I’m pretty much Canadian now!

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I really only have one thing to say……..

After a slow morning, a finished book, and a quick nap, I checked the mail only to find that I got my confirmation of permanent residency in Canada!!!!!! WHICH MEANS I have to drive to MT only to turn around and re-enter as a resident, then….I GET A JOB. As in….I CAN EARN MONEY. As in…I can buy more LULU!!!

But I jumped the gun in my excitement and ended up heading right to Lululemon anyways.

I have had my eye on this shirt ever since it was uploaded to the lulu website.

Jen is happy happy happy.

Nothing else I could type in this post would be as exciting, but I DO have a cool recipe to share with you tomorrow (I wanna eat it first to make sure it’s yumm-o enough to share).

Tyler and I have been having a good stroke of luck over the last week.

I won us 2 tickets to the Calgary Home & Garden Expo
Tyler took on some overtime work (basically just got paid to be on call)
We went to dinner on Saturday at The Rock and a stranger who sat at the opposite end of our table ended up paying our tab

Our wedding is pretty much squared away
See first picture 😉

Random Things

Yesterday, I managed to get Workout A done in Phase 4 of BBB (HOLY CANNOLI it was crazy intense!). I also did 100 burpees throughout the commercials of The Biggest Loser; however, halfway through the show, I realized the Y might close earlier due to the holiday, so I called and found they were in fact closing at 8. I had Tyler pause the episode (only did 60 burpees by that point), I buzzed over to the Y, and busted out an awesome ‘Building Sprints’ cardio session on the treadmill. Then I came back, finished the show, and finished my burpees. Boom!

Our walk on Family Day. We saw ducks

I am currently on the hunt for the best AND BRIGHTEST running shoes. I totally have to order them online though, because no store ever carries women’s shoes in size 11.5. Believe Me (and if they do, they’re usually super UGGGGGG-LAYYY)

I love these two jams as of late:

Sunflower butter is SO easy to make. Put sunflower seeds in a food processor and pulse (occassionally scraping down sides) for quite a few minutes. Once the seeds release their oils, it becomes smooth pretty quick. All natural and PERFECT for tons of recipes. Or to eat by the spoonful. I don’t judge.

Hey, remember when I was pimping Pv.Body- that monthly athletic wear subscription? Well, guess what. They have slightly changed. And I think it’s for the better. They have just come out with their own clothing line, Ellie. As a member, each month they release new items and you can choose one top and one bottom that you would like for your subscription. If you don’t like anything, you can opt to skip the month- for no fee or penalty. I’m still waiting for my first round of Ellie clothing to come in the mail so I can write up a little review for ya, and THEN I’ll provide a link where you can get a discount (20% off) on the subscription- remember, that discount will only be through my link!

What’s something you’re excited about this week?

2 recipes + 2 workouts

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I have TWO recipes and TWO workouts to share with you. All FOUR are fantastic. (I can do maths!)

First up, the recipes. Both used my favorite protein powder, Click. Seriously, I can’t get enough of the stuff. I’ve already shared an awesome cookie recipe using Click. Now if only they sold their product in Canada, I would be so much happier.

Friday, I made an awesomely yummy smoothie.

Ingredients:

1 scoop of Click
1/4 c. plain greek yogurt
1 c unsweetened almond milk
handful of blueberries
handful of strawberries

It had a wonderful combination of fruit with a kick of espresso.

My second Click recipe to share with you is a concoction of chocolatey, blueberry goodness. In the form of pancakes. Oh my god, my stomach was so happy with these.

Ingredients:

1 c flour
2 1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 t sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 c unsweetened almond milk
1 t vanilla
1 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 scoop Click
blueberries

For the protein frosting:

Plain greek yogurt
Unsweetened almond milk
Click protein powder

Pretty easy directions. Mix all the ingredients then portion it out into about 6 pancakes on the griddle. Place desired amount of blueberries on pancakes as first side is cooking. Stack when finished, top with protein frosting (you can play with the ratio of frosting ingredients for desired consistency), top with more blueberries and chia seeds.

SO GOOD, you guys!!

Now onto the workouts. On Friday, I wasn’t entirely in the mood to do the designated BBB workout, so I decided to whip up my own batch of goodies. I divvied it up between lower and upper body.

