Monthly Archives: December 2012

Cold and Wet…Again

Today was day 2 of our 3 workouts a day. We left the hotel at 6 am, and on the way out I grabbed a piece of whole wheat bread with peanut butter and an apple (same as yesterday). It was soo cold, just like yesterday, and although it wasn’t raining when we first got out there, it started pouring while we were in the boat. I had my rain jacket on so I didn’t get too wet, but my shoes sitting on the dock did. Once we were off the water, I changed out of my wet pants, but there was nothing I could do about my wet shoes.

Breakfast was at the training center. This time however, I had a plan. One of my favorite ways to make oatmeal is by cooking a banana into the oatmeal in the microwave, with vanilla unsweetened almond milk, and then topping it with peanut butter. At the cafeteria, the oatmeal is already made, so I couldn’t exactly cook a banana into it. My solution was to microwave a banana in a bowl for 1 minute, mash it up, and then mix it into the already prepared oatmeal. It was pretty good, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the real thing. Partly, I think my peanut butter from home works better with it. The peanut butter here is sugary and doesn’t have as much peanut-y flavor.

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Also pictured is vanilla yogurt with berries mixed in and a hard boiled egg white for protein. Just a note, I don’t avoid egg yolks because I am afraid they are going to negatively impact my health, I simply don’t like them. Whenever I ate hardboiled eggs when I was younger, I always gave the yolks to my dog, Billy.

 

For breakfast, I also had a mystery muffin. Some of my teammates claimed they were corn muffins, but they tasted more citrusy to me, though not that sweet. I enjoyed it with a dab of butter.

After breakfast we were back on the water for another row, and the weather was much nicer, thankfully. We wrapped up around 11:30 and were back to the cafeteria for lunch. Literally all I am doing is eating, sleeping, and rowing. 

For lunch I had a bowl of salad with olives, tomatoes, and baby corn (which I LOVE), topped with Greek dressing and a piece of BBQ chicken.

 

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I hate how some of the time the chicken here has bones. It is so much more difficult to deal with. On the side, I ate a buttered whole wheat English muffin with fresh and dried fruit.

 

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After lunch, I had just enough time for a quick nap before our afternoon workout. Naps have seriously saved me on this trip! I never truly appreciated naps until I began morning workouts. They are possibly the best thing ever!

I woke up hungry again, and finished my granola bar from yesterday, as well as a small chocolate cookie my teammate was passing around.

For our workout, we drove to the beach. It was pretty cold, and didn’t rain on us until the very end, so we didn’t get too wet. We removed our shoes for the workout, and the sand was cold! Our workout consisted of 15 reps of different exercises on the TRX. After each set, we sprinted across the beach to some kettle bells were we completed 15 lower body exercises, and then sprinted back. We did this 6 times. The TRX cable was attached to a lifeguard building, and we were a little worried that we would pull down the whole thing!

After our circuits, we played a game of leap frog, which is actually a pretty decent workout! By the time we finished our workout, I was damp and sandy.

The highlight of my day came after our workout.

 

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Nike outlet store! The outlet mall were went to was basically on the Mexican border. As in, we could see the border from the mall, and were one exit away from a trip to Mexico.

I absolutely love Nike, and loved the sale items even more! Here’s what I walked away with:

 

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I got a new pair of running shoes, similar to the running shoes I have now which I really like. They were half off! And the striped shorts I got for only $3. How crazy is that?

After our little Nike expedition, we returned to the cafeteria (again…3 meals a day for the whole trip…) for dinner. I helped myself to a chicken breast, black beans, steamed veggies, a coupled of roasted potatoes, and some mac and cheese. Basically a little bit of everything! I had originally planned on a salad, but the veggies looked good, and I was still a little cold so I went with it. 

 

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Dessert was chocolate and vanilla fro-yo (who am I kidding, it was mostly chocolate) with a dollop of peanut butter. I also snacked on a few bites of granola, and dried fruit and pretzels with peanut butter. And then my arm was twisted into trying some vanilla pudding, because we weren’t sure what it was. 

