Outlet Shopping

First, did you miss my giveaway I’m hosting? Do you want to win a $40 gift certificate? If you answered yes to either of these questions then check out my CSN giveaway. It ends on Friday so don’t miss it!

I got up early (well early for me during summer vacation) this morning to try my very first Zumba class.

Breakfast was an egg and cheese sandwich on a whole wheat sandwich thin.

With a glass of oj of course.

After breakfast I headed for the gym. I was a little excited and a little nervous. Once I got to the gym, I changed and headed to the studio. While standing outside the studio I checked the schedule and to my surprise there was no Zumba. They had changed the schedule but not updated their website. FAIL!!!

It was time to think of a new gym plan quickly. I always go to the gym with a plan in mind so I know what I want to accomplish and I don’t waste too much time. After feeling lost for a few mins I hopped on the treadmill for a quick 5 min warm-up.

After my warm-up I did the circuit training that the gym has with the weight machines. I’m not usually a fan of the circuit training but since I didn’t have a weight plan with me I figured it would work for one day. I did a totally of 13 machines (the circuit had 9 and I added 4 on my own) then I added 2 extra ab exercises. In totally I did 15 exercises, 1 set of each and 15 reps of each.

After my weight training I hopped back on the treadmill and did a short ten mins of interval training.

Post-workout lunch was leftover Hawaiian pizza.

 

And the return of the green smoothie. I finally picked up some Almond Milk today and the first thing I wanted with it was a green smoothie. In the blender today: organic spinach, chia seeds, a banana, UVAB (Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze) and ice.

It was so nice to drink some veggies again. I have really missed my smoothies.

After lunch it was time to do some outlet shopping. Banana Republic outlet shopping to be exact. On the weekend Matt and I found out that Calgary has a Banana Republic outlet. One of only four in the country. I was excited to pick up a few nice items for a fantastic price.

My purchases:

 

This nice green shirt that goes great with jeans, skirts or shorts.

This dress is really cute. Its simple but still a little dressy. It will be great for a night out.

On the way home I stopped at Starbuck and got a Venti Passion Tea Lemonaide and a slice of Raspberry Lemon Loaf.

 

After getting home from shopping I spend a little time catching up on some blogs. I’m very behind right now but I’m slowly catching up.

When Matt got home from work I threw supper together.

I picked up this frozen pasta at the store on the weekend so I figured tonight would be the night to give it a try.

It didn’t take lot to prepare at all, then I tossed the pasta in a little EVOO and sprinkled it with a little fresh parmesan.

I served it up with a slice of Sunflower Flax bread and a glass of skim milk.

It was ok. Matt didn’t like it at all and I didn’t love it but didn’t hate it either. We probably won’t be making it again. I wasn’t very hungry and only ate about half the pasta and one half the bread as well. I was full so I was listening to my body and not eating too much.

Now we’re going to catch up on Mad Men and relax for the rest of the evening. Does anyone else watch that show? I love it! I love the fashion as well. I really need to add some more 60’s inspired clothes into my wardrobe.

~ Katie :)

My First Giveaway

To celebrate my arrival to Calgary and the new apartment I wanted to do something nice for my readers. The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy around Her Inner Shine and I really appreciate all of you sticking around and continuing to read.

So when Caitlin at CSN stores contacted me about a giveaway I knew it was a perfect way to reward my readers for sticking by me.

As a housewarming gift from me to you I’m giving away a $40 gift certificate from CSN stores.

They have so many websites to choose from including www.cookware.com or www.AllModern.com.

So do you want a Dutch Oven? What about a Waffle Maker? How about a new Desk Lamp? Or even some new Wall Art? You can choose from any of these and so much more.

In order to win this fantastic prize you can:

• Visit one of the CSN Stores websites and leave me a comment below telling me what you’d purchase with your gift card.
• To get an extra entry follow me on twitter then tweet: A super CSN Giveaway. Win a @CSNStores gift certificate from @HerInnerShine http://tinyurl.com/2flmoj3. Then leave me a comment below telling me you did so.
• Finally post a link to this contest on your blog and then leave me a comment below telling me you did so. (Make sure to included the link in the comment as well).

This contest is open to all US and Canadian residents. One entry per method per person. I will use random.org to choose a winner one week from today: Friday, August 13th at 12pm Mountain time.

Good Luck Everyone!

Falling Behind

Sorry for the lack of posting over the weekend. It was crazy busy.

My weekend looked like this:

Saturday

Matt and I slept in a bit and then got up early and went for a late brunch at Cora’s. I decided to go with the fruit plate with a side of brie and a piece of whole wheat toast and pb.

