my green smoothie stride
It would appear that I have finally hit my green smoothie stride. Today I four spinach and banana smoothies with coconut almond milk. I tried adding ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon to the mix then branched out to my pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves). It didn’t need it but I like changing things up every now and then.
Seeing as I was going through a 250g bag of spinach a day I figured it was time to stock up rather than buy the overpriced Urban Fare bags of spinach. So off to No Frills I went and grabbed two 1.13kg (40oz) bags of the stuff and 14 bananas. Yes, that’s a dollar bill for size comparison 
These should get me through to next week.
41 days ago
an impromptu green smoothie party
Today Ev had planned to come over to try a green smoothie and Alex and Bryce joined us. We whizzed up a bunch of green smoothies. Alex asked, “Does it have to be green?”, so he got a smaller, not-so-green smoothie. Ev even had two and nicely finished off my kale for me
Here are my combos for the day:
Combo #1
2 handfuls of spinach
1 c vanilla almond milk
½ c blueberries
½ 8″ banana
parsley
Combo #2
½ kale leaf
1 handful of spinach
1 c coconut almond milk
½ 8″ banana
¼ c peaches
Combo #3
1 cucumber
monk fruit extract
Combo #4
2 handfuls of spinach
1 c coconut almond milk
½ 8″ banana
The cucumber one was very refreshing and a quick way to eat an entire cucumber in one go. I had three #4s today and I think it will be my staple from now on. I’ll try and cram more spinach in but I may need to add water to get it to blend in nicely.
Lesson of the day: parsley doesn’t taste great.
42 days ago
green smoothies – day 2
I’m still going strong and had to pop out for more spinach today even. I’m slowly finding my stride with these puppies and working on my flavour combinations. Here is what I had today:
Combo #1
½ banana
1 kale leaf
1 handful of spinach
1 c coconut almond milk
Combo #2
1 kale leaf
1 celery stalk
½ banana
1 c coconut almond milk
Combo #3
2 handfuls of spinach
1 c coconut almond milk
½ c blueberries
½ T almond butter
Combo #4
2 handfuls of spinach
1 c vanilla almond milk
½ c blueberries
½ banana
1 kale leaf
The blueberries made the smoothies both more palatable and more odd tasting.
Lesson of the day: I do not like kale or celery in my smoothies.
Here’s to tomorrow’s adventures!
43 days ago
green smoothies
So I bought myself a Magic Bullet on Sunday in the hopes that I could finally start tricking myself into eating vegetables. So far the only thing that has worked is making Thai red curries out of them. Sigh.
Day One
I stocked my fridge with kale, celery, baby spinach, parsley, blueberries and almond milk. Thankfully I’m already used to drinking things that don’t taste great so downing an ever so slightly chunky green smoothie is fine by me. If this takes off then I’ll finally be getting a Blendtec blender.
Combo #1
1 banana
2 handfuls of baby spinach
1 c coconut almond milk
Combo #2
10g candied ginger
3 handfuls of baby spinach
½ cucumber
1 c water
Combo #3
½ banana
1 kale leaf
1 celery stalk
1 c coconut almond milk
They all went down and weren’t completely offensive. I’m looking forward to trying out more combinations
43 days ago
birthdays and photobooths
Let’s face it, my first Canadian birthday was pretty shit. Out with a bunch of people who didn’t want to be there and who left early. And to be honest I only really wanted one of them to be there anyway.
Enter Alex. I met Alex at one of your Instameets last November. Fresh off the boat from Mexico – okay, so it was technically a plane if you want to split hairs but you never hear, “Oh, he’s fresh off the plane.”
Anyways, I was cruising around Facebook and noticed that it was his birthday the following week. I immediately messaged him and asked what he was going to be doing for it. Long story short: I forced him to have a birthday party at my place. We did a potluck party with a photobooth and a Grooveshark playlist. The night ended with singing karaoke (thanks to YouTube) to such hits as American Pie, Baby One More Time, Stop and Bye Bye Bye.
And since we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words…
51 days ago
fat scale: a surprising check point
I had both a sense of dread and a large curiosity when I went for this weigh-in. I’ve spent the last month eating whatever I want, calories be damned, and not setting foot inside a gym once. Who knew what the scales had in store for me…
So of course I’ve come to the conclusion that travelling agrees with me. Despite all the donuts I managed to maintain my weight and drop body fat. It must’ve been all that walking. I’m not looking forward to going back to work and being stationary for most of the day.
