Bonjour from the gym!
I just got back from the gym, and it's been my first visit since Christmas Eve! Holy, right? I know - major slacker.. but I'm back and I'm super pumped!! I spent about 20 minutes on the treadmill today in two separate stints of 10 minutes runs, the first at 6.5 and the second at 6.0 since I was tired. I wore my new Asics and they were delicious on my feet... I had no ankle pain, and they were light and comfortable! I want to take them outdoors, I want this darn snow to melt!After my workout today I wanted to use my new emersion blender that I got for Christmas from my Grandma really badly so I decided to make a "What's In Your Pantry?" shake. Not totally sure why I named it that, but it's fairly self-explanatory. I started with 1 scoop of Sun Warrior protein powder, I added a tbsp of organic hemp hearts, half a tbsp of organic flax seed, added 2 tbsp of shredded coconut, vanilla yogurt made from almond milk, frozen organic berries (cherries, blueberries and blackberries), a splash of pomegranate juice, kale leaves and a glass of Vanilla Rooibos Tazo Tea, oh ya and like 4 mini ice cubes. I used my emersion blender and blended that baby till she was pink! Here is the end result :)
C thinks I oversold it to him when he tasted it, but I really thought it was delicious! I was nervous putting the kale in so I didn't use a ton, but I couldn't taste it and would probably use more next time! Woohoooo! Go me! I will be using my emersion blender VERY often going forward, it's totally awesome!
What did you do this weekend?
Friday night we went out for C's birthday and I totally surprised him (I think!) by setting it up like we were having a date night! I had gone out that day and gotten him his gift (I got him a Burberry tie, it's soooo pretty!) and then played it all cool like we were just going to our favorite place, William's Landing, for some drinks together. Little did he know I arranged to have the guys that he's really close with come down from London and have some of his work people join us! He said he wasn't expecting it and I think he had a good time! We went to Bloke & 4th after Williams Landing and danced the night away! Good times, I'm glad he had fun! :).
Yesterday we decided to hit up Yorkdale mall (my fav!) to look for some NYE stuff for C since I already have my outfit planned. I maaaaay have been a little bit hungover so of course when we got there I instantly wanted food. We ended up eating at this little Indian restaurant in the food court because it was the only place with a table, but I'm so glad we ended up there. The name of the restaurant was Amaya and it was SO GOOD. C got a Butter Chicken bowl and I picked off of their Healthy Menu and ordered a Karra Box. I wasn't totally sure what was it in, the menu said green chicken and a bunch of other things but I went for it. Oh my god - best meal of my entire life. I took a picture (of course!)...
Doesn't it look so colourful and magical? So basically it was a bed of brown rice underneath, topped with this green curry chicken which is on the right hand side of the picture, and corn, chick peas, cucumber, pomegranate seeds, cherry chutney and mint sprinkled on top. It was the perfect meal, the universe definitely had something up it's sleeve when we went in just because they had a table. One of my 2013 goals is to make an entire Indian meal from scratch. Usually if we make Indian food we buy the pre-made sauces, but I want to do it all from scratch. Maybe try and make my own Harra Box!
Yesterday while we were at the mall I got a tweet from the very smart and informative David Barber from Tech Barber telling me that he'd watched this documentary on Netflix called Hunger for Change and he wanted my thoughts on it! Well David, here are my thoughts...
After the mall I came home and pulled up Hunger for Change on my computer, made myself comfortable on the couch and got into it. I don't think I was 4 minutes in before I was tweeting him back telling him I already love this Doc. Here's the trailer so you can get an idea of the type of movie it is...
I started taking notes about half way through so I could remember what I wanted to talk about today, and just some things that I learned while watching this that I didn't know before. Let me start with something that I didn't know, and that shocked me when I learned about it.... where cocaine comes from (this is relevant, I promise).
Cocaine comes from a plant (point #1 I didn't know... I thought it was all chemically made) called the Coca Plant, which is native to South America. Cocaine basically is 1 part of the coca leaf that has been processed and extracted from the plant and turned into something very addictive obviously. It's 1 nutrient out of a plant that nature provided to us as a nutrient complex and we have gone and made it into 1 isolated "nutrient" or product. High fructose corn syrup is the EXACT SAME THING! High fructose corn syrup is 1 single element pulled from corn. Corn is a nutrient complex full of different nutrients and minerals and vitamins, but when we pull 1 isolated nutrient from it's kernel, it becomes some extremely addictive and it's causing people to become morbidly obese and leads to heart disease, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and ultimately death.
I've seen people argue the fact that they aren't addicted to food. Yes people, you are addicted to food... however this movie explains why it's not your fault. You are programmed to be addicted to food, of "food like products" as the experts in the documentary call it. Basically what is happening is that people are eating themselves to death. Your body is programmed to store fat when fat is available because thousands of years ago, after fat was available then there was a period of famine. Since so much food is available to us now, we never have that "famine" and never lose the fat that our body has strategically put on, and the foods we do eat don't nurture our bodies. There is no nutritional value in processed sugary foods or soda's and so our bodies aren't being fed. When our bodies aren't being fed, naturally it sends signals to our brains telling us that we're hungry, that we haven't been nourished so we continue to eat and eat and eat and never nourish our bodies, we just get bigger and bigger while starving our cells and tissues of the nutrients they need.
The documentary was such an eye opener for me as to how the food companies market things to us and what it does to our bodies and I've been studying and researching it for years! I would 10000% recommend EVERY SINGLE PERSON watch this documentary. It's currently on Canadian Netflix and even if you have to sign up for the first free month it's absolutely worth it.
If you've seen it, I'd absolutely love to know what you thought of it. If you haven't seen it, go watch it and then tell me what you think!
I'm off now to hit the books! I've studied for 6 hours today already and it's time to put in another 3 or 4. I'm studying the greatness that are herbs and how they help our body. It's totally interesting and I actually shared some information I learned over on my Facebook page for my Food For Thought series! If you haven't seen it or checked out my page, click here and "like" it to keep up to date since I share a lot of really interesting information on there!
Stay tuned for tomorrow's post. Before I head to London, ON for our annual NYE celebrations, I'll be recapping the last year and hopefully pin pointing what I'm going to do in 2013 and I maaaay have a little fun giveaway planned for you fine people (either tomorrow or the next day!), I can't wait!! :)
Stay healthy,
xoxo