Jaime Pressley: Ab Envy

Most times when I pass by fitness magazines I am impressed with the covers but I often assume they have been largely photoshopped. I guess after so much media deception (read Kelly Clarkson and her newest CD cover, as per Kelly's own words) I don't trust what I see.

Then I flipped open my SHAPE magazine this month and they claimed that they don't photoshop their covers. Seriously? In which case I'm gobsmacked because Jaime Pressley looks AMAZING in this month's cover (see above). She also looked nothing short of stunning on the alternate inside cover; in fact I think I actually said "wow!"


But could SHAPE possibly be telling the truth? Is this the way she actually looks!? I went on the SHAPE website and found a video of the photoshop that proves that she does indeed look that good: see video here.

Colour me impressed! She looks amazing. And I do believe I have ab envy. Now if you excuse me I have to knock out a couple dozen crunches before work.

all pictures are the property of Shape magazine

Turning Crap-Free Week into a Lifestyle

Now that Crap-Free Week is over I have decided that this will be a life-style change. To the best of my abilities I will continue to eat "clean!" And so was the case yesterday.

Breakfast consisted of oatmeal. Lately I have re-discovered oatmeal - turns out it doesn't have to be bland and taste like wall-paper glue. Yesterday, I added pure pumpkin puree to my oatmeal. I wasn't expecting much because I don't really like pumpkin. In fact you'll never have me eating a piece of pumpkin pie. Much less declaring it yummy!

But boy was I wrong with pumpkin oatmeal. Basically I made my stovetop oats and added all the fixings at the end (vanilla, sugar free syrup, a tablespoon of unsweetened shredded coconut, a bit of dried cranberries and pumpkin). Earlier on in the cooking process I added some cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg for a bit of a spicy taste.

After my oatmeal was done cooking I served it with a splash of Almond Breeze and mixed it all together. It ended up so creamy and wonderful. But really I never put any added sugar in. It was all natural and fairly healthy. Plus super filling! Having said that it was so yummy I kind of wished I'd made a double serving.


Lunch consisted of baked salmon in a light herb sauce, two laughing cow cheeses, a heaping tablespoon of hummus, and a handful of Kashi crackers. I kind of had to sneak this one into my office (after plating it) to take a picture before chowing down.


Clearly I should have had a snack or a fruit because I was mungry come 3pm so I ate half a date muffin made by one of my co-workers. She claimed it was healthy but one bite told me it couldn't be. It was too buttery and dense and lovely. Anywho it was small and I'd been good for a long time so I indulged.


Dinner was a veggie mix made up of barley, beans, red peppers, and broccoli. I paired that with some extra lean ground beef (I buy super lean cuts and grind them in my food processor - cheaper and healthier) sauteed with a tiny bit of tomato sauce, mushrooms, onions, and red peppers. On the whole? Num num num . . .


During the day I also enjoyed (but did not take pictures of) a banana, an apple, and several cups of Yogi green tea.

You bloggies will have to forgive me because today I neglected to bring my camera along with me to work. So there aren't really any pictures! :o( I can however show you what breakfast looked like!

Inspired by the oat-bran craze sweeping the blogging world I went searching for hot cereals. I found something called Sunny Boy Hot Cereal. It's milled in Alberta and has been around since 1926. It's made up of whole grains of wheat, rye and flax. A good sized bag cost me $3 and change!!! Plus you get such a massive yield out of a small amount. It's quite economical and on the whole really yummy!

I suggest you follow the directions on the bag and then add all the mixings like you would for oatmeal. The consistency was different. Plus you get some flax thrown in there too. It's a good way to change up breakie.

Voila the package:


And here is the finished product:


It was a good way to change things up. I'm sure there's something similar available in the United States - probably a Bob's Red Mill product. Try it! You may be surprised!


Today's Workout
40 minutes of yoga

If you can run a mile, you can run a marathon

Buenos Dias!

I don't have much time to blog this morning; I have to get ready and head off within half an hour to attend to court in a location kind of far away.

I did however want to mention this really cool website I came across: See Jane Run It seems that they're a bit like a Running Room-type store especially for women. They organize clinics, races, sell athletic gear (they also have an online store), the whole bit! That and people seem to love them as evidenced by their Yelp reviews.

