Lights, Camera, CHOCOLATE!

Photoshoot with Stone Photography = donezo!

Photoshoot with Stone Photography = so much fun!

Photoshoot with stone Photography = huge accomplishment! (so I'm telling myself).

And then it was done. After weeks of stressing, eating clean, cheating not so green, drinking beer here and there .. then having nerves reaching the middle of next week .. and it's done. And I'm sad. And I feel like I want something new to work towards yet at the same time, I know that I physically and mentally need a break. A break to do me. A break to be lazy and now have such a racing mind.

Yesterday was the day that I had been excited/dreading for quite some time and now that it has come and gone, I'm full of mixed emotions.

My day went as follows:

Itday started with a 6:45-am wake-up and weigh-in/quick 'what does my belly look like on the camera'.

After a 173.8 lb viewing, I wasn't feeling too too bad so I rechecked a few outfits! I wish I had of put more time into picking out what I had wanted to wear.

I really liked the grey and green shorts pictured above but didn't end up wearing them when I got to the studio.

My Metallica shirt holds a great significance of my teenage years, and seeing how I'm still a huge fan and youtube the band weekly, I decided to sport it! After a few try-ons, I was off to the gym for a last minute workout.

I had really bad nerves and just couldn't get into the workout so I bailed after 35-minutes and headed to the mall for some more Christmas shopping before heading to the studio.

After some visa swiping and beating around town, I was off to the Stone studio in Paradise to meet Judi Douglas-Stone.

So, what can I say about Judi? Well, she's absolutely fantastic! She is so good at what she does and the comfort zone she had provided in her studio was incredible! 

I walked into the studio with a bag of nerves. I thought I was too fat for the shoot (I know, I know .. but it's just how I felt. I have insecurities, too). I was thinking I would have some snobby photographer who would tell me my outfits were far too unflattering for my body. Judi Stone? The complete opposite!! She shared a very similar style and lifestyle as myself and seemed really excited and enthused when we chatted and realized we shared interests!! 

Judi sat on the carpet of the make-up studio and made me empty my bag of clothes and we started mixing and matching outfits. I had booked a 2-hour shoot and was told I had 3 looks to work with. The following articles of clothing were selected and I got photos with 6 different looks ... you do the math and get creative ;) 

I have pretty short legs (I know, right? What 5'9 gal has short legs?) but I do .. I have a very long torso so I wanted to wear high shoes to give that long-legged illusion. Before the shoot I headed to Spring and picked up these bad boys.

These bad boys will be going right back from where they came from (which sucks cause I got them on a Black Friday sale for $29.99) but I actually couldn't stand up straight in them. I was 'legit' like a bold-legged duck!! I can't believe that some people can sport these downtown. Not so much a time.

Judi told me to change into something I could stand in so I went with my red Spring baby heels.

After we selected the outfits, it was hair and make-up time from 12-1.

The hair, I love love loved!! I tole Jessica that I always wear my hair wavy so straightening it wasn't really in the game plan. I also told her it was her call as I trusted that she would know what worked best. Judi wanted to shoot me with a heavy rocker look cause of my tattoos and choice of clothing.  She   requested wavy and BIG! I liked this idea.

Ok, I wear mascara and my new fav MAC eyebrow pencil (sometimes) and that's pretty much it. So having this much make-up was like whoa! Jessica told me I was going to be in shock when I saw myself, but that I needed this sort of makeup to work with the abundance of lights that I would be photographed under. She said it wouldn't look so dominant in the photos.

Absolutely loved the make-up but would never wear it as intense if I hadn't of been under the camera. All the same, it's kinda fun to get all glammed up for something that felt so professional.

So intense eye makeup, hey? 

The shoot was supposed to last for 2-hours but I ended up being there for 3.5-hours (not including the hour for hair and make-up). It was so much fun and I wish I had some previews to show but I haven't even seen them myself. 

After I left the studio, I was extremely dehydrated and starved to death! I promised myself a big fat treat after the shoot and that is exactly what I did!

I brought a cliff bar and a pear with me (craving pears, BAD lately) and munched on both as I drove to the Starbucks office.

Upon arrival, I treated myself with a cranberry oat cookie and a nanimo square (you know they're my absolute favourite)

Yup, I got not one, but two treats at Starbucks! (and now is the moment where you stop judging haha).

