Matcha green tea. SO GOOD. So healthy. Soooo many health benefits. I probably should have shared with sooner with you guys, but I mean… late is better than never right?! K so I am a bit late to the matcha party but what is important is that I am here now 😀

So first, what is matcha? Matcha is essentially a very high quality green tea, that is blended into a fine powder. Unlike regular green tea, matcha tea is not steeped. You simply whisk it in with your hot water and drink up!

I have made drinking a cup of matcha tea a part of my daily routine. Because of it’s high caffeine content, I find it to be the perfect “afternoon pick-me-up” drink. Not only this, there are tons of major benefits to drinking this magical green drink (yes, magical.)

Here are my favourite reasons to drink matcha tea on the daily:

BURNS CALORIES

Ohhhhh yessssss, that is right ladies. Matcha tea helps your body burn fat at a faster rate (about 4 times faster!) than normal. AKA it increases your metabolism. AKA it is magical and amazing. A fast metabolism is a thing of beauty, people. 

HIGH IN ANTIOXIDANTS

Yea, antioxidants. Those things that everyone is yapping on about. They do lots of amazing things for our body, including reducing & fighting the effects of UV radiation and making our skin look young and beautiful. You guys know how obsessed I am with keeping my skin looking young. See my posts on Gelatin (the natural botox), Borage Oil, BioSil, and my Coffee Face Scrub. Like I said, obsessed. You will thank me later 😉

INCREASE CONCENTRATION

We all need to be focused when we are busy being #GIRLBOSSES. A cup of matcha will increase your energy levels, boost your memory, and help improve your concentration. Winning? I think so.

BOOSTS IMMUNE SYSTEM

Seriously this is a big winner for me. Being sick sucks, and I hate it. Like, a lot. So anything that can help boost my immunity is a big bonus in my books! (Read about another one of my fave cold cures here.)

Oh yes friends, matcha offers all those benefits and more. The abouve are just my favourites. 😀 SO DRINK UP!!! 

Where can you get matcha tea? I buy mine at Davids Tea. Click here to get their Ceremonial Matcha Tea! It’s delish. 🙂 Enjoy!

x,

Not going to lie, this hike was cold. Like it was frickin freezing you guys. Think 35 km/hr winds + 4 degrees celcius, at the highest point on Whistler Mountain. But, alas, we did it. Because sometimes you just need to get out there and kick butt. 

This post is directly related my other post on “just doing it.” Sometimes the weather isn’t great, and you don’t really feel like going out and getting active. But if you suck it up and get out there, chances are you will never regret it. You will also probably feel like a champ. Kind of like I did after we conquered this savage day.(<— get ready for a “how to stay healthy in the fall” post coming your way soon.)

Moral of the story? Get your ass off the couch and get active! It will keep your mind and body feeling great. So… JUST DO IT!

x,

Annnnnnd I’m back. A little goth, simple colours, and lots of black. Fall is here and I love to dress to match the season. Summer is fantastic, but here in Vancouver fall is a pretty beautiful time. Yes it rains a lot, but the city is still gorgeous. And fall fashion. Yaaaasssss, I love it.

It is just so chic, you know? Everything dark, lots of hats, and of course… layers. All the layers. Uhg I am so excited. And also scared for my wallet… It is not even ready for all the shopping I am going to do haha. Anyone else overspend at the beginning of every new season? Or is that just me… Legit sometimes I walk into the mall feeling guilty before I even buy anything hahaha. It’s like I subconsciously know what damage I am going to do to my bank account before I even step into a store. Ok it’s definitely not subconscious because I know exactly what I am going to do lol. I am the ultimate consumer. 😛 Oh welllll! We all have our vices, right?! And this one happens to be lots of fun 😀

Okay on to my first official “fall” outfit here on Skinny Belle for this season. My sweater is from Talula Babaton (Aritzia) and I got it while I was busy selling my soul at the Aritzia warehouse sale. I am not proud of the things that happened in that sale — let’s just say I checked my dignity at the door. It was pretty much like being at war with all the women of Vancouver. To anyone whom I savagely fought for that last pair of Citizen jeans, I am truly sorry. But, we were are all in it together. And I will see you next year at the next sale 😉

But yes so you can’t actually buy this exact sweater anymore, but here are a few similar sweaters I picked out for you guys:

URBAN OUTFITTERS TURTLENECK: $69

ZARA TURTLENECK: $49

ASOS TURTLENECK: $30 (ish)

Happy shopping babes! Hopefully you guys are a bit more responsible with your spending than I am 😉 heheh I am an enabler, sorry! 😛

x,

Tacofino, HELLO.

