Give Me Bananas

Ok let’s rant for a second: Having no laptop SUCKS! I’m currently blogging from my parent’s place and yesterday I quickly typed a post on my boyfriend’s laptop. I miss reading blogs but don’t have the time to check them right now because I want to go and help my mum with dinner after I hit publish. Sorry guys! I promise, I’ll catch up with your lives tomorrow.

I just came back from running (9km) and weight training with my dad. We went to his gym which is a very typical “basement gym” (with all its charms ) but it was cheap and had all the equipments that I needed. It was good (especially the run) and I am SUPER hungry now.

Yesterday I ended up giving my Thrive book a break and quickly made a casserole of sorts and some spinach with garlic.

For the casserole (which was actually more like a frittata) I mixed 1 egg and 3 egg whites with some left over cooked lentils, mushrooms and carrots. I topped it off with more mushrooms and some Emmental cheese.

 

..and then I went and had a drink (or two ) with my friend Christine. She’ll go and study in Oxford in less than two weeks and so we made plans to go out next week. I’ll miss her so much when she’ll be away (but it’s good that she only stays for 3 months, hehe.)

Fast forward to this morning: I actually slept in until 9:45am (shocker! ) and then made an oldie but a goodie.

Are you tired of porridge photos yet?

 

For the road I also made a juice with

• 2 handfuls of spinach
• 2 carrots
• 1 apple
• 1/2 lemon

I love how colourful they always turn out!

I wish I could juice more often but it does take a bit of time plus it makes a lot of noise! Apparently our neighbours who live below us have the bedroom right under our kitchen.. Needless to say that they wouldn’t be too happy when I’d juice at 7am.

Q: Do you have a juicer? If yes: Do you have any tips how to now annoy the neighbours with the noise? I’ve been thinking about making them the day before but I’m not so sure if they’re still that tasty when they’re not fresh.

Gotta run now and help with dinner. See ya!

 

Glad to hear that you liked the Japan recap.

I’m all sore of yesterday’s yoga class which is weird because it wasn’t really that tough (or at least that’s what I thought ). So today me and Silvio only took a leisurely walk because the weather is currently so nice and spring-like .

Before I headed to his place I had some time to whip up a few goodies though.

I’ve had “Thrive” for ages but never made anything out of the recipes. You know how that goes, you mark all the great recipes and want to try them “as soon as possible” but then life (and other recipes you “have to try as soon as possible”) get in the way and you still haven’t made anything after months.

Today marked a new day though and I couldn’t wait to try some of the recipes. Particularly the buckwheat pancakes sounded superbe.

Apparently the recipe yields for 2 large servings. And yes, large it was. BUT it was pretty easy to eat it all .

It was so good with some almond butter and agave.

After some groceries shopping I decided to give the chocolate blueberry energy bars a try.

I had no fresh blueberries or cooked buckwheat which might have been the reason why I only got 8 bars instead of 12.

They were almost purple though .

I thought that they were rather “interesting” tasting (not bad though!) but it was a bit of a surprise when my boyfriend said that he liked them.

The thrive party was ended by a green smoothie for lunch. However, I had no kale so I used spinach.

I can’t wait to try the crackers now (though they might have to wait until tonight because we’re currently watching “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”).

Does it ever happen to you that you get a cook book but then end up not making anything out of it for quite a while?

I hope you’re all enjoying your Saturday. We’re having a super relaxing day, just what the doctor ordered.

 

Some of you might have noticed that I still haven’t written the second recap of my Japan holidays (and for you new readers: I was in Japan from 30 December – 8 January. Check out Part 1 of the recap over here!).

Since today is a very boring day (food-wise) I decided to finally share the rest of the goodies with you all. I hope you don’t think it’s lame that I write a recap about something that happened almost two months ago.. (Time flies!!!)

 

Kyoto

So we left off where we headed to Kyoto. (Remember? ). Being the cheap people that we are we decided to go by bus and not by the super fast but super expensive shinkansen. It took us approximately 4 hours to get to Kyoto but that was ok because I really like “long” journeys as long as I don’t have to drive .

