The Seventh Dwarf {Giveaway!}

The Seventh Dwarf Review & Giveaway

On August 18th, 2015 get ready for big fun and adventure with the seven dwarfs in a new animated picture, The Seventh Dwarf!

The Seventh Dwarf Review & Giveaway

The Setting: The eve of Princess Rose’s 18th Birthday.

Everyone has come to Fantabularasa castle to celebrate including Snow White, the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Red Riding Hood. But just before the stroke of midnight, the youngest dwarf Bobo accidentally pricks the finger of Princess Rose, a.k.a Sleeping Beauty! This sends not only Princess Rose but the whole kingdom into a century long slumber.

In order to find Rose’s true love, Jack, the dwarfs must go on a dangerous journey, facing a fiery dragon and the evil witch, Dellamorta.

The Seventh Dwarf combines all of your favourite fairy tales with a brand new spin! My personal new favourite is Snow White, she is full of spunk and brave in her own right. Sleeping Beauty is more than just a pretty face – she is strong, wise and determined. The movie is full of laughs, singing and the adorable yet brave dwarfs. This is a movie that both yourself and your children will love to watch over and over. The Seventh Dwarf does an excellent job of showing children that you don’t have to be the typical ‘hero’ or ‘knight’ in order to be brave and strong.

Check out this sneak peek in the trailer from Shout Factory:

My Canadian residents can now enter to win their own copy of The Seventh Dwarf from Shout Factory!

Enter via the Rafflecopter form below – good luck.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received a copy of this DVD in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Check In One: The Good and The Bad on My Healthy Start

Week Six: Healthy Living

My first week is officially done in my healthy lifestyle challenge and I had quite a few ups and downs. While I am not 100% happy with how well I committed to it, I can’t look back but only forward as tomorrow is always a new day. I need to focus on my overall health and well being and each positive and healthy step forward is a win for me.

Check In One

So here is the breakdown:

Last week’s goals: 

  • 2 pound weight loss.  Completed!! Woohoo!!
  • Follow my vegetarian diet with a meal plan. I stuck to this like glue and while I wish I had some additional emotional support for this change I am happy with how I feel and I am sure my loved ones will too over time.
  • Yoga four times a week. I managed to complete my yoga practice twice this week and it made me feel so good! I love how my body feels so relaxed afterwards and this will be something I will do more of.
  • Daily evening meditation. While I did complete this in the bath (the only time I am given absolute and complete silence) it still felt good to just quiet my mind and focus on nothing.
  • Daily squat, lunge, push up and crunch challenge. I actually kind of forgot about this one so this week I am going to make a fitness calendar to keep myself on track!
  • Run daily for five minutes (I am starting out here!!). Does chasing after kids at soccer count??
  • Stay hydrated with eight glasses of water a day. This is the part I loved the most and left me feeling less bloated.
  • 10,000 step minimum a day. Oops, not even close! I was very bad last week while on vacation!

This week’s goal:

  • 1-2 pound weight loss
  • Continue to maintain my vegetarian diet with a meal plan.
  • Yoga fours times this week.
  • Daily evening meditation.
  • Daily squat, lunge, push up and crunch challenge with a fitness calendar.
  • Two litres of water a day.
  • 10,000 steps minimum a day.
  • Daily morning detox tea.

Make sure you check out my initial post on my healthy start and enter to win a giveaway to focus on your healthy start!

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Natural Detox with Purgo Teatox to Feel Better and Re-Balance Your Body

Purgo Teatox review

Since one of the areas I wanted to re-focus and examine is what I am eating and change-up my diet, I thought it would be a pretty great idea to kick this off with a detox. But where to start? I have seen many ‘detox’ diets online but these are not for me. I could not stick to a liquid diet nor would I be able to do so and have energy for work and the boys. What I was looking for was that something that could help heal my gut that would be easy to follow and not be too restrictive.

Purgo Teatox review

I was on Twitter when I came across Purgo Teatox on Twitter. After heading over to their website, I read the incredible story that founded the Purgo Tea and realized I had a lot in common with Ben. Over the last couple of years, I have been neglecting my health, making poor choices and constantly remained stressed. Some days my stomach hurt and other days I just had poor energy levels. I was not myself but did not know where to start. I started by removing gluten from my diet but even this alone was not enough. I needed something natural to help heal my gut from the inside out.

Purgo Teatox

Purgo Tea is a two tea system that works by using all natural tea formulas to cleanse, detoxify and balance your body. It comes in either a fourteen day plan or a twenty-eight day plan.

