What I Ate Wednesday +weekly workout update!

Happy Wednesday y'all! I can't believe we are at the end of January already...this year is going to fly by, I just know it!

We have a very busy month coming up in February so get ready for some awesome food posts as at one point we are going out of the country and at another point we are spending some time in Seattle!

This week though was fairly busy and honestly I forgot to take pictures of my food. :-/ I have been running a couple of fitness challenge groups and trying to guide people to better health and nutrition so while I am eating well, it's sort of on the back burner for me to take pictures. But, I do have a couple of things to show y'all...

This is bone broth! Basically, for my cauliflower soup in my meal plan for this week I needed some broth. In the 21 Day Sugar Detox book they tell you how to make bone broth. It's super easy. First, I roasted a chicken so I would have some leftover for making lunches & some dinners this week. Next, I took the carcass & put it in the crockpot with 2 quarts of water (8 cups) and half a bulb of garlic. I let it cook for 8 hours on high & then just before I went to bed I reset it for 10 hours and then turned it off when I got up, it smells so delicious and tastes even better! It made 5 nice size jars of broth!

This is the cauliflower I bought for the week I am going to make with these:

Cauli-rice

&

Mashed Cauliflower.

The cuali-rice I will serve one meal with just coconut oil and salt & pepper like regular rice and the other one I will make like a fried rice with coconut aminos, peas, carrots, and a little egg scrambled in. For the mashed cauliflower I will be using this recipe. Yummy!

This was my snack yesterday...double chocolate shakeoloyg (4 oz unsweetened chocolate almond milk, 6-8 oz water mixed with a scoop of chocolate shakeology). It is so, so, so yummy! Love it!

Now my workouts have looked like this:

Wed: X3Yoga

Thurs: CVX

Friday: The Warrior

Saturday: Learned to snowboard with the fam

Sunday: Rest...was so sore from snowboarding I could hardly move lol

Monday: Isometrix

Tuesday: Dynamix

Today: Accelerator

This week since Monday has been my transition week into block 2 of P90X3. It has been absolutely fantastic! I am really loving it and really feeling the deep down effects! Here are some pictures...

From dynamix. The big picture is my post workout...I totally rocked it! The rest are just clips taken throughout. It's a super fun one! You work up a great sweat!

This is from Isometrix. This is the first time I'd ever done this one. It was basically all plank work & balance work. I can't wait to do it again!

For more on my P90X3 journey check out my youtube channel I post a video diary each day immediately after my workout!

How have your workouts been going? If you are interested in joining a challenge group I mentioned I have going on send me an email at katen21@gmail.com or visit me on Facebook! I would love to help you reach your goals!

Menu Plan Monday #36 +a little weekend recap

Hello! I hope everyone's week is starting off spectacularly so far!

This weekend for our little family was quite an exciting one. For Christmas we all got snowboarding gear, lift tickets, and a lesson for the 3 of us. Well, we had to cancel our trip as my daughter had unfortunately gotten ill just before Christmas (seriously, two days before!), and then I got sick on Christmas day! It was absolutely awful and took me weeks to be rid of whatever virus I had. But, fortunately we were able to reschedule at our leisure and decided to go Saturday afternoon. Honestly this was the first weekend we were able to actually go, plus my daughter is studying for mid-terms so it gave her a much needed brain break. ...and exhausted her enough that she slept amazingly well! Here are a few photos from our trip...

Prior to the lesson while we were putting on our boots...I love my little toque (aka beanie lol), was so sunny, couldn't wait to get on the snow! 

All of us post snowboarding. Thank goodness our faces are covered we were all in pain! 

When we decided to take a break after our lesson hubby had never been up to the mountain so I took him to see the city. Isn't it gorgeous?!

This as you look out there is some ocean in there but it is actually covered by all the fog/clouds! Isn't that amazing?! I love the halo around the sun & the little reflection of the sun in the middle right. It was such an amazing day!

Otherwise the weekend was pretty chill. Saturday night we watch Captain Phillips. 

Captain Phillips

It was a fantastic movie and would 100% recommend watching it! Have some tissues ready for the end though!

Sunday we just chilled and relaxed in the morning. The teenager used Skype/Facetime to study with a friend. Starting the 21 Day Sugar Detox over today so looking forward to making some lemon chicken and apple sausage. 

What was your favourite part of the weekend??

Anyway...on to what you are all really here for: Menu Plan Monday!

I am linking up over at Org Junkie so come on over & check out all the other menus!!

