Telus Wellness Event & Kingsmount Kitchen Party #1

Hey Loveys,

Happy Friday! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been SO busy and I can't wait to tell you what I've been up to!

Wednesday was a cool day because I was invited to an event at Telus! It was an information session in the Telus Wellness Centre which is really neat, there was only 12 of us invited and I was one of the lucky 12! They have an on-site fitness facility right in their office which is packed full of fitness equipment and they even have a teeny room for small group fitness classes! We started the information session off with a workout! They brought in Toronto Fitness Instructor/Personal Trainer Lyzabeth Lopez. She's one kick ass instructor! She's so adorable and so nice... it was a pleasure meeting her!

She put us through a lower body workout and boy did I sweat. Everyone that was there was told that we were doing a low-impact stretch session with Lyzabeth but that's soooo not what it was. It was ok though because I came in workout clothes! We did exercises with the body bar, stability ball, gliders and resistance bands. I was pretty sweaty by the end of it and it was only about 30 minutes long. Loved it!

Telus then provided us with an amazing lunch. I'm not sure where it was from, but it was an asian inspired, healthy lunch! There was some grilled chicken on top of a bed of steamed broccoli and cabbage I think, as well as some sort of edamame/red pepper/corn salad and then a ice pudding type of thing with coconut on top for dessert and we had the option of bottled water or fresh orange and/or beet juices! Impressive!

Then we sat down and learned about some of their amazing new health/wellness products that they're launching. You'll never even guess the "swag" we got (if you can even call it that...)... they gave us each our very own Samsung Galaxy S4 phone (AH!), 2 months of free service, a case for it, a Lululemon Yoga Mat, a tea defuser travel mug and a sample of some sport drink.

WHAT?!

I'm not joking. How insane is that!?!? It's amazing!! They went through the health apps that they have and let us see how cool the new Jawbone bracelet that tracks everything from your steps to your sleep patterns. It was soooo cool. I want one just so I can see what the hell is up with my sleep patterns. The app it comes with is called UP. It displays data tracked from the band on the phones dashboard and prompts you to track your meals and moods. It can even scan the barcodes on any packages and tell you the nutritional information on it! Whaaaat? Telus is going to start selling the Jawbone wrist band this summer!

Some of the features of the Samsung Galaxy S4 are:
- the screen! 5 inches, full HD, 13 megapixel camera in the front and back.
- S Translator.. which is useful for someone like me who knows no other languages. It translates words that people are saying to you so that you're able to communicate back and forth!
- Amazing features which includes Air Swipe and Optical Reader (you can scan through things with just waving your hands in front of the screen, and you can make the screen scroll with your eyes).
- AMAZING app store!! I'm STILL exploring!

One other really cool way Telus is supporting the Health & Wellness community is with their "Raise Your Paws" campaign for breast cancer. Since 2008 Telus has given over $5.4 million dollars towards research, early detection and treatment of breast cancer in Canada. This year alone their going to be donating $300,000 towards the cause. Whenever anyone purchases a Samsung Galaxy S4 at Telus starting in May, $25 is donated to Rethink Breast Cancer (the first ever Canadian Breast Cancer charity). Use the hashtag #RasieYourPaws on Twitter to join in on the fun! :)

Needless to say, I've been having an extremely amazing time getting to know my new phone and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to attend this event! Telus was so great and so good to us and I don't even know how to thank them!! THANKS TELUS!

That night C and I went to the Jays game! They were playing San Francisco, and it was so gorgeous outside, the Dome was open, so we couldn't resist. I snapped some photos on the way with my new phone!

View from our balcony

CN Tower

At the game!

Nosebleeds View!

Sunset!

Can you tell I'm loving taking pictures with my new phone? :) The game was fun and the Jays crushed San Fran HARD CORE... Like 11 to 1 or something like that. We went out for some drinks with our neighbours after and had a great time! Except I got to bed so late and was exhausted the next day.

Speaking of the next day (yesterday).... Last night my friend Cory and his friend Christine (bloggers at www.fellowshipoffood.com) held what's called a Kingsmount Kitchen Party, which is basically a kitchen party at Cory's house haha. There were about 30 people there and there and everybody brought some sort of food. I brought juice :)

I only knew Cory there so it was nice to meet some more people. We started by munching on some mini-Jamaican patties.. and it just blossomed from there. Literally. We had some birthday cake for a lady that was there... and this was what was on the cake:

That's a flower made completely of sugar. What?! I know! It took the chef 3.5 hours to make it and unfortunately it got smashed when it dropped on a table. Everyone that was in attendance had some sort of professional food experience. It was nuts.

