Playing Catch Up & New Motivation

Hello, friends!

Long time no chat. I was watching YouTube videos today and realized I hadn't posted on the blog in FOREVER. Since March 9th actually, which feels like an eternity. I wanted to stop in and catch you guys up on what has been happening this past week. Spoiler alert: not a whole lot!

Since March I have been puttering away through my prep. I have to remind myself that I am not doing the show in May, although most of the girls in my group are. This means they are leaning down more than I am at this point, and I have to constantly tell myself to be patient and just trust the process. I am about ten weeks out from my first bikini competition, and luckily I still have some time because last week I came down with a gross cold/flu bug kind of thing that wiped me right out.

The photo above was taken on Thursday after my chest and cardio workout. I was feeling a bit off, but figured it was because my body was tired and just ready to go home. Generally my workouts take place in the evening and while I do find I have energy to complete them, last Thursday I just felt "meh" about it all. After doing my cardio workout, I hopped on the treadmill and ran 5km. YES, I RAN! Some of you who have followed my journey (as sporadic and random as my posts are) know that I started off my fitness "career" running. However, since starting this competition prep, I haven't ran much at all. Thursday's 5km run was a small victory in my book.

I woke up Friday feeling like a dump truck ran over me. My head felt as if there were a helmet strapped on and constantly squeezing my brain, and my throat was swollen and ears were crackling. I left work early on Friday, stayed in bed all day Saturday, Sunday, Monday, AND today. Holy cow, was I never knocked on my butt from this bug. It is Tuesday evening and I am finally starting to feel like an actual human again.

I did have some company on Saturday, though. A big thank you to my parents for stopping by with this awesome care package!

Ginger tea, blackberries, an acai berry smoothie, my favourite roasted red pepper soup by Pacific, my favourite fruit gummies, an energy nut bar that I have been slowly picking away at (as my throat permits), plus soup, lemon, lime, ginger & Emergen C. Ryan has also been bringing me home things like soup, Powerade, lozenges - so I am pretty well stocked!

Maybe it was the cardio that knocked me off my feet on Thursday. I may slowly be convincing myself that cardio is the enemy. Muahaha.

If only, if only.

Throwback to a couple Sundays ago at the gym. Posing practice followed by cardio followed by a veggie and egg white fritata with steamed broccoli on the side. So good.

I have been researching competitions more and more the closer I get to June 28th. Of course, most of the things I have read about revolve around American body building federations such as NPC, but the people I have been watching have a whole different approach to the food part of competing. Some follow a meal plan as set out by their trainer (which is what I am doing), and some do this process called if it fits your macros (or IIFYM), I personally enjoy my meal plan (for the most part - too bad red wine isn't part of it!), but there are some parts of IIFYM that I am curious about too. The only downside I see is that with IIFYM, you may not be getting as much protein as you would in a structured meal plan. For instance, if your macros say you should only have 90g of protein in a day, then I am way over that! I personally have 113g of protein alone in my lunch, alongside a butt-load of veggies, so it would be interesting to see how it compares. Neverless, I have found almost a new burst of motivation to complete these next ten weeks to the very best of my ability. I know I can lift heavier and be more consistent with my meals, so I am ready to grind out the next ten weeks and bring a fantastic package to the stage!

Birthday Fun: Commence Food Coma

Good evening, friends!

I hope you all had a great week. Mine was fantastic, mainly because I was counting down until my BIRTHDAY! More on that to come.

My days have been filled with working and going to the gym, as per usual, but I am extra excited to see the flowers in the garden start to bloom! They are so pretty and remind me that spring is around the corner.

So, let's get onto the birthday talk, shall we?

Sunday mornings start with posing practice at the gym. After I came home, I took a shower and relaxed with a cup of coffee & Ryan made me pancakes! I haven't had good, doughy pancakes in a long time. Way, way, too long. Rather than using wheat flour he substituted with oat flour, which happens to be friendly to my competition diet. I topped my pancakes with natural peanut butter, chia seeds, banana, and syrup. And yes, I did eat my weight in pancakes, and yes, they were amazing!

After breakfast, we got ready for the day. I requested we go shopping in Victoria, so that was the adventure of the day.

Outfit of the day: Sweater by Mink Pink (plain white tank top underneath from Forever 21), jeans by Guess?, necklace from Old Navy, light pink bead bracelet from Archer & Arrow (local boutique), and gold watch by Michael Kors.

My parents were also en route to Victoria, so we met up with them along the way as we were shopping. After visiting all of our favourite shopping destinations and spending way too much money at Lululemon, it was time for dinner. Maybe next week I will do a little haul/favourites post!

Hello, cheat meal! I tend to be fairly conservative with my reward meals. I'll either eat more carbs or I won't measure my serving of salmon, if that's what I'm having for dinner. OR I will eat dark chocolate, because I miss having chocolate. However, now I feel so much better without all that extra sugar in my system, so I suppose it's all about balance. 

Anyway, we went out to a restaurant called Bin 4 in Victoria. If you haven't been, I strongly urge you to go! It was delicious, decently priced, and I had the best company around me which made for a great birthday dinner. My burger of choice is called the Mr. Bean burger and is a hand-made bean and vegetable patty on a soft, squishy bun with lettuce, tomato, and red onion. And the FRIES. Oh, the fries were to die for. And ketchup! And garlic aoli! Oh my lanta. I kid you not. I unbuttoned my pants on the way home because I was so damn full. Food coma, commence.