Lower Body (10 reps of each move, done 2x through)

Stability Ball side lunge (L)
Stability Ball side lunge (R)
Gliding reverse lunge (L)
Gliding reverse lunge (R)
Single leg squat (L)
Single leg squat (R)
Single Leg deadlift (L)
Single Leg deadlift (R)
Glute squeezes
Weighted plie squats

Upper Body (10 reps of each move, done 2x through)

Tricep Dips
Pushups
Front raise
Weighted Arm Circles
Standing overhead press/Oblique crunch (L)
Standing overhead press/Oblique crunch (R)
Kettlebell swings

I managed to get in 20 minutes of spinning just before the workout to get my heart rate up. All in all, the circuit is quick, but effective- I was sore the next morning!

Even though I was sore, I wanted to get my blood pumping on Saturday. I opted to do yet another Deck of Cards workout. (Previous Deck of Workouts can be found here and here)

♠ V-sits
♣ Burpees
♥ Kettlebell swings
♦ Pushups

I kid you not, I shuffled them almost into respective suits. I must have done about 60 pushups right off the bat, and OF COURSE, most of the burpees were at the bottom of the deck. Yikes. But totally worth it. I was sweaty and ready to have a yummy pizza for dinner. (More on that meal later!)

Anyone have a favorite protein powder? Favorite recipe to use with it??

Oreo Truffles!

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Another boring recap post.

Foods:

Chicken Fajitas for dinner on Tuesday. Mine with corn tortillas and Tyler’s with flour. Topped with TONS of sriracha.

Starbucks (totally a treat for me)

More coconut flour pancakes. This time I put the fruit IN the batter so everything was nice and warm. Way better that way. And I topped the stack with a combo of Click espresso protein powder and greek yogurt. That breakfast keeps me full for forever.

I hit the Calgary Farmer’s Market yesterday and got great produce (for cheap) and a treat!

Buffalo mozzarella, an eggplant, mangoes, green beens and pomegranates ($1 each!)

A maple bacon donut and a s’mores donut from Jelly Modern Donuts. Tyler and I have been meaning to get to their actual store for quite some time now, but they’re in a completely different part of Calgary that it never made sense to make the trek on a weekend morning. I saw their kiosk at the farmer’s market, and the purchase was totally on impulse. I cut them up and we tested them after our dinner last night. The verdict: turns out maple and bacon is not our preferred salty/sweet combo, but the s’mores was pretty tasty.

Speaking of Valentine’s dinner, I hit up Safeway yesterday early morning (I thought everyone would be flocking to the butcher counter for steaks, and I wanted to make sure I got two good ones for us). We had steak, asparagus and baked potatoes. One of the best-and most basic- meals ever. Honest to God, Alberta beef is out of this world dynamite. I hardly had to cut it and we only seasoned with a pinch of salt. Melt in your mouth deliciousness.

It took almost all my willpower to not inhale that steak.

I also managed to slap on an apron at some point in the day and make a special valentine’s treat for Tyler.

Oreo Truffles!

Super easy to make: Throw 36 Oreos (almost TWO packages…I swear they’re getting smaller and smaller) in the food processor until crumbled. Throw in a package of cream cheese (8 oz) and pulse until incorporated. Empty contents into a bowl and ensure the mixture is thoroughly mixed. On a double boiler, add 2 8 oz. packages of Baker’s white chocolate. Make sure to constantly stir. Roll the Oreo mixture into tablespoon sized balls, drop in the white chocolate, and fully coat. Use a fork to retrieve out of the chocolate and let cool on waxed paper. Refrigerate.

They’re not the most glamourous looking truffles, but they show the homemadeness which makes them all that much better (and WAY more thoughtful!)

I topped this batch with some rainbow sprinkles for a little decoration. You could use extra Oreo crumbles or graham crackers or nuts or….whatever!

Mmmmmmm.

Layla got a few Valentine treats herself! I call them Refrigerator Cookies, because she prefers the yogurt coating to be cold. (Don’t know how that was discovered, but she is a pretty spoiled dog). First, her daily morning RC stick in PINK, then a Valentine’s heart that was bigger than my hand.

Workouts:

Tuesday: 50 minutes of crazy intense spinning!

Wednesday: My tummy was a little agitated after dinner, so I opted out of the planned BBB workout and chose to go through 5 superset tabatas for my upper body. Apparently the pumping adrenaline helped, because I was able to round out the workout with 50 burpees!

Thursday: I did 4 miles of intervals on the treadmill.

