Catalina Island for the first time! | Day 18 of 90
Happy Labor Day fellow Americans! Hope you’re enjoying the last unofficial day of Summer. 😭
Also, it’s day 30 of the #100GluteChallenge!!! WHAT!!! WE ARE DONE!!!!
Thank you to everyone who joined in! I LOVED seeing your posts everyday. Please post your progresss pics or just a final recap to tell me how you feel! Progress does not need to be physical. It begins with the internal. It always does. And then it can be translated into so many different things – physical progress is just one of the side benefits!
If you haven’t finished, keep going. If you wanna do it again, DO IT! You can even pair it with the #100AbChallenge. You can find all of my challenges by scrolling to the top of the menu bar on blogilates.com under CHALLENGES. But once again, CONGRATS!
Anyway, super last minute, Sam and I decided to go on a day trip to Catalina Island. It’s just off the coast of Southern California and takes about an hour by ferry to get there. We booked the 7:15am Long Beach to Avalon ticket, and got in just in time for breakfast on the island!
When we got in, we were met by a small army of little boats! How cute. I also loved seeing the backdrop of houses tucked into the mountainside.
We started our day at Original Jack’s Country Kitchen, a cute western themed diner looking place, where I ordered scrambled eggs with mushrooms, ground beef, spinach, and onions. I replaced my hashbrowns for a side of tomatoes that I dusted with some salt and tabasco sauce! It also came with pancakes which Sam was happy to take from me 🙂
After breakfast, we walked around the entire town of Avalon. Everyone either walks, bikes, or travels by golf cart. Yes, you can rent a golf cart to drive around. IT IS SO CUTE. I don’t know why but I forgot to take a picture!
First order of business? Find a patch of sand to lay down on and tan!
Between all the families, the kids, the couples, and the bachelor/bachelorette parties, Sam and I found a teeny patch of sandy real estate on Descanso Beach! There were people to the front, back and side of me, all squeezed in together like little sardines, but we all managed to not bother each other – so all good!
Once we got really hot, we rented some snorkels and dove into the Pacific Ocean for a swim with the fishies! I have never snorkeled in California before (only Hawaii) so it was cool to try a new location. The water was obviously a lot colder than I wanted it to be, but like anything else, you embrace the discomfort and eventually it becomes your new normal.
Sam and I walked from one end of Avalon to the other, like twice. We racked up 20,000 steps! Whoo! Supposedly 10,000 steps is 5 miles, so that means we walked 10 miles yesterday! COOL! No need for a workout! Especially when we’re walking around that much AND sweating from the heat!
We found the local grocery store and bought some snacks to fuel our exploration! When I saw this fresh basket of raspberries, I had to. I mean, OMG. LOOK. They are rubies for my stomach! 1 cup of raspberries has 7g of net carbs which is great for my Lazy Keto adventure.
I also bought this wholesome nut mix filled with almonds, cashews, and macadamia nuts! As you can see, I like snacking.
Okay, the next choice was not a good idea. Since I was eating the berries, I knew my carb intake was going to be a bit higher than a non fruit day, so I opted for the lowest carb kombucha I could find. Well, I actually couldn’t even get a kombucha since they all have sugars. I got this sparkling probiotic drink from Kevita in watermelon rose.
As you can see on the nutrition label, it’s 10 cals and 0g of carbs! I wanted it to taste so much better than it was! But it’s actually my fault for picking something rose flavored. I cannot get into drinking or eating things that reminds me of potpourri. The pink bottle got me though!!!
Before catching our 3:50pm boat back to Long Beach, Sam and I wanted to squeeze in one more meal on the island!
We found a poke placed called NDMK that served the best shishito peppers I have ever had!!! OMG. Obsessed. So obsessed that I went to Trader Joes yesterday night after we got home and bought 2 bags.
I had a poke salad and Sam had a poke bowl. We shared the charred shishito peppers as an appetizer. But seriously though you guys. SO GOOD. I kept making noises as I ate! These ones were flash fried, sprinkled with crushed red pepper, and doused with some type of a sweet ponzu sauce. No idea how much sugar was in that sauce, but hey – WORTH IT.
I’m going to try to make these today and when I think I have a good recipe I will share it with you.
We got home around 6pm and I still had a ton of energy somehow! I thought I’d be tired, but I told Sam I was going to go grocery shopping! Ha!
Before I went off, I made myself this matcha drink. It’s 1/2 cup coconut milk, unsweetened 1/2 cup almond milk, matcha powder, and some monk fruit sweetener (4g of carbs per serving, of which 4g comes from sugar alcohols, so depending on how you calculate sugar alcohols, this would be 0 net carbs or 2 net carbs) to taste. So good! If I could, I would throw in some boba and just float away to heaven.
I went to an Asian supermarket and bought A TON of mushrooms, coconut milk, tofu and seaweed. Then I went to Trader Joes to buy more stuff (ended up with a million grocery bags) and then ended up at home making this lovely dish:
Scallops with mushooms! I’m getting better at my scallops but not by much. I need to find a way to make the tops and bottoms crispier and the insides softer. At least I got past them being rubbery…but still a long ways to go!
The mushrooms, I just put on a pan with some olive oil, salt, and pepper. YUM!