We then spent the next 4-6 hours walking around and stopping at a couple of shops. Since it was sunny and warm out we spent most of the day outside walking. I am still sore from it today.

While I didn’t pick up much shopping I did find this new tea store in the mall. David’s Tea. And picked up a couple of things.

Organic Spring Break (coconut green tea)…

And it comes in the cute little container…

Some Agave nector sticks. A set of five original and five various (including: lime, peach, etc.)…

Since brunch was late we grabbed an early dinner at the Chickenburger in Bedford. I love this place. I hardly ever make it out there but it is always worth it. I usually skip the side orders and get both a chicken burger and a hamburger since they are small and I can never decide on which one I like better.

Its funny I had my camera with my all day an didn’t take a single picture.

We then headed home to watch Avatar for the first time and relax. I really didn’t have high expectations for Avatar. I’m not sure why but we just never made it to the theatre to see it so Matt decided to buy a copy on Saturday and we curled up on the couch to watch it. I actually enjoyed it a lot more then I thought I would. I’ll definitely have to watch it again to get a full grasp on the movie.

Sunday

Sunday was also pretty busy. Since we skipped grocery day on Saturday we had to make a trip to both Costco and Superstore.

Sunday started out with Oats in a Jar – Chocoloate Peanut Butter Oats to be exact. I can see why everyone raves about this. NOM!

Lunch was some Annie’s White Cheddar Mac and Cheese with added broccoli.

On the menu for tonight was Ribs…

Asparagus…

Baby Potatoes…

Dinner: BBQ Ribs, Roasted Asparagus (with EVOO, salt and pepper) and Roasted Baby Potatoes (with EVOO, salt pepper, garlic powder, onion salt and thyme)…

I actually only ate half the ribs on my plate. They were huge and I could hardly finish them.

Today

Breakfast was vanilla greek yogurt, granola and 1/2 a banana. I will have to agree with Jaime on this one. The vanilla greek yogurt is good but I’m not sure it’s worth the price. I’m not sure it’s THAT much better then the plain. I’d love to try some other flavours though (too bad we don’t get any here in Canada).

Lunch was left over Annie’s Mac and Cheese, a yogurt cup and a Cherry Dark Chocolate Kashi bar.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and picked up a package of these:

I can’t wait to try them. Thanks Jaime :)

Dinner later is going to be pita pizza’s with chicken and spinach. Yummy :)

I’m going to leave you all now with some pictures of my new hair cut I got on Friday.

Old Hair Cut…

New Hair Cut…

Sorry it looks a little flat – I took it just after I got home from my school’s spring concert on Friday night and it had been a very long day.

I hope everyone had a great Monday back.

~ Katie :)

Giveaway Love:

• Jess at Dairy Free Betty is giving away some yummy looking treats. Check it out here: http://www.dairyfreebetty.com/2010/04/giveaway-day.html
• Ali at Fat to Fit is giving away some Amazing Meal. Check it out here: http://fatbutchanging.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-have-excuse.html

Back At It

TGIF

After last nights post I knew I wanted to get back into healthy eating. I also want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments. I know it was only one week of unhealthy eating but I felt like I was getting into a rut and I really appreciate all the sweet and encouraging comments from my wonderful readers.

Breakfast was Greek Yogurt, strawberry yogurt and granola. Snacks: Kashi bar and cheese string. Lunch was apple, carrots and pb, pita chips and yogurt cup (all unpictured). Overall, I don’t have a problem with breakfast and lunch on work days (unless I’m bring unhealthy leftovers). I don’t have time to leave on my lunch breaks so I always need to pack a lunch and I’m pretty picky so it’s usually random healthy snacks.

When Matt and I got home from work I was tired, really didn’t feel like cooking and was craving Hawaiian pizza. I didn’t want to get caught back into that unhealthy trap so I decided to take a nap and hopefully feel more like cooking then. I laid down for about 45 mins and went I got up I felt rejuvenated. I was ready to tackle dinner. Today’s menu: Sweet and Sour Chicken Meatballs. I have been wanting to make these for a while but never got around to it so I knew tonight was the night.

While making dinner I snacked on a cranberry vitamuffin.

 

The recipe is adapted from here: http://www.chicken.mb.ca/recipes/Ground%20Chicken/Everyday%20Delicious/Sweet%20and%20Sour%20Chicken%20Meatballs.php

Sweet and Sour Chicken Meatballs

Meatballs:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup of oats
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp of fresh ginger root
• 1 lb extra lean ground chicken

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup of orange juice
• 1 tbsp of fresh ginger root
• 3 tbsp of ketchup
• 3 tbsp of rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tbsp of liquid honey
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 cups of broccoli (the recipe called for red and green pepper but I was out so I used broccoli instead)

Directions:

In a large bowl, beat egg. Add remaining meatball ingredients and stir until well mixed. Shape into 16 balls.

