My new ride -

So I decided to buy a decent mountain bike. I enjoyed hitting the trails around home last summer and I just wasn't getting the full experience with the bike that I had. Plus because it didn't have any shocks, my arms and shoulders would be so sore by the time I was done. So here is a picture of the new bike.... I am hitting the trails tomorrow for the first time this season and am very excited. I plan on taking my camera so hopefully I will get some photos. Happy Canada day tomorrow. I hope you all celebrate our wonderful country and all the opportunities it offers us. To all my friends south of the boarder, happy 4th of July on Monday. Enjoy your day!

Weekend Cook a thon

I am trying something new (again). I find it so hard to cook during the week, and because I am only cooking for myself, I got into the habit of making one or two dishes on the weekend and then eating the same thing every day (sometimes the same thing for lunch and dinner).

I decided to pull out a meal plan that I received a little while ago and prep my meals for the week. Whatever I have for dinner, I will make a double portion have for lunch the following day. The meat products have been prepared in their marinade(or with the filling in them) and then frozen without cooking, so I will just take them out of the fridge and pop them into the oven. Here's what I made:

-chicken with sundried tomato pesto
-salmon with crunchy walnut topping
-steak and mushrooms
-brocoli slaw (dressing on the side)
-green beans with orange shallot sauce (sauce on the side)
- Mixed veg and cucumber salad (dressing on the side)
- egg omelete bake with cheddar and Canadian bacon and tons of veggies
- strawberries and blueberries cut up and portioned in baggies(to be topped with kefir yogurt)
- mini watermelon, cut up into chunks

Phew, makes me tired just looking at this. I froze about 8 portions or the chicken and 8 portions of the salmon, so I should have sufficient amounts to last for 3 weeks, plus I tripled the veg/canadian bacon mixture and froze the other two portions to use in the weeks to come. I feel really good now knowing that I have everything I need to be sucessful for the next week.

Yesterday my niece came over to drop off a gift for me... her and her sister were shopping and saw the perfect bag for me. It's a nylon type NIKE bag, that I think doubles as a backpack but written across the bag is " pick a fight" They both looked at it and thought of me and my boxing..... so I am now using it to keep all of my boxing stuff in. I love getting gifts :)

:)

Boxing Video

I have written a lot about my new found love of boxing. It makes me feel strong and athletic and powerful. It's funny though because I will not look at myself in the mirrors when I box. I am afraid to see that my body, does not match the way I feel when I am boxing and I will lose the confidence that I feel when I am doing combos with my trainer. Anyway, the one hour boxing sessions I have been doing every Friday for the last two years have been my absolute favourite workout. On Friday morning I took in my camera and filmed bits and pieces of my workout. I really just wanted to see what my boxing form looked like to see where I could make some improvements. When I was done with my workoutI watched the video and was absolutely shocked to see what I look like. Shocked in a good way. In watching the video I can finally see the athlete I am becoming. I did not see the flaws in my body, I only saw the strength. I LOOK DARN GOOD! Yesterday was a wonderful day. Here is the video:

Planning a 45th birthday gift

I was thinking today about my birthday coming up this August. I will be turning 45 and I sort of want to do something totally out of the ordinary for me. An idea has been rolling around in my head for some time, in fact is is a bucket list item, and I think this year may be the perfect year to.......

SKY DIVE or ZIP LINE

Arrrrrrrgh, this makes me break out in a sweat at the very thought. The idea came to me while thinking of the most terrifying thing that I could think of to do, and that is to jump out of a plane. This idea was reenforced on the Biggest Loser this season when the contestants faced their fears in New Zealand by doing all kinds of crazy stuff- jumping from buildings, rock climbing, zip lining and bungee jumping. The confirmed all the reasons that I had for doing something like this, facing my fears head on and most importantly concuring them, also someone mentioned they were jumping into a brand new life.

I think about the benefits that pushing myself outside of my comfort zone all the time. So many times I have felt afraid to do something and all I have to do is turn to look at the CN Tower visable from most points in the Greater Toronto Area, and I am reminded the I climbed that monster last year. If I can do that, surely I am capable of hurling myself out of an airplane right? right?

21 day food challenge

Still hanging in with the food challenge. I can say that my weight is dropping quickly. I'm not sure if is just the water weight or the IBS symptoms that have been in high gear, probably from all of the vegetables I have been eating over the last 4 days. As of this morning my scale is showing me down 8lbs in 4 days. Crazy right. I have however been eating enough food and even managed to go out to a restaurant one of the 3 days where I ordered cedar plank salmon, no rice, and a double side of veggies. I think I may gain a few lbs of water once my body adjusts to this new way of eating and everything stops going right through me, but so far so good.

The down side is that because of the lack of carbs in my diet, I was feeling rather lethargic, so I am definitely failing in the 35km of exercise part of the challenge. I did manage two great workouts on wednesday and yesterday - yesterday being a boxing session that was way over the top. My puches are so much stronger these days, my cardio level is up to the point that I don't need a long break in between rounds and when kicks are added into the mix (which they often are these days) I am not ready to collapes at the end of the round. I am just waiting for my energy to return, which I'm sure it will now that I have added some carbs and fruit to my diet. I have never enjoyed brown rice more than I did last night with my dinner.... and the slice of pineapple that I had with todays egg breakfast was devine.

I am hoping to get down to the boxing club that I worked out at the last few Sundays. Tomorrow they are holding a fight afternoon, all female card, and many of the women I have seen and been inspired by at the gym ate on the card, include the fight that I am most interested in seeing - two 180 lb over 40 female fighters. Seeing these women in the ring is confirmation to me that it is possible for me to get there.

I feel like I am back on track now, my mind is clear, the binge eating exercises I have been doing seems to be kicking in and my weight is finally going down again.

Onward and Downward.

exercise count: 12.25/35 km