Day 4 of My 30 Day Countdown

Another fabulous day today!

Quick post today because it's late and I really should be sleeping! Anyway...i feel like the seconds and minutes and hours of the day are just flying by!! I can't believe it's already Friday tomorrow. This was one of the fastest weeks of my life and it was awesome!!

Jiu-jitsu class was amazing and tough, and hot and hard!!! I was drenched in sweat after!! Sensei Derek seems to take pleasure in inflicting pain when he teaches! He's good - really good! Today, he had us do a drill of kicks all while putting our arms up to the sky...we had to keep our arms up for the whole thing as he walked around taunting and teasing us, saying things like, "who's gonna be the first to drop their arms? who? Joania, is it you? who? C'mon?" I thought to myself, NO WAY IN HELL I'm I dropping my arms, they're gonna have to fall off....YES, i am a bit stubborn!! The thing is, if you dropped your arms, then it's push-ups...can you imagine doing push-ups after holding up your arms in the air for what seemed like an hour????? HELL NO!!! I kept 'em up and so did the rest of the class - he was proud of us!! Then we learned some amazing self-defense moves! I'm telling you, if any of you live in the Ottawa area, and you're looking for a great, challenging workout that teaches you skills as well as gets you fit, you need to check out Therien Martial Arts. Check out the website here http://www.therienmartialarts.com

Today at work, there was some celebration of some kind and wouldn't you know there was left over CAKE!! A huge slab of half chocolate/half vanilla cake with thick icing. It just happened that it was placed directly in front of my office where me and that damn cake had a stare down ALL DAY !!! I watched the whole day as colleague after colleague walked by and stopped suddenly, smiled and got almost giddy as they cut a piece!! I have come so far because Joania of the past would have probably (okay, definitely) eaten 3 large pieces and taken and extra piece home for later!!! That cake was calling my name!! There were moments when it was screaming at me!!!

I felt like I was going nuts!! Just kept telling myself, "you can do this, this cake is garbage, I'm not throwing away this fabulous week of clean eating and workouts for a stinking piece of cake." I drank so much water today just trying to fill my stomach!! At one point, I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted a piece....I started to rationalize in my mind, "I've been good all week, a little piece wouldn't hurt", or "I'm going to Jiu-jitsu at lunch time, I will work it off!!" NO!!! I dug around in my lunch cooler (which is huge and FILLED with nothing but HEALTHY options). I pulled out a small bowl - tuna and spinach. "NAH, that won't do right now!!" Pulled out another container - two boiled egg whites. "Nah, that's not what I want!!" I stared at that cake again - maybe if I just swipe a little bit of icing, maybe that would satisfy the urge, "NO WAY, there's is no way I'd stop at a "swipe" of icing once that sugar hits my tongue!!"

I looked up at that cake, pushed my swivel chair away from my desk and walked out of my office, straight to the cake and said "f- u, u sweet bastard!!" LOL!! I really did!! I walked back to my cooler, grabbed a small sweet potato and went to the kitchen, stuck it in the microwave and 5mins later, I was eating a warm and delicious sweet potato! It really hit the spot and was exactly what I needed to get through the day! This was definitely a test and looking back, I'm glad it happened. At first I was going to give the person who put that cake outside my office a piece of my mind but tomorrow, I will thank him because this made me stronger and showed me I CAN DO THIS!!! I WON"T LET FOOD WIN ANYMORE!!! I feel good y'all!! Really good!!

Food and water consumption was awesome today

Breakfast - small bowl of unsweetened steel cut oats with 2 egg whites, water

Morning snack - small baked potato (saved me from the cake!!)

Lunch - curried shrimp and cabbage (last night's dinner left-overs), water

Afternoon snack - Protein drink (vanilla whey protein, water)

Dinner - baked chicken breast with steamed asparagus

Evening snack - green tea

Awesome day

Let's Check Out My Food...

Hi guys,

I have been really trying these past few days to take pictures of my meals - I find that it truly does help me to say on track and let me tell you, I can use all the help I can get. So here we go...

Dinner: this is baked chicken breast (with onions, garlic, mushrooms and red peppers) with mixed veggies (broccoli, spinach, red pepper, mushrooms, onions, skim milk, seasonned with pepper, curry, garlic & onion powder) with a very small amount of whole wheat spaghettini. It was delicious. I don't usually have pasta but I splurged. It really wasn't a lot (maybe 1/4 cup); more veggies than pasta!

Close-up... The following was for lunch one day. A simple garden salad (spring mix & cherry tomatoes) with left over roasted chicken breast shredded on top. About 1 Tbsp of home-made dressing (EVOO, pepper, vinegar). It was great, quick, tasty and more importantly - filling! :)

Close-up... (you can see...very, very light on the dressing).

Dinner: My husband cooked this one. He was the grillmaster on the BBQ...Salmon skewers with grilled zucchini. There was also corn on the cob which he prepared on the grill but I didn't have any.