We arrived at 6pm and were starving after check-in (more about our dinner later!). Our hotel was located in the city centre and the room was lovely. The view was stellar too.

Yep, that’s a graveyard. My mum called them the “silent neighbours”.

After dinner we were surprised by our aunt who brought us gifts and wanted to say goodbye (again). Ah I love her! She’s fantastic.

On the next day (which was our only “real” day in Kyoto) we did all the touristy stuff. Kyoto is well known for the temples and shrines and we did the whole grand tour.

 

New Years is very important in Japan. Since it was only a week after New Year’s there was still lots going on at shrines.

 

These wooden plates can be bought there too. Since it’s the year of the tiger, all of them are tiger-themed. (Huh, makes sense, right? )

Everyone who gets one of those (except the tourists who buy them for souvenirs) writes a wish on them. The heart-shaped plates are obviously for those who wish for something that involves romance. Weird things are sometimes written on the plates too (no matter what the shape ) like: “I finally want to get divorced!”. Ha!

I think it’s a very nice tradition though. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I love traditions (that aren’t super silly). The white paper notes (see above) predict what happens this year. Mine was pretty average (wheww.. thank god for no family/boyfriend/work/injury/money.. problems ) but I remember that Selina’s said that she shouldn’t get too involved with trade but if she has to she should only buy/sell silk and pottery.

We got from one place to the other by a normal city bus. Much cheaper and cooler than a stupid tourist/sight-seeing bus.

Next stop was the Kinkaku-ji, aka the Golden Pavilion. What a beauty!!

K + S in: “The silly tourists”

 

SO postcard-worthy, don’t you think?

This was actually our last touristy spot that we visited in Kyoto. During the day we also walked through the markets a lot. Which brings me to a very important part of our Japan trip:

 

Food

Some of you might wonder how it’s like to survive in Japan as a vegetarian. Here’s the truth: It isn’t that difficult (when you’re cooking for yourself).

I generally ate much less than at home (aka in Switzerland) because I was a lot less active (I just didn’t need that much food). I ate all sorts of traditional food but also “western” dishes.

Here’s an example of what I ate at my grandma’s place:

Pickled veggies, rice, sautéed mushrooms and spinach with sesame seeds and an omelette.

See how big that apple is?? I LOVED it

 

Mochi. Oh how I love theeee. My grandma and mum made them on 1 January (which is an other tradition in Japan – making omochi on 1 January).

Edamame. Too good for this world!

I almost screamed out lout when I saw WW toast. Whole wheat products don’t have a huge fan base in Japan.

I also had a lot of green tea.

A typical Japanese style breakfast that my sister had looked like this:

Eating out was a whole other story..

Being a vegetarian in Japan is easy. When you’re staying at home that is. I didn’t really want to be a burden but sometimes I was so annoyed that there were no veggie options at all.

We went to a “kuru-kuru sushi restaurant” in Kurashiki. You know, it’s that kind of restaurant where the sushi goes around and around – how do you call that?

Anyway, we went inside and I was like a 5 year old, happily watching the sushi pass by.

The thing is.. most sushi contains fish. Nevertheless, I still managed to grab 4 fish-less plates.

My mum and sis on the other hand are sushi killing MACHINES!

 

On the first evening in Kyoto it was almost impossible to find anything vegetarian on the menus. I almost felt desperate and was really sorry for my mum and sis because it was because of me that we had to wander around with grumbling tummies.

…Until we found a gem of a restaurant.

 

Well it might not look super exciting but the menu said that there were tons of vegetarian options. Plus everything was organic. Totally my kind of place .

I had a bunch of yummy things to eat like tempeh, veggies and a salad.

We went back to this restaurant for the second dinner too.

Other random stuff…

We strolled through the markets of Kyoto and saw a lot of fish.

And a lot of veggies.

Oh and shopping for groceries is just as fun as anywhere else on the world…

Oh and let’s not forget about the pastries!

This was called a sweet potato boat..

+ this looked like.. you know.. But it was good!!!

I only bought this because I was intrigued by the awful grey colour but I loved it! It was stuffed with beans and sesame seeds. Mmmmm.

 

Looking through the picture makes me want to go back!

