Monthly Archives: April 2014

WIAW-Short and Sweet

Happy WIAW! Today’s post is going to be short and sweet (literally sweet!). Yayy midterm season. On the plus side, I’m starting to regain my Spanish (ish) accent thanks to singing along to lots of Spanish songs. I love Spanish music!

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…And that was clearly a relevant into to WIAW!

I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired in terms of blogging lately, and I think it may reflect the fact that I’ve been struggling to maintain good eating habits as of late as well. That’s definitely something to work on! I’m past the point in my life where I freak out about my eating habits sliding, and instead I just accept that it happens and eventually will work itself out. More veggies are in order-that usually helps!

So, here are some shots from the past couple of days!

A cappuccino was clearly in order on  Monday morning…

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The craziest thing happened…I drank beet juice and didn’t hate it completely! I keep buying vegetable juice thinking I’m going to like it, and more often than not, this isn’t the case. This was was pretty good-beets, apples, cranberries, cucumbers, and ginger among other things I’m most likely forgetting. And it was such a pretty color!

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Dining hall dinners are, as always, a thing. This one was fairly unexciting-quinoa, salad, roasted cinnamon carrots (ok, those were exciting), and overcooked fish.

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Monday night, a late night bout of deliciousness happened. We have a place on campus open late, and I’ve seen people before with these incredible, giant, chocolately creations, so with the help of my sister, it was time to try it out. This was a HOT gooey brownie, topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. It was as good as it sounds. Sadly, the ice cream fell off before I could get a good picture!

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This morning, I did a track workout. I did 5x1000m at a 10k pace. I’m liking the 10k pace for longer track workouts or for longer intervals. It’s much easier mentally to not totally be dying! Plus, not dying is good since I’m just getting back into speed work! After my workout, I made what is probably my new favorite breakfast: quinoa (Trader Joe’s has pre-cooked frozen, for those of us without kitchens, or who are lazy-I won’t judge!), kale, tomato, and basil, mixed up and topped with roasted sunflower seeds. The fresh basil totally makes this dish!

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Today was an absolutely beautiful day. Or a hot day, depending on your opinion. It was 90-but I’ve spent so many years roasting my brains out at hot softball fields (117-sounds like great softball weather!) that I think my body has permanently adjusted to not really feeling heat. Anyways, I spent the afternoon outside biking around campus and looking at plants for my Bio problem set. True Bio problems.

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And getting a tan. Clearly. Hah. I’m 99% sure given my skin tone that I have a much better chance of turning myself orange from eating to many carrots than getting tan. Such is the life of a person with an off-snow skin tone.

And here are some artsy-ish/I needed pictures to refer to later when doing my homework shots.

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It occurred to me that I have such a beautiful campus, and really need to bike around and take pictures of it for you all to see!

Afterwards, it was hot so the logical conclusion is gelato. Right…?

Salted caramel gelato, which i garnished with a chocolate covered pretzel.

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Dinner was a quick one thrown together by yours truly. A bed of kale, shredded chicken meatballs, a baby sweet potato, salsa, and of course, the most important component, avocado.

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…and now I desperately need to return to studying. So much for SHORT and sweet!

How’s the weather where you are? What do you eat when it gets hot?

Typical Mid-Quarter Crisis

Guys, I think I’m losing my mind again. I’m having my typical mid-quarter crisis. This is different than my usual one-normally it’s something like “I’m not good enough for this” and “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.” This time, it’s more of “I don’t know what I’m doing with my time,” and “I need other non-academic goals.” So I spent a lot of time pondering my life and my free time, and deciding what I should be doing with my non-academic life. Suggestions would be welcome. So far all I’ve come up with is I need to think more and that maybe I should sign up for a 5k before I go to DC this summer to try and finally PR. I guess I just kind of feel lost-in high school, I played softball ALL THE TIME. I had goals, and I worked hard for them. And now…I don’t know what I have! I need something to work towards! Something with structure-something I can accomplish! Google suggested I learn web design. Maybe… In other, less delirious things, I FINALLY went to the Farmer’s Market today. I didn’t get that many things though. A few Asian pears, and dried persimmons. The oranges were also really good, but we get them in our CSA box, so I figured I would pass.

