Monthly Archives: April 2013

Who’s up for a challenge?

Hey guys! Today was pretty low key. My guacamole party last night was awesome! I wish I had more pictures but my phone was hooked up to my speakers! A lot people had who recently joined frats or sororities were gone, so pretty much everyone else in my dorm came to my room to hang out.

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Sorry for the terrible picture! I even got to talk to a pro-fro. That’s what we call prospective frosh (freshman). And if they’re committed here, they become fasho-fro (for sure frosh). We like our abbreviations here! Next weekend is admit weekend, and I get my very own pro-fro. It’s crazy that my freshman year is coming to an end. I feel like I was just at admit weekend!

This morning I started my day off right; mango and yogurt!Image

My morning was pretty low key. I have yet to do a workout today, but I ate an early dinner so I can do something later tonight. Lunch involved avocado, yay!

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Mexican salad, with tons of guac! 3/4 of a waffle were also involved (because I seriously fail at making half waffles).

After lunch, I participated in a Psych study, which involved virtual reality. Very cool! I have to participate in 7 hours of Psych studies for my Psych class. Yay for being a guinea pig.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, and my sorority had a picnic to try and recruit new members. There was lots of delicious food, and we hung at in the fountain for a while (I swear that’s a normal thing to do here) to stay cool. I however had a few too many chocolate covered pretzels, and returned with a racing heart. Which transitions perfectly into the title of this post. Anyone interested in a challenge?

It’s that time of year. New year’s resolutions are long gone. The weather is getting nicer. If you’re like me and are constantly around sweets, maybe you’re also like me and have started giving in to them a tad too much. So who’s up for some Spring Cleaning? How about a no sweets challenge? Finish the month off right and join me in abstaining from sweets for the rest of this month. “Sweets” is kind of a loose term, so interpret it however works best and is most practical for you. For me, it means to avoid desserts, baked goods, muffins, waffles, etc. Anything too sweet. My yogurt is going to be as sweet as it gets. If you want to join in, just comment below and I’ll post tomorrow with everyone’s links! It’ll be fun, I promise! And I can offer some tips throughout the challenge. The most beneficial part of this challenge is it forces you to reflect on what you are really eating. And for me personally, it is an opportunity to get back into the healthier habits that I never seemed to be able to find after Spring Break.

On a similar note about healthy habits, I am currently trying to retrain myself to have a different routine upon entering my room. I completely cleaned up my room, so the environment is different. I am trying to train myself to chew gum upon returning, rather than snacking. Don’t you just love doing science experiments on yourself?

After the picnic, I wanted a light dinner so I went with another meal of yogurt. Image

I got this new Yoplait greek yogurt, and was surprised it only had 7 grams of sugar. Yet I had a vague feeling at the back of my mind that there was a reason I had never gotten it before. Sure enough, I realized it had Sucralose (artificial sweetener). Blech. I ate it anyway, since I don’t have that much yogurt, but it kind of stunk. I wish food labels had to advertise that they have artificial sweetener.

My night hopefully holds a workout. Maybe a bike ride before it gets dark, or some kind of gym thing if it’s later. I want to do my 6 mile run tomorrow morning. Have a great weekend!

Will you join my in my Spring Cleaning No Sweets Challenge? Comment below!

SO. EXCITED.

YAYYY IT’S FRIDAY! And guess what?? I’m throwing a guacamole party tonight! I’m so pumped, I LOOOOVE Spanish music. And I’m bringing this bad boy out. ImageYes, I own a sombrero.  🙂

I didn’t end up running this morning because I was up a bit late studying for a Psych midterm today. Breakfast was yogurt from the dining hall (non Greek, booo) with banana and sunflower seed butter, plus some pancakes. ImageMy midterm went well, I had an extra half an hour! After the morning’s pancakes, I settled on a south western chicken salad for lunch. ImageAnd I may or may not have gotten some chocolate mousse with my dining hall dollars. 

I’m seriously trying to break my habit of snacking, and in Psych we talked about Classical Conditioning. This is Pavlov’s dog; he rang a bell before feeding them so they started drooling as soon as he rang the bell. Me walking into my room after class is like ringing a bell. Step 1 was clean my room and create a different environment. It seriously needed it! Taking out the recycling….Image#Obsessed.