Though I would happily skip this meal…

(But just to be fair: Airplane food has definitely improved over the years)

Oh and let’s end this post which a fantastic treat..

Matcha latte. LOVE.

Sorry for the super long post but I hope you liked the recap nevertheless .

Have a great Friday!

 

I think we can all agree that we’re addicted to the internet (to some degree). It’s not all too bad though. Just think about all the friends you wouldn’t have without it! I for sure wouldn’t want to miss my bloggie friends.

I really wish I could go to Paris for a weekend; They’re currently showing “Maison de Poupée” (A Doll’s House) by Henrik Ibsen at the Théâtre de la Madeleine AND Audrey Tautou is in it AND it’s my mum’s favourite play. I so wish I could take her to see the play. Maybe I should give some hints to dad as I’m pretty sure it would make her super happy. Oh well, just a random thought.
Do you like plays? I absolutely love them and saw some of the most amazing plays in London (naked Harry Potter in “Equus” anyone?? ).

Dinner last night involved a ton of veggies. It was stir-fry time!

Sigh, it’s been too long.

This morning I went to the gym (I’m getting used to these 5am wake-up calls!) and ran 3 km on the treadmill, did 20 minutes on the elliptical and finished off with some ab work. IT WAS BORING! Running on a treadmill is much harder than running outside. It was good workout nevertheless.

I still had lots of time on hand before work so I headed to Tibits. I’ve never had breakfast there before but today I discovered that they have some great vegan muesli. Expect to see me back there soon.

With my muesli I had some vegan spelt “croissant” and an other small WW roll (with poppy seeds!!) that came with the muesli.

Oh and let’s not forget about the chai… which was heavenly!

Gelareh wrote a great post about electrolytes which you all should read. My best post-workout friend is this guy:

 

Coconut and banana? An other match made in heaven.

Lunch was a bunch of rabbit food.

• arugula
• 1/4 red bell pepper
• mushrooms
• vegan sausage thingy
• hummus
• olive oil + balsamic vinegar + pepper
  

 

Eaten at work with style.

These guys begged me to buy them this morning. Of course I had to oblige…

 

Sesame + chocolate = LOVE!

Off to squash I go now… Keep in mind: Tomorrow is Friday! Hooray!

Even though I love different breakfasts and don’t always stick with the same, I tend to go back to oatmeal all the time. We just can’t be separated!

Also: Why I lived for more than 20 years without almond butter is completely beyond me.

+ Even a closer close-up of the gorgeousness.

Filling and hearty and FULL OF LOVE!

Ok, I’ll stop drooling now. Foodies are so weird, they get overly excited because of one small dish. Those people are nuts!

No wait, I lied (about the stopping part that is)! I’ll continue with foodgasms. Ha!

 

Today I bought some hummus and a tomato spread. You know, I needed some party friends for these guys:

 

Match made in heaven. Some people think that this couldn’t possibly be a satisfying lunch but I felt super snacky today and craved veggies.

I had this hummus before and it truly rocks my world.

The tomato paste was new to me and I decided to give it a try.

OH MY STARS!

This was so amazing! I’ve never thought of combining sun dried tomatoes and tahini but it works so well!

I had one tablespoon of each for some dipping action.

Crunch crunch. Truly heavenly. The good stuff was followed by equally amazing food:

May I repeat myself? I’ve missed out! This is like a classical PB&J sandwich but with rice cakes, almond butter and a lovely new spread:

I picked it up at the health food store a few days ago and opened it today and noticed today that 75% of it is fruit AND it’s sweetened with agave. Yay!

Plus it’s also really yummy.

Today hasn’t been the most exciting day but I slept in until 7:30am which was quite the miracle. I’ll meet up with the boyfriend for a run after work though. You know, I actually hate running in the dark and didn’t do as much running in the past few weeks as I liked because I was simply scared to slip on that freaking ice! The ice is gone now though and it’s getting really warm (down here.. not in the mountains ) it almost feels like spring! Love it!

If you like running/jogging: Do you sometimes have troubles with seasons? (Like yours truly who can only run in the morning/evening when it’s super dark in winter)

I’m actually on my lunch break right now and currently searching some information for our getaway on Easter! We have planned to go to an amazing area and I’ll share more info with you when the details are clear. Just one word: Italy!

