Tempting my credit limit, and a note on veggie-stigma

I’ve become a bit obsessed with online shopping.  Receiving packages in the mail is like Christmas, and typing in a few combinations of numbers that apparently mean I’m charging a “credit card” makes it feel that much more like my birthday or something.  I’ll go through the motions, finding my products, adding them to my non-existent cart, typing in my address… my total pops up… I see the shipping fees… and before I can go through with it, I minimize my window.  I’ll come back to it tomorrow.  Seriously, this goes on for like a week before I just man up and charge the damn thing.

Currently I have three vegan cookbooks in my Amazon.ca cart.  I really never thought I’d be looking at vegan cookbooks – the idea that I’m 99.9% vegetarian (with the odd piece of fish at a restaurant or something) recently (since February) still seems odd.  I love it, and I feel fantastic, but there’s a stigma around this diet for sure.  I don’t like saying “I’m a vegetarian”, I’m an “eat whatever the hell I want-ian”, because if one day I feel like I want meat, I’m not going to restrict myself if it’s sustainably-sourced, humanely-raised, and naturally-grown.  I’m all for listening to my body’s needs.   What I don’t like is this ridiculous stigma I have in my head about eating this way – I don’t like to be the one at dinner that needs an exception made. I’ve cooked for people before, and there’s enough stress that goes into it wondering if everyone will like it, let alone will everyone eat it.  I empathize with hosts.

But I’ve met vegans before that just look pale and unhappy, and I always associated “vegan” with granola, dreadlocked, hemp shirt wearers.  They even had matching boyfriends.

Which isn’t to knock you if this is your life, I just had an idea of “who” vegans were, and now I’m staring straight at the diet, watching it tip-toe into my meal planning and I gotta say, I still love how my boyfriend looks in a suit.

The only non-vegan things I have in my diet right now are honey (Nude Bee, organic raw Ontario honey) and sheep yogurt.  And occasionally eggs when I’m feeling a quiche.  This isn’t really a “real” post (and I promise, a genuinely informative post is coming your way soon), more of a filler post because its 1 AM and I’m staring at this Amazon purchase like I’m making a down payment on a house.

Good night.

What to buy to make fast meals

Protein Bars: http://wp.me/p1a00z-1C

Raw Vegan Festival in Toronto: http://www.torontorawveganfestival.com/

WIIAAAWWWWWWW

What an obnoxious title.

Breakfast: Green smoothie – yummers

Snack: Chickpea Coconut loaf (recipe to come soon… still perfecting!)

Lunch: Quinoa w/ kidney beans, avocado, and Averie‘s Apple-Edamame mix

Snack: 1/2 blondie (from Chocolate Covered Katie), Mary’s chocolate chip cookies (serious sweet tooth today), 1 quinoa beet burger from Fully Nourished

Dinner: 2 quinoa burgers, quinoa, beets, tahini sauce

Yum! Delicious day

Chocolate Mint Recovery Shake

Today is a bee-you-tiful day here in Toronto, so on my sunny drive home from work I decided I’d strap on the ol’ LunarEclipse+’s and go for a run.  I fueled my workout with some Vega Sport and was off to the races (the race of one, really, no one else was out running!).

I was pretty happy with myself when I tracked my run on walkjogrun.net:

When I run at the gym, I usually run at a 5.7ish pace, at a 2.0 incline.  There are definitely varying hills on my runs, and I get to produce some vitamin D while I’m at it!  I can’t believe I didn’t used to run outside.

And what’s better on a warm spring afternoon than a chocolate mint shake? Absolutely nothing (well, except for maybe mint chip vegan ice cream).

Chocolate Mint Recovery Shake

1 cup of water, almond milk or rice milk

1 scoop of vanilla Sunwarrior Love this vegan brown rice protein.. the quality and taste can’t be beat!

A few drops of peppermint extract

1/2 frozen banana

1.5 teaspoons Vitamineral Greens Keeps my energy up, and lactic acid build up down

2 teaspoons coconut oil Boosts my metabolism.. yep, fat that burns fat!

1 teaspoon maca powder Balances my hormones, heals my adrenals

1 scoop of Cococeps My latest purchase from iHerb.com… it’s cocoa powder infused with mushroom extract.  Before this grosses you out – mushrooms are amazing adaptogens that helps your body deal with stress, heals your adrenals, supports cardiovascular integrity, boosts your energy levels and helps fight fatigue – and you don’t taste it at all!!  Also, iHerb.com is amazing for supplements.  Fantastic prices, especially for us Canadians, and TONS of selection! Use RUL924 to get $5 your purchase.

Blend and top with a handful of cacao nibs.  Who knew a superfood shake could taste like the mint chip ice cream from the Baskin Robbins I pass on my runs? Happy Friday!

Cacao Lucuma Banana Vegan Ice Cream and WIAW

So as you’ve seen I’ve kind of been on a homemade vegan ice cream kick.  I don’t think I could’ve asked for better weather

Feet up, vegan ice cream in hand

to be craving it in!  I’ve sat on my back porch and enjoyed it after work twice this week!  Not a bad view either:

I decided to experiment with lucuma powder in my ice cream.  Lucuma is a super food native to South America and beats out chocolate and vanilla flavoured ice cream with its smooth, caramel-butterscotch taste.  Butterscotch ice cream? Yes please!  It turned out pretty pleasingly, but I definitely have some great ideas for the next time I play.  Here was today’s recipe:

1 frozen banana

7 drops of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cacao nibs

3/4 teaspoon Essential Living Foods lucuma powder

15 cashews

Blend in a food processor or blender and enjoy!

And here’s this weeks WIAW from your fave nutritionist:

Breakfast: Granola with goat yogurt, 1/2 banana, stevia powder (I swear I eat other things for breakfast too, Wednesdays just always seem to call for granola)

Snack: A slice of Manna sun seed bread with Artisana pecan-cashew butter

Lunch: Arugula salad with blueberries and walnuts and a slice of lentil loaf (like a meat loaf, sans-meat)

Snack: Apple, 3 raw walnut-almond cookies (from Everybody Is Vegan), lucuma-banana ice cream (yep, ice cream and cookies for a snack.  When treats are raw, vegan, homemade, and sugar free I actually feel good about indulging my sweet tooth – score one for whole foods!)

Dinner: Arugula salad with RawFoodz Purely Poppy dressing and some more lentil loaf.  Liiiitle bit obsessed with this combo right now

I’ve been doing some serious butt kicking with BodyRock.tv workouts this week.  I’ve ordered the dip station and the interval timer, and all I need is some Lululemon tights and cute bra tops (and maybe a few more months of morning BodyRock workouts) and I’ll be just like Zuzuna! Seriously check them out though, I have a girl crush on her too.  Even though I work in a gym, I love the convenience of waking up and kicking my own butt on the comfort of my bedroom floor.  Today is also National Running Day for the US – all my US readers, did you run today?? Strap on your shoes and at least go for a stroll!  I got a pair of Nike LunarEclipse+ back in November, and they’re already falling apart.  Sad, but I’m proud of myself for the months of hard work that went into their demise.  Comment below if you have a favourite pair of shoes you couldn’t give up, and please subscribe at the bottom!