Random Things:

Finally got new sunglasses. They look identical to my old ones. (I would use the saying If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it but in this particular case, I suppose that doesn’t fit)

I went to pick up some stuff that Tyler found on Kijiji. This woman was giving away TONS of wine and beer making equipment for free! I barely fit it all in my car.

And that’s all I have. For now.

Harlem Shake

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

I have a clusterfudge of stuff to share with you (it took me 4 days to gather enough stuff worthy of a post)

Let’s start with food. I have been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen lately. Mostly they are just new recipes on basic meals. Still, it was fun to follow other recipes and see how they turned out.

First up: PIZZA. Tyler and I love pizza. We used to order it all the time, but I have chosen to make our pizzas as a means of controlling what goes into the mix. I like knowing there are no preservatives in my food, thankyouverymuch. However, most all the recipes I tried resulted in uber doughy pizza. Yuck. I don’t want bread for dinner, I want PIZZA.

After going home in January, I learned some special tips and tricks from my parents as to how to yield a decent homemade pizza (keep in mind the altitude in NY and the altitude here are drastically different).

Here’s a pic of my pizza- it had pineapple, olives, peppers, prosciutto, and a bit of leftover bacon crumbles from Tyler’s pizza.

It was really good- especially topped with tons of sriracha!

Sunday morning/afternoon, I made us brunch. We had hit up Costco on Saturday, so we were freshly stocked up on produce and meat and lots of other goodies.

Nothing like a TON of food on a Sunday afternoon to make you lazy. But that fruit was faaaaantastic. And so was the coffee..obviously.

Later that night, I decided to whip up yet another recipe that I finally snagged from my mom. In my parents town, there is this hot dog place that is out of this world fantastic. Not only are they tasty, but they are super cheap, and they have this really awesome meat sauce on them. My mom got the recipe from my uncle, and now it is finally in my hands. Bwahaha.

We used some of the yummy Costco hot dogs as our base (I think I managed to eat about half of this. Phew, was it a lot of food). The sauce took about 2 hours to simmer, and I’m pretty sure the next time I make it, I’ll have to put a lock on the lid- I went to the gym while it was simmering and I’m pretty sure Tyler would’ve eaten it straight out of the pot because the smell was so good.

If only there was smell-o-vision (or…smell-o-internet??)

Next up..cookies! I had recently gone to the health food store and picked up a bunch of ‘different’ baking ingredients so I decided on some paleo chocolate chip cookies.

I used this recipe, but substituted agave nectar for honey/maple syrup, used an egg, and used carob chips rather than chocolate chips (almost the same thing. google it)

They came out pretty great! At least, my tastebuds thought so because I inhaled way more than I’m willing to admit.

Ok. NEXT! Chili. I’m now on the Meatless Monday bandwagon- simply as a means to find more meals I can throw together without meat, both for money saving and health reasons.

I chose to use this recipe. Only changes I made were omitting one onion and adding a zucchini.

Meh. Quite flavorless. I added tons of sriracha in mine and Tyler mixed shredded cheddar in his, and there was hardly an ‘oo’ or an ‘ah’ at the table. I also had some leftover dough from pizza-making on friday, so I balled it off, topped with melted butter and garlic salt, and viola!

Sad to say that was probably the best part of the meal. No bueno, folks.

And last, but certainly not least, in honor of pancake day today, I made a hearty stack of coconut flour pancakes.

They took forever to cook on the griddle (different consistency since I was using coconut flour) but they still had tons of flavor.

I topped the stack with plain greek yogurt mixed with cinnamon, and strawberries/blueberries.

The fruit was yet again my favorite part of the meal. Yummmm.

Now that I have shown you all this food I’ve been eating, I guess I should jot down what I’ve been doing in attempts to burn it off.

Friday: Strength Workout C from BBB and 20 minutes of spin, followed by only 42 burpees.

Saturday: Day off. I originally planned on doing cardio, but my body felt so dead and heavy, that I opted to switch my cardio to Sunday. Thanks to a pep-talk facebook message from Athena. Thanks!

Sunday: 30 minute run and 90 burpees.

Monday: Strength Workout A from BBB, 125 burpees (done during Biggest Loser commercials) and a 30 minute run.

Now onto random things:

1. Took the dog to the dog park on Friday. Then we hopped in the car and went to another spot along the river for more walk/play.

This girl was plowing her face into the snow and ice so much that she made the bald spot on the inner part of her eyes bleed! Silly.