Step 2 was get a new habit/sport/after school activity. And today it occurred to me! Biking! I love Spin, so it seemed to be the next natural step, right? I twisted my ankle today walking out to my bike (yes, just walking) so I was glad my afternoon activity was biking and not running! It was an absolutely beautiful day, so this was perfect. And actual biking uses slightly different muscles than spinning, so my butt was burning! Also: at one point I had to stop to extricate a small animal from my eye…yayy flies. Here’s a picture I took then.ImageI need to find actual bike trails. I followed a sign to a bike bridge and was super excited, but it really wasn’t that exciting.ImageAnd then I found myself biking on a bike path through a park…which turned out to be SUPER small…ImageOverall though, I loved it! I was able to experience the world around me better than I can while running. I can definitely see this as becoming a hobby. And it is another step towards my dream of becoming a spin teacher!

When I returned, I began the process of cleaning my room while watching the news. I’ve been following the whole thing all day/night. It’s insane, and I am so glad the caught the bombers. Again, my heart goes out to anyone affected, and I give thanks to all the brave people who put these criminals to justice.

This evening, I went grocery shopping with my friends and sister in preparation for my guacamole party tonight. I also restocked yogurt, although they were out of all the non-expired of my favorite yogurts. Darn. It was almost 7 by the time we got back, and my roommate and I decided all we wanted for dinner was yogurt, so I skipped my sorority event and ate in. ImageThe last of my frozen pumpkin bread with vanilla greek yogurt and sunflower butter, and spinach/mixed veggies with a wedge of garlic and herb laughing cow. Hit the spot!

After dinner, I finished cleaning (and vacuumed, yay! The dorm vacuum had been MIA for a while…), and made my playlist for tonight. Have I mentioned I love Spanish music? 

I’ll let you all know how it goes tomorrow!

Do you have any fun hobbies? Are you “conditioned” to do anything?

Sleep? Pshhh

Tomorrow’s Friday! Woooo! Not a lot happened today. My morning started with a 7am spin class which was excellent. I had the biggest blueberry muffin craving so I went to the dining hall that has blueberry muffins, and it totally hit the spot!ImageI also discovered that this dining hall has Greek yogurt. It’s plain, but so, so good. They had sliced up melon and pineapple, so I ate those together. Yum! Since I’m out of yogurt in my room, I will definitely be going back there for breakfast. 

After my 9 am class, I had time for a nice nap before lunch. I don’t usually go to the dining hall for lunch because I’m usually out, but I went there today, and this is what I came out with:ImageCesar salad, broccoli, tofu, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Plus more salad and a cookie. Yeah, I don’t like eating lunch at the dining hall. I feel like it is too heavy and greasy for a mid day meal. Dining hall meals in general are not very satisfying, which is why I usually end up with some type of dessert…I also had a mango and cinnamon popcorn later on. 

After lunch, I went to my Psych section, and we got to examine and hold human brains! How cool is that?? I briefly considered trying to take a picture for the blog and then decided, yeahh I probably shouldn’t. For many reasons. 

In the evening, I went to a power yoga class, which was awesome as always. As you guys can probably tell, not a lot of excitement happening today. But that’s not a bad thing. Just not the best to blog about!ImageFor dinner, I whipped myself up an egg scramble in the microwave. This combo is one of my favorite meals. Egg whites, spinach, mozzarella, pesto, and avocado. So, so good. 

For dessert I decided to try my hand at a protein mug cake. ImageIt was warm and gooey. HOWEVER. I failed to add any sweetener besides my protein powder, so it basically tasted like cardboard. Yum. Next time folks, next time.

My roommate and I both eat similar things, and like to eat healthily. We also both really dislike our dining hall. She has a better excuse though, she has a pretty big gluten intolerance, and can’t eat hardly anything. So, I had a brilliant idea. We’re each going to make dinner once a week. I’m SOSOSOSO excited! I’m already brainstorming things to make. I love bowl meals, so prepare to see many more of those. And of course, everything should be microwave friendly.