Not gonna lie, I got pretty anxious after the <1-minute consumption of both treats but I tried to justify it by saying that I'd hit the gym hard on Saturday! (which I didn't end up doing). I actually got super sick seeing how I had eaten a days worth of calories in under an hour. Not ok, Victoria. Not ok.

I hadn't had my daily coffee so I also settled with a venti blonde roast!

The end of my night ended with a friendly sushi date, two more black coffees at Starbucks, some blogging, an episode of Dexter (w. trail mix and dark chocolate chips that I definitely did not need), and a hot shower to remove some caked on eye makeup.

Judi and her husband are currently in the middle of sorting all of the photos from this years NLABBA, aswell as the Halifax competition so she said my photos would be ready in 2-3-weeks. Pumped is not even close!! Can't wait to share the photos with you guys .. I just hope they turn out as nice as I picture them in my head. 

Thank you to all of my readers who kept me motivated enough to prep for this shoot! It was the ultimate experience and it has definitely given me ideas for the future! Happy Saturday, friends!!

*happy dance, happy dance*!


Questions

1. Would you ever do a photoshoot?
2. Are you nervous when in front of of the camera?

Can you overdose on Sushi?

So is anyone else as pumped as I am that there is a now a Sun Sushi on Stavanger Drive? Not sure if this is a good thing or a very bad thing. If you know me, you know that I could probably eat sushi for breakfast, lunch and supper. It's definitely definitely definitely in my top 5 fav foods. For god sakes, my 25 while 25 says 'make your own sushi' and I have a sushi-making book.

Anyhow, Rob has pretty much pushing me to my limits at the gym lately and after finishing the shoot, I decided it was time for a hangout that involved delicious food, rather than dumbbells ..  which means .. sushi :)


The evening started with a spicy salmon roll, my favourite! I was there a little earlier than Rob and was super hungry so I made a quick order and had already decided that if it came out before he arrived, that I'd eat it all and hide the contents have the sushi graciously waiting and tell him I wanted to make sure there was an appetizer when he arrived (cause I'm the sweetest)

The salmon rolls lasted no time and then it was time for some selections .. which was a lot harder than we both thought.

Whenever I go to a sushi restaurant, it's pretty much known that I'm gonna eat my face off and have zero discipline with limiting my order.

We skimmed through the appetizer list (though I'm pretty sure the spicy salmon rolls should have counted as an appetizer) and choose the edamame and asparagus ohitatshi. The waitress stood to take our order and said "the gyoza is awesome and I've never had the sushi pizza but I heard it's great" and then our primary pick was out the window.

Appetizer 1 - Age Gyoza 

Appetizer 2 - Sushi Pizza - Salmon Top

Both appetizers were delicious but the sushi pizza was unreal! It had raw salmon, a tempura sauce, green onion, sesame seeds and a deep fried rice patty (oops) <-- which held the consistency of a chicken burger. Holy yum!!

I pretty much wanted a taste of everything so we went with the 20pcs sushi with spicy tuna rolls (I was hoping for a lot more than 6 rolls). This consisted of salmon, white fish, tuna, artificial crab, eel and tuna rolls.. The tuna rolls were my absolute fav!

Quite potentially the worst picture I've posted to date. I look cross-eyed and like a food-monster! That aside, this is an 'out of comfort zone try something new' picture .. where I went with the eel.

After we were finished, the waitress cleared the table and said she couldn't believe that we had eaten all of that food. She seemed impressed but I'm sure she hid her disgust well.

When she returned with the bill, she dropped off a fresh plate of fried sweet potato which was compliments of her. More than likely, it was a sick joke and the kitchen staff were probably getting laughs out of the fatties at table 10.

And though I did eat 3 pieces of the sweet potato, Mr. Man here finished the plate!

Bon appetite and Happy Friday! Excuse me while I go throw up!!

... kidding :)

O, and shneaky little me-izzle took this for the road .. cause you never know when you're gonna need some emergency sushi, right?

Questions
1. What's your favourite sushi restaurant?
2. What's the most sushi you've ever eaten?

Healthy Baking Night

Happy Monday, friends and greeting from Starbucks!

O happy days today :) I can't remember the last time I had a Monday off so I made sure to plan a productive 'go-getter-done' kinda day.

