Challenge update+Cottage excitement!

Sorry for the lack of post, I warned you though. I've been a busy bee I'm not gonna lie... Last weekend flew and I don't even remember what I did. This week is the same. On a happy note, it's my first time blogging on my Macbook Pro!!! This is thing is pretty neat, I love it. Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with details so let's get down to business:

The challenge update!

Here's how I'm doing with each rule:

Big salad once a day:

This is easy. And delicious. Dinners are easy peasy for me now. I wish I can also feed the rest of my family with salad so I won't have to spend time cooking dinner. (I LOVE cooking don't get me wrong, but it's tedious some days). Here are few of my salads that I ate last week (No pics from this week sorry):

Spring mix with avocados, tomatoes, turkey breast slices (dressed in balsamic vinegar and little splash of EVOO) and whole wheat toast with red pepper hummus

Spinach leaves dressed with balsamic/EVOO topped with crush walnuts. Baked sole with mangoes and brown rice

Spring mix and spinach leaves, sundried tomatoes dressed with Balsamic/EVOO and Baked tilapia topped with red peppers, zucchini and red onions

No Sugar:

This one is HARD!!!!!!!! The first weekend I did it I crashed and had a mental breakdown. I went berserk! Just ask my hubby or my sis... they were afraid to come near me. After the church service one sunday, I had a little 2-bite brownie. Not because I craved it, but in hopes to get me in a better mood. And it worked!

So far, I cheated only three times including he incident above. I had a spoonful of ice cream (there goes the no dairy too) while my DD was having a bowl, then I had another brownie another day (I blame my sis for getting a big box of 2-bite brownies from Costco). Oh, and I accidentally had ketchup one time with my Omelet. I didn't mean to, I totally forgot there is sugar in Ketchup.

No Dairy:

I had no trouble doing this. I adapted to Soy milk quite easily. I do miss the cheese but so far I haven't given in. I bought something called "Veggie slices", it's ok but it stink of soy a little too much for me.

No Alcohol:

I don't miss it. Period.

45 minutes of exercise:

There were a few days I didn't get my workouts in. I don't remember why, but most likely I was swamped with things to do like cooking, getting DD to bed, bible study, random errands etc.

So far this has been my regular routine:

20 to 30 minutes of running/Ab Ripper

alternating with 

Cardio X or Yoga X

This week I changed it up because I noticed I didn't have enough strength training in my workouts. So since Monday I was doing:

20 to 30 minutes of running

alternating with 

30 day shred by Jillian Michaels (20 minutes)

Yeah, I know that's not a full 45 minutes but I'm only human! And a working mom! I'm so swamped especially this week when there was all kinds of stress at work and at home (Will update you later as it relates to my That phone call I was telling you about). I'm surprised that I got all workouts in everyday since monday.

1 minute of belly breathing:

It's hard to remember to do this everyday. So yeah I haven't been doing this regularly. I have recently set an alarm on my phone to do this and so far it's working. So I hope I can get into a habit doing this from now on.

Anyways, here are some pics of what I had been lunching on:

Spicy chickpeas and couscous (I added zucchinis in this batch)

Whole grain bread with red pepper hummus spread, veggie slice (fake cheese), turkey breast slice, chicken bologna and handful of baby spinach leaves.

Had lunch at Cultures! I swear I love this place. I had roasted veggie panini with three bean salad and a couscous salad (Yeah I love couscous)

Spicy salmon roll bought from Metro

I regularly had 3 or 4 of this a week. I squeeze a little bit of honey in my cup to sweeten it up. Yumm!

On another note, I can't wait for this long weekend!!!!! Finally, the weather is warm, the sun is hot and we have a three day weekend coming to enjoy it all. And what better way to enjoy it than going to the cottage!!!! This year will be my DD third year in the cottage and I can't wait for her to enjoy it. She is already so psyched with her new Hello Kitty swimsuit and pink swimming shoes.

This was us last year:

Now, I hope I don't get too carried away with yummy summer barbecue eats this weekend. How do you stay eating healthy on vacay? More importantly how are you spending your long weekend?

Hope you have a great and sunny one!!!