A big thank you to my amazing family & loving boyfriend for such a special birthday. I am so thankful! Safe to say my belly and heart were full yesterday.

I hope you all have a nice evening! I am off to make some food. Girl's gotta eat.

Once Upon a Time, I Brushed My Hair & Ran

Pre-drinks for a highschool friend's birthday celebration. It's always nice to connect with people I haven't seen in a long time. Plus, when red wine is involved it's definitely not bad!

Hello, plants! I started some plants indoors, and they are thriving! The ones above are cherry tomatoes, but I also have broccoli, cauliflower, onions (which just started to sprout!), basil, and cilantro started inside. The weather was decent this weekend, so I was able to get out and plant in the garden this afternoon. It makes me happy to spend time outside, and so far there's garlic and possibly some radishes sprouting - it is undetermined whether the radishes will survive since the garden bed became flooded after the gutters overflowed (ughhhh big mess!), so we shall see! Regardless, it'll be a true test of Mother Nature. This afternoon I planted spinach, lettuce, parsnips for a winter harvest and carrots!

Scene's from Wednesday's run. I lost my Garmin and haven't been able to find it for weeks now, so I have been relying on the app RunKeeper on my phone to record my distance and pace. The only downside to this is that my phone died when I was almost finished my run. Oh well! I didn't have much farther to go and completed just under 4 miles.

Yesterday I actually took the time to blowdry and brush my hair (and wear something other than pajamas or leggings), because I was speaking at the Shawnigan Lake Business Association's Shawnigan Gathering event about social media! It was a fantastic way to network with local business people, talk social media and introduce how it can benefit their businesses. Why did I do this? You'll find out at the end of the post ;)

And today's sunshine filled run! I wanted to get out there before the clouds rolled in and the rain started comin' down. So far it's been holding off and it's just cloudy, but it was nice to get out in the sunshine!

Hope you guys had a fantastic weekend!

And a little mini announcement slash self promotion...

I started a social media and online marketing company! Be sure to head over to my website, HD Social Media to check out the services I offer. I look forward to working with you! :)

Ten Thousand Years Later...

Hey friends! It's been a long time, hasn't it? The blog has kinda taken a backseat as you can tell, but I figured I'd share some pictures of what's been happening and update you on lifeeeee and all that fun stuff!

I've still been eatin' my veggies: see photo above. 

I've also been planning my garden! Garden beds are built, some seeds have already been started indoors, and all that's left is spring to finally come around! I thought I'd be able to put more soil into the other two garden beds, but we basically had a torrential downpour all. freakin'. day! today, so that was a no go. So, I started peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli indoors this afternoon so they will be ready to transplant once Mother Nature permits!

Birthday snow man. My birthday was last month, and I celebrated by making a little snowman with my boyfriend. You know you're old when...

If you haven't tried making a personal pizza on naan bread, then I'm sorry you are missing out on such a beautiful creation. I urge you to try it now! I would like to make my own naan bread next time and see how that turns out :) I have enjoyed actually putting thought into my meals and cooking everything from scratch. There is something so satisfying about making a meal that everyone else enjoys! Tonight I made a ginger teriyaki stir fry with chickpeas - filling and I could pronounce every single ingredient that went into the dish! That's the way it should be!

Kickin' back with a cup of Earl Grey after shoveling cow poop and garden soil all day. Fortunately the garden is coming together now! 

Yogi Tea has the best quotes on their tea bags. A little smile during the work day!

This book is fantastic! I ordered it on Amazon.ca at the beginning of the month, and it came in the mail earlier this week. It is full of delicious, healthy recipes that use clean ingredients. I am excited to experiment some more in the kitchen!

Trail walks with Marley and the notorious photo bombin' Sarah.

An evening walk with Sarah and Marley last night. It's so nice being able to be outside at 6:30pm and still have some day light! Of course, I had to add an Instagram filter to this picture and it was actually 8 o'clock at night, so the sun had gone down, but I digress :)

And now we are at today! I joined a run club last month which has been a fun way to make new friends, run with company, and actually have a training plan to stick to. Today called for an hour and a half of running, which translated to 10 miles (16 km) for me. After my run, I stretched for a bit and then went to the health food store for some goodies. Don't worry. A shower happened before I went out in public. At the health food store I picked up a giant bottle of apple cider vinegar (my sister is probably puking in her mouth if she's reading this right now!), buckwheat groats and hemp seeds. Our pantry had been without hemp seeds for far too long! Other than that, the day was spent hanging out, plantin' some seeds, cleaning up, and then making dinner. I actually kind of love days like this!

I hope you all have been doing well, and I will try to pop in and visit more often! Honestly, I didn't exactly know where I wanted this little blog to go, but I wanted to stay in touch with the few people who may read it. So, I will continue to post, even if it isn't every day. I hope you will understand that!

If you are interested in my life and what I do and things I see and pictures I take, follow me on Instagram! Or follow me on Twitter, where I try to post witty things.