Lots of passersby were laughing or smiling at her romping and rolling.

2. Got my visa extension in the mail yesterday. Now I can plan a visit to see my best friend in Seattle!

3. I can’t wait to meet her beautiful baby. I’m also really glad to see she’s already pumping the iron I’ve sent her 😉

4. I brought back tons of bottles and cans and cartons to the bottle return the other day. Like, 2 carts worth. And I made $32.35. Too bad I probably won’t be making that much anymore since we are reusing our special bottles for homebrew.

5. Skyfall and The Man With the Iron Fists: bad movies.

6. I am obsessed with the Harlem Shake videos. Honestly, I would post them all here if I could, (and I could), but I won’t. Here are a couple to give you the idea:

I’m off to workout and find another pair of sunglasses since I managed to break my $5 ones that have lasted me about 4 years. What are you up to on this fine, Fat Tuesday??

My Favorite Date

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Jen @nutcaseinpoint

Happy Friday, y’all!

Yesterday I took the day off from social media. 1.) Because I was frustrated, and 2.) Because it was not a good day. Especially when a day starts with these two things

Ok, maybe for some of you having those things makes for a good day? But not in this household- they were for Layla. She was acting really strange with her butt again, so I went to the store to get the ‘necessities’ for what needed to be done. As I was getting into my car, Layla tried to escape, and in my attempts to grab her before she got out of the garage, I completely WHACKED my head on the read view mirror of Tyler’s truck. Luckily, I grabbed the dog in time, but I now have a neat red line/bump/bruise across my forehead.

Anyhoo, my attempts to resolve her issue didn’t seem to take effect, so I made an appointment to have her see a vet tech. Sitting on pins and needles for 4 hours waiting for the appointment time is NOT fun. The good news is, the tech examined Layla and said that I had apparently fixed the problem because her butt was A-ok.

And now we are done with the butt talk.

And now would be the most appropriate time to transition to food. Right? Riiiight?

Some eats we’ve has as of late:

Homemade Vegetarian Wontons- so good! I gobbled them up.

Blueberry Purses- using the same wonton wrappers, except with a concoction I threw together with fresh blueberries, a bit of butter and some honey. These were like chips to me. I could not. Stop. Eating them.

Paleo Turkey Meatballs and Sauce. I followed this recipe, except I used No Yolk noodles. The best part of the ball recipe was that it used almond meal as a binding agent (instead of panko or bread crumbs). It made all the difference! I have had so much trouble with ground turkey because I have not been able to keep patties or balls together; they all tend to crumble. But this recipe with the almond meal, made them stick together and offered an awesome flavor that both Tyler and I enjoyed. And the sauce was SUPER easy to make, too!

I just made these suckers this morning. The recipe needs to be tweaked a bit, but the flavor was definitely there. Among the ingredients: coconut flour, almond milk, chia seeds, and Click protein powder.

Now on to the workouts (I’m thinking of condensing my workouts to just a weekly post so they are all in one place/I don’t bore you everyday. Thoughts?)

Wednesday: Workout B from BBB and 85 burpees.

Thursday: Treadmill intervals for 30 minutes + 100 burpees (The burpees for this day were actually the challenge for Healthy sELF! I was pumped since I have already been on the burpee-train as of late 🙂

(Insert my first PicMonkey collage. Sorry, it’s terrible. But I was trying to pay homage to Boston and their upcoming storm. Which you would think they had never experienced inclement weather before. That’s a whole other story..)

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday (Valentine’s Day) and for the sake of bulking up my post, I decided I wanted to write about my FAVORITE date. And yes, it was with Tyler. In fact, it was our FIRST date!

Tyler had flown out to see me in Boston, and brilliant me decided we could drink the city. Good thing it was up his alley as well. We took the 57 bus from Oak Square (after getting LARGE Dunks coffees) and got dropped off at Fenway. From there, we walked to Newbury Street and really began our adventure. From roughly noon that day, until about 1am when we got back to my apartment, we walked, talked, ate, and drank through the following places:

There might have been more, but my memory is foggy (for obvious reasons). We both calculate that we drank 2039572039572095 drinks and walked 09357209375210 miles- so they countered each other. I do remember at one point, we got pizza and I walked barefoot the last 2 miles home. Gross.

But so much fun.

What’s your favorite date?

Share me please!

Share me please!

Share me please!

Share me please!

Share me please!