My whole favourite part of their website? Their manifesto - much like the Lululemon one but perhaps even more fun. I especially love the part about "If you can run a mile, you can run a marathon!" :o) Which means I can clearly run a half in October. Awesome.

source

Day Seven the end of Crap-Free Week

I did it!!!!!!!! CFW is over! I successfully completed a week of crap-free eating. Before I get to the re-cap let's go over what I ate on the seventh day?

Breakfast was a couple of my oatmeal breakfast cookies with some Yogi green tea. The tea comes with these lovely little sayings on the tea bag tag. Sometimes they're silly and sometimes inspiring. This was the saying on my day seven morning tea.


This one said the following:


"Let your manners speak for you" Kind of like a tea-based fortune cookie!

On day seven I decided to skip my morning snack. I was actually good for pretty well the whole morning but I was kind of mungry (mad + hungry = mungry) come lunch time. Lunch was a cup of whole wheat elbow pasta and about a cup of lean ground beef meatballs in a homemade tomato sauce with mushrooms and olives. It was yummy!


Post lunch dessert was a banana Larabar knock off courtesy of Angela's recipe at Oh She Glows. It turned out yummy but I still think Enlightened Cooking's Very Cherry bar (cheery pie Larabar knock off) is my favourite. They are wonderful bars though. They really fill you up. In fact if anything I think I may have eaten a tad too much at lunch. I felt too full - kind of weighed down afterwards.


Dinner consisted of a fist-sized portion of extra lean beef grilled on my stove-top, 1 heaping tablespoon of hummus, and steamed broccoli. Funny thing is I didn't realize until now that I doubled up on beef yesterday. Mmmm must try to avoid that. 'Twas yummy too!


My evening snack consisted of one banana sliced-up with one tablespoon of all natural almond butter on the side.


I didn't get a picture but I nibbled on a handful of dates while I prepped dinner. And that was what I ate on my last day of CFW! Woohoo!!

So now for the recap! What did I learn from Crap-Free Week?

1. Trying to eat "clean" forces you to be more creative in your food choices
2. I developed a deeper appreciation for almond butter (so much so that I would now love to try
the famed Barney Butter)
3. Oatmeal in the morning doesn't take very long to prepare and it's super yummy!
4. Portable oatmeal (via an oatmeal breakfast cookie) is a good thing! In fact today I left some
regular stove-top oats for the boy to eat when he woke up (he works varying hours).
He didn't eat them!! Why? Because he looked at them and thought I forgot to make the
cookies! :oP lol
5. A handful of sliced blanched almonds, chopped up dates, and dried cranberries makes for an
awesome snack.
6. Almond Breeze is a thing of beauty!
7. I CAN do this! I CAN eat crap-free! And in fact this has renewed my commitment. It
shocked my system and now I think I'm ready to stick to this new way of eating.
8. Food blogging is FUN! :o)

So that was my week! How about you . . . will you try a crap-free week? It's all the rage!!


See you tomorrow!

Today is a GOOD Day!!!

Today is a GOOD day! Scratch that - Today is a GREAT day!

A year ago I found myself in the depths of despair. Easily the lowest point I'd ever found myself in.

It took a lot of work. A lot of prayer. A lot of support (from friends and loved ones - to whom I will always be indebted to). A lot of tears. And even some therapy. But I got through it.

Today is proof that when people say "This too shall pass" they're not lying. I made it through and I'm in a wonderful place today!

I am happy!
Today I am grateful - to my friends, my mom, my boy, and my God!

So on with my day - full of smiles. Stay tuned later on for my re-cap of CFW and yesterday's food journal.

Today's workout schedule:

40 minutes yoga
20 minute running intervals

Day Six and Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

It took some uninstalling and reinstalling of Picasa but I'm now ready to show you what Day 6 of CFW looked like!

Shall we?

I started today off with a new concoction, an Oatmeal Breakfast Cookie! This was something I had seen on other blogs but didn't really know how to make. I figured there had to be a healthy low-fat way to make a morning cookie with all the goodness of a bowl of oatmeal.

To figure out how to make this cookie I scoured blogs and recipe sites and adapted them to come up with my own version:

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookie Recipe

1. Preheat your oven to 350F

2. Take whatever would be your usual serving of oatmeal in the morning (feel free to double it or triple it up if you want some leftover cookies).

3. To that add a mushed up banana (very ripe ones are best). I used one banana for 2 cups of oatmeal.

4. Add in a teaspoon of vanilla, some freshly grated nutmeg, a dash of cinamon, and a couple of tablespoons of honey. I'll leave the amount of honey up to your individual taste. The first time I made this I also added in some sugar-free syrup to make it tastier.

