Tag Archives: Fitness

A Promise To Myself

Posted by on November 19, 2011 3 comments

For a long time I thought I had my shit together. But it turns out I’m still carrying all sorts of baggage around, and I hadn’t yet taken the time to sort my shit out, if you’ll pardon my French. Instead, I was avoiding. I was keeping myself busy. I was pretending. It’s time for change. That change starts today.

That’s not to say I’m unhappy. Far from it! But I’ve taken a step back from a lot of things in order for me to be able to concentrate on making myself whole again. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’ve narrowed down my goals into three tangible, attainable targets. I intend to improve:

  • My career prospects
  • My relationship with my daughter
  • My health
To that end, I’m working to eliminate distractions and stressful, unhappy situations from my life so that I can concentrate on the three targets above. And I’m making lists. Have I ever mentioned how much I love making lists?
So, here are my lists. By sharing them with you, I hold myself more accountable. I’ll touch base and update on progress, and you can ask how I’m doing, too!

Career Prospects/Work and Community Involvement
  • March with my brothers and sisters in the Evict Rob Ford rally tomorrow. 
  • Attend NDP Leader’s Levee Saturday night in a pretty black dress. Hand out business cards. Make contacts. Look for opportunities. Enjoy spending time with like-minded folk who have like-minded goals. 
  • Run for the position of Secretary on the executive of my union’s area council.
  • Find someone to nominate me as a delegate to our regional Labour Council.
  • Bug my manager to (finally!) implement the career development portion of my most recent performance evaluation.
  • Join some committees and working groups. It’ll look good on my resume.
  • Volunteer at a soup kitchen. It’ll feel good in my heart.
Relationship with Gwen Junior
  • Start a Saturday afternoon hot yoga routine at Moksha Yoga Uptown (only seven dollars!).
  • Hire a math tutor – sit with them and help.
  • Write a weekly letter to her, and encourage her to do the same.
  • Try to weasel my way back onto her Facebook hahaha
  • Teach her to cook.
My Health
  • Aforementioned weekly hot yoga.
  • Buy a pair of ice skates – skate for free Friday nights.
  • Check out the lane swimming up the street once a week.
  • Stop eating such bullshit! Like, seriously!
  • My friend Mitchell (you like what I did there, M?) just sent me this brown rice detox thing – maybe I’ll try that.
  • Get a solid eight hours sleep.
  • Drink more water!

Bicycle Rage

Posted by on August 24, 2011 12 comments
Aaaaaand the bikes go crunch.

Well, that’s it. I’ve succumbed to cyclist’s rage. But not as a result of actually, you know, riding my bicycle. No, my friends, my ire is roused today by some loutish miscreant who lives in my building and who’s been messing with my new blue bike.

(It occurs to me that I haven’t yet written about my newly acquired wheels – maybe tomorrow, when the anger has settled into a plan of action.)

About two weeks ago, someone snuck behind my house, hopped on my daughter’s bike (which, it should be noted, has two flat tires and hasn’t been ridden in over a year) and took it for a joyride in the middle of the night. I never would have noticed, except they didn’t put it back where they got it – they left it leaning against my front porch. What a stupid thing to do, I thought, but it’s really my fault for leaving it unlocked.

From that moment on, I was (a bit) more vigilant in locking up our bikes. I live in a quiet residential neighbourhood and all spring and summer, the bikes were unlocked without a problem. Still though, I didn’t want to tempt fate.

However, Sunday night I forgot to lock my bike, and guess what happened? Read more »

Blueberry Almond Muffins For The Carb Conscious

Posted by on January 16, 2011 2 comments

So check it out. Ten pounds in two weeks is no fluke.  I am workin’ on my fitness (again LOL) and as always, my weapon of choice is a low carb diet combined with mega awesome exercise.  But we’re not going to talk about the exercise part today because I have a cold and it’s Saturday so that would be lame.

There are a lot of reasons I like low carb: you get to eat lots of red meat, eggs, cheese, butter, seafood, vegetables, nuts, olives, and peanut butter. You’re allowed mayo, salad dressings, olive oil, bacon (mmmmmmm bacon), and avocados. Lunch and dinner are easy.

But breakfast is kinda hard.

Sure, you can have all the bacon and eggs you want, but I don’t always have time to do a big fry-up on weekday mornings, and buying a full breakfast at the cafe in my office building can get expensive. So I need something healthy, loaded with protein, and portable.

Enter these low carb blueberry muffins.

I basically Googled a recipe and tweaked it like a tweaker, which is my standard Modus Operandi. I used some unflavoured protein powder I had in the cupboard from back when I was a gym rat (which was a short-lived lifestyle that I quickly abandoned the day I was able to squeeze my wedding gown up over my thunder thighs) and my lovely French Vanilla Sugar Free Da Vinci syrup, which is calorie, fat and carb free, and is sweetened with Splenda, not aspartame! (Wish I could get used to the taste of Stevia but that shit’s nasty, sorry.)

I really enjoyed these. They were small and dense, and didn’t rise too too much, but they were just the right sweetness and two of them filled my belly up nicely. These will make a wonderful weekday breakfast. I might experiment with future batches by adding hemp hearts, flax seeds, and maybe taking out the berries, adding pecans and replacing the 1/2 cup of vanilla syrup listed below with a combination of cold strong coffee and Kaluha-flavoured Da Vinci syrup. Mmmm.

Blueberry Almond Muffins For The Carb Conscious
Per muffin: 77 calories, 4g fat, 2g digestible (net) carbs, 8g protein

3/4 cup protein powder (2.5 scoops)
1/2 cup ground almonds (almond meal)
1 packet Splenda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 tbsp cream
1/2 cup Da Vinci syrup
2 tbsp melted butter
1/2 container blueberries (3oz)
1/3 cup slivered almonds

Mix it all up, sprinkle with slivered almonds, pour into greased muffin tin, bake at 400° for 15 minutes. DEVOUR OM NOM NOM

Step Up, As I Haul My Butt Up The CN Tower Using The STAIRS?!

Posted by on October 21, 2010 No comments

That’s right, folks. In addition to working over 65 hours a week on a Toronto mayoral campaign (and I know I owe you a blog post about this, I haven’t forgotten I promise!), this Saturday I am participating in the CN Tower Climb for United Way.

When I first agreed to join my co-worker Michelle for this charity event many weeks ago, I hadn’t really thought of how tired I’d be by now. However, not for a moment did it cross my mind to drop out of the climb. How could I, when the United way and its affiliated agencies will use the money my team raises to deliver hope and help to thousands of people in Toronto? From newcomers to Canada to children and youth to neighbourhoods at risk, the United Way will make this a better city for all, one step upwards at a time.

So please, sponsor me in the 2010 CN Tower Climb for United Way by clicking here and pledging me online.

Thank you so much. Without you, there would be no way.