Oh I can’t wait! Even though I love my job and life I really need to get away from time to time. It’s pretty handy that I live in Switzerland because there are so many pretty things to see, plus so many great countries are near by!

30 days shred update: Well I wrote that I’ll stick to it and I really wanted to but only my laptop can play American DVDs. And you all know that my laptop is currently ill with the flu . To be honest, it’s pretty annoying and I can’t wait for it to get fixed. I wish Selina had one too but nope, it has always been super handy to use mine.

Are we too addicted to the internet?
Would you be ok without your laptop/PC/notebook/..whatever?

Let me know what you’re thinking!

 

Thanks for the lovely words on my snowshoeing post! It was such an amazing weekend and it was pretty depressing to get back to work on Monday. But hey, it’s silly to complain because Mondays will come back over and over again. Every week to be precise. Duh.

I actually started off the day at the gym! Arriba! Today I decided to give my brand spanking new training plan a chance. So here’s my full body workout:

10 minutes warm-up on the bike

Leg Press
100 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Leg Extension
30 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Prone Leg Curl
30 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Calf Raise
90 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Lat. Pulldown
40 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Row
40 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Back Extension
65 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Chest Press
30 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Overhead Press
15 lb, 15x (3 sets)

Ab work (plank pose with leg lifts and some classical crunches)

Stretching!

Yes, I’m weak and still figuring out which weights work best for me but hey! you’ve got to start somewhere. To be honest, strength training wasn’t really that tough. Though I’ll probably have crazy painful arms tomorrow. I really like this plan in addition to my race training (which starts in mid-March, hooray!).

I’m glad you didn’t see me in the gym though (or did you?? hehe). I walked around like a lost chicken! All those machines are so confusing! It took me ages to figure out which ones to use. Sigh. Next time I’ll walk around like a pro though. Prone Leg Curl? POW!!! It’s that machine over there!!!

Post-gym I had some muesli with low fat quark. Protein to satisfy my ever growing muscles!!

Pre-gym I had a snack that I’ve been dying to try for ages!

 

Whole rice cakes with almond butter. Glorious!!! Thanks for the inspiration Tam!

..Speaking of inspiration… The blog world is FULL with brilliant minds and I stole the idea for last night’s dinner from the über-brilliant Amanda.

Coconut rice!!!

I simply cooked 1 cup (dry) whole rice, 2 cups water, 1 cup coconut milk, chopped carrots, red bell pepper, cashew nuts, dried apricots and some bouillon and got this small masterpiece! It was so creamy and decadent. LOVE! I also had some quorn with aubergine.

Of course I had to have the exact same thing for lunch today.. with some chicks! Ay!

A few minutes ago I also had a wrap with laughing cow and red bell pepper. I’ll go to pilates from 7pm-9:15pm tonight and can’t have a real dinner.

 

 

This post is so freaking boring – I could put a photo of a cow on my page and people would find it more interesting!

So here’s a question: Have you recently tried an interesting recipe?? (Point me the way!!!) You guys should all try the coconut rice. It’s truly heavenly.

Have a great Tuesday!

ps: My laptop STILL isn’t working. Apparently the problem is the keyboard (not some nasty virus! pheww). But I can’t believe that I depend so much on my laptop! I’m addicted! (I should get a treatment!!). Thank god that my boyfriend is some engineer – I’ll bring the laptop to his place tomorrow and beg him to fix it. If that doesn’t work I’ll get on my knees and use my powerful puppy-eyes look.

 

 

I LOVE SNOWSHOEING!!!

This weekend was amazing and I’m still pretty exhausted and tired but it was definitely one of the best weekends in quite some time.

Needless to say that I was a true talent at snowshoeing:

 

Hehe. I will spare you the following 2984029 photos that my dear boyfriend took of me as I was rolling around in the snow, trying to get up.