The founder of MADD Virgin Drinks was there so we had some non-alcoholic champagne. I have to admit, it tastes exactly like real champagne.... without the hangover! :)

These are prosciutto wrapped figs stuffed with vanilla bean goat cheese and pistachios. Omg. It was to die for. 

  

These are some Asian rice balls. I'm not sure what the sauce is on the top of it but it was SO good. They were stuffed with cheese and seeds and goodness. The man who made these just spent the last year travelling around the world learning how to cook and is now opening a food truck in Toronto called Menu Food Truck (Me n' U Food Truck is how it's pronounced). SO GOOD. There were two gals there who own a company that makes Australian meat pies to eat which were insanely delicious. There were the owners of Crepe A Go-Go which has 3 locations in Toronto and they brought tuna and smoked salmon stuffed crepes. The man who made the sugar flower also brough pistachio french macaroons stuffed with fresh strawberry and rose petal jam. There was a vegan chocolate cake made with cashews and avocado. There was a pavlova with whipped french vanilla cream topped with passion fruit. There was prosciutto wrapped grilled asparagus. Zucchini topped with goat cheese grilled on the BBQ. There was probably more and I'm unaware of it. 

Needless to say I came home with a massive food baby and woke up with a food hangover. AHHH. Lol. And that brings us up to today. I'm laying in bed now chillaxing. I think it's much needed.... before I head out for some drinks with friends :).

Happy long weekend to my Canadian friends! I'm going to bounce, I'll talk to you all tomorrow :).

Q: How was your week?
Q: Any big plans for the weekend? 

What's Beautiful 3.0 Campaign with Under Armor & FitFluential

**This post is sponsored by Under Armour through FitFluential

Hey Loveys,

I’m really excited to finally write this post. I’ve been selected (as have many of my fellow bloggers) to be a part of the What’s Beautiful 3.0 Campaign put on by Under Armour to help us redefine the female athlete. We are setting epic goals and not only are we crushing said goals; we are going above and beyond anything we’ve ever thought possible. We’re over the whole “being so super skinny is just so super beautiful” and 100% behind the “Strong is the new skinny” movement.

The What’s Beautiful 3.0 Campaign is a continuous challenge. They want us (the female athlete) to show them our journey and prove to them what makes us stand out from the rest… They want us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and basically conquer any goal we can think of. BUT we aren’t just doing this for nice glutes and firm abs (although, in my opinion, this is the MAIN reason we are doing this), there are some nice little incentives on the side!

Each week Under Armour is giving away swag bags full of awesome gear to women who are going above and beyond what they and anyone else around them thought possible. Under Armour is also featuring profiles on their home page of “Top Performers”, what better motivation to get your butt in gear than to be on the Under Armor home page!! BUT that’s not all. There will be 3 winners who will be flown to Costa Rica to attend a 4-day yoga and surf retreat. They will get lessons from world-class instructors, be treated to transformative massages, spa treatments, locally-sourced meals prepared by personal chefs and all while staying in a seriously sweet accommodation looking out at the ocean.

You're now probably wondering how you can get started setting your own goals and absolutely destroying them, right? Well first off, sign up by clicking here and get yourself registered. Then, you must post your goal. What have you been meaning to do but keep putting it aside? Is there something you're scared of doing, afraid you won't be able to complete it? Make that your goal and show yourself what you're capable of. My goal? To run my second half-marathon, happy and painfree (and not any slower than my first half-marathon, 2:23). Next up - tackle the challenges! I've only completed 1 (wah waaah...) but I plan on doing some more very soon! The challenges include things like:

* From the Mountaintop - film a shot video explaining your goal, and how you're going to accomplish it (this is the one I did!)

* Take a self-portrait showing your mental and physical strength

* Sign up for a race or competition and upload your confirmation to show that you've committed

* Upload a photo of yourself completing a record that you're proud of, something measurable or a personal victory, show the world that you owned it!

* Plus tons more!

See! The challenges are fun and are meant to build up the confidence that I (and you) know is inside! If you want to follow me, my username is "sarahohm". It's so much fun! You can join onto teams, you can follow your friends, it's very interactive and motivating to see where everyone is in terms of their goals and that you're able to leave little messages to cheer them on! Come on - what have you got to lose?

Q: Are you ready to take on the challenges you've put aside for yourself?