In a pot with a lid, combine all sauce ingredients except broccoli. Add meatballs. Cover and bring sauce to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 20 mins or until chicken balls are cooked through. Add broccoli and cover for another 5-10 mins.

Serve over a bed of brown rice.

 

It was delicious.

I am definitely going to put this in my rotation. It actually wasn’t difficult, it didn’t take too long and I loved the ground chicken instead of ground beef. It was lighter then the beef and no fat. I would recommend trying this.

I didn’t get a workout in today but I might try to do a little yoga later before heading to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow so I’m not sure what time I’ll make it to the gym but that is in the plan for tomorrow.

I’m going to now enjoy a little r&r catching up on a little tv and maybe some reading. I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday night and a great weekend.

~ Katie :)

Giveaway Love:

• Jocelyn at Jocelyn Eats Fresh is giving away a crockpot – check it out: http://www.jocelyneatsfresh.com/?p=4855

Weekend Highlights

What a great weekend!

One of my best friends in the world was down and I got to spend some quality time with her. It was wonderful. I didn’t get any food blogging done but over all I actually ate pretty well.

Keri and I spend the day Saturday chatting and my place and then we finally decided to head out and grab a Starbucks. I finally caved and got the new Dark Cherry Chocolate Mocha. I’ve been dying to try this but been putting it off. It was pretty good. A little sweet for my liking. I think all I needed was a tall but it was a nice treat from my usual Vanilla Latte.

After we finished at Starbucks we both headed home for dinner and then Keri came back over. We had an evening of wine drinking and Wii playing planned but it ended up being more like pita chip/hummus snacking and chatting for us. Since she was here so late she ended up crashing on our couch and in the morning Matt got up and made us pancakes with fresh fruit and maple syrup for breakfast.

It was so nice catching up. She is leaving at the end of this week so I’m hoping to get together one more time before she leaves.

Since I didn’t take many pictures here a just a few of my weekend highlights:

Getting groceries I picked up some new tea: Yogi Organic Goji Berry Green Tea…

As well as some Pom Wonderful Pomegranate Juice…

I also had a delicious dinner Saturday night.  I was actually really impressed. We ended up eating really late because I had be out and usually we would just grab something easy but without even thinking about it we whipped up an easy and delicious dinner. BBQ ribs, roasted potatoes and roasted asparagus.

I also made one of the most delicious snacks on Sunday afternoon. I am so in love with this: Chocolate Vitamuffin Top, Greek Yogurt and some thawed frozen berries.

Sunday wasn’t too bad either. We were heading to my dad’s for a late birthday celebration for both my sister and myself as well as a late Easter celebration.

We had cheese and crackers for apps. Dinner was lots of salad, one Flaxseed Roll (my step-mother makes the best flaxseed rolls – she is finding the recipe for me and I will share them with all of you when I get it – yum), BBQ Chicken, BBQ Ribs (I know more ribs – I only had 2 last night) and carrots. Dessert was a small cupcake and some jello with strawberries. Overall, it was pretty healthy for a birthday/Easter celebration.

I also got in two great workouts over the weekend.

Friday morning was C25K week three. Run 90 sec, walk 90 sec, run 3 mins, walk 3 mins – times 2. Because it was cold and damp we decided to run on the treadmill. It was harder then I was expecting and I felt great after a quick 20 min run.

Saturday morning Matt and I got up bright and early and headed to the gym. I did Week 3 of Gina’s Winter Shape Up. I followed the exact same workout from the previous time. Afterwards, I headed to the Women’s gym to meet Jaime for yoga. It was a great way to start the weekend.

Today I started the morning with greek yogurt with a little peach/mango Liberte yogurt mixed in, granola and dried cranberries (no pic – sorry).

Snack was cheese string and Dark Chocolate Coconut Kashi Bar…

Lunch was Stacy’s Pita Chips, pb, apple, the last of my organic carrots and yogurt cup…

After work I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store before picking up Matt. I was hungry and these where on sale…

 

If you’ve never had a Luna bar before they are almost like a rice crispy square with some chocolate on the bottom. This one had while chocolate on the bottom and a lemon flavour throughout. It was pretty good.

After I picked up Matt he wanted to chat about a few things so we headed downtown to try out a new restaurant: Gullabull’s Bar and Grill. For those of you in Halifax, it’s on Spring Garden Road where the old Ryan Duffy’s use to be.

We started with some Calamari…

Since we had something greasy for an appetizer I wanted something healthy for dinner. I opted for the Sunshine Shrimp Salad.