Oh and while blasting Taylor’s new album “Lover” (my review on this later), I made more baba ganoush for the week.
I may have overdone it this time guys. I like I made like 40 servings. Hahahahahaha.
Anyway, that’s my log for Sunday! Didn’t work out, ate a ton, and cooked a bunch. It was fun. Oh and yes, as you can see, the weight from the all you can eat KBBQ has shown up on the scale! It will probably stay with me for a few days (my system is slow), but hopefully will be gone by the time I do my week 3 weigh in!
This week will be a tough one. Progress has been great the past the weeks, but this one’s already off to a backwards start.
22 thoughts on “Catalina Island for the first time! | Day 18 of 90”
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It’s so fun to read your blog and I enjoyed all the details. I completed my glute challenge but never got a chance to post on instagram. I felt great doing every single one on the challenger and definitely feel stronger, thank you for workout and motivation each time in your youtube video!!
happened the same to me with the watermelon rose water kombucha. Tasted like something I would use to clean
“You embrace the discomfort and eventually it becomes your new normal”
Damn, I needed that!
I kinda liked the Watermelon Rose flavor when I tried it recently. But I am always trying the different brands and flavors of any kombucha. I probably have one almost every day. Especially when stores have them BOGO free. Love that word free.
Have you ever tried king oyster mushroom scallops? Omfg SO GOOD!
omg I love those mushrooms! Soooooo chewy. And I love scallops too. Are you feeling more and more confident in your skin, Cassey? 🙂
Not a backwards start! Just a week’s start 😉
agreed! She’s doing well 🙂
The way that restaurants get their scallops so perfect is by adding butter to the pan and spooning the butter over the scallops as they cook – they do this with steaks too.
I love baba ganoush! I pick some up at the farmer’s market, but I should really make my own… I’m trying to come up with ways to keep my 1 1/2 year old from crying and clinging to me while I try to cook. Everything I try so is short-lived, and I know this stuff is time consuming!
Such an inspirational woman 😁😁😁
Awww, Cassey, at times, we still gotta indulge ourselves a lil bit for motivation😉i think we can see a bit of your abs (defined!) In the beach tanning photo! Heehee… and all the foods featured for this entry looks pretty awesome👍the scallops and mushies (mushies are life) and that matcha drink… yeah it will be (guiltily?) Awesome if there were some bobba in it too👏been reading and following up your posts for this series like each day no kid! Also, bcuz imma looking for ideas to work out besides pilates and also some recipes, teehee…😆
What a lovely day. 🙂 That poke bowl looks sooooo good. Alright, time for me to work out now!
I love your journey, it’s has been so inspiring. I read your blog posts at the gym while resting between series 😆 I want to say a couple of things related to previous posts, but I thought that commenting on the last one was more likely to be seen by you!
I’m from Spain and our food culture is quite different from yours. Like a 9PM dinner is an early dinner for us! And our breakfasts usually are bread toasts with olive oil, or other simple things on them, and we still manage to lose weight, so I don’t think your eating hours are related with your body fat loss (i’m not a nutritionist or anything, so this is just what I think from personal experience!)
The other thing was about that yoghurt milk! This is a pretty common beverage here, children drink it a lot as a snack. But we don’t really cook with it… just drink it 😅 but maybe you can use it to make tzatziki, or some kind of yoghurt based sauce.
Hope this has helped you! And thank you for sharing your journey ♥️♥️
Your pan needs to be hotter for those scallops! Also be sure to pay them as dry as you can with paper towels before you put them in the pan, and make sure each one has plenty of room all around it and there are not too many in the pan!
Cassey, this isn’t super related but what is your enneagram or Myers Briggs type? I’m guessing that you’re an ENFJ and enneagram 3, but I’m curious about what type you actually are 🙂 The blog helps us get to know you, so you’ve got me guessing what your personality type is haha
I forgot! I took it a long time ago. Need to take it again! I remember the first time I took it I was an “E” and then a few years ago I was an “I”!
Cool, thanks so much for responding! Would love to hear your results if you get a chance to take it again! 🙂
I love that you are sharing your journey with us. The good, the bad and the ugly! It shows you are human and makes me feel so much better knowing that we are all human. I feel a tiny bit guilty when I overeat but I don’t usually gain from it and I always feel amazing the day after! As if my body is telling me I need more of this and that. I like the comment someone posted before about how Sam feels about this. My bf is not very supportive with my crazy diet and exercise choices!!! He comes along but he does not participate everrrr😂😂😂
To be honest, I am curious about Sam’s feelings on your journey. Does Sam still eat his favorite foods and snacks around you? Does he eat the same foods as you? Does he workout more with you? Does he talk to you more about fitness? Does he worry? Im sure he’s seen it all – the good, bad, and ugly, but I’m curious about how he felt about you starting this very public journey and was he frustrated that many people had a lot of negative feelings about it?
Just curious!
Sam still eats his regular food! In fact I often times cook 2 dinners, one for him and one for me! I just bought him ice cream today and a keto version for me! He works out a teeny bit more with me, but he does his own thing. As far as support, he is 100% rooting me on! I am so grateful for him!!!
Just wondering, I’m not trying to be mean, but why do you cook 2 meals? I always think, if somebody doesn’t like what I cook, they can make their own food, or at least help!