As I said earlier, I am starting the 21 Day Sugar Detox over. I had one semi-bad week and just wasn't feeling successful so decided to start fresh. Here is what I will be eating for the first 1/3 of the detox:

Breakfast ideas: Apple sausage & eggs, breakfast hash & eggs, breakfast pizza, paleo pancakes and cinnamon apples, and apple "donuts" for our Sunday treat.

Lunch ideas: Breakfast hash, chicken salad, chicken fried cauliflower, and whatever other leftovers

Dinner: 

Monday: Mini chicken pot pies with a mashed cauliflower topping, side salad; bbq shredded chicken for the hubs and salad and corn for his sides

Tuesday: Fish & veggies with cauliflower soup; breakfast for dinner

Wednesday: Changing up our "New Restaurant Friday" for today since we are going to our Dungeons & Dragons comedy show. We will pop in to a new pub in that area. There is some super unique stuff so can't wait!

Thursday: Soup & sandwiches...for me & the teen: 21 day sugar detox chicken "panini" and leftover cauliflower soup; for the hubs: regular ol' grilled cheese with chicken noodle soup

Friday: Mustard glazed chicken thighs with golden beets/corn for the hubs

Saturday: Hot & sweet ginger chicken, cucumber salad, and rice/corn

Sunday: Cinnamon pork chops with broccoli and quinoa/rice & corn

All of the above recipes are somehow from the 21 Day Sugar Detox guide book. I am taking a lot and changing them up so we are eating some fun things that resemble some of our old family favourites! 

What are you all cookin' up this week? Share it with me! 

What I Ate Wednesday +week in review of workouts!

Happy Wednesday all!

Today is a fun day as my daughter has cheerleading and the sun is up a bit longer so it means I can go walking/jogging while she is at cheer, get a bit of extra exercise so long as it isn't raining-*fingers crossed*.

This past week has been great in workouts! I haven't missed a single one. I'm in Week 3 now of P90X3. I can't believe how time is flying. I am really seeing some great results since I am being very careful with my diet as well and really being conscious of what I am eating. Being on the 21 Day Sugar Detox certainly helps with that. I can't wait to go get the cookbook and get practical paleo so I can have a wealth of awesome recipes at my disposal.

So, here is what my workouts look like (click the links to watch my YouTube diaries about my progress):

Wednesday: X3 Yoga
Thursday: The Challenge & Total Synergistics
Friday: CVX
Saturday: The Warrior
Sunday: 100% Rest
Monday: Total Synergistics
Tuesday: Agility X
Today: X3 Yoga

What workouts are you doing to work toward your fitness goals? I'd love to hear about them!

Now, what most of you are here for:

Spaghetti Bolognese & salad from the 21 Day Sugar Detox Cookbook. This is delicious and probably my new favourite meal!

This is from our New Restaurant Friday: Butternut squash soup and below is salmon with kale and cauliflower tots.

An over easy egg with some leftover cauliflower mash & green beans. All 21 Day sugar detox approved!

Delicious paleo pancake (21 day sugar detox friendly) with pb, cinnamon, and banana...and an over easy egg. I am finding that unless I have toast or something to soak up the runny yolk I am not really a huge fan of over easy eggs. :P

This was dinner Monday night. Shepard's Pie & an awesome salad!

This was the pie prior to dishing it out. I didn't use quite as much cauliflower though, just what i had on hand.

These are from Civilized Caveman Cooking. They are amazing sugarless banana muffins! Heavenly, even my 14 year old LOVES them!

For more of what I am eating go check out my Menu Plan from this past Monday! 

What were your favourite eats from the past week?

Organization: Cleaning Power Hour

Tuesday has come 'round and I am ready for Friday already. Anyone else?

Today will be a fairly quick read, which is good since this is getting published much later than I'd like!

Today we are discussing what I like to call the "Cleaning Power Hour". I can't take all the credit for this idea. It came to me when I was doing some training to get my Beachbody Business up and running. It was suggested that we do a "Power Hour" or "Power Half Hour" where we take 30 minutes to an hour a couple of times a day to just work on our business. I said to myself this is genius! I am awesome under pressure so to get those dreaded weekly chores done I should create a "Cleaning Power Hour"!

So, I sat down and listed what chores are important to me to get done at least one time per week:

• Sweep
• Mop
• Dust (living room/dining room/bedrooms)
• Clean windows/mirrors
• Clean tubs
• Wash sheets

After this I said to myself ok, I have the list but I am terrible at remembering. When I was in high school I used to tell myself gosh it would be awesome if I had a device that would ring when I had something to do to remind me...then I said, "Oh snap, I do actually have that device now!" So, out pops the iPad.

I didn't buy any special apps as all the "routine" apps I've ever bought have been a let down. So I just used the "Reminders" app. It has great scheduling features and I can keep my lists separate.