“House mix greens, tossed with mandarin oranges, golden raisins, shredded coconut, crumbled goat cheese, marinated grilled shrimp skewer. Topped with low fat honey yogurt mint dressing.

It was so good. I left feeling full but not bloated and disgusting.

I was actually really proud of myself for two reasons tonight. First, whenever we go out for dinner I always want to order more then just a salad. Second, I have never tried goat cheese and I never get salad’s with dressing so I was happy that I went outside my comfort zone and got something different, healthy and delicious.

I’m not sure what’s my plan for the rest of the evening. But I’m thinking maybe a Vitamuffin top might be dessert later.

Link Love:

• If you didn’t catch my post on the weekend on Teaching Operation Beautiful please check it out. I really appreciate all the lovely comments from everyone. You were all so sweet.
• Lynn at Life, Health and Fitness is hosting an awesome giveaway for some Prairie Natural’s Protein Powder. She has been saying wonderful things about this so I really want to give this protein powder a try. Check out the link here: http://lifehealthfit.blogspot.com/2010/04/prairie-naturals-review-giveaway.html

~ Katie :)

Giveaway Prize

Hey Everyone!

This post is going to be short and sweet.

Look what arrived today…

And this is what was inside…

That’s right it was my giveaway prize from Jessica over at Dairy Free Betty.

Coconut Peanut Butter. Nom!

I can’t wait to try it. I’m already dreaming about coconut peanut butter oats.

And just look at the ingredients list…

Just two ingredients. It can’t get much better then that.

She also included a note…

She’s so sweet…

Thanks Jess!

I hope all fellow Canadian’s enjoy their long weekend and I’ll be back tomorrow with my “Why I Blog/My Story” post.

~ Katie :)

Does anyone have any other great ideas for my coconut peanut butter if so I’d love to here about them.

Oh Starbucks how I love thee…

Just went out to grab a coffee so I could have one while blogging. Grande, non-fat, extra-hot Vanilla Latte.

 

Yes, that’s right I have an espresso maker in the background and I still get my coffee from starbucks. I use to make my own all the time but I’ve become very lazy. Maybe I’ll make my own tomorrow –I’m actually pretty good. Hmmm… 

This morning I woke up knowing I needed to eat more protein today so I figured I’d start with breakfast. As I looked through the cupboards I realized that I had nothing. So again I had my staple breakfast. Greek Yogurt, granola, chia seeds and this time I added some fresh pineapple. The sweetness of pineapple was a great contrast to the greek yogurt.

As I was getting ready for the gym I was still a little hungry so I grabbed a granola bar from the freezer. I love these!!!

I just wanted to do a quick 20 min interval run when I went to the gym. I had a massage in the afternoon and I didn’t want over work. As I was leaving for the gym I was even able to convince Matt to come with me.

At the gym I did a 20 min interval run – running between 6.2-7.2 for one min and walking at 3.6 for a min. I was really pushing myself. Usually I walk at 3.4 and run between 5.8-6.5.

After I got home and was cleaned up and showered I started to feel really queasy. I didn’t feel like eating even though I knew I probably should. So what does a girl do in this situation. She goes to twitter. Amy, Scott and Jaime all told me to eat something (carbs and protein).

I decided to take their advice and I made myself some lunch. Bagel sandwich with whole wheat bagel, turkey, cheddar cheese and spinach and a green smoothie. Green smoothie consisted of spinach, more fresh pineapple, flaxmeal, UVAB and ice. The lunch was a little large but I felt so much better. Thanks so much guys, you were right :)

I then hydrated before my massage and headed out.

This was my massage. It hurt but felt great. I think I’m going to need to keep going to be able to get all the knots out of my back.

On my way home I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some oats and peanut butter and I ended up finding some yummy looking organic tea.

Organic Rooibos tea of South Africa. I can’t wait to try it.

When I got home I hydrated some more and had another granola bar (I’m addicted)

By the time dinner came I had no idea what I was going to make. I decided to take some chicken out of the freezer. I looked through my cookbooks and found a recipe in Eat, Shrink and Be Merry that I thought I looked good but I didn’t have all the ingredients. Oh well, I improvised. Hickey BBQ Sauce, lemon, chill power and some fresh ginger. Mixed it all up, dipped in the chicken (cut up in strips) and put in the over for 20 mins. Served with roasted brussel sprouts, and the last of the leftover pasta. Yummy and filling.

Now I’m sipping on my coffee and watching American Idol. I think I’m also going to make a repeat of my dessert from last night yogurt and mini eggs. Hope everyone is having a great evening.

~ Katie :)

Dont’ forget about some great giveaways going on at: Embracing Balance, Life Health Fit and Dairy Free Betty.