This led into a discussion about food and food blogs. I don’t tell everyone I know about this blog, even though it is my baby. So I actually ended up showing it to her, along with some of my favorite blogs. She loves to bake and she loves photography, so she wants to start a food blog as well! Yay! I told her about how awesome you guys are and I think she’s convinced!

Well, this discussion occurred fairly late at night, when I should have been doing homework. So I went to bed pretty late, considering I woke up at 6:30. But it’s weird. It’s like I don’t need sleep anymore. I’m not tired all the time, and I’ve hardly slept this week. But I tend to stay up talking or whatnot because I’m just not tired. Avoiding grains as much as possible has certainly helped with my energy levels. Or something has. I realize at some point I will start getting tired, but I’m enjoying this while I can! Have a good night everybody!

Roll Outs

At my school, it is customary to “roll someone out” anytime they join any group on campus, and sororities are no exception. Roll outs involve the said group coming to your dorm room early in the morning and banging loudly on the door and screaming. Yes, this does wake up the whole dorm. I suppose that is the point. In case you’re wondering, a lot of times the groups have to climb in a VERY high window in the lounge. Since I’m always up early for workouts (and in the past, crew) I see  lot of these people. Funny story, one day I saw my sister mid-window in my dorm while I was leaving…ANYWAY. On the calendar we got, today had “surprise breakfast-8 am) listed. Good thing too, or I would have been at the gym! I was up at 6:15 to lift weights. I began with cleans, and actually got within 5 pounds of my 1 rep max for full cleans, even though I was only doing hang cleans! I decided not to push it because I’m scared to drop weights here. Maybe next time! I followed it with the same Crossfit style workout I did last week, 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 or bear complex and burpees. I started with a lighter bar (because last time I dropped down after the second set) but I improved my time by almost 5 minutes! Awesome! It was a quick and dirty workout. I was dripping and panting ], all in about 45 minutes. I got back with just enough time to get a shower in before my roll out. Yeah, good luck catching me asleep!

Most sororities here roll their girls out around 6, and get them black out drunk by 8. Yeahhh we didn’t do that. They took us to a nice breakfast with delicious pastries, and they gave me this:Image

SO CUTE. Breakfast was very carb-y, and I knew it would put me to sleep. Afterwards, I hit up the dining hall for some protein in the form of eggs and a little coffee. Yeahh my first class was interesting. I felt like the caffeine and carbs were at war in my body, one fighting to put me to sleep, the other to keep me awake. But I made it through. So maybe I can eat carbs if they’re always accompanied by coffee? Great plan, right?

For lunch, I decided I shouldn’t be spending so much money, and should take advantage of my meal plan, so I went to the cafeteria area to pick up a premade southwestern salad. Image

Truffles are on my meal plan too. 😉ImageImage

I was sort of planning on an afternoon run and yoga, but my knee was bothering me a little. I think I did something funny when I was catching one of my heavy cleans in a squat. I guess the rest worked, because it feels fine now! Snack was a yogurt bowl.Image

I believe that is the end of my yogurt. 🙁

For dinner, I ventured to the far side of campus to experience the finest dining hall. It turns out it was faculty night there, so the food was extra good, and it is already the best dining hall on campus. Image

Salad, breaded salmon, brussels sprouts that are actually cooked (crazy concept, right??), and the famed honey biscuits (in whole wheat and regular form). Yum! And dessert was chocolate fondue with the all kinds of things to dip. No picture though, whoops! Plus, since this is a peanut free dining hall, they had sunflower seed butter. Let’s be honest; I could never have that as my primary dining hall, and I’m glad it’s far away. I’d be 500 pounds! They had a menu up…they have CINNAMON ROLLS for breakfast. We have…toast. Meh. I’m sooo full though.

When I got back, I spent about an hour talking/complaining to my roommate about Nutrition and why our government stinks in this respect. I love that we can have conversations like this. There is some program that we saw that delivers produce to your doorstep, and I think we’re gonna split this. Kale is on sale…kale chips anyone? Finally something I can make in the kitchen that no one will want any of, haha!