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I did get this carrot cake muffin though. Whole wheat, and free of refined sugar! And more importantly-no nuts! Although I think I sort of freaked out the person giving out free samples. She handed me something with maybe a single nut in it, and asked if I could eat nuts. To which I responded, “Not in large quantities.” Probably not the best thing to tell someone…. My only other food picture of the day was taken at dinner.

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Some type of spinach pastry thing, sweet potatoes, and cabbage salad. Over dinner with my friend, I discussed other potential goals for me to do with my life. We talked about trying to eat 300g of fiber everyday…or becoming a carrotarian, and eating nothing but mass quantities of roasted carrots. Somehow that idea didn’t win… Today ended up being a rest day on the workout front. I took a pretty intense nap-does that count? I think it was much needed! Now, however, it is time to return to studying for a Bio test tomorrow. Have a great Monday!

Food and Fitness Lately

Who’s happy it is the weekend? My weekend is super low key. I’m currently watching the Giant’s game on TV, and I don’t have a ton to do this weekend. My quarter has been weird-some nights I have a ton of work to do, but at the end of the week it’s basically nothing. Odd.

Since it’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, I thought I’d share some photos!

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The last of my Easter eggs! It only took a few days to eat them all, with the help of my roommate of course!

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Lunchtime coffee…which really was the main event but there was also a veggie sandwich in there. I did it for the avocado!

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Ok, I promise this is better than it looks. I made a little pretzel dip out of mashed banana mixed with sunflower seed butter. Super tasty! You could definitely do this with peanut butter, or any nut butter.

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One of my school’s cafe-type of places recently started carrying green smoothies. Clearly, I had to try it out. It was very mango-orangey! And definitely a bit chunky-my friends thought it was guacamole! I love avocados but I’d have to draw the line at drinking them through a straw!

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This cappuccino has a twist…it’s decaf! Crazy, right? This was the morning after I took Benadryl, so I slept REALLY well. Haha!

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Check out this new Trader Joe’s purchase-I just had to get it, didn’t I?? The verdict-good but surprisingly subtle. I put mine in eggs, which I will admit, looks a bit odd.

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So…the other day, I finally broke out my blender. I’ve been wanting to make a chocolate mint smoothie forever, and since I had fresh mint, it was time. So-I’m pretty sure the last time I used my blender was when I tried to make a chocolate mint smoothie and put in way too much mint extract…which was 1.5 years ago.

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In the mix was lots of fresh mint, cocoa powder, frozen banana, almond milk, and chocolate whey protein. It tasted just like a milkshake!

There was a bit of an…issue. My blender is a tiny, one person blender. It also has individual cups that you can screw into the blade to make the smoothie into a cup. I’ve never used it like that before, so I thought I’d try it because it would mean less clean up. (HAH.) Well…this requires turning the cup upside down. I blended up banana and almond milk, and was ready to add everything else…when I accidentally unscrewed the cup in the blender base…upside down. Which meant I opened the contents of the cup all over my desk. It was fabulous. Thanks to amazing reflexes, I managed to not drip it all over my chair and the carpet…but yeah. The smoothie pictured above is 2.0.

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Yesterday, the craziest thing happened. It rained. AND I didn’t have a race! This is the only time all year that it has rained without me having a race that week. I’m 100% serious. It’s also Admit Weekend, where all the prospective freshman come and stay. Why am I telling you this? I wanted something warm for lunch, at a place that didn’t have a million prospective students. A little cafe tucked into a basement in the corner of the quad was perfect. A tomato and mozzarella panini!

And lastly:

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I went on a mango run post-Crossfit. And also picked up a green smoothie and blueberry muffin. I may have to make this a Saturday morning tradition!

On the fitness front:

Thursday morning I did an abbreviated version of my treadmill workout. I haven’t done much speed work lately, and I wasn’t exactly loaded with time, so I did 7 intervals instead of 10 and shortened the warm up to .5 miles. In the afternoon, I had my last sound wave treatment on my Achilles. My Achilles wasn’t doing so well last week, but the good news is it seems to be feeling a bit better now. The treatment can actually take up to 3 months to work! So we shall see.

