Getting Back into It

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great day! My day went pretty well! I have some more interesting food things to share with you today!

I got to sleep in this morning as well, no alarm! I didn’t have class until 12:30, but I had to do a workout this morning. I woke up around 7 and decided to make myself some breakfast in my room before my workout. What did I make? Only the best Oatmeal ever! Peanut butter and banana oatmeal!

Banana Oatmeal:

Ingredients: 

1 ripe banana

1 packet of plain instant oats (I used quaker)

2/3 c vanilla unsweetened almond milk, or other milk of choice ( I usually eyeball it, less dishes!)

2 egg whites (once again, this is an estimate)

Instructions: 

First, mash up the banana in a microwave safe bowl.

Add other ingredients and stir.

Microwave on high for 1.5 minutes (I recommend putting the bowl on a plate and covering in case it overflows)

Stir, and microwave an additional 1.5 minutes.

Enjoy!

I always top mine with a dollop of peanut butter.

Today, I split this into 2 servings, as it is pretty filling, and I was eating fairly close to a workout. Just save the other half in the fridge and enjoy later! It’s good cold as well (or maybe that’s just me…)

For the first time as far as I can remember, I put on too much peanut butter! See?

I couldn’t even finish it! Craziness!

My workout was 60 minutes on the rowing machine, plus 20 minutes on the spin bike. Nothing spectacular. It’s interesting that after a long time on the rowing machine, I don’t exactly feel more tired, but my power output significantly decreases. 

After a sweaty workout, I decided to have some post-workout fuel. I wanted something kind of refreshing, but I didn’t have many ingredients for a smoothie, and who wants to put together and then clean a blender? I’m all about saving the dishes. 😛

So what did I come up with?

Yogurt! I discovered this little creation over break, and simply could not get enough of it. It’s the absolute perfect post workout snack (I’ll get to why later), and it’s super easy and low dish intensive. Just add cocoa powder and brown rice syrup to greek yogurt to taste (I tend to like less sweet, darker chocolate things), and stir well!

And of course I mixed it in a Dixie cup, right? Don’t want to use those valuable bowls! This yogurt hit the spot perfectly! So why is this the perfect post workout fuel? It’s a combination of protein and carbohydrates, which helps replace anything lost during exercise. (Keep in mind, I’m not a dietician, this just comes from the million books I’ve read plus an awesome Nutrition class last quarter). It’s more natural than a protein shake; you know exactly what you are putting in it. Plus, a lot of times, you don’t need as much protein as is in a protein shake after a workout. I learned in my class that actually, the time you need the most protein is when Your muscles are repairing themselves, which is the time when you are sore. Carbohydrates are a priority, because they are our main source of energy, so that is what gets burned in exercise, mostly. Why is chocolate milk not ideal? The carbohydrates in chocolate milk come from sugar, which is a combination of glucose and fructose, its about half and half. I will definitely get into a conversation about fructose later on, but you really don’t need to replace your fructose stores unless you’ve been running a marathon, and to get enough glucose to replace what you lost through drinking chocolate milk, you are probably getting more fructose than is healthy. Glucose is what is mainly burned in exercise. It is what the body burns for energy (the brain needs it as well), and brown rice syrup is a great source of glucose. I will definitely get into fructose and glucose at a later date (it’s one of my favorite topics EVER).

After my snack, I got ready for the day and dealt with various random things until lunchtime, which was early because I had class at 12:30 and I needed to get textbooks beforehand. Lunch:

Salad with raspberry dressing and dried cranberries, teriyaki tofu over brown rice, and some type of sauteed kale/cabbage. It was actually a really good lunch. The tofu was really good, it actually wasn’t fried like it normally is, so it was soft as opposed to weird and hard. I think lunch at my dining hall is always fairly good, definitely better than dinner, but I hardly wen tat all last quarter because I had class around lunchtime. Though I think they stepped it up midway through the year.

I also had some fruit and a little bit of pasta because I really wanted to try it. 

I’m in an Animal Behavior class this quarter, and I’m super excited for it. It looks really cool, and I learned some random things just on the first day. Did you know that many human couples have similar lengths of middle fingers? How random!

Before practice, I rushed back to my room to grab a bar.

It was a little bit sweeter than what I wanted, and I wished I had made the granola bars I had been wanting to make. Practice was uneventful, which is probably good. 

Dinner was a salad (garden) with grilled chicken and cornbread (which was really good, haven’t had cornbread here before).

I also had a cup of cereal (although it was sugary cereal). I’m trying to wean myself off of eating so much sugar, but it’s definitely difficult! Back at my dorm someone brought in a ton of random pies, and I tried some that I think was chocolate cream. 

Tonight was also the night of my guacamole party, which was at least planned. And my guacamole party, I mean a couple of friends and I made guacamole with some avocados I brought from home, plus limes, onions, and tomatoes stolen from the dining hall salad bar. Mash  together, add some salt and pepper, and we were set!

Eaten with tortilla chips of course. Afterwards, I decided to make some protein bars I’ve had my eye on for some time now. I made Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein Bars, from After the Ivy League. I was a little worried about making anything with my protein powder, as I’ve never baked with it before (although these bars are no cook, yay!), and I’m not a big fan of the taste of the kind I have, but these bars turned out well! I added a little bit less protein powder than it calls for because I got scared, but they had really good flavor, and I nibbled at the edges quite a bit. They’re in the freezer now to harden, but from what I can tell they’re a definite win!

Tomorrow, no on the water practice, and no morning workout, so I can sleep in (relatively). Even though I slept in today, I was really tired by the middle of the day. I didn’t sleep that well last night, and I couldn’t figure out why, until I remembered other nights like this, when I’m really warm and tossing and turning all night. I’m almost positive it’s from too much sugar before bed. I had this problem a lot before the holidays when I ate a lot of junk, and I remember how much better I slept when I cut out sugar for a few days. So, goal for tomorrow? No sugar! It’s going to be a little experiment. To be honest, I can already tell I’m going to have a lot of work this quarter, and not that much time, so I need to make the most of the sleep I can get!