb frozen yogurt on Tuesday that I decided to keep experimenting. Earlier yesterday afternoon, I made a trip over to my usual source for protein powders, bars etc. I decided that a new one would be my reward for finishing off the Plank Challenge and my 6lb muscle gain that I wrote about last week. In a recent chat with Mr Trainer, he was telling me about slow-digesting proteins. The usual protein that I use, which is whey isolate, is a fast digesting protein that the body breaks down quickly. I decided to look into this a little further.

The benefit of a slower breakdown is that it prevents your body from burning lean muscle, particularly overnight while your body needs to sustain itself without food. I figured that this would be a good thing to try since I’m usually unable to eat much before early-AM workouts without feeling sick to my stomach.

I ended up choosing the BSN Caramel Latte flavoured Syntha-6 protein. According to the company’s FAQ for this product:

SYNTHA-6™ contains 6 nutritionally complete and super-concentrated protein sources, which collectively foster a sustained release of amino acids. These individual protein fractions and their respective digestion rates are as follows:
• Ultra-Filtered Whey Protein Concentrate – 2 to 3 Hours
• Micellar Alpha-and-Beta Caseins and Caseinates – 6 to 8 Hours
• Microfiltered Whey Protein Isolate – 2 to 3 Hours
• Egg Albumen – 2 to 3 Hours • Calcium Caseinate – 6 to 8 Hours
• Milk Protein Concentrate – 4 to 6 Hours
The digestion rate for the various protein sources listed above are quoted in general terms, and may change depending on the amount of protein consumed, and whether or not the proteins are consumed with other foods and/or micronutrients.

And that was my nutrition lesson yesterday!! I find it quite interesting (but then again, I am sort of nerdy like that.) Anyways, it looks like this:

Back to dessert…. prior to going to see Sex and the City 2, I mixed up the following:

• 1/2 scoop BSN Caramel Latte Syntha-6 protein
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
• a couple shakes of cinnamon
• 1/2 mashed banana

I left it in the freezer for 4 hours. When I scooped it into a bowl, this is what I got:

I didn’t totally mash up the banana so there were still a few chunks dispersed in the yogurt mixture. It was lovely!! I thought about some other mix-ins for this recipe, and the first ones that popped into my mind were chocolate chips and Werthers Originals. I’m not a big sweets type of girl, but there are 2 flavours that I cannot get enough of and those are caramel and butterscotch. Unfortunately I didn’t have any Werthers lying around, but you can bet that if I did, I’d have crushed some up and thrown them in as well. Delish.

I tried this protein again this morning after my workout with Mr Trainer, but this time, in a smoothie. Can you tell from the ingredients that I was needing something to wake me up!?

• 1 scoop BSN Caramel Latte Syntha-6 Protein
• 1 snack-sized vanilla yogurt
• 1/2 frozen banana
• a bit of cinnamon
• 7 ice cubes
• 1 cup chilled coffee
• 1/2 cup Unsweetened Original Almond Breeze almond milk
• 1 packet stevia

… and ohhhh was it ever tasty. Watch out Starbucks… this one’s a keeper.

This morning I’m off to class, then I’m meeting up with 2 of my friends for brunch!

Questions for today:

• Are there any sweets that you just can’t say no to? Werthers are definitely mine!
• How do you reward yourself after you reach a personal goal?

Have a fabulous day!