Friday morning I did a bit of Spin on my own. And made the poor decision to do a late night rowing workout after sitting around all day. I rowed about 6k (which would have been nothing to my former self) at like 10pm…So at Crossfit this morning my legs started out feeling heavy! This morning’s Crossfit was called “Lumberjack 20” which was the following:

20 deadlifts (I used 165 lbs)

400m run

20 kettlebell swings

400m run

20 overhead squats (I used 65 lbs)

400m run

20 burpees

400m run

20 pull ups

400m run

20 box jumps

400m run

20 dumbbell cleans

400m run

It was a long one! It took me just over half an hour!

That’s all I have today-I hope everyone has a great weekend!

How did you move this week?

Crossing the Line-Are We All Addicts?

Hello, hello! Today’s post is coming up a bit sooner than usual because tonight I desperately need to take Benadryl, which will likely knock me out. Let’s just say I’m not responding well to the single peanut butter egg I had on Easter…the fact that my allergy/whatever it is seems to be getting much worse is really concerning to me, and I’m going to see an allergist in a few week!

But on to today’s topic.

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Sweat pours down your face, your muscles scream, your stomach is rising to your throat.

How many people crave this feeling? That feeling of pain? Accomplishment?

Ok-now how many of you get anxious when you don’t work out one day?

Today’s topic is a bit of a touchy one in the healthy living blogosphere, but I think it’s extremely important to address. What is exercise addiction? Is it bad? Where do we draw the line?

First of all, exercise addiction is very real. Exercise can take over your life, just like other acute substances of abuse. It can make you high. It can wear your body into the ground. And it has some very similar neurological effects to other addictive drugs.

One study found that mice who exercised had the same withdrawal symptoms as heroin addicts when given medication that traditionally created withdrawal in heroin addicts. When the mice experienced these withdrawals, it strengthened their exercise addiction. The worse the withdrawals, the more they ran, and the worse the withdrawals became as they ran more. They essentially ran themselves into the ground, losing extreme amounts of weight in the process. So-the neurological pathways of exercise addiction and heroin addiction? Very similar.

I think differentiating between exercise addiction and being an athlete is very difficult. If you exercise for 3 or 4 hours a day, are you addicted? Or just training for an event? Could all endurance athletes be exercise addicts? Why else put themselves through all the pain?

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And is exercise addiction really so bad of a thing? I highly suggest reading this article. Here’s a quote from an exercise addict: “I’ve ended relationships, left jobs, lost friends, not gone on vacations, alienated family members, significantly pissed off fellow gym-goers, and sustained some seriously un-fun injuries.”

How many of you guys can relate to any of these? For “training”? Or because you couldn’t skip it? I’m not claiming that every elite athlete is an exercise addict, but I think it is an interesting question to consider when defining exercise addiction.

Additionally, I’m becoming concerned about the language of some of the “exercise motivation” pictures I’ve been seeing pop up on social media. The one that drives me crazy says something like “Pain is okay, puking is okay, tears are okay, but quitting is not.” It’s incredibly dangerous that as a society we are normalizing things like this. I’m sorry, but I don’t think anyone should regularly puke in a workout, or should push through puke. There’s a difference between pushing yourself, and pushing yourself too hard.

We’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic. Anyone who exercises is applauded. But exercise does have a darker side, and we’re normalizing exercise addiction. If you consistently kill yourself at the gym or track for hours and hours and hours every single day, your body will break down. Sure, you may be training. But what exactly are you going to be training for when you become barely able to walk?

It’s great that we’re encouraging exercise, and that people are exercising more. But pushing exercise as an addiction is not ok.

What are your thoughts on exercise addiction?

 

 

Earth Day Celebrations

Happy Earth Day! Did everyone realize it was Earth Day? I would have totally forgotten if it weren’t for several Earth Day Celebrations around campus. In honor of Mother Earth, let’s go through some Earth Day eats, shall we? As always, a huge THANKS to Jenn for hosting!