I did in fact set the alarm for 4:40am on Saturday morning but I skipped the shred and yoga because I didn’t want to rush to get everything done. Well in the end I still had to hurry to get to the train station in time for the 7am train.Once we got to Fiesch, we checked into our hostel and discussed where we should go snowshoeing. There wasn’t that much snow in Fiesch itself but we quickly found an other trail and hopped on a bus to head to the starting point.

It went uphill like crazy but we were having a blast. There was a great trail and it was easy to see which way we had to go .

 

Snowshoe warrior! Pow man!

We reached the top after 1 1/2 hours.

There was a restaurant and NEEDED some hot chocolate of course . It had too little chocolate though! What were they thinking??? Hot chocolate needs a TON of chocolate!!

The walk back down went much faster (who would have thought?) and we were right on time for the bus and went back to our hostel room.

We actually had plans to go skiing the next day but were both raving about how much fun snowshoeing was and that were kind of sad that we only got this “sneak peak”. We looked through the flyers again and there was a 10km trail that took 6,5 hours to walk. Of course we were instantly intrigued! We love challenges and things that seem a little bit nuts (considering that we were snowshoeing newbies) and we discussed the pro/cons of snowshoeing and skiing but it was SO clear that we’d go hiking in the snow again.

So after lying around a bit (we were exhausted after all) we decided to go into town and have dinner. I knew I needed something carby to get me through the next day. We both started with a salad.

It was ok (you can’t really expect any super gourmet food in ski places –maybe except for St. Moritz and Zermatt-). I really liked that they offered mainly local food though. Local meaning from this area only.

We also ordered some (local) Syrah that was very dry and worked well with our dishes.

Then I got the herbs pasta topped with melted cheese.

It was really good but super heavy (no big surprise there. + Needless to say that it was something that I wouldn’t eat on a daily basis). I made an impressive dent in it and gave the rest to Silvio who had Rösti with bacon and eggs before. My tummy felt a bit weird the next day (which is probably because of that dish) but it wasn’t that bad.

We both didn’t know if we should get dessert but then we decided to order a Coupe Baileys. That came with a lot of whipped cream.

It was good though , A lovely treat for a lovely weekend.

Yesterday morning we got up at 7am, packed our bags and headed to the breakfast room where I had some muesli, cheese  and bread with a little bit of butter and jam. Not going to complain about hostel buffets as I really needed the carbs for our snowshoeing trip ahead.

After breakfast we checked out and jetted to the starting point of the trail by bus. We had some troubles finding the path at first but after 30 minutes we were well on our way. It seemed like an easier path at first (compared to the day before) and the view was breathtaking. It seems like snowshoeing isn’t very popular with people of my age as we’ve only met “elder” couples. TOO BAD! They’re missing out!

Around noon we took a break and dug out our sandwiches that we bought before. Since we had plans to go skiing we didn’t pack more food for lunch (because we were expecting to eat in a restaurant). Therefore we had to work with what was on hand, meaning a sandwich from a small bistro of sorts that was open on Sundays.

It was as tasty as it looked, trust me.

I also had some banana, dried apricots and chocolate though so it was a satisfying lunch .

The part that followed afterwards was breathtaking. No one has walked the path in a few days (me thinks) and it was simply amazing to stomp through fresh snow.

 

At some point you couldn’t see the trail anymore and we got kind of lost. In the end we walked through the woods like idiots and somehow managed to reach the starting point after 6 hours of snowshoeing (break included). I think we walked a longer distance than what was originally planned but we had an amazing time nevertheless.

We felt so hyper after our trip but got more and more tired on our journey back home. Once back at my place I just wanted a lot of veggies. And something warm. So soup it was!

We then watched “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” but I fell asleep when 9 pals went into Moria and awoke when Boromir was killed. I was SO tired!!!

Words can’t express how amazing this weekend was. I loved that I got to spend some time with my boyfriend and found an other new love of my life – snowshoeing. I’ll definitely go again soon!!

 

You should try it too if there’s some snow around your place!

My laptop is currently not working so I’ve got to blog from work until it’s fixed. That’s pretty much ok but I miss your posts during breakfast and in the evening!! It’s so unfair that technology hates me. I’m trying my best but please excuse me if I don’t comment as often .

Q Have you ever tried snowshoeing? Did you like it?