So, some of you may have heard of Run for Boston. The idea is you get a big group of people together wearing blue and yellow and hold up signs saying Run for Boston, and then post them on the facebook page. Someone sent an email out at my school, and it sounded like it was going to be a big event. It was after dinner, and Iw as running on a very full stomach (and I may have eaten a cookie literally 2 minutes before leaving) but I figured a little stomach discomfort was the least I could do (it ended up being fine, by the way)

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I was expecting to get there and see a huge crowd of blue and yellow.

Nothing. All I saw were 2 people in blue running, and some frat boys pledging. Image

Shot gunning beers and then running in bathrobes and dresses? Why not?

I have never been so disappointed in my school as I have been regarding their response to the Boston tragedy. People talk about the “bubble” here, where you don’t really experience the outside world. I’ve never felt that more than with this. On Monday when I found out about the bombing, I went to the lounge to break the news to the people there. They knew. They just didn’t seem to care. I didn’t get it. How could their worlds not have shattered, like I had felt mine did? And today….really, no one could step away from their busy lives to show their support? I love my school, but my complaint is that they don’t seem to care about important events outside of school, and frankly I see that as a little selfish.

Either way, I’m glad I went. Image

Once I reached my destination, I decided to walk, because it offers me more time to think. I can never seem to get lost in my thoughts while running. I’m too busy thinking about running. Walking, however, is perfect. I don’t often walk in peaceful places, so this was the perfect opportunity to gather my thoughts. ImageImageImage

I decided that not only is my body strong, but I could be getting more out of it. This Marathon tragedy has inspired me to really get into running and push my limits. I really want to do a long run on my birthday. I would LOVE to get a 10 mile run in, but given my birthday is coming right up, I’m not sure that is possible. So I’m going to run for as long as I can on that day. For the next couple of weeks I’m going to shift my fitness focus towards running. I’m nixing my timed mile on Friday in favor of a longer run. Since I ran a 5 miler last week, I think I’ll try 6 on Friday. Happy running!

What do you do while running? Think? Listen to music?

MangosMangosMangos

Wow, long time, seriously no post! Want to know a result of my lack of posting? My phone keeps dying. Since I need my phone near me for my alarm, it does’t get to charge at night. So as it turns out, my phone’s main charging time is while I blog, when it is connected to my computer.

So why haven’t I been posting? I’ve been busy…This weekend was Rush. And my meals have been scattered and boring or odd, because rush was during dinnertime. Lots of protein bars were consumed. And I didn’t have a ton going on that was worth posting.

I’m supposed to reflect on my week for Operation: Get Healthy. To be honest, I completely forgot about it until I saw Miranda’s post. Oops. So in summary, I failed miserably, and have gone in the wrong direction. On the plus side, my exercise has gone mostly according to plan, although I decided upon waking up that Friday needed to be a rest day. Which was fine by me, I didn’t exactly plan a rest day into my workout plan, so it made sense to take it when I needed it.

Saturday morning I lifted weights, focusing on snatches (they needed work). I ended up doing a Crossfit style workout of snatches and box jumps, and ended up doing 65 snatches for the day. I thought I was going to be horribly sore, but I wasn’t!

After my workout, I went out to lunch with my parents at Calafia. I ordered a bowl that included lentils, quinoa, spinach, and yams in a curry sauce.

ImageYum!

Afterwards, we went to Cold Stone. I haven’t been there in ages. Did you know they have frozen yogurt now? I was sold. Their ice cream is pretty rich and usually gives me a stomachache, but the froyo was fine. Image

With cookie dough. 🙂

After lunch, we hit up Whole Foods. Soooo have I mentioned I love Manilla Mangos, that happen to be on sale at Whole Foods from now through summer? Well….

I would say that I am now the proud owner of 26 mangos. But I’d be lying. Because I’ve eaten some since Saturday. Yes, I bought 22 mangos (I had 4), but at a good price, I swear!Image

This is about half, the other half are in a basket. Now, I didn’t just wake up Saturday morning thinking, “I’m going to buy 22 mangos today.”

See, what happened was the green mangos were at the front of the store. SInce they weren’t that ripe, why not get 10? Oh, but 2 more to make it an even dozen.

Then, in the back of the store were the ripe mangos. And since the sale is by sets of 5 mangos…

Let’s just say I am quite pleased.

