Bread basket @ Earth

For the last three years or so the Rosedale Running Room has been like my second home.I love going there (most of the time!) and I think part of the reason why I love it so much is that I love the neighbourhood that it is in. So many great running routes and…restaurants. 

There’s a new addition to the neighbourhood – Globe Earth. The menu is made up of local ingredients and deliciousness. I just went for a post-run weekend brunch and although it was a little pricier than my usual weekend breakfast (a salmon omelette at Boom) it was a nice treat and made me try something new. The must-have is the bread basket for the table as they have their own in-house pastry chef. Carbs after a good long Sunday run are in my books another must!

I wonder if they will open up the adjacent courtyard for a summer patio experience…if they do I think I’ll be there a lot more!

Flickr credit: clspeace

Feeling a bit sorry for myself today. Was meant to be doing this tonight after work, but instead have spent the whole day in bed feeling under the weather. So, tonight it is tomato soup for me and hopefully I’ll have the energy to watch this later on.

What do you do when you are feeling sick? Do you try to sweat it out or look after your body? Hoping that the rest will mean I’m feeling better by tomorrow.

Salt and vinegar chips...my downfall

So after completing four weeks of outdoor boot camp I have come to the following conclusion – if I want to see better results I need to start improving my nutrition which for me means cutting out things like the daily glasses of red wine and the occasional salt and vinegar binges. This doesn’t mean that I didn’t see good results at last night’s weigh-in and measurement taking, but as a Type-A personality I know I can do better. But more on that in another entry! I must say though that the 2 inches I have lost off my behind are impressive!

What to do?

Every four months or so I write down new goals for myself – tend to fall under the belief that if you write things down they have a better chance of coming true. So, this week I have drawn up the new career, personal and health goals. One of the health-related goals is this:

“I commit to healthier eating and 85% of the time I will avoid the foods that are bad for me.”

Yes, I’m giving myself a 15% cheater’s allowance – I know myself enough to not say I will never have a glass of red wine again or another salt and vinegar chip. This is just not realistic.

One of the ways that I intend to eat better is to increase the amount of times per week I cook at home. Maybe I have forgotten to mention that I am queen of delivery (coming home most nights after 8 p.m. is not helping). The delivery options I choose may be somewhat healthy but I have a funny feeling I may be better off cooking at home.

To help me avoid the lure of delivery and eat healthy I have found two new tools that will be helping me with my goals (actually three if I start making the daily Booty Camp recipes they send me!):

• The Greenbeltfresh blog has some great local recipes in it and since I’m into eating more locally I’ll be subscribing to this blog to give me some inspiration.

• Supercook, I feel, could be the saviour I was looking for. I found out about this website via the Globe and Mail and it is absolutely genius. You type in the ingredients you actually have at home and it suggest recipes for you. How great is this? This website may be the solution to “I have nothing at home” whine.

Let the cooking and healthy eating begin!

Tonight after work I’m going to the Running Room to first take my lovely ladies out on a 4km training ran and after that run do 6/7 hill repeats of my own. As much as I love running and working out there are most definitely times when I wish I could skip the workout and try out things such as the Gladstone Hotel’s Harvest Wednesdays. This totally appeals to my try to eat local as much as possible self (mostly happens on weekends and dinners).

Now in its 4^th year Harvest Wednesday is a chance for Torontonians to sample fresh and local produce. Each week is a different menu and I for one will definitely be skipping a Wednesday run to sample this prior to it ending in mid-October.

Mmm, maybe this would be a good post-workout meal?

After being away for the weekend I did what any sensible person would do and that’s catch up on all the latest Internet goodies. One of the links that a friend of mine had saved recently caught my eye:

The best of the money blogs — Globe and Mail

Normally I avoid things like these like the plague, but lately have found myself trying to figure out all things financial.

Within the article there was a link to something called the Squawkfox blog. I admit I clicked on it because it was described as “unapologetically girly”. Maybe I was hoping that a girly blog about finance would be somewhat more manageable?

Once there  I was pleasantly surprised as the blog was written by an Ironman Triathlon finisher who in addition to writing about living and investing intelligently also had some great tips on how to look fabulous while not spending a bomb. 

Check out her Insider’s Guide to Frugal Food & Fitness as it looks like it has some good ideas on how to buy healthy food on a budget and how to get fit without a gym membership. Nice. 

Oh and I’m also still looking for a good blog on how to buy your first home!