Zootastic!

My DD's almost 2! She'll be turning TWO this tuesday coming, and instead of a birthday party that I oh so carefully planned...

We decided to give ourselves a break from hectic party arrangements and go to zoo instead. My DD loves animals: from her collection of stuffed ones to our kitties and her Nana's puppy. She can pretty much name a common animal (along with what sound it makes) once she sees it. 

So this morning, myself, hubby, DD and her Nana took a 20 minute trip to the Toronto Zoo.

First stop was Polar Bears! We came just right on feeding and meet the zookeeper time.

This was was keeping cool doing a backstroke...

and I this one was trying to get a tan :p

while this one was being smart and got a good spot right in front of the zookeeper who fed them fish.

Boy was it hot under the sun!!! Thank God, the heat wave broke the day before...

Then, we went through the Indo-Malayan section of the zoo, where I saw animals more familiar to me (being born in the Philippines and all). Lots of icky lizards and humongous snakes here, which I didn't take pictures of because I don't particularly like them.

But these cute little and not-so-little Orangutans are adorable! 

DD liked their habitat because it was a huge jungle gym full of fun stuff and toys.

I had to take a pic of this because DD has a thing for frogs like her Grandpa.

This tiger was fast asleep... while the other ones were hiding behind rocks :(

They had to separate the girl and boy animals this year because they don't want them to mate.

We walked on this really cool boardwalk going up and around a hill with exhibits and habitats around us.

Apparently I have a habitat of my own... Yes, my real first name is Savannah.

Peacocks gone wild! This particular one walked in front of me right after I took this picture of DD and her Nana...

Don't worry I didn't get pecked on.

This elephant was totally showboating... too bad the three huge elephants scared my poor DD away.

My DD was holding on tight to my hubby with her eyes closed :(

But she got into a better mood riding this hippo...

The real thing was enormous!

I really felt like I was in Africa in this heat.

My hubby thought it would be fun to jump over the equator with my DD. Then, what do you know, the rest of the people behind us did the same after.

This is actually a hollow tree on the ground. 

Which animal does not belong? I'm guessing the goose, lol.

Monkey butt!!! LOL!

This poor boy giraffe is separated from his girlfriends :(

We were getting too hot and tired so we hopped on the train that took us through the whole Zoo!

While on the tour, my DD decided she wanted to go to the water park to cool off.

I had to run after her the whole time! I'm counting it as my workout for the day.

She liked marching around...

But mostly running through and around the sprinklers...

Man this place was packed.

Soon we left to get some popsicles and headed to the Kid's Zoo exhibit. It was mostly petting zoo kind of animals in there. No pictures were taken because all four of us were to busy licking Triple Rockets.

I wanted my DD to ride on the Animal Carousel with me...

Too bad she passed out! But even in all her tiredness she won't let go of her little Lion cub souvenir.

There was so much more that we did not see! The stingray exhibit, the aquarium, the euro-asia and australian exhibits... I guess a second trip is in order :)

Thanks Toronto Zoo for the great pre-birthday outing... My DD surely had a blast!!!

Navigating the "All you can EAT" Buffet

A few Saturdays ago, we got invited to our good friend's christening of her baby girl, Arielle. It was a really great and fun event but there was one HUGE problem. The reception was held at an Asian "All you can eat" Restaurant! And I know myself very well that when I see food, I eat it. When delicious food is free for me to grab, I eat till I have to unbutton my pants. And so in preparation of anticipating that my healthy eating will be ruined, I wore stretchy tights, LOL.

This place called Imperial Buffet never disappoints in how much mouth watering dishes they serve up.

I figured I will start my buffet journey with a BIG plate..........

of salad

Romaine greens with Japanese dressing, beets, green olives, three bean salad and a small portion of seafood salad of shrimp, squid, scallops with variety of peppers. That japanese dressing was delish! I think it has some sesame oil, seaweed and rice vinegar in there.

Next plate.... SUSHI!!!!

Yeah, no brown rice in the sushi section folks. I had salmon and crab, spicy salmon and california rolls along with some seafood dimsum and pork dumplings and some yummy crunchy green seaweed. I really don't know what they are called, all I know is they look like seaweed and they are GOOD!

By this time, I know my next plate would be my last judging by the way my stomach was feeling full. I surprised how full I got really quick.

To avoid the temptation of piling on some more of those delicious shrimp tempura and other fried dishes, I piled up my plate with veggies first. I had green beans, Bok choy and mushrooms. The baked sole was looking scrumptious and pretty healthy to boot but I still gave in to the fried shrimp tempura. 

Thank God for my DD stealing them away from me(evidence is in the pic, see her finger?). She ended up eating my yummy tempura and only saved me one bite. 

Oh and those little balls you see are my favourite! They are called sesame balls; fried dough filled with sweet mongo bean filling covered with sesame seeds. I gave up one of those to my DD as well. 

By this time, my stomach felt like it was going to explode. But I needed something sweet to cap off this lovely lunch. Oh wait, I'm doing this no refined sugars thing right? Yeah I was really bummed. I circled the desserts aisle like a hundred times, trying to justify in my head all kinds of excuses why I need just one plate of some kind of pastry, cake or pie. Thank God for my will power that I only managed to put these two things on my plate.

Honey twist and a 'no sugar' chocolate cake filled with berry and cream filling. I asked the dessert lady if there is really no sugar in it and she just told me a straightforward 'yes'. So I just went and grabbed it. It didn't even realize that there was cream filling until I was ready to put it in my mouth.

But I thought, 'a small square won't hurt, I have been doing so well that I actually deserve this treat!'. But boy, that thought bit me back in the bum because that cake was DISGUSTING!!! It tasted like airy cardboard with aspartame. I was NOT meant to have a real dessert that day.

Good thing I still had my sweet crunchy honey twist that saved my palate from that awful 'no sugar' cake.

So now that I think back about my food choices at that "all you can eat" restaurant, I actually did pretty well. I made better choices by getting tons of veggies first before going to the other dishes. At least I got full with good stuff first before having some of little treats that I deserve to enjoy in MODERATION.

So all in all, the whole family loved the food at the buffet including my DD who went crazy over covering her marshmallow stick in the chocolate fountain.

So we left happy, filled up with great food and enjoyed the company of our beloved friends and family.

But wait, we were not done for the day! 

I had to leave my DD with my mom because we had a boat cruise to go to! I love boat cruises! We went almost yearly when I was still working with the same company as my hubby's and it was always a blast. (Yes my hubby and I worked for the same Financial Giant but did not worked together in the same branch). Now, I decided to go with my hubby this year since a few of my old co-workers and friends were attending as well.

Boat cruise food was blah but I had no choice because where else would I go? I was in the middle of Lake Ontario!

I had: Ceasar salad, rice with veggies and chicken filet with mushroom sauce. Sorry there are no pics, I forgot taking one amidst of all the socializing (Plus they might think I'm nuts).

I burned off the calories from that day dancing the night away with my hubby

And even the boat was flowing with booze, I resisted and stayed sober. I just refreshed and hydrated myself with some cold H2O.

Oh and in keeping with the nautical theme, I thought I'd share with you the cutest accessory I fashioned that night.

That was such an awesome night out for me and my hubby. It was great reconnecting with old friends that I miss dearly and making new ones with my hubby's new co-workers.

Although I must say the best part of the day was seeing this great view of the city that I adore so much.

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!!!