Purgo Teatox Review

The Morning Detox is had to drink every morning before you consume food or coffee. The Morning Detox contains: sencha, goji, dandelion, lemon grass, hibiscus, chamomile, acai and ginseng. It has a pleasant taste (better than some of the other herbal teas I have tried) with a slightly pink/red colour to it. I added the tiniest amount of honey to sweeten it up but the hardest part was remembering to have my cup before I had my coffee. For some reason I had such a hard time with this! Purgo Tea recommends using a calendar to help remember to drink this first which I found beneficial for me in remembering to brew my tea first.

Purgo Teatox Review

The Evening Cleanse is made every other night and works to help relieve bloating naturally and effectively. The Evening Cleanse is made up of Locust plant, sencha, key lime, lotus leaf, cassla see, pu’reh, oolong and chamomile. I found this was extremely effective at cleansing my body but I usually saw the results the night after which was nice because other natural cleansers can be quite painful and immediate. I found the tea relaxing and semi sweet with no need to add anything extra in.

Purgo Teatox Review

Purgo Tea encourages you to follow these four steps: drink your morning detox tea, eat nourishing food, exercise for at least thirty minutes and drink your evening cleanse. I love that Purgo Tea encourages you to live healthy and nourish your body instead of starving it or restricting it. While I did not lose extra weight on the detox, I felt better inside and out, less bloated and my stomach felt lighter (if you have ever suffered from food sensitivities I am sure you know what I mean!).

You can find more about Purgo Tea on their website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Orders can be placed on their website and shipping is free in Canada.

Have you tried a tea detox before? What are your experiences and what do you look for? 

Disclosure: I received a fourteen day trial of the above mentioned products free of charge in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

As part of my committment to healthy living and cleaner eating, one of the first areas I needed to clean up was my breakfast. I used to always opt for quick and easy which sometimes meant I was not choosing the healthiest options that I could have. So I wanted to combine my favourite ingredients, oatmeal and strawberries, to make a simple, clean and easy to eat on the go breakfast item.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

These easy to prepare oatmeal cups were a huge hit not only in my house but also at work. They are light on the stomach (no flour!) but still sweet and satisfying will all the fruits that are added in.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Ingredients

  • one egg
  • one tsp vanilla extract
  • one cup unsweetened applesauce
  • one banana (mashed)
  • 1/4 cup of honey
  • 2 1/2 cups of rolled oats
  • one tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp of salt
  • 1 1/4 cups of milk (or almond milk)
  • seven to eight strawberries thinly sliced

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Mix together the egg, vanilla extract, applesauce, mashed banana and honey all in one large bowl.

Add in the oats, cinnamon, salt and baking powder. Make sure to mix these ingredients together well.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Add in the thinly sliced strawberries to your mixture and mix well.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Evenly place the mixture in muffin liners in a tray. Pour roughly enough mixture to fill about 3/4 of each liner.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Cook in the oven for roughly thirty minutes or until a toothpick is inserted in the middle of each muffin and comes out clean.

Strawberry Oatmeal Cups

Enjoy!

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A Healthy Start to a New Me {Plus Giveaway!}

A New Month and A New You

Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom before you realize that a change needs to happen. For me that happened last month with my overall health and well-being. I just was not and still am not happy with how I have let my health and fitness go. I stopped focusing on myself and put too much energy into things that were draining me. I realized that I needed to make a change and gave myself a start date of August 1st, 2015.

Because of my personality, I had to have clear goals set in mind and wanted to share them with you to help encourage and hold myself accountable to keeping up with goals.

A New Month and A New You

So here it goes!

Long term goals:

  • Lose fifty pounds, with an average of 2-3 pounds a week. This will put my weight back into a healthy category for my height.
  • Follow a strict vegetarian diet with a gradual transition to vegan.
  • Complete a 3 mile run.
  • Organize and complete a weekly workout plan.
  • Spend time every day meditating for at least five minutes.
  • Practice yoga three to five times a week.
  • Let go of the areas in my life that are draining me.

Every week I will come back and share my current weekly goals and how I did on last week’s goals. My hopes are that this will motivate not only myself but you to focus on your own physical and emotional well-being (something most of us don’t spend enough time on with our busy lives).

This weeks goals: 

  • 2 pound weight loss.
  • Follow my vegetarian diet with a meal plan.
  • Yoga four times a week.
  • Daily evening meditation.
  • Daily squat, lunge, push up and crunch challenge.
  • Run daily for five minutes (I am starting out here!!).
  • Stay hydrated with eight glasses of water a day.
  • 10,000 step minimum a day.

I will be sharing with you on Monday how I did with these goals listed above and my new set of goals for the week.

To kick off this healthy month, I want one of you my readers to win a $50 Shoppers Drug Mart gift card so that you can splurge on yourself.

Canadian residents, eighteen years of age and older can enter via the Rafflecopter form below.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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