See it down there...Monday Power Hour! I have lots to remember to do....and apparently never finished Christmas shopping for the teenager! hahahaha...moving on....

I then just added all my items line by line and put what time I wanted them due by. So every 10 minutes I get a ding that tells me to move to a new task. The 10 minute windows I have found are very accurate, if you do the chores every week. If you don't then they can take much longer. Which is why I like the cleaning power hour, one hour to complete 6 dreaded chores that, aside from sweeping & spot mopping I don't have to worry about for 6 more days?! YIPEE!

How do you schedule your cleaning? Do you use any cool apps for it?

Menu Plan Monday #35

Hi all! So, our weekend was rather uneventful all in all.

Friday night we spent visiting friends in the 'burbs so she could cut my hair, the guys had to put together a computer, and then we had dinner together and played games. They cooked us kebabs and sweet 'tater fries. I should have taken a picture but was afraid they'd think me a freak so I figure we should get to know them a bit more before I start snapping pictures of my food. Of course, if they read this then the ice is broken so I say I am free to snap all the photos I want of food.

Moving on...Saturday the teen & I spend the day at the mall after an early morning workout. We have been searching for clue...seems there has been a run on it as I can't find it anywhere! Seriously, what the heck?! Anyway, then we tried a new restaurant for our weekly New Restaurant day. You can read about it here. Then, the husband and I took some time to go out dancin'! That was fun, hadn't dressed up and done that in a few months.

Sunday was a very lazy day. It was spend mostly getting ready for the week and not moving from the couch. I did however take the time to do quite a bit of meal planning and prep...are ya ready?! Here we go....

Org Junkie

Breakfast: Eggs & bacon/avocado, Banana Muffins, root veggie hash & eggs

Lunch: Shakeology, leftovers, tuna salad, chicken salad, 

Snacks: Shakeology, banola & almond milk, 21DSD pb cups, nut mix, green apples & peanut butter

Dinner:

Monday: Shepard's pie and salad; for the hubby I will make him a burger with corn and peas

Tuesday: Sole with cauliflower soup/chicken soup for the hubby, with a side of quinoa/rice

Wednesday: Hot and sour ginger garlic chicken (I am going to adapt this for the crockpot), with cucumber salad and some leftover rice/quinoa (and corn for the hubby)

Thursday: Pork Chops with broccoli and whatever is leftover (soup, rice, quinoa, etc)

Friday: New Restaurant Friday: I have no idea where we will try yet, but it will be something yummy, but cheap lol Will be a challenge to find something in my 21 day sugar detox diet when we go out. :P

Saturday: Ginger-garlic beef and broccoli/corn (for hubby), with rice/cauli-rice

Sunday: Double pork tenderloin (basically a bacon wrapped pork tenderloin), green apple salad, and whatever is left of the quinoa/rice/cauli-rice.

Here is some of my prep work:

My 21 Day Sugar Detox Spaghetti Bolognese leftovers. This is the best recipe in the world. I am addicted to it!

Some hard boiled eggs, avocado, some coconut cream, and some cucumber and tomato salad.

This is my leftover bin. There is my homemade italian dressing, some butter, som green beans and rice, and some shakeology.

My apples I was about to cut up. They are so delicious with some fresh peanut butter!

So, that is what we have going on this week. If you didn't see it at the end of last week also make sure to go check out the super cute Valentine's Heart Garland Tutorial I put up!

Tell me, what are you all having this week? I am always looking for some delicious, healthy recipes to try...have any favourites I need to cook up??

New Restaurant Friday: Rain City Grill-Vancouver, BC

Happy Monday all!!! I am getting a late start today. This weekend the hubby and I were busy, busy on date nights and just spending time together and with the teenager so I wasn't on the computer too much...which honestly was fine I was feeling like I needed a technology hiatus!

Anyway...I wanted to give this review it's own post because as you all know we typically do "New Restaurant Friday" where we pick a new restaurant somewhere in town and see if we can have a new favourite! The past couple of weeks we have actually been going back to some favourites so we haven't been trying anything new. But, since I am doing the 21 Day Sugar Detox, I was looking for something a little more paleo friendly. This definitely was! Here is some info about it:

Rain City Grill is located in Vancouver, BC. It is about a 20 minutes walk from us. It is in what is called the "West End" neighbourhood, where as we live in the "Coal Harbour" neighbourhood. This place was much nicer than I had anticipated. We went at 5pm when they opened for dinner and were extremely casually dressed (jeans, t-shirts, nice shoes...decent, but had I known we probably would have dress up a bit more). Also, make sure to make a reservation. I was also a bit ticked that we weren't offered the "Dine Out" menu, I didn't realize it was available until after we had placed our order and heard the hostess ask someone if they also wanted the "Dine Out" menu. Since we had a child with us it would have been nice to get a prix fixe price.