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I’m sorry that my posts are fairly boring and cut and dry. I really don’t have a lot going on right now besides rowing, and all my meals are coming from the same place, which seems to have mostly the same stuff. So I guess this means I have 10 days to optimize my meals based on the options available to me. Hopefully I can create something interesting tomorrow.

This seems like as good a time as any to discuss how to make it through multiple workouts a day. Food and sleep are key. Anytime I have multiple workouts, it is infinitely better to get a full meal between workouts. If this is not possible, it is important to at least eat a snack of protein and carbohydrate, and at minimum carbohydrate, because that will provide energy for the second workout. Some great options are milk and banana bread, or an egg sandwich. Milk is a great option, simply because liquids digest more rapidly.

If you have an opportunity for a nap between the workouts, take it! As I said before, naps are saving me this week! My body feels so refreshed after my naps, and I don’t feel very tired from the morning workouts at all. Another tip: if you have the option, put as much time between your workouts as possible. The more time your body has to rest, the better. You may notice that in your evening workout, you won’t feel an early morning workout from the same day at all. 

Despite what you can manage to do between your workouts, always be sure to replenish your body at the end of the day, and get plenty of rest that night.

Do you ever have multiple workouts a day?

 

Goals

Today was my first day of 3-a-days. The morning started out early. We left our hotel at 6 after a quick breakfast/snack of a piece of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and an apple. It was so cold this morning! I couldn’t feel my hands for probably the first hour. After our row at about 9, I went for breakfast number 2 at the training center.

I had a slice of banana bread, 2 whole grain pancakes, 1 with syrup and one with smart balance (not pictured), a veggie egg scramble, fruit, and a hardboiled egg white. And a small mug of hot cocoa on the side.

 

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After breakfast and a short break for a team meeting, we were back on the water for our second row of the morning. I hadn’t rowed in a month before yesterday so after 4 hours of rowing this morning, I was feeling pretty tight. Tomorrow morning should be interesting…

Just a side note, I promise this won’t turn into a rowing blog, it’s just all that I am doing right now at training camp. I just eat, row, and sleep, and considering I’m already documenting my eating, and my unconscious self is not too interesting, that leaves rowing.

After our row was lunch at the training center. I started with a salad with Greek dressing and a bit of chicken salad. I also had a chicken breast, which I put on the salad, steamed veggies, and a taste of scalloped potatoes.

 

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For dessert, I had chocolate fro-yo with chocolate chips and peanut butter.

 

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After lunch we returned to the hotel for a much needed nap. When I woke up, I was sooo hungry, but I didn’t really want to eat anything because I had to leave for a run in an hour, but the thought that dinner would be several hours away convinced me I needed something. I ate half a granola bar, which managed to hold me over.

 

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Our run was 40 minutes in the rain and dark. It felt good but I finished completely drenched. By the time we arrived at dinner, I was ready for something hot. I grabbed a big mug of hot cocoa, and then filled my plate with chicken, steamed veggies, and tortellini (plus ketchup).

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I ended up going back for seconds on the chicken because I had difficulty getting the meat off the bone, and added a little brown rice to my plate as well. For dessert I had a cinnamon raisin english muffin with butter, a few pieces of dried fruit, and a little bit of chocolate fro-yo with coconut and marshmallows. I also had a Kashi dipped cinnamon raisin granola bar. I was underwhelmed. The bar was very dry and a little too sweet for my taste.

I wish I hadn’t eaten quite so much at dinner. I returned to the hotel very full and also very thirsty. I was too full to drink as much as I probably should have.

Today, I was talking to some of my teammates. We’ve been asked to set goals for ourselves, and one of my teammates said that she wanted to give up dessert. This made me uncomfortable. I have dabbled with giving up sugar with some success. I always feel way better, but eventually go back to eating sugar. This is truly a personal topic for me, as I have struggled with sugar for a long time. I realized that I felt uncomfortable because I felt someone was going to be eating better than me, and my competitive instinct kicked in. Obviously this is not healthy. I want to have a better attitude so that I can help myself and others improve our health.