Awwwww, thanks for the amazing comments guys! You’re the best ! I was honestly scared to even write about my “past” because sometimes I still think that people (who may also know me in “real life”) would easily judge me and point a finger at me and whisper bad things behind my back. Even writing this makes it sound so silly! We should all like ourselves for who we are; bad and good characteristics included! Thanks for listening and commenting, it has really shown me that it’s ok to write about these things (and I honestly don’t know why I was so insecure in the first place!).

Oh I love blogging, you’re like my little army of therapists!

I’m seriously freaking happy right now. Because of you (I’ll go and fetch a tissue soon!) and because I just finished packing my bags!

Hasta luego! See you in a few months!

Kidding.

My boyfriend “gave” me a snowshoeing trip for Christmas and so we’re finally going to spend a weekend together in Fiesch (which apparently is a ski place. Never heard of it before either (so you’re not the only one) ). Therefore I won’t blog this weekend but I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m extremely looking forward to spending some time with Silvio and I can’t wait to get up at the ungodly hour of 5am tomorrow morning. I might even set the alarm to 4:30am because I “have” to shred (still going “strong – will write more about it when I get back) and want to do some yoga too! We’ll see.

Today I made a ton of porridge for breakfast.
1/2 c oats, 1 1/2 c water, flax seeds, 1 banana, agave and some crushed almonds later I got this:

Nom nom.

Dinner was cooked by my lovely oven. He can walk and talk and chop veggies at the same time. It’s a miracle .

 

Why did I live so long without sweet potato? WHY?? We’ll never know.

I mixed the potato and broccoli with a little bit of olive oil and salt and topped the aubergine slices with salt only.

20 seconds later…
(oh I wish!)

 

And because so few veggies keep me full for 5 minutes I also had some cereal with almond milk.

I love breakfast for dinner!

Afterwards I got to work on some fake Lärabars! The only dried fruit that I had (besides dates) were apricots. So I decided to make some tropical Lärabars today!

First I mixed (in a food processor):

1/4 c roughly chopped dried apricots, mixed with shredded coconut (it was about half/half)
+
1/4 chopped dates

Then I mushed it together in a bowl with

1/4 shredded almonds

It’s like playing with dough and reminded me of my childhood .

Then I halved it and formed each piece into something that looks a tiny bit like a bar.

Still got to work on my shaping technique.

I haven’t tried them yet but I’ll take them with me tomorrow along with tons of other snacks. I’m a foodie after all, I can’t go long without snacks!

We will also go skiing this weekend which honestly scares the hell out of me. I started skiing when I was 10 (which is considered to be pretty late over here btw) but changed to snowboarding when I was 12. I haven’t skied ever since. On the other hand I’m also very excited because I LOVE challenges. Let’s just hope that I won’t break anything.

 

Have a wonderful weekend and take care!

Q: What’s the last thing you’ve tried that scared? See above

On some days I have to work from 9am-9pm. Today is one of those days.

A few years ago I maybe would have felt annoyed or even angry about it but now I don’t give it much thought anymore.

