Five Things Friday {3}

Happy Friday and Happy Valentines Day!!!!

I hope that everyone has that wonderful Friday feeling going on, and that someone (romantically OR not) makes you feel special today.

I'm linking up with Clare from Fitting It All In for another Five Things Friday!

Five Things I'm Proud Of From This Week:

Setting up my Wahoo Fitness speed & cadence sensor on my bike and actually went spinning more than once!!!

Attending my first yoga class.

Finishing my Anatomy & Physiology course!

Getting 91% on my Symptomology 1 course!

Making the decision to cut prepared food out of my diet to hopefully improve digestion.

Five Things I Love About Valentines Day:

Although it's just a corporate holiday (yadda, yadda) I think it's a great opportunity to show some love to all the amazing people who make life so great.

It's the anniversary of the day I left to head up to my first camp job in Fort McMurray.  That decision ultimately lead to health, happiness, and love.  I cried the whole way to Edmonton, crashed Marshall & Heather's V-Day, and to this day revel in the memories of that whole experience!!

Chocolate (duh), even though I'm not eating any this year it looks deeeeeelicious.

The fact that it's snowing right now!!!  Mother Nature's V-Day gift to me, thanks lady.

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My lovely new Lulu Wunder Unders that Cody got me for V-Day!!!!  Now I don't have to wear the same pair over and over, which is great news.

Five Shows I'm Super Into Lately:

Killer Women

Nashville

NCIS: Los Angeles

Arctic Air

Teen Mom 2 (I've been catching up on mtv.ca)

Five Things I Ate This Week:

Honey-Lime Salmon Tostadas from the Against All Grain Cookbook (love).

 

Extra delicious sweet potato hash for breaky all week.

YUMMY burger patties with sauteed mushrooms, bacon, sweet potato fries, avo, and spicy ketchup at Danielle & Will's.  Good company + good food = doesn't get better than that!

I added peanut butter to my protein smoothie and was introduced to a whole new world.  Smoothies will never be the same (in a good way).

A prawn and tofu quinoa bowl - one of my new fave staple meals.

Five Faves I Caught On My Camera

The stem cap on my bike.

A gorgeous bluebird day to get out for a walk.

A colourful blend of veggies to saute up for my quinoa bowl.

Cuddling up in Cody's sweats for an evening of catching up on my girly shows while he's away.

A huge crew of elk crossing the road on my way to work.  Sorry it's super fuzzy but I had to quickly snap a shot once I was stopped.

XO - Michelle

What I'm {Not} Eating Wednesday

Over the past few months I've been taking a really big look at my digestion.  I've had digestive issues since forever (we decided I had IBS in elementary school) but after starting my studies at CSNN I realized just how seriously an unhealthy digestive system can effect the body!  Not only have my digestive issues hampered my physical health, I also feel that they have caused me a lot of anxiety and upsets emotionally and socially.  Anyone who has had symptoms of IBS will completely get where I'm coming from.

Although I've made efforts to improve my food choices on and off throughout my life, these past few years have seen me putting forth more time, effort, and thought.  The more in tune I become with my body though, the more I realize that food choices alone aren't going to fix this, so I enlisted the help of a holistic nutritionist (The Healthy Ginger), an acupuncturist (Open Gate Acupuncture & Herbal Clinic), and a naturopath (Kootenay Health Centre).

While I'm slowly working towards healthier digestion, I've realized that this is a really intricate journey and not something that will happen overnight.  I'm trying to journal my successes and failures and hope to be seeing a huge improvement by this time next year.  While I am having improvement compared to this time last year, I think that realistically it is just going to take a lot of patience and belief in myself to get to where I want to be!!  While food choices are an important factor, what is most difficult is realizing how involved emotions and feelings are.  I guess I've known this for a while (deep down) but now am realizing I'm going to have to learn how to deal with stress, anxiety, feelings, etc. in a way that hopefully won't effect my digestion, I feel that it will be my biggest struggle.