Q: This isn't a question, but just tell me when you've signed up so we can follow each other and cheer each other on!

Running On Another Continent....??

Hey Loveys,

I'm not much of a traveller. Not because I don't like travelling, it's mostly because of lack of time and lack of funds. I'm the worst at saving money and that's not a secret to anyone that knows me. This year I purposely including in my savings plan, money to take a trip at the end of the year with C. We're thinking Mexico, probably Cabo... my dad recently went there with a buddy of his and he raves about it, so I'm sold!

However, I'm not going to waste your time telling you the list of places on my "to go" list (Africa, Tokyo, Bali, Australia, Egypt, Italy, France, Rome...) and explain the situation I'm currently facing. I have a hard time committing to things that are... well... big things.. travelling more specifically. One time I took a trip to Edmonton for two weeks when I was 16 and got homesick. It could have been the fact that we drove there and I was stuck in the "back seat" (aka crawl space) of a pick-up truck with my ex-boyfriend who is like 6'2... both us tall people back there didn't make for a pleasant experience.

The only other time I've actually travelled somewhere, and the only time I've flown anywhere commercially (I've been in small planes before. The family of previously mentioned ex-boyfriend owned 3 different airplanes and flew us from our home town to Georgian Bay for a good pancake breakfast once. Ridic.) is to New York City. C and I went there in 2010... and last year we didn't take a vacation due to a lack of someone's passport (I have mine... FYI). Anywho, my experience in travelling is less than average I think.

When I was watching the GoodLife Marathon, I noticed a few people running in "Team Diabetes" jerseys. Obviously this stood out to me being diabetic and all... so today for some strange reason it popped into my head that I should Google "Team Diabetes" and find out what it's all about. Basically it's the same as Team in Training except instead of Lukemia, the proceeds to go Diabetes research. Hmm... so that got me wondering. I clicked on "International Races" and a list popped up in front of my eyes:

Cayman Islands
Madrid, Spain
Edinburgh, Scotland
Reykjavic, Iceland

Hmmmm.....

I click on Madrid Spain and it says for more information, contact So&So.. so I did. I'd have to raise $6100 and in return I'd be provided with:

• Guaranteed race registration
• Official Team Diabetes tech shirt or jersey
• Fundraising tools and support
• Personalized, fundraising webpage
• On-course support
• Free electronic monthly newsletter
• Accommodation (4 nights)
• Round-trip airfare from a gateway city
• Designated team meals
• Team trainer available via email
• Online training via the Running Room

Madrid, Spain

So I've been talking to a few friends about this. And turns out the Madrid race is the same weekend as Michelle's wedding, so I'm absolutely NOT missing her wedding! Next on my list? Running in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Beautiful photo for sure. So before I commit to something like this, I have some thinking to do... Luckily they provide you with a ton of resources on how to fundraise, and this could be a really good cause for some seriously killer parties. Michelle told me she'd help me fundraise... when she went to Rome with Team in Training, she raised over double what she needed to, so hopefully she has some tricks up her sleeve still. I'm talking like I've already committed to this. I think the fact that I have diabetes myself, and I'm raising money for Diabetes makes it a good fit if I were to do this "destination racing" thing. C told me that he'd come with me. Which works out because I don't have to pay to go so I could help pay for some of his trip which makes it cheaper...

Everyone I've talked to is obviously like YOU HAVE TO DO IT!!!! but I don't know why I'm scared to commit. Probably because $6100 is a lot of money and I'm nervous I won't raise that much and I'll have to pay thousands of dollars out of my own pocket which barely holds $1.

Perhaps I'm just scared. Right out scared. This is totally outside of my comfort zone so I'm psyching myself out hardcore. I just read a blog post that Tosca Reno wrote about not allowing fear to hold you back, and that's totally what I'm doing by being indecisive. I'm the type of person who gets comfortable where I am and then that's that... soooooo... yeah..... lol. This is big. 

Q: Have you ever travelled really really far to run?
Q: Should I, or shouldn't I?

PS - I've had a few friends say they'd help me raise the $. I have SUCH amazing friends. I'm going to do this, aren't I?

PPS - Don't forget about the giveaways happening right now! Ending tonight at midnight is the Epic Canadian GiveawEH and you can enter by clicking here. And the Maison Le Grand pasta sauces and pesto's giveaway is happening for like 23 more days, and you can enter by clicking here!

Mini Eggplant Pizza & A Giveaway!

