Kale Pesto Recipe and Strong Confident You Giveaway Winner

Good Morning Lovelies!

Hard to believe I am up early blogging on a Tuesday, I am notorious for sleeping in and rushing to work last minute.  This weekend was a fun one! Friday night we went out for dinner to a new local restaurant called Navorra with another couple Greg and Katherine. I actually ate white pasta for the first time since as long as can remember. Although my shrimp penne pasta in a garlic white wine sauce was amazing, it felt like a block of cement was sitting in my stomach the next day.... Now II remember why I try to avoid wheat! Lol

Saturday I had an awesome workout then did some running around. Later that night we had some friends over to the condo to celebrate Dan's bday! I really made an effort to put out some healthy snacks including carrots, humus, salsa, guacamole and flax chips. Unfortunately my efforts were derailed when someone ordered pizza lol  It was a great night but I ended up drinking wayyyy too much, needless to say playing baseball the next day was a rough go. Note to self: avoid drinking two bottles of wine to yourself in one night!

My healthy snacks.... before the pizza was ordered

Saturday was also the first of the month, so like I had promised myself I did a weigh in and did my measurements, not quite the results I wanted to see, but I did lose 2 lbs and 1.5 inches. Slow and steady wins the race right? I'd like to double that weight loss in June, then I will back to my ideal weight! 

Over the weekend I also found some time to experiment in the kitchen a little bit. I tried out a recipe I found at work for Kale Pesto, yes that's right! Kale Pesto. It is really easy to make, and way cheaper to make than using basil leaves. We had it on top of rice pasta with cherry tomatoes and chicken! Give it a try and tell me what you think!

Rice pasta with kale pesto!

Kale Pesto Recipe

2 cups Kale leaves
1/2 cashews
2 tbsp Parmesan Cheese (optional to keep it paleo)
2 garlic cloves chopped
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1/4 olive oil

Instructions:

Put all of this in your food processor, blend and enjoy! It's great on top of pasta, or as a sandwich spread or as a dip!

mmmmm! delish!

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

Now onto more important things, the winner of the Strong Confident You tank top! And the lucky winner is entry #311 Rina Teal!!! Congrats Rina!! You have 48 hours to contact me to claim your prize!

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My First Zumba Experience

Well, I always said I would never do it..... up that's right, I promised myself that I would never ever step foot in a Zumba class... I was worried it would remind me too much of the 5 years of my life I was "forced" to take ballet and jazz until I begged my mom to put me in karate instead, I was worried I would embarrass myself but not being able to follow along with instructor and that everyone would see that I can't move my feet to the rhythm of the music while trying to mimic my instructors arm movements. I am happy to say that yesterday I put all of my fears of embarrassment aside and participated in a Zumbathon organized by my school in order to raise money for Camp Oochigeas.  A ton of staff and students showed up to support the cause and participate in 2 hours of Zumba.

Did I Enjoy Myself?  Yes, I actually did. I think I enjoyed myself because I was surrounded by coworkers and students and I had a lot of laughs.

Was it What I Expected? Yes, it was exactly what I thought it would be. It is not a type of excersize I would enjoy doing regulary, but I could handle doing it once in a while with some friends to swtich up my workouts.

Would I Recommend it? Sure, I say try anything once. I actually burned off over 600 calories in 1:20 minutes so you definitely get your sweat on. I think people with a background in dancing would really enjoy zoomba.

hehe couldn't resist including this pic!

I am really glad that I gave Zumba a try, however I would definitely prefer going for a run or playing a game of baseball over a zoomba class, maybe its the former tomboy in me but I could definitely name about 10 other forms of exercise I would do before Zumba. My hand-eye co-ordination is good, but not my dancing cooordination... I definitely struggled to keep up with the faster paced moves.

Have you ever tried Zoomba? If so did you like it? why or why not?



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Are You A Snackoholic? Some Tips to Avoid the Late Night Munchies

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! The sun was shining in here in Southern Ontario but the temperature definitely was not as warm as I would have liked, beggars can't be choosers though so I'll take whatever sunshine I can get since it gets me outdoors more often.