So I have been a fan of the Tacofino food truck for a looooooonnnnnng time now. As I am sure the rest of Vancouver has been too. (Get out from under that rock you were living under if you haven’t heard of it :P.) I have been meaning to try their full restaurant location for a while now, and finally got around to it the other night! Tasty tasty tasty if you ask me. Definitely a must go. Obviously all the tacos were good, but the thing that was the highlight of the meal for me was the salmon ceviche. Minus the fact that they didn’t give us enough little chip things to eat the ceviche with. But, details haha. 

So if you are looking for somewhere to go for your Sunday night dinner, Tacofino is a great spot! Click here to check out their website for more deets.

Have a great day everyone <3

x,

These pants are basically socially acceptable sweatpants. Hell. Yes.

Ok so they are not actually made of sweat-pant material, but they pretty much feel like the same thing. You guys know me… the more comfortable I am in something the happier I am. AKA the closer I can get to wearing sweatpants without being a social outcast on a day-to-day basis, the better. 😉

So anywho, these amaze pants are from Aritzia. I highly suggest you go and get a pair for all your fall/winter adventures. They are so comfortable it is ridiculous, and I like to think that they are really cute too. My top was purchased at that savage Zara sale I mentioned a few weeks ago. Remember the one where it was basically like a live version of the hunger games on Robson street? Yea… I have no shame. Give this girl a good sale and I will be all over that shit. Haha! So unfortunately this top is no longer available, but there are tons of similar ones like it on the market right now.

My shoes, ohhhhh my shoes. I don’t know if you have noticed but I have been wearing these beauties all the time lately. They are SO comfortable (even for heels) and match with everything. Picked them up at Brown’s shoes in Vancouver a few weeks ago.

Happy hump-day guys! Hope you enjoy this outfit 🙂

x,

You guys know I am all about quick ways to live the healthiest possible lifestyle. It can be a huge challenge to eat right when you are a busy woman. And let’s be real, we are all girl bosses over here and need ways to treat ourselves right even though time is a crunch! You feel me??

So let’s get real. Even though we all want to make super delicious breakfasts (think my Skinny Apple Pancakes) every day, that shit just isn’t going to happen on weekdays. Work, school, and just life in general can make mornings hectic.

This is where simple preparation comes in. I am a majorrrr planner. I like to plan everything. It is a pretty safe bet to say whatever I am doing in a day was pre-planned. So anyways, this homemade museli is way better than anything you can get in stores, takes like 3 minutes to make, and will set you up for a week of healthy breakfasts. 

Ingreds:

• Whole rolled oats (about 1 cup)
• Kamut grain flakes (about 1 cup)
• Goji berries
• Raisins
• Cashews
• Ribboned and unsweetened coconut
• Pecans
• Dried figs (to top)
• Cinnamon (to rop)

There is legit only one step here. Dump all your ingreds into a bowl & mix. BOOM. Done.

Told you, so simple. 

Museli can be eaten cold & uncooked. All you do is pour your favourite non-dairy milk (coconut tastes best to me) over this and top with some cinnamon and dried figs. I like to let it sit for about 5 mins before eating, just because the kamut flakes and oats get a little softer. The besssssst.

Side note: I didn’t really put any specific measurements on this recipe, because it is totally up to you! If you like lots of dried fruits and nuts, add more! If you like less, add less. #science 

Enjoy babes! <3

x,

Woooo!!! You guys I had such a fun weekend in Vegas! 