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So this weekend I had about a million digestive issues.  Since it was a weekend and I was feeling nice and calm I decided it had to be food choices and not stressy feelings that were messing me up, so I got to thinking that maybe I needed to evaluate what I've been eating lately.  I referenced my handy Health Binder where I keep track of such things, and noticed that my intake of prepared - yet healthy - foods has been quite high lately.

While I try really hard to cook and bake everything from scratch at home, sometimes it is sooo tempting to grab a healthy pre-made alternative.  I think in rare instances this works well for me, but as it becomes a more frequent habit my system starts to go into rejection mode.

I've decided to nix these (my faves) and most other pre-made foods until May 19 (the day we leave for California), my favorite go-to's, my sometimes saviours, and also the stuff that could very possibly be contributing to the violent gut ache I had all weekend.  I'm already excited to add them back into my diet at some point...  So long for now friends...

WHAT I'M {NOT} EATING WEDNESDAY

Vans Waffles

Amy's No-Cheese Pizza

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Amy's Gluten Free Indian Aloo Mattar Wrap

Mountain Range Spelt Brownies

Store-Bought Sauces

I want to point out that these products are GREAT options for alternative food eaters and have really awesome ingredients, it's just that I took using them to the extreme.  

Check out Peas and Crayons for tons of other WIAW posts, it's a great way to get inspired!!

Click the WIAW tag on the side of this page under "Labels" for more of my What I Ate Wednesday posts.

Have you had problems with your digestion?  Do you have an IBS success story?

XO - Michelle

Marvelous In My Monday {2}

And another weekend bites the dust.

I had a busy Saturday and a lazy Sunday, which is basically how I like it.  Here's a little bit of marvelous (hosted by Healthy Diva Eats) from my weekend :)


We went out to shoot Cody's new gun, which was way more fun than I was expecting!  I got over shooting guns for hours on end about 4 years ago so I was less than enthused to find myself headed out of town with a truck full of arsenal, but as soon as we hit the back roads I was feeling pretty excited.  It was a blue skied, sunny, sparkling snow kind of day and I'm really glad I got to spend so much time in the fresh air.

Photo Credit:  Troy Zohner

Danielle and Will were kind enough to invite us all over for a dinner over the fire kind of evening.  It was cold out, but with the fire going we managed to stay warm.  I tried Mennonite sausage for the first time, which is delicious, and Danielle also made salads and really yummy cookies for us to enjoy; lucky for me she texted me ahead of time and told me to bring my lactose pills!!  We also got to meet her brother's new hound puppies (so cute!), I got to hold the squirmiest one named Eddie.

Booking our trip to California!!!  It's happening, for real.  It's a great thing to look forward to and also a great way to hopefully motivate myself to get back on the fitness wagon.  I have until the middle of May to meet my goal bod.  WOOHOO.  I am seriously so excited.

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Family dinner at Heid Out.  Our last family gathering before Troy and Keefer make their way home.

What's up for this week:

• Completing my Anatomy and Physiology test, once it's done I get to move on to a course that I'm really excited for!
• Not eating in excess.  Although I'm pretty good at eating whole foods, I've gotten really good at eating a lot of them.  I feel like I need to scale it back and start paying more attention to those random snacky urges.
• Try my first real yoga class at Glow Yoga & Wellness.  Danielle and Kirsten speak so highly of the yoga class that they have been going to that I just have to try it.  But I'm SO nervous!!
• Enjoy the week with Cody before he heads back to work.
• Seeing our pals Marshall & Heather, who are home for a visit coming up this weekend!

  Hope your Monday is off to a fantastic start!

XO - Michelle

Make A Plan Monday {2} & Fitness Choices

Good Morning!  Ugh back to Monday again?!  How come the weekend always goes so fast?!