I wanted to stop in and give you a recap of healthy baking night with Shaneen, Val and Emily seeing how we made a lot of treats and were baking for like 3-hours.  When I moved into the new house, I marked it on the list 'have healthy baking night'. I messaged Val a few nights a go as we have touched topic on it a few times and I asked if she wanted to have it sooner than later. She agreed, so I sent the group text. 

The Scope: each person has to bring all of the ingredients for a healthy (ish) baking treat (their choice). After all of the treats are baked, we divide them amongst whoever is involved.

Last night was a bit of a challenge because Emily has an allergy to nuts. I am a HUGE fan of nuts so this wasn't working in my favour. Val had planned on coming down a little earlier so she and I whipped up a few recipes containing pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts etc.

The Menu

Healthy Honey Almond Pecan Granola Bars 

My Favourite Granola (containing nuts)

My Favourite Granola (without nuts)

Coconut Power Cookies 

My Version of the Adventure Cookie

No-Bake Protein Bars 

Banana Bran Muffins 

Healthy Honey Almond Pecan Granola Bars

So this recipe was inspired by the one above (Compliments of Julie @ www.pbfingers.com) with some minor changes.

Ingredients

3/4C whole wheat old fashion oats

1/4C of ground flax

1T pumpkin spice

1/4C of slivered almonds

2T of chopped pecans

1/4C of honey

1T of melted coconut oil

1 egg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees

2. Combine and mix dry ingredients then add wet ingredients 

3. Add egg when both types of ingredients are mixed 

4. Grease pan with melted coconut oil

5. Press mixture into pan and evenly distribute 

6. Bake for 15-minutes and then let cool completely

7. Cut into squares 

8. Taste test & be merry! (Like Val)

My Favourite Granola

Ingredients

1/2C of coconut oil

1C of honey

3C of whole wheat rolled oats

3/4C of almonds

3/4C of mixed nuts 

1/3C of sunflower seeds

1/3C of pumpkin seeds

1/3C of ground flax

1T of chia seeds

1C of dried cranberries

1T of Epicure pumpkin spice

Directions
1. Pre-Heat oven to 350-degrees

2. Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl

3. Add wet ingredients and mix thoroughly

4. Spread entire mixture on a cooking sheet

5. Cook for 15-minutes, remove from oven then stir around

6. Place granola back in oven for 10-minutes

7. Remove, let cool & serve

Instead of using the mixed nuts, we just increased the amount of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries  and added raisins so Emily could have her own batch of granola. Her batch actually turned out better than the other due an excess amount of coconut oil (which makes it delish x 10)

Coconut Power Cookies 

Dry Ingredients

1.5C of coconut flour (could sub almond meal)

1/2C of pecans

1/3C of shredded coconut

1/4C of dried cranberries (optional)

1/2C of dark chocolate chips

1T chia seeds

1T of ground flax 

Wet Ingredients

1/4C of coconut oil

1/4C of agave 

1 egg

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350-degrees

2. Mix wet and dry ingredients in a bowl

3. Roll into balls, then flatten into cookies  (add a splash of almond milk to moisten the mixture if need be)

4. Bake for 20-minutes

5. Remove, let cool & serve

My Version of the Adventure Cookie

Recipe can be found here 

No Bake Protein Bars

Recipe can be found here

Banana Bran Muffins

Emily was in charge of the banana bran muffins and I completely forgot to get the recipe off of her. (Em, perhaps you could throw it in the comments section?).

So healthy baking night was a definite success and we will definitely do it again!! I have so many healthy snacks for the next week and a half (knowin' me, it won't last that long) and I even have enough to share with some gym friends (you know who you are).

The little bakers 

(minus Shaneen who had to leave a little earlier)

And there you have it.

A very successful Sunday night with some exceptional gals!

I'm even thinking of recipes for the next one (we said last night that we would definitely have another).

Anyways, hope everyone has an exception Monday! :)

Questions

1. What healthy recipes have you baked lately?

2. Do you like cooking with protein powder?

A Day in the Life - & one hell of a Friday off

This weekend started with a 'to list' (obv) that I was more than excited to get started on. Since starting the new 10-4 schedule, I was pretty much tied up every night and was having a hard time finding spare time to get sh*t done.