So obviously this photo is not from Vegas…. I major failed at taking any photos this weekend because it was all fun all the time. I will be better next time, promise 🙂 But anyways, I am in the airport right now waiting for my flight back to Vancouver. I am going to need to do some serious healthy eating this week to make up for all the food and festive drinks this weekend. And rest, I need that. Lots of it. 

For those of you who might be taking a trip to Vegas soon, there are a few things you can do to make sure you stay healthy while you are staying out late and living it up.

Here are my fave quick tricks for staying healthy on a not-so-restful trip:

VITAMINS!

Bring like 740328742038748 packs of Emergen-C with you. Drink like 5 of those bad boys a day. It will save you, I swear haha. 

WATER!

Drink way more water than you ever think you need. Keeping your body hydrated is so key when you are staying up late and dancing the nights away!

PROTEIN

Eat it. All of it. Make sure your meals are substantial and you get some meat or vegetarian protein in you.

There you have it friends! Those are my quick and easy tricks on how to survive Vegas. I feel pretty damn good right now so I would say they are “tested and true.”

Lots of great stuff coming for you this week! I hope you are hungry, there are some tasty recipes coming your way. 🙂

x,

La la loveeeeee this hat. I totally bought it as a predictive “rain hat” for the winter here in Vancouver. Once those rain drops start to fall, they tend to not stop for a few months. Any woman living in Vancouver understands the futile plight of “hair in the winter time.” You can try all you want to make it look decent, but you will just end up with frizzy half-done hair that you kind of want to cry about every time you see it in a mirror. Yes, this is a thing that happens in my life.

Anyways, for the time being it is still used as a sun hat. If you want to pick up your own hat like this, head over to Aritzia.

x,

Meet my dirty little secret to keeping my pores clean.

Biore Deep Cleansing Pore Strips are honestly the shit. For the majority of my skin care routine, I am all about using the most natural products possible that are not processed in any way. Think: Coffee Scrub, Vanilla Sugar Scrub, and the Lush Face Mask that I love to use. Biore does not exactly fit in the “natural” category, but holy god does it ever work.

You put these magical little strips on your nose for about 15 minutes, and then slowly peel them off. It legit pulls all the crap in your pores out, and you will feel like you somehow instantly lost 10 pounds (<– I dunno try it for yourself haha.) Your nose will be so smooth, and so fresh. I am secretly super addicted to doing these… like, verging on way to excited every time I pull them out lol.

The best part? You can pick these up at any drugstore for about $8. All kinds of winning if you ask me.

Now you know my dirty little secret! But it’s okay, because now we will both have clean pores. 😛

x,

Happy early Labour Day to my Canadian and American friends! In honour of the long weekend, I thought I would share a recipe that should basically be mandatory to serve on long weekends. 

Meet my Chili Lime Corn — The perfect way to celebrate an extra weekend day and finish off the summer BBQ season. It is super duper simple, clean, and packed with flavour. Sometimes I fire up the BBQ and just make this corn as a snack haha. This recipe is also pretty much guaranteed to make you seem like you know what is going on in the kitchen. (Always a bonus.)

Want to get in on this BBQ action? 

Here are the ingreds:

• Fresh corn
• Chili powder
• Fresh squeezed lime juice
• EVOO (Extra virgin olive oil) or melted butter
• Sea salt

Step 1: Turn your BBQ on to medium-high heat. Shut the lid and let that bad boy warm up. 

Step 2: Shuck your corn, and cover in melted butter or EVOO. Sprinkle with chilli powder and sea salt. 

Step 3: Put your corn (whole) on the BBQ and slowly cook for a few minutes on each “side” with the lid shut, rotating it around until the skin is nice and roasted. While the corn is on the BBQ, carefully squeeze your fresh lime juice allll over it. Once your corn is a darker yellow toasted colour all the way around, take it off the heat.

And you are done! Simple, and oh so flavourful.

I may or may not have crushed all three of these by myself. I encourage you to invite friends over so you don’t do the same. (The struggle was very real.)

x,