At the same time, I realized that this means that I am not happy with my eating. If I was satisfied with my eating, that discomfort would go away. I’m most concerned with the sources of sugar in my meals, rather than dessert. Most of the sugar I have been eating I have not been in the mood for, or even necessarily enjoyed. For example, I am very picky with maple syrup, and I didn’t like the kind at the cafeteria, so my pancake (which I think was whole grain) wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. Part of this is a learning process. I need to seek out less sugary sources in the cafeteria, but now I know what to expect. Tomorrow I want to avoid added sugar and optimize my nutrition.

How do you feel when others talk about nutrition?

Training Center!

Today was my first day of training camp for rowing and it was awesome! The facilities are so amazing!

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Just look at that water!

How cool is this? I’m meeting tons of new people on my team as well. Ok, I’m going to blow through dinner last night. We ate at Souplantation. I had a plate of salad to start.

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Chinese Chicken, Casear, and Spinach with apples and dried cranberries.

On the side I had a bit of turkey soup, and half a slice of wheat bread with butter. For dessert I had a couple of muffins and a bowl of chocolate lava cake with frozen yogurt on top. My large dessert probably wasn’t the healthiest decision, especially since back at the hotel one of my teammates had homemade cookies and sweet chex mix, which I naturally had to take part in (team bonding, right?).

This morning we ate a quick breakfast at the hotel, which I didn’t get a chance to photograph. I had raisin bran, and I started to eat it with blueberry yogurt but the yogurt was too sweet for my taste so I gave up on it, and a banana.

We headed over to the training center at 7:30 to rig the boats and unload the trailer. For those of you unfamiliar with crew, rigging the boats basically means putting on the part of the boat that holds the oar in place. Since the boats can’t travel with the riggers on, anytime we take them anywhere we have to rerig them. This ended up taking a very long time, and we didn’t hit the water until probably 11. It was so nice to be in the water again! I was worried that after a month off I would be rusty, but it felt completely natural.

We ate lunch at the training center cafeteria, which is fairly small but seems to have healthy options.

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I had an open faced turkey and swiss sandwich with a salad, both topped with Italian dressing. It was pretty good but nothing to write home about. That was ok though, because I wanted something fairly normal given my afternoon workout. I also had some dried fruit and fresh fruit, and half a slice of cinnamon bread with a little peanut butter. For dessert I had some type of carrot bread/cake (pictured farther below), which was delicious.

Dessert for lunch probably wasn’t the smartest idea considering I had my 6k in the evening. It ended up being ok, but it might have been a problem.

Ok, now for the 6k test. A 6k test is pretty much the worst thing ever for a rower. It is 6000m on a rowing machine at all out effort. I’ve been dreading this ever since I found out about it, because it is super painful.

Well, I made it through it! I wasn’t really happy with my time, I was slower than my last one. I feel like I could have done better and pushed myself more. 6ks are definitely a mental game, and I definitely wasn’t there mentally. I kept losing focus, and my pace would slow way down for a few strokes. However, I felt strong. This is exactly what I needed to get my butt in gear, and to get excited for my next 6k test. And to take better care of my body. I’ve eaten really badly over the holidays, and I think if I clean up my eating my performance should improve significantly. Ok, enough about rowing, onto food!

Dinner was baked salmon, assorted veggies, and a salad with olive oil and vinegar.

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And roasted potatoes with ketchup!

The food here is healthy if a bit boring. But that is fine with me, I am here to improve my fitness, body, and rowing, not to enjoy gourmet dining. And considering we’re eating here 3 meals a day…

Dessert was another slice of the carrot thing.

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I was tempted to go back for another dessert, but the thought that I’d have to report it here stopped me! Yay for blogging!

Now, I’m back at the hotel to just hang out for the night and watch “trash TV” with my teammates. Honey Boo Boo anyone?

How do you spice up boring food?