The following was another quick lunch. Sliced cucumbers with canned sardines (in water). I literally sliced up about 1/2 of an English cucumber, opened the can of sardines and poured it in the same bowl, added pepper, mixed it all up and ate it!!! No dressing required as the water from the sardines did the job. It was yummy - I've always liked sardines.

Close up...

Dinner: Roasted chicken leg with steamed broccoli and sweet potato mash! I baked a whole chicken (seasonned with pepper, garlic & onion powder, cayenne pepper). I baked the sweet potato in the oven, once it was done, scooped out the potato from skin and mashed it up in a bowl. It was quite moist. That's it!! This was a very filling meal and I had a lot of chicken left over to use in salads and for another dinner. Below is a close-up. So that's it so far. I have also been drinking between 3-4 litres of water each day. Hoping I can continue taking these pics. Just knowing that I have to take a picture helps me to plan what exactly I will be eating! Anyway, that's it for now, just a "food pic" post.

Until next time...

Joania (2KMINE!!!)

Food Pix

Here are a few shots of some of the food I ate when I was away. Again, I didn't find it difficult to make healthy choices because it was always available.

This pic - steamed veggies (broccoli, cabbage, onions) and beef on the grill (yum)!!

This was from an all -you-can-eat sushi restaurant in Vancouver. Great atmosphere. I DO NOT LIKE SUSHI so thankfully there were lots of other items on the menu that I could eat. There was a grill in the middle of the table so that we could grill/cook our own meat/fish. Now although this may sound like a cool concept to some - I have a sneaking feeling that the owners are in the back laughing at everyone, thinking to themselves," look at them, they pay us money to come here and cook their own food!" :)

It was great though and the food was quite tasty.

This was one of my breakfast from the hotel. Fluffy scrambled egg whites, some veggies and a side of fruit (strawberries & pineapples).

This was pretty tasty and very filling!

This was a spicy shrimp and veggie strifry.

It came with rice but I just ask the server to substitute with extra veggies. She did one better and substituted with roasted veggies. It was delicious, so flavourful...so good!

Now, I didn't take pictures of ALL my meals - on some days, I just grabbed a quick lunch while working from the cafeteria like a tuna and veggie wrap on whole wheat tortilla) with a bottle of water....or a quick soup. I did have some sweet potato fries one day..just couldn't pass them up - they were shared though!

Anyway just a few shots....

Joania (2KMINE!!)

GOOD LOOKING FOOD!!!

This eating healthy thing is really starting to grow on me. I was speaking to one of my girlfriends a few weeks ago and she mentioned that I should make an attempt to make my food "look" very presentable...she practically guaranteed me that it would make eating healthy a bit easier and quite enjoyable. "Okay, I'll try it", I said but really I was thinking to myself, "Girl, I love you, but you done lost yo mind if you think I could make broccoli look good enough to eat!!"

Well, today I'm eating some serious crow!! She was right!! Debbie, you were right!! Thanks girl!!! I now make a conscious effort to prepare my food so that it "looks" and tastes very good!!

I started taking pics of what I'm eating and decided it may be helpful if I posted some to show what I'm eating. I'll start taking pics of my breakfasts soon...for now it's just lunch and dinner. I don't know if I'll post meal pix everyday, maybe for now a couple times a week. Let me know if it helps or if it's useful for you guys. Thanks.


Here's what I had for lunch on Sunday...


LUNCH:

Cucumber and Tomato Salad with Sardines



Ingredients:
1/2 English cucumber
1/2 tomato
1 can of sardines (in water)
very small amount of thinly sliced onions
black pepper
onion powder
squeeze of lemon juice

I just chop up veggies in a plate, open sardines in same plate (don't drain the water - once seasonned it makes a great dressing) season, then eat. It takes 10 mins tops!!!

How did it taste??
Really good!! Seriously!! I like sardines so for me it was really good and quite filling. I had a glass of water with it and I was good to go!!



Here's what I had for supper (my favourite meal of the day - because I could eat whatever I want as long as it's from the Whole Foods Group with controlled portions)


SUPPER: more fish!!

Fillet of Sole, Broccoli, Spinach and Baked Sweet Potato

Ingredients:
Baked Sweet Potato
Steamed Spinach and Broccoli (seasonned with onion powder and black pepper)
Fillet of Sole -seasonned in a baking dish with onions, garlic, black pepper, a bit of curry powder and bake for 35 minutes (350F)

How did it taste?
Yummy...the fish was quite flavourful and the sweet potato always feels like a dessert for me...so sweet. Again, I follow with a glass or two of water and I'm so satisfied!!

I hope this helps a bit....I don't know exactly how many calories are in these meals but I know it's healthy...and so far I've lost 22 pounds and a ton of inches eating this way! ;)

Until next time....

Joania (2KMINE!!!)