Cinna's Fitness

I had a lovely Sunday - aside from the yoga that made me angry haha (will post about it this week). I slept in a bit, got 2 loads of laundry done, prepped lunches for Mon - Wed, went grocery shopping, and had a lovely steak dinner with my mom. We prefer to make our own dinner for many reasons: it's less expensive, you have the comfort of your home, and you know what you're eating. I can make meals just as good if not better than a lot of places (if you're not going out to spend $50 per person) for a fraction of the cost. Tonight we bought T-bone steaks and grilled on them on the 'cue with no sauce, just a rub. While my mom was grilling I sauteed onions and shitake mushrooms to top the steaks with and I prepared a Greek salad. I chopped up red onion, garden tomatoes, and cucumbers, and added some sundried black olives. For dressing I used 1T each of olive oil and white vinegar with some oregano and basil. I ate mine as is but my mom opted for red leaf lettuce with

Good morning! Rest week is done (really it was 6 days) so I'm back at it today. Starting with a Turbo Fire instead of jumping in with Zuzka right away. I had my treat day yesterday and man, did I ever eat treats lol. I polished off 2.5 donuts(!) at work and then had my planned fettuccine alfredo for dinner. I don't feel guilty because I ate clean all week and even included more veggies than normal. I'm not looking forward to the muscle soreness again - I was finally getting back to my fitness level but the rest was much needed. I'm still fairly exhausted but I need to work on going to bed earlier and creating a pre-bedtime ritual to help me relax and fall asleep faster and deeper. Any tips are appreciated! I hope you have a great weekend wherever you are and remember to eat clean, train mean, and prepare for greatness. Prepping goes a long way especially if you're the type that doesn't maintain a good diet because it's "too much work". There are

I got to go grocery shopping last night and tried really hard to not over buy but I'm going veggie crazy! Since I'm on a rest week I'm working to eat way more veggies. I bought some stuff that I used to make a yummy stir fry (check it out here ). It was amazing! Anyway, back to the goods :) baby spinach banana nut granola cottage cheese avocados celery sticks carrots red grapes (haven't bought these in sooooooo long) coffee creamer romaine lettuce bananas bell peppers fresh bean sprouts My fridge is busting at the seams but I love having choices :) Although sometimes I get overwhelmed with the options haha. My afternoon snack today was a spinach salad with grape halves, pecans, hemp hearts, skim milk mozzarella cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Delicious!

Oh my goodness. I made THE best stir fry ever tonight. I can't believe it's something I created haha. No picture of ingredients but I have the end result (see above). I didn't add any meat since I didn't have any chicken thawed so I used an egg and 1/4 c. of egg whites for my protein. 1/4 c chopped onion 1 tsp minced garlic 1 carrot, cut into smaller strips 2 stalks of celery, sliced thin diagonally half a green bell pepper, cut into strips 1/3 c baby corn (I used canned) bean sprouts egg chow mien noodles 1 T soy sauce 1/4 tsp rice vinegar 1/2 tsp beef bouillon paste little bit of water to help everything steam Get your pan warming up on med-low heat and start chopping your veggies. Get your onion in there first to start cooking. I used a few teaspoons of grape seed oil to fry the veggies. Next I added my minced garlic (I use the jarred stuff from Costco). The carrots are next since they take a lot longer to cook. I made the mistake of adding my

Today I decided that I am taking a rest week. I've been so exhausted for the last week or so. I've always been a terrible sleeper but I'm exhausted to the point that my eyes feel like they're being sucked into the sockets. I'm really nervous about taking a full week of rest because I am FINALLY shedding what I had gained while on holidays and from the treats here at work. I bought jeans on the weekend and they're a size 7!! The last pair I bought in August were an 8, but they are a bit loose. My goal is to concentrate on eating healthy and feeling better. I walk 2 km to and from work every day but I'm planning on taking long walks instead of the high intensity workouts I've been doing. I haven't taken a week off since I started this journey unless I was so sick that I really couldn't exercise. I'm curious to see what the results will be. Do you take rest weeks?

I hope you all had a great weekend. I took an unplanned rest day. I just feel like I needed it. I took a walk with my aunt this afternoon so I wasn't completely lazy. I did a bit of prepping after dinner. I also had a bit of a 'treat' dinner. I was rummaging through my fridge and cupboards after my walk and I couldn't make up my mind so I pulled out a whole wheat English muffin and made a mini pizza with a couple tablespoons of crushed tomatoes (canned) mixed with some garlic, herbs and spices. Topped with green bell pepper, onion, tomato, and skim milk mozzarella cheese. Entered into Myfitnesspal that was under 300 calories. I had some egg whites on the side for some protein since I didn't have anything to add to the pizza. Dessert was a small gala apple cut into slices and sauteed with cinnamon and coconut butter. Topped with some plain Greek yogurt, delicious. This week I'm not doing much food prep because I'm taking salads for lunch so I will do this

So, I've posted 2 ingredient cookies before and I loved them. But last night I was digging through my cupboards and found a bunch of things that I wanted to add to them. I'm also aware that there are MANY recipes for similar cookies. My apologies if mine is similar but I really just grabbed stuffed out of my cupboard. Here's the recipe for these little fellas: 1 whole egg 1/4 c egg whites  1 2/3 banana (I used the other part for my oatmeal this morning haha) cinnamon 2 c quick oats 1/4 c semi sweet chocolate chips 1/4 c raisins 1/4 c trail mix w sunflower seeds and peanuts Bake for 15 minutes at 350F. Enjoy. Here's the nutritional information per Myfitnesspal. My batch made 32 cookies. I used a measuring spoon tablespoon to make even cookies.