Hey loveys,

I hope you all had a great weekend! My weekend was fairly uneventful, and it's like the first time in so long. We didn't go out or stay up super late or anything and it feels nice! I feel so rested and relaxed.. le sigh. Why aren't weekends like 5 days long? :)

Yesterday was kind of a lazy day. I didn't really get out of bed until like noon... I stayed in bed and watched tv, but it was well deserved :). The only really productive thing we did yesterday was grocery shop, and we took home a haul of stuff....

It was a project in itself just to figure out how to get everything into our condo-sized fridge. It took a little purging and a little shuffling, but I managed to fit everything inside.... except my quarter watermelon. So obviously I decided to juice it and make myself something delicious to drink. I ended up juicing the quarter watermelon but left some left over that I could just mash up and add to the juice for a little substance. I also juiced half a cucumber and a bunch of mint. I mixed half of the juice with carbonated water, not only was it delicious but it was very photogenic!

See? So pretty.

Oh! The other thing we did yesterday was that we went to see Iron Man 3! It was good, but it was a little more casual than the other movies... I think my favourite Iron Man movie would have been the 1st one, although I like the fact that int he 3rd one him and Pepper are together. Meh. My final consensus about the third one is ... good... and that's all.

Because I went to bed early last night, I woke up early today and got a good start to the day! After watching a couple episodes of Pretty Little Liars (ha.. sorry, I can't believe I'm admitting this) I went for my first "long run" of my half-marathon training. It was only a 7km run, so it's not really "long" but it's longer than what I've been running! If you haven't heard already, but the weather here in Canada is EFFED. It's snowed on and off here all day. I'm not joking, it snowed on May 11th. Luckily it didn't snow while I was out running, but I had to wear a sweater and gloves, and this week I was wearing shorts and a tshirt to run outside lol. I don't understand. Whatever. The wind was insane and it made my eyes water and made it hard to breathe a lot and so I ran a bit slow, but it was ok! I got out 7km in 50 minutes.... not the best, but it's just about putting in the mileage!

Yaye! :) You have to celebrate everything when you're training, it's all about not comparing. I'm so over comparing.... I used to be really bad for that. But everyone is different, every one runs are a different pace, and everyone runs better under certain conditions so you can't compare yourself against anyone but yourself.

I was back and in the shower for 10:30am... not shabby! I then folded the laundry (which CB had washed because for some crazy reason he woke up at 4:30am this morning and stayed up), studied for a couple of hours, made lunch and watched Argo. This weekend has been full of movies! I rented Argo on Rogers on Demand. The girls at work raved about it, and obviously it won the Oscar for Best Picture so I figured it wouldn't be a waste of money. I have to admit that the first half was a bit slow... it wasn't until the last half that I was having heart palpitations and was holding my breath off and on. Argo was WAY better than Iron Man 3... the fact that it's a true story really set it apart, and Ben Aflick is just a genius so... it awesome AWESOME! :)

When we were grocery shopping, I grabbed an eggplant because I have it in my head that I dislike eggplant. I found out I enjoyed peppers once I tried them again so I figured it was time to give eggplant another go. I made mini eggplant pizza's for dinner because I had some left over ingredients that I needed to use up. So check it out!

Mini Eggplant Pizza
Ingredients
1 eggplant
1/2 cup of Maison Le Grand Rose Pasta Sauce with Jalapeño Peppers
Fresh Mozzarella cheese (I didn't measure)
Fresh basil leaves
Salt & Pepper

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cut up the eggplant into circles but not super thin, about 1/2 an inch thick I'm guessing (seriously guessing) and place on a foil covered cookie tray.
3. Spread the pasta sauce onto the eggplant with a spoon.
4. Cut the Mozzarella cheese and place on top of the sauce.
5. Rip the basil leaves and sprinkle over each mini-pizza.
6. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the cheese is browned and delicious.
7. Enjoy!

Before baking

After baking

Mmmmm... it was gooey deliciousness. I think I used too much cheese because it overflowed into my pan, but on the other hand, can you ever have too much cheese? Probably not a good contribution to the caloric intake, but I'm over it lol. However, speaking of Maison Le Grand pasta sauces, they are so cool and so generous and they want to give one lucky reader their whole line of sauces and pestos to try!! I spoke about them in one of my posts so you can see how great the products are! You can enter below via the Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck loveys!

Q: What was the highlight of your weekend?
Q: Have you seen Iron Man 3 or Argo? Thoughts?