I also restocked yogurt. Whole Foods brand of greek yogurt is delicious! And the vanilla doesn’t have that much sugar, which is even more awesome.

Sunday was spent mainly avoiding my long run. I meant to do it right after waking up. Yeah, I did it at 3:30. But at least I did it! One reason I really wanted to run it was I wanted to clock the distance and try out my Garmin. I got it maybe 4 years ago. I never figured out how to charge it, so it lived in my closet for a few years. I took one look at the watch and the charger and said, “I am an idiot.” Yeah, it’s that easy to charge. Apparently it took a high school degree and half a year of college to acquire the knowledge to do that.

Anyway, the run. My guess was that it was about 5 miles. It was about 5.4. And folks, this is a HILL. The run takes me up into the hills on a paved trail past 2 satellite dishes, and is pretty brutal. To get to the trail is a mile. Then, it is 2 miles up and 1 mile down. And the first mile up is STEEP. Like REALLY STEEP. But I got it done and felt awesome.

I did this run a ton at the beginning of the school year when I was in good running shape from my 10k. I ran it 2 or 3 times a week easily. Yeesh. I’m far from those days.

The only food picture I have from Sunday is a yogurt bowl.Image

Vanilla greek yogurt, Sunflower butter, and an attempt at a 2 ingredient pancake with sweet potato instead of banana. ( Plus vanilla and cinnamon.) I wasn’t a big fan.

A brief Monday recap: I began my morning with a faster paced run, about 1.5 miles. I sped up my pace at each chorus of the songs I was listening to. Then, I did this morning that I found somewhere on the internet.Image

I wasn’t a big fan, since I’m used to using weights for these exercises. I could do body weight squats FOR DAYS. Buuuut I haven’t done hardly any push ups since getting sick, so like 2 months. Yeah. They were hard. And guess what? My abs are sore. From push ups. Cool. But hey, I guess if it gets the job done…Image

Breakfast wasn’t very good. For some reason my smoothie tasted weird. Maybe the watermelon was a bit too ripe. And the eggs and potatoes were kind of greasy…Image

Lunch: chicken sandwich, minus the bread. Because I can’t afford to fall asleep. On that note, I am seriously questioning how much this whole bread thing might have been affecting my academic performance. Let’s be honest here. I haven’t gotten a ton of sleep lately, although this is totally my fault, and my choice. But I’m still WAY more alert and awake in class, and guess what? When you’re alert and awake in class, the material makes much more sense, and is way easier to understand. Given that lack of sleep doesn’t cause the extreme drowsiness that bread did, I wonder how much better I would have grasped the material if I didn’t eat it.

Dinner yesterday was weird. I ate a little early, mostly because I wanted yogurt at like 4 o clock and decided it would be dinner. Image

I’m seriously considering making yogurt for dinner a regular thing, given how disappointing the dining halls have been at dinner lately, and since I always seem to want yogurt bowls. I just need to get enough veggies in throughout the day. And since I’m up later and want late night snacks (hence the failure of Operation: Get Healthy), maybe late night veggies are in order?

This morning I went to a Spin class. I like that it leaves my legs burning a little throughout the morning. This is what I used to get last year after spin (before I got in crazy good shape over the summer).

Breakfast was a quick one in my room. Image

Microwave egg scramble with veggies, nutritional yeast, and avocado. Made in the microwave! Plus some strawberries.

Lunch was a corn and black bean salad, although there was hardly any lettuce!Image

And snack was another yogurt bowl. Surprise, surprise. And a mango…surprise again, haha!Image

Dinner was super boring, but healthy (blah blah). Image

As I was tell you all earlier, I went through the rush process, and am actually pledging today, which I didn’t really expect to do. Let’s just say I was sold when i sat down last night, and the girl who was chatting with me suggested I take off my heels. I have a celebration for that tonight.

Not going to lie, I’m a little concerned about maintaining healthy habits with a ton of social events that will probably involve food, especially since this week I’m getting serious about achieving my health goals. I’m not sure what else to say about my goals other than I really need to take them seriously, as getting back into a good routine at school has been tough (read: it hasn’t happened). I think I’m going to talk to a nutritionist to help me with all this, because being healthy in college can get difficult!

What is your favorite type of yogurt?