I find it funny how many containers I take to work for my lunch and snacks. This is a typical day for me. Last week I bought ground beef and cooked it up to add to salads. On the left: the top container is a trail mix from Costco. It has dried blueberries and cranberries, yogurt chips, cashews, and almonds. The second container is plain Greek yogurt with fresh strawberries. Bottom left is my cucumber and tomato salad with some fresh chopped spinach on top. The stack of containers on the right is for my lunch: Salsa with plain Greek yogurt, lean ground beef, and chopped romaine with chopped tomatoe and half an avocado. I have quite an assortment of plastic containers and I love the Ziploc containers because they all have measurements on them :) makes it easier for portion control and for when I enter my food into Myfitnesspal.

On Sundays I try to get my lunches ready so I don't have to worry about making it every night or morning. This one is super easy to throw together. Frozen chicken breasts thawed and baked with pesto, brown rice cooked with beef stock, and veggies steamed with beef stock as well. These were huge chicken breasts so three of them were enough for 5 lunches. I ran short on veggies but those are easy enough to steam up later in the week. I'm going to freeze a few of them for later in the week as well because I'm paranoid about food poisoning haha. I normally chop my celery and carrots for the week too but I need to go grocery shopping again. They're great to have at work and when I'm at home and looking for something to munch on. I've gotten over eating them with dip but if you're looking for a low cal healthy dip try plain Greek yogurt with onion soup mix or other spices. I have an Epicure dip mix that is amazing in dip and on veggies. Hope everyone is h

The other day I found a recipe I had book marked for the longest time and realized I had all of the ingredients and a lot of them were ingredients that needed to be used ASAP. I changed the recipe to suit what I had in my fridge and to my preference. Here's the original recipe . And here is what I made: 1 gala apple, cored and chopped 1/2 c celery, chopped 1/2 c chopped walnuts 1/4 c Thompson seedless raisins 3T plain Greek yogurt 1T lemon juice salt and pepper The recipe says it makes 2 servings but I got 3 out of it. It is a perfect afternoon snack for me. Serve it on a bed of chopped lettuce - no dressing needed. This is definitely a new favorite of mine and will be a frequent recipe for me :)

Good morning! I was worried that my legs would be uber sore today but they actually feel better than yesterday. Progress =) I can't wait to have my camera back - the lens won't come out so I had to send it in for repair. I would be posting more pictures but my phone takes crappy pictures. I do have a food diary album on my facebook page. When I remember I take pictures of my meals and snack throughout the day. As I'm sure you've read many times on here I have a sweet tooth. I've been using fruit to satisfy this craving instead of the ice cream in my freezer (it is a low fat, low sugar one but still not good haha). Last night for 'dessert' I cut up an apple into small pieces and microwaved it for a few minutes until it was a bit soft. Sprinkled some cinnamon and a small drizzle of honey. It definitely hit the spot and is a much better option than candy or ice cream. (I have a picture of it but can't upload it right now) I'm pretty excited abou

A few weeks ago when I was on Zuzka's website I found a post that I really needed to read. I feel like I've been stuck at the same stage for a long time and I'm not getting the results I want. Here's what gave me that kick in the ass:  http://www.zuzkalight.com/blog/not-losing-weight-coffee-talk/ For the last few weeks I have been doing shorter than normal workouts but I also wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could have and should have. The last week I've really been pushing myself and the soreness I'm feeling for days after is enough to remind myself how lazy I've been lately. I used to be able to do workouts I thought would be hard but I wasn't sore the next day. Now I'm doing ZWOWs and DailyHIITS and I'm sore for days after. Even Insanity. It's definitely not a good feeling but it's a great reminder that I need to push myself as hard as possible. HIIT workouts aren't effective if you aren't giving your all . Yesterday

I found this recipe in Self magazine (again, I suggest you check out their website. Lots of free stuff without a subscription). I forgot to add the walnuts in mine but they were awesome just the same. This was super easy to whip up in the morning but you can always prepare it the night before and put it in the fridge to heat up the next morning. All you need is: 1/3 cup rolled oats 3 tablespoons lowfat cottage cheese 1 egg 1/2 banana 1 tablespoon chopped walnuts Cooking spray 2 tablespoons lowfat plain yogurt 1 teaspoon honey 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon Blend the first four ingredients (I use my magic bullet!) and then stir in the chopped walnuts. Over medium-high spray with cooking spray (or use coconut oil) and pour half the mixture and cook until bubbly on the surface and flip over. Repeat with the remaining batter. I liked small pancakes so I did mine in 1/4 batches.

 Another recipe from Self magazine. Their nutritional info was different than mine but I didn't use skim milk. I used 1% milk in mine. I enjoyed this breakfast but it was a lot of dairy for me. Next time I'm going to try it with almond milk and less Greek yogurt. http://www.self.com/ drop10/recipes/breakfast/ 2013/oatmeal-cookie-oats  

I thought of something today: I ran out of my Greek yogurt sometime last week and I had 3 containers of PC Blue Menu and Danone Silhouette yogurt in my fridge that were wayyyyyy past their expiration date but I couldn't bring it upon myself to throw them out. So after much debate and testing them I decided they were fine and I finished the containers (I'm fine, the yogurt was fine lol). Anyway, side tracked here. I bought more Greek yogurt on Friday and I was surprised when I realized I MISSED the Greek yogurt. I find this funny because it took me a while to actually just put up with it because it is healthy for me haha. I've been ENJOYING my Greek yogurt since Friday now :) I guess you can't miss something if you don't have a chance to miss it. I'm guilty of late night snacking and my usual go-to is my cereal pantry. Lately I've been opting for my Greek yogurt and some berries. Tonight was strawberries, the other night was frozen blueberries. I actually