5. Then add whatever else you would put in your oatmeal - my cookies contained slivers of blanched almonds and a small handful of dried cranberries.

6. To all of this I added a splash of boiling water and mixed it all together until it kind of came together. I used water but you can use Almond Breeze, or soy milk, or even milk. Make sure it's hot though!

7. Then just spoon these little babies on to your baking pan. I used two tablespoons to round mine out into little oatmeal cookie blobs. Choose whatever size you'd like as they don't really grow while cooking.

8. Bake them for approximately 20 minutes. And enjoy!

In the end my cookies looked like this:


And that was my breakfast! A couple of oatmeal cookies with some water. They were quite filling and really why shouldn't they be - they're essentially oatmeal in a portable form. I think they'll become a staple in the TorontoGirloutWest kitchen!

For a mid-morning snack I had one apple and a handful of dates. I've developed a love of dates since CFW begun. They're like nature's little brown sugar nuggets.


For lunch I decided to keep things low key and just have a sandwich. I had two slices of oven roasted turkey breast in between two slices of sprouted grain (no flour!) bread. I smeared the bread with a tad bit of hummus (as mayo replacement) and added ketchup and mustard. I also filled my sandwich with cucumbers, lettuce, and tomatoes.


Come dinner time I wasn't very hungry so late in the afternoon I toasted one more piece of my sprouted grain bread and smeared it with some almond butter, topped off with one sliced banana.


BTW - that little guy in the background is Mukmuk; one of the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Olympic mascots. He's supposed to be a Vancouver Island marmot. Since the boy is from Van Isle I gave him that stuffed cutie as one of his Valentine's Day presents. Awwww . . .

I don't think the banana-ab-bread combo did the trick 'cause a while later I nibbled on one slice of oven roasted turkey breast and a small handful of Kashi crackers.

And that my friends was Day Six of CFW!!! Woohoo!! Can you believe this week is almost over? I can't! To be honest I think I'll stick to eating like this. If anything I think I could still eat better! Over all I would say Day Six was too carb-o-licious. Hopefully I'll get better at that.

On the fitness front . . . I've decided I'm going to start logging my physical activity. After all you can't achieve a well balanced lifestyle with diet alone. So this is what today's gym schedule will entail:

1. 40 minutes of moderate intervals on the treadmill
2. 30 minutes of circuit training weight work
3. 15 minutes of streching

Hasta Manana!


Editor's Note

The cooking time for your cookies will vary based on how big you make them. To get them to cook a bit faster you can press them down slightly once you've put them on the cookie sheet. But overall 20-25 minutes is a pretty safe bet. Wait until the edges start to turn a golden brown.

Top o'the Morning to you!

Good morning boys and girls!

So I woke up nice and early today, all ready to get going on my day. And of course how could I start my day without updating my blog for your reading pleasure.

Unfortunately, my food journal update will have to wait until a bit later today. Picasa (my favourite editing software) is being a royal pain. For the last couple of days I've had a terrible time uploading my food pictures; clearly Picasa is not a fan of CFW! So I'll edit those and update you on Day Six later.

But before I head on my day I wanted to talk about something that's been bothering me a smidget. And that's that the presumption that because I eat a certain way I'm on a diet. The D-word has many connotations and I don't really love it. It seems to imply that you're depriving yourself. That you're hungry all the time. That your food is not very tasty. That it's only temporary.

Actually when people say things like that it makes me sad. I eat the way I do because it's good for me. In fact I often think my eating habits should be even healthier! Food fuels my body but I also enjoy it. I don't always deny myself rich goodies. But I indulge in them in moderation. I firmly believe that balance is the key to success in healthfulness.

The way I eat is reflective of my life-style. Diets are temporary. Three years ago I chose to change my life for the better and in the process I gave up pastries, white bread, and buttery sauces. At least most of the time.

But I'm okay with that. And my food IS very yummy! Maybe I need to start ramping up the creativity and showing you better pictures. I would like people to realize that eating healthfully does not have to mean depriving yourself of all that is tasty in the world!

And on that note - stay tuned later on today for a twist on breakfast oatmeal. Also, I think I'm going to tinker with some ingredients to see if I can recreate a Key Lime Pie Larabar. Num num num num!! :o)

On with my day! Hope my American readers have a fantabulous day off (PS: I'm kale-green with envy!)