Everything was very good and we even go to try something new-Cornish Hen! We were a bit disappointed thought because we checked out their menu online and they are listed as having a Wagyu Beef Burger, but apparently they hadn't had that since the summer. So I think I should take the time to mention their menu does change weekly as it is a "farm to table" restaurant so all the food is local.

So, here we go. We started off with some bread. It was quite delicious. They brought butter that was very soft (this is a pet peeve of my husband when we go to a restaurant and get cold butter that can't be spread so they got about a million points here in his book) and some sea salt.

I started with the butternut squash soup.

It said on the menu it came with a walnut and apple cookie. It was just crumbles of a cookie in the bowl so that was a bit disappointing as I was looking forward how that would taste! It also came with some apple panna cotta, which was amazing. It was all quite delicious and not terribly sweet like many places tend to make butternut squash soup. 

For my main I had the salmon. It was quite delicious and cooked very well. The mushrooms it came with were delicious, and it had a little sauce with kale underneath. The little squares on top are cauliflower puree hash-browns! I didn't realize it until my very picky husband said they tasted "vegetable-y" lol It was very delicious I still have half of it in the fridge to munch on for lunch.

This is the teenager's plate. I will say she was quite disappointed by the serving size. Being american and used to eating at such places as Chili's and Red Robin the fact this didn't take up even half her plate was a bit surprising to her. But, she ate most everything. She loved the Cornish Hen. She said it just tasted like chicken, but was tinier. It came with some tasty fingerling potatoes.

The husband had a rib eye. It wasn't overly expensive for a local steak. Places such as Coast & Black & Blue charge much, much more and theirs are not local to my knowledge. He got a delicious sauce over it and it came with fingerling potatoes. They were delicious. But, being picky he didn't care for them and instead opted for french fries. They came in a super cute tiny looking fry basket. I forgot to get a picture unfortunately.

We really enjoyed the restaurant. I can't say the wait staff was very friendly. They were helpful, but not very friendly. They also didn't seem to pay a whole lot of attention. I ordered a drink and then the husband and daughter ordered cokes and I asked the waiter to put Grenadine in their soda's and somehow my drink came with grenadine. I know they were going to be busy that evening and we didn't have a reservation but in that case they should have just said they couldn't seat us, where as it almost seemed like we were more of a bother. It was a bit frustrating. I do hope to go back and try their brunch or lunch menu and hopefully get a better feel of the place.

If you have been to Vancouver or live here and have a suggestion of a place we should try please fill me in!!!

Valentine's Heart Garland!

Hello! Happy Friday!

So, I was supposed to have this blog post up yesterday, but then life happened and I spent some good quality time with the hubster so ya know, it had to wait. But, it was well worth it! I have a super fun and easy post today!!! This will take at max 90 minutes of your time!

I thought I originally saw this on Pinterest, but I can't find it now. I have been reading so many craft books lately though that it is very well possible I saw it in one of those. Who knows...it sure is fun and cute though, so read on!

Valentine's Heart Garland

That is half of the finished product-mountains not included ;)

Here is what you need:

-3 sheets of 12X12 paper: one red, one white, and one pink

-paper trimmer

-stapler & staples

First cut all of the sheets so they are about a 1/2 inch wide. I honestly didn't measure mine..I just cut one and then used that as a template & marked off all the other ones using that. Then I cut them using my straight edge trimmer. Once you have all of those cut fold them in half and cut again. That way for each 12" X 1/2" piece you can make one total heart.

Next, lay those two pieces on top of each other.

Using the top two knuckles of your thumb which equal about one inch, measure up...

Then mark it and staple it!

Then separate the two pieces and bring them around so they form a heart like above. But, do not staple them yet...

Put your next two pieces around the bottom and then staple!

So now it looks like this...it is an excited heart! Bring those two white pieces around and then attach your next two pieces and staple again. After awhile your garland will start to look like this...

Then, when it is all done you will have a lot of it so it will look like this....

Pretty fun, right?!

Then, using ribbon-I chose red sparkly ribbon-attach it to each end and hang where you want it to be displayed if need be add a piece in the middle like this:

Then, you will have a nice pretty garland like I do! 

Only it is super hard to see in the picture because it was such a gorgeous day when I took these! Can't complain about that!

Here are a couple more close up's of the finished product:

Do you decorate for Valentine's Day?