I rarely talk about “my ED past” because this is no recovery-blog (I have been recovered for a long time now) and it doesn’t identify who I am (anymore). However, knowing of my struggles might help understand why I think that happiness is so important.
Thinking about how I felt about working so long reminded me of how far I’ve come (yes, I like analyzing my thoughts).
Feel free to read on but if you don’t care that’s ok too. You can skip the rant and go to the food pictures .

~~~~~~

Nowadays I am (generally) a happy person only because I went through a time of self loathing. These times were awful and also affected my family (which made me feel even more miserable because I was the reason for their worry) but I got over it. Yes, I got over hating myself because it was pointless. It might sound a bit funny to you but it took me ages to get to that point. However, once I reached it, it felt like my life turned upside down. In a good way.
I’m a pretty rational and realistic person (deep down.. somewhere.. ) and knew that eventually there were only two ways for me:

- Accepting myself for who I am and start living my life the “real” way
- Continue to be miserable and be a burden to my family

Because and also with my family I managed to get out of this damn hole. Needless to say that they’re the most amazing people on earth to me (thanks kids! You’re awesome I could cry of joy were I not in an office right now ). My rational and realistic brain also told me that I’m a good person and deserved happiness. And even accepting that fact took such a long time! It all seems so simple to me now but it was such a fight to get there.

Long story short: You can choose to be happy and only you can bring real happiness to your life. No friends, family members, clothes, electronics or whatever can make you feel truly happy if you can’t stand yourself.

This is also why I started this blog: To (maybe) help other people who are struggling with positive thinking and also to send out good vibes to my dear readers out there (after all; reading uplifting things IS uplifting, isn’t it?)

 

Forgive my endless monologue but I’m currently on my dinner break and need some distraction from this:

 

You know, it’s relatively tasty and all but I’m not the biggest fan of microwaved frozen veggies. But they’re ok when you’re craving warm veggies and don’t have time to prepare some at home.  Well you’ve got to work with what you’ve got on hand..

 

Last night’s dinner was fantastic by the way. Definitely one of the best I’ve ever had. I need to go back there soon and bring my camera. You would all love it too I’m sure!

Breakfast was also stellar though (but much cheaper and made in my teeny tiny kitchen)

I love me some french toast! Why do some people not like this fabulous dish??

What made me super SUPER happy yesterday was that my ordered photo prints have arrived! I love making “real” albums of holidays (vacations) and little trips where I can add my own scribbles and “artwork”. I appreciate what modern technology brought/brings to us but I also like glossy photo paper and old school photo albums. Does anyone else feel the same?

 

 

By the way, it was so good to hear that I’m not the only one who likes celeb gossip. I love me some trashy magazines that claim every week that Brangelina have split.

Thanks for reading guys, it really means a lot to me.
Love yourself for who you are (because I think that you are pretty damn amazing).

Howdy people! How’s your Wednesday going? Mine started at 5 AM. Hooray! Yes I managed to get up early (I only hit snooze once !) and got to the gym at 6:15 AM (it takes me 25 minutes to get there). It was great to start the morning with moves (ok, that sentence could also be TOTALLY misinterpreted  but you know what I mean, right?). Before I left I had ½ banana with AB and a tiny bowl of some cereal that my sister bought.

And I packed a sandwich with more banana and AB for breakfast. I know, it’s not the best post-workout meal but it’s what I was craving and managed to put together quickly.

At the gym I did:
10 min warm-up on the bike
2 miles run in 20 minutes on the treadmill
5 minutes of abs
20 minutes on the elliptical
5 minutes of stretching

Yes I did a lot of machines-hopping but I get BORED easily! How do you cardio-in-gym people manage to work out for longer than 20 minutes??
It was actually my first time on the treadmill and I was incredibly bored after a few minutes. Luckily MGMT helped me push through it and in the end of the workout I left the gym looking like a tomato. Good times! (I will definitely stick to running outside though. Except for when I have to combine strength training and running for the race preparation.. But these are short runs anyway so that’s ok)

Do you know how I managed to elliptical for 20 minutes? Because an old episode of McLeod’s Daughters was on! Anyone else knows/likes this show?? It’s so cheesy but I love the simple story lines, horses and Aussie accents! My mum, sis and I often watched it together and gossiped about it (and annoyed my dad because we were talking about it as if it were real life). Ha!

Speaking of gossip.. I have a confession to make: I LOVE celebrity gossip! It’s funny, silly and always makes me feel glad that I’m leading such a normal life. I found a new hilarious homepage today which is kind of a mix of sarcasm, celebrity gossip and YOGA! It absolutely screams my name .

Go and check out YogaDork for yourself!

Anyway, I’m heading out to dinner with my uncle now! It seems pretty weird to some people that I will have dinner with my uncle but we have such a close and great family and I’m so glad that I have a lot of amazing people around me . Plus I’m looking forward to some great food! My uncle is one of the biggest gourmets I know and a walking wine encyclopaedia on top of that.

Q: Did you inherit your love for food or did you become a fan of good food on your own? For me it was both. As I said before, I grew up in a relatively healthy household (no fried foods, sweets..) but I care more about nutrition now and prefer whole wheat products to “white” pasta/rice/bread for example. But you all know my stance on healthy eating .