I did find that I do enjoy walking but only when I don’t have somewhere to be. When there is a destination in mind it seems to take so much longer to get somewhere. When Jo and I walked around NYC we chat and stopped in shops and doubled back and drank coffee and before we knew it we’d walked over 100 blocks in one day. I should really find a way to incorporate more walking into my daily life. Given my short attention span I think I’m going to have to trick myself into doing this. Maybe with the help of some good audiobooks. We shall see.
My stats so far are:
28 March 2012: 59.5kg, 5’2″, 22.2% body fat
26 July 2012: 62.9kg, 158cm, 29.3% body fat
6 October 2012: 60.5kg, 158cm, 26.0% body fat
20 December 2012: 59.6kg, 158cm, 25.1% body fat
19 January 2013: 59.6kg, 158cm, 24.4% body fat
I did really have to pee when I hopped on the scale so I wonder if that extra liquid skewed my stats at all. I’m hoping this isn’t one of those unusually low readings because I’ll be sad if my next weigh-in (in four weeks time) shows that I’ve gone backwards.
151 days ago
typical Boston
Day 6
The Freedom Trail
After sleeping in until past 11am we wandered to Faneuil Hall for coffee and hot chocolate and the started on the Freedom Trail. This conveniently lead us to Omni Parker House, the birthplace of Boston cream pie! We got to hear our first authentic Boston accent. Exciting!
Then we went and took photos in their fancy bathroom…
The Freedom Trail lead us to a few burying grounds…
And then to Boston Common…
We backtracked back to Faneuil Hall where we were just in time to see a Christmas light display.
We continued on to the Northern part of the Freedom Trail and wound our way through Little Italy where we saw lots of people carrying white boxes with “Mike’s Pastry” written on them. We had to investigate!
We then ended up at Union Oyster House for clam chowder at the first restaurant in the United States.
175 days ago
Christmas Day 2012
Day 5
After landing and catching the Silver Line to South Station I walked to our hotel, checked in and had a nap. I woke up in time to shower and meet Jo and Rendy in reception. They’d already seen my photo on Facebook of what I got them for Christmas (darn free wifi at the airport!) so we exchanged gifts, caught up then went to Beacon Hill Bistro for Christmas dinner. I had a potato latke, sirloin and pumpkin pie. Christmas with friends, no cooking, no cleaning up… what more could you ask for?!
176 days ago
my final day in Portland
Day 4
Today we had delicious cinnamon rolls. These things are way too light and fluffy! I had to pace myself so as to not scarf a whole pan down at once.
In the evening we went on a walk of a neighbourhood which had a lot of houses lit up. Something that I don’t really see living downtown is houses all decorated for Christmas. It’s nice and all but I wouldn’t swap living downtown for some pretty lights a few weeks of the year. That’s what Robson Street is for
Here’s a photo of Connor looking like the saddest dog in the world even though he has a better life than most people I know 
In amongst all the lying around I managed to fit in a phone call with the NZ family. It’s one of the few times a year that we actually hear each others voices. Things had been so crazy before I left that I’d forgotten to email my itinerary through before I left. It’s all done and dusted now, as is Christmas Day in NZ. With friends and family in that timezone is feels like I get 48 hours of Christmas
Speaking of Kiwis, I’m less than 24 hours away from meeting up with my Kiwi crew who I’ll be travelling with for the next month. SO EXCITING!!! Now if I can just get through this flight from Portland to Houston to Chicago to Boston! There goes the announcement to shut down all electronics…
177 days ago
more food
Day 3
My days are already melding into one uber day filled with food and more food.
Today I didn’t leave the house. I mean not a step out of the door! I love days like that!
Our food consisted of stollen, delicious pesto kale snails (homemade by Kat) then an early Christmas dinner of green bean and broccoli casserole, mashed potatoes, ham and chicken. Chase this with a hazelnut and bourbon pie and you’ve got some bulging bellies watching Love Actually and Elf!
I’m gonna throw in some photos of some cute and hungry dogs for good measure…
178 days ago