San Diego

Hello from San Diego!
I’m still at the airport waiting for my bag, and hoping to successfully meet up with teammates. I don’t exactly know what my bag looks like so this could take a while.
This morning I woke up bright and early to catch one last spin class with one of my favorite instructors. After class, I made myself a microwave English muffin egg sandwich(microwave English muffin) (from Carrots n Cake).

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I topped my English muffin with a fried egg, spinach, avocado, and Gouda, and ate a Harry and David pear on the side.

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YUM!
I took a brief nap and then threw every pair of spandex I own into a suitcase (packing).
I grabbed a quick (and un photographed) lunch of a mango and spinach bolani (from whole foods) and then I was off!
How do you feel about traveling?

Last Day Home

If I sound annoyed or angry, it’s because I spent an hour typing up my post and this STUPID blogging site decided to erase the entire thing. And those stupid photos take forever to load.

I can’t believe it is already my last day home! Tomorrow I am leaving for training camp. I’m excited for training camp but physically I know it will be very difficult (we have 3 workouts a day). I am additionally a little bit worried because over the holidays I haven’t worked out as much as I normally do, and I definitely haven’t eaten as well as I normally do, so I haven’t been feeling that well lately. But I guess part of the point of training camp is to kick my butt into gear! Still, I am going to miss being home. It’s amazing, after being home for just a little while, it feels like I never left.

This morning I actually remembered to take a picture of my breakfast for probably the first time!

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Well, sort of. I remembered half way through breakfast and ran upstairs to grab my camera. Breakfast was a smoothie with half a banana, frozen mango, cherries, and strawberries, and milk and greek yogurt. Topped with Kind blueberry vanilla granola and a spoonful of peanut butter. What kind of peanut butter do I use?

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This is my favorite peanut butter! I used to use Whole Foods’s brand of unsweetened creamy, but they changed the formula so I had to find a new love. I love my new peanut butter but it is a bit runny and needs to be refrigerated.

After breakfast I headed to the gym to lift weights with my trainer. These workouts are definitely one thing I miss when I’m at school. Here’s today’s workout:

Warm up Cleans

1 hang power clean and 1 hang full clean every minute on the minute for 8 minutes

3 deadlifts with a 3 second pause at the top, but only going to right above the knee

Conditioning (yayy):

10 single arm kettle bell snatches on each arm

15 wall ball throws (throw the ball up at the wall)

250 m row

For time, 5 sets. Rest is between each set, the same amount of time it took to do the set.

This was difficult for me! I was definitely panting at the end, and a little shaky.

After my workout, I went home and made myself lunch. I made a salad with baby kale, lettuce, tofu, avocado, and a bit of leftover egg veggie scramble.

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I topped it with Feta Greek Salad Dressing.

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On the side, I drank Chai tea (from Teavanna).

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For dessert, I enjoyed a slice of leftover French Toast Souffle.

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After lunch, my mom and I headed out to Sports Authority to use a gift card I got for Christmas and to stock up on spandex. I love all the bright colors! I must say, I am definitely a Nike girl. 🙂

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After that we stopped at the mall, and then I headed back to the gym to go to a Spin class with one of my favorite instructors. That’s another thing I miss when I’m at school! Dinner was cheese souffles with mushrooms and brussels sprouts (I looove brussels sprouts), all from Cooking Light. This has to be one of my all time favorite meals. When asked what I wanted to have for dinner on my last night home, I instantly selected this.

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For dessert, I enjoyed another small slice of French Toast Souffle, along with a persimmon.

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After dinner, my family settled on the couch to watch TV with our kitties.

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This truly is the best.

As a snack while watching TV, a sampled a few new granola/protein bars that I bought at Whole Foods the other day. The winners were the Think Thin German Chocolate Coconut and Chocolate Mint Coconut. SO GOOD.

Overall, it was a really cozy night. As I type this post, I am on the coach wearing a homemade Snuggie (my friend actually MADE a snuggie for me!), though sadly my kitties have left. What better to do on a cold, rainy night?

All I have to do before my trip is pack! I hope everyone had a great day!

How do you feel after the holidays?