So it's almost a month until Christmas! Excited, yet? I am actually so so pumped! I made it a point to get 75% of my Christmas shopping done this month and I almost hit that quota this past weekend. I'm usually more on my game than I am at the moment but I plan on starting my Christmas wrapping this weekend.

Anyhow, just wanted to post about what a productive weekend I'm having. I've really got a lot of things knocked off my list since I finished up work on Thursday evening.

Here's a little breakdown for you.

Friday morning, my day started at 8am when I got up and started to do some tidying. After I worked up a sweat running around the house, I chilled out and read blogs while eating some breakfast.

Columbian coffee with 1 egg and 3 egg whites 

I had a lot of energy after breakfast so I decided to beat it to the gym for 9:15am.

I started with a 15-minute walk on the treadmill and stopped when I got to a mile.

I jumped off the treadmill and figured I'd try to tone this ass on the stairmaster so I climbed 111 floors in 25-minutes.

And then I jumped back on the treadmill to jog out 2.5-miles (30-minutes) at a nice and easy 5.0-mph pace.

..and then I decided to make it an even 3.0-miles so I hopped back on and jogged another half-mile at a 5.5mph pace for 5:28.

I then went and did some weights cause I'm obsessed with flexing my non-muscles lately .. and finished up in an hour and forty-five.

After the gym, I headed to pick up a few essientials at the one and only.

Leaving this last, as I knew I'm be a dried berry, I headed to Arizona Heat to get a little glow.

Lana the lobster strikes again!!

My god, I'm the cutest! :)

..And then it was home to do some duties there.

I was pretty famished so I heated up some talapia from the night before. (I bought talapia to try for the first time .. not so much a time)

..and got through one bite. Gross gross gross!

I diddd eat the spinach salad with balsamic vinegarette.

After lunch, I assembled some birthday presents for my sister and clued up with some well-needed laundry.

two loads of laundry there, kids
(and one alien toe)

After my chores, I showered up and then headed back to town. I wanted to buy my mom something special for all the help she gave me while buying/moving into the new house. She met with the realtor when I couldn't be there, met with the movers when I couldn't be there and even picked up the keys to the place.

She had recently shown me this jewellery box that she said she wanted for Christmas so I decided to give it to her as a thank you present.

I dropped it down to her work and she was super surprised when I arrived and made her close her eyes in the office.

who's that hottie tottie in the mirror?

After my visit I headed to the mall for some Christmas shopping!

And then I had plans to meet Rob at the gym for a leg/core workout (that lasted 2-hours). I was pretty much crushed afterwards! He pushed me to my limit and had me pressing weights I never thought I would even attempt.

After the gym I had plans with meeting up with Val. We weren't getting together until 9:50-pm so I had a half an hour to kill. I decided I'd head to Walmart to get a few things that I had on the list.

and you can't go to Walmart and buy just one thing.

Note the Spatula - because my breakfast pancakes have turned into a breakfast scramble 

as I have nothing to flip the pancake with .. just mush it around in the pan with a spoon.

Funny story actually. One day I cooked David some protein pancakes but had nothing to flip them with so they were one big mush. I ran into his mother a day later and the conversation went as follows:

Her: Hey, I tried your protein pancakes yesterday. David gave me some.
Me: O ya? Did you like them?
Her: yes, girl. They were great.
Me: Yayy!! So glad. Protein pancakes are my favourite.

(you probably don't think that's funny but I'm giggling out loud as I type it)

Moving on ..

When I met Val, I was ready to pass out so I ordered two things for our late supper.

Dinner size spinach salad w. a whole chicken breast, Sub out the
bacon and feta and add green onion and tomatoes. It also had mushrooms
and some red peppers. I meant to ask for balsamic and forgot.
They used poppyseed for the dressing. O well.

A side of steamed vegetables. Yum!

I did some serious damage to this entree and side ..

O, and did I mention I got a diet pepsi? Yup, the first diet pepsi I have had in months and months.

I didn't finish up with Val until after 11 so we both decided to just head home. I got home close to 12, tidied a little more, drank some more coffee, read my book, googled healthy baking recipes and then hit the sheets by 1:30-am.

That's a play by play productive day for this gal :)

Cheers, Friends & Happy Sunday!

Questions
1. Do you live by a 'to do' book full of lists?
2. What do you do with your time on days off?
3. Do you prefer relaxing to productivity?