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Also, you will have to excuse me for my mind is mush. I just spent 3 hours typing away on a paper, and I’ve spent about 6 hours total today alone on it. But it is done! Yay! And it was a super cool topic that I loved researching-the effect of exercise on recovery from drug addiction. If anyone is interested in this, let me know and I can talk more about it or provide links!

My morning started off with a KIND bar before spin. Normally I don’t eat before Spin, but I was starving so I went for it!

After spin?

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While sure, the designs that have been decorating my milk foam lately are cute, nothing compares to the flavor of unadulterated milk foam.

Then, it was time for Operation Eat All the Eggs part 2. This morning, I mashed up a couple of eggs with a triangle of garlic and herb laughing cow, and served it with a mango.

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Nothing too crazy to share from the middle of the day except this fun fruit snacks I received in my Easter basket. I regret not brining more than 2 back to school with me!

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They made the perfect pre-workout fuel, when paired with an egg!

I had planned on going to Crossfit tonight, but because of the aforementioned paper due tonight at 11:59pm, I wanted something quicker. I randomly remembered the Nike Training Center app I downloaded a few months ago and never tried. I decided to try and advanced cardio workout, which used minimal equipment and included lots of jumps. I want to work on plyos/agility/sprints more so this was perfect. I really liked the workout-my quads were burning in a way they haven’t in a while from all the jumping! If anyone is interested, I did the Heartthrob. I have to say though, the practicality of using a app was not necessarily there. I don’t have my phone armband with me…so I was holding my phone with my headphones and instructions. And my headphones kept getting involved in my jumps. Plus, I would have loved more space. I think in the future, I’d skip the medicine ball (which I only used for like 1 movement) and take this workout outside, where I’d have more space and where I could blast it out loud without having to hold it or have headphones. And I think this would be absolutely amazing paired with some sprints (which I also really should work on). And now it sounds like I’m talking about fine wine…

The app talks to you while you workout, telling you how much time/what exercise/etc. But it also gives encouragement, which I found sort of funny because a very monotone, sort of computer sounding voice kept saying things like “Fight through the pain.” Seriously, I think my GPS has more animation! I will definitely be using it again though!

I didn’t realize the dining halls were doing anything special for Earth Day until I saw a Facebook post of some of the food they posted (yes, I am friends with my school’s dining hall on Facebook-that just about describes my life). I didn’t realize it was a huge event, but I ended up going with some friends anyway in the hopes of better than normal food.

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There were plants everywhere, and special booths set up giving out free food samples, fresh herbs and strawberries, and even seedlings!

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And there were piles and piles of salads-salads as far as the eye could see. My favorite was the beet and goat cheese-the goat cheese was so soft and creamy! And I appreciated that none of the salads had nuts! Also a highlight was some delicious, actually cooked and seasoned cauliflower! Without a doubt the best meal at this dining hall ever.

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Sadly, you can’t see in this picture, but I picked up a bunch of fresh mint (although it wilted pretty fast!) which I intend to throw in a smoothie later this week!

I also sampled a little whole wheat, mustard greens filled tart which was delicious.

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While I was contemplating a fresh, local, organic ice cream sandwich, I somehow got pulled into the “Trash-ion Show” which was a contest to build the best outfit out of trash or discarded materials. I took the matter at hand very seriously, and spent a majority of the time fashioning an attractive and structurally sound hat out of leaves and a plastic basket. I thought our finished product was fantastic-we had a nice little matching ribbon thing going there!-and apparently the judges did as well-we won!

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Besides the glory of victory, each member of my team received a super fancy trophy and an amazing gift basket!

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The gift basket included all kinds of organic goodies like apple chips, pasta, almond milk, and Annie’s pretzel bunnies. I’m also pretty excited for the basket, not going to lie. Think of how many mangoes that thing can fit! Mango shopping clearly needs to happen soon.

To celebrate my victory, I split an ice cream sandwich with a friend.IMG_7406

On the way out, there was a table giving out baby plants. And you know I’m not one to pass up on that! I think this guy is a little baby Oregano, but I’m not sure!

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He has found a new, probably temporary home with my big old plumeria!

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Aaaand now I’m off to an early night’s sleep. Well, relatively at least!

How did you celebrate Earth Day?