This week I'm hoping to focus on:

• Following my workout plan (see below)
• Starting my next course in school - Anatomy and Physiology - yikes!
• Turning my electronics off at 9, except for a goodnight text to Cody
• Watching less TV - I'm thinking of eliminating Netflix for the next little while and only watching the shows I PVR after I've done my workout for the day

Meal Plan for Jan 20-24

Monday:  Vegetarian Butternut Squash Chili

Tuesday:  Cilantro Chili Chicken Burgers

Wednesday:  Quinoa Breaded Sole with Asparagus

Thursday:  Baked Tofu Quinoa Bowl

Friday:  Wing it

I wanted to say a little something about fitness.  As I mentioned on Friday, I haven't been working out nearly as much as I had been thinking I would.  I gave myself some time to think it over and figure out the why's, and here's what I've got:

I am all over the map when it comes to fitness.  My issue lately is that what I feel is the most productive and effective use of my workout time is not something I feel like doing.  I've always been a huge believer in weight lifting and no matter what the fitness goal I 100% believe that a program like James Wilson's Fitness Map fits the bill.  I lost almost all of my weight by circuit training with dumbbells, and it totally worked.  BUT I don't want to head down to my basement and lift.  It's not usual for me, but it's what's happening lately.

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With my new found knowledge of listening to myself and my body, I've been looking for alternatives.  I'm still hoping to get back to loving to lift, but for now I'm going to do something else.  I weighed my options and ultimately have decided to try using my Rip:60 (similar to the more commonly known TRX) for the next while.  It hooks up wherever which means I can workout in my loft which seems to be my area of choice lately, and while it isn't weight lifting it is using my body weight and trust me, it's freaking hard work.

I've been trying to decide what kind of program to follow, how many days per week to workout, etc. and have settled on doing three full body workouts per week, circuit style, plus outdoor activities or whatever else strikes my fancy.  I'll be posting my workouts from the previous week every Monday, so stay tuned.

XO - Michelle

Make A Plan Monday {1} & Hunter Boot Love

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Well hello to a new week!  I'm ready to tackle this week full on keeping some important things in mind:

• Get into a beneficial sleep pattern.  I would like to aim for being in bed by 9:30/10:00 pm and waking up at 6:00 am
• Do a major house clean.  
• Add more exercise!  I have been flirting with the thought of trying James Wilson's Fitness Map workouts again, or just riding my bike in the basement... will keep you posted :)
• Practice positive thinking.  I read a blog post from Alison Smith about creating a gratitude jar and it seems like a really neat way to find some positives in each day. 
• Work hard on school!  I am ready to do my second test and move on to the next section!!

What a great weekend.  Family dinner, episodes of Chuck on Netflix, cuddles with Cody and Phil, SNOW and shoveling, grocery shopping, and finally some good sleeps!  On the down side Cody had to go back to work yesterday, what a bummer!!! 

Waking up to snow, Cody shoveling, Me admiring the snow, IN LOVE with my new Hunter boots!

Can I just take a moment to say how awesome Hunter Boots are?!  You may think it's weird to wear rain boots in the snow, but it's actually genius.  They are warm (if paired with wool socks), dry, and comfortable; not to mention tall and snug enough that snow rarely finds it's way in.  I have been wanting a pair for so long and Cody bought me some for Christmas - in purple.  He is awesome.

Meal Plan for Jan 13-17

Monday:  Quinoa Crusted Sole with Rainbow Salad

Tuesday:  Cilantro Chili Turkey Burgers

Wednesday:  Baked Tofu Rice Bowl

Thursday:  Prawns and Quinoa Bowl

Friday:  Wing it

I tend to wing it on the weekends because they are busy, I may end up in town or visiting friends, and it's a chance to use up any left overs or odds and ends.  In the future, as my goals change, I'll probably start planning for Sat & Sun as well.

My wonderful friend Danielle got home yesterday which is very exciting for me!  She is my best friend as well as someone who inspires me to stay on the healthy track, so I missed her very much for the eleven whole days that she was away.  The only sad part is it means I had to give her kitten, Phil, back this morning.  Damn.  I already miss his freight train purring.

Phil hogging the remote, Phil helping me with school, Phil rearranging the shoe rack

XO - Michelle