My weekend was nice and low key. Dan had to work Saturday and Sunday so we were in bed by 11:00pm both nights,  I was happy to get some much needed sleep! Friday instead of driving to the video store I decided to run there and back which was a total of  7.1 km. That is the longest I have run since the Yonge Street 10km in April because my hip injury had flared up, the last 2 km were a little uncomfortable but I still felt great after my run. We rented the move This is 40, and honest to god I laughed my ass off!!!! This movie is friggen hilarious!!! I started laughing histerically 5 minutes into it and didn't stop for the next two hours.My abs are still hurting!

Fridays run to the video store

Saturday I did my workout, got a mani and pedi and went shopping, unfortunately not for myself, Dan's bday is this weekend so I was out shopping for him.  We had another chill night watching tv. Sunday proved to be a VERY busy day, I got up and did a 45 minute workout on the eliptical and followed that up by playing two baseball games. After baseball I rushed home to get ready for my first official "photoshoot" ever! Don't get too excited, it was just a photo shoot for our engagement pics, nonetheless I was ecstatic about it. My fabulous friend/hairstylist Jackie Rowley did my hair for the occasion (I can never do my hair properly on my own lol) and my wedding photographer Sebrina Wilson took the photos. You can check Sebrina's website out HERE. And you can show her some Facebook love HERE. We took the pics at two different locations, Cullen Park and right by Lake Ontario. Sebrina has given us a sneak peak of some of the photos, I already love them! I can't wait to see the rest. It was a really fun experience working with her. If you live in the GTA I highly recommend you check her out!

Photo By: Sebrina Wilson Photography

Photo By: Sebrina Wilson Photography

Another VERY exciting part of my weekend was that Dan and I did not snack all week, and did not snack all weekend.... for those of you who know us well this is unheard of. We LOVE our snacks.... in fact we were enjoying too many snacks over the winter, hence my 5lbs weight gain lol. I have been looking at what I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and realized that based on those meals alone I should easily weigh about 7lbs less than I do.... then I started thinking about all of the delicious snacks I love to nibble on and realized that they are beginning to counter act my healthy meals and workouts.

Saturdays Dinner

I would say that snacking on cheese and crackers is the worst thing I do throughout the week, don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with eating cheese in moderation but I have no self control. I also love Thai food and sushi.... oh and of course wine. I refuse to give wine up, ever! lol Dan and I have made a vow to each other to cut out ALL unnecessary snacks during the week and on weekends, and allowing ourselves a cheat day every other weekend. We held strong this past week and we are determined to stick with it.

Due to the fact that I am a self proclaimed snackoholic I decided to do a little research and find out what causes this need to snack in the evenings. Here are a few of the causes for late night snacking I have discovered and some of the ways I have come up with to avoid giving in to my nocturnal temptations!

1) Boredom: Watching tv and movies every evening can get super boring and can often lead to snacking, so I told Dan that we should start going for more walks in the evenings after dinner. A great way to get some fresh are, avoid snacking and burn off some extra calories rather than consume them.

2) Frustration/Stress: stress and resentment can give you an upset stomach which in turn can cause you to turn to food to soothe it. I know that when I have a stressful day at work I always have a couple of glasses of wine to help me relax. From now on I am going to have some camomile tea and drive to avoid the empty calories I get from wine (at least during the week, on weeks I'll be drinking wine for sure! lol)

3) Lack of Outdoor Time: when people (like myself) love being outdoors but dont get a chance to get out much due to injury or weather conditions etc... they can sometimes turn to food to fill in that void. That is definitely what we did over the winter, now that the weather is nice we have no excuses we are going to get out there and get more active!

There are a many more reasons why people snack, but these were the ones I found most applicable to me.


Is anyone else out there a snackolohic?? and if so what is your favourite food to snack on?

How do you build up the will power to stop snacking???



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