Monthly Archives: June 2015

The Answer Should Be Yes

Well hello guys! It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? My life has literally been nothing but the vet lately. Animals are taking over my life. Because then I come home to a crazy pup and a needy kitty!

I’ve had no energy or desire to pop open my computer these past few days. The first couple of days were totally exhausting, and my brain shut down before 10pm. Yesterday I started work at 7. I’m there for 9 hours a day, including lunch, and I’m on my feet the entire time. Needless to say, my feet haven’t been too happy about this! I love working at the vet though-I’m getting the hang of things much faster when I’m there 40 hours a week rather than the 4 hours a week I had been doing during school.

What else have I done this week? I went to the Farmer’s Market on Thursday-there’s one in the evenings right next to work on Thursdays. I’ve done some workouts, including teaching my spin class. One workout in particular I’d like to mention is the reason my legs are currently sore, and will only get more sore.

I mentioned it before, but I’m working with a trainer this summer. I trained with him all throughout high school, and in just the 2 weeks I’ve been with him this summer, everything is improving. My Olympic lifting technique is improving rapidly. In Crossfit, I feel like the strength/Oly portion gets glossed over on the way to the WOD, so this is really good. I still need to get a little more confident in my lifts, and my max weights should go up even more. Yesterday we did both snatches and cleans. I PRed my snatch again this week-from the power position. How crazy is that?? Then we did squats. I’m on a lifting program, and this week was sets of 10, 10, and 8. Yuck. High rep squats are the worst. My first set of 10 was 145#, my second was 155#, and my set of 8 was 165#. I can confidently say I’ve never done a set of 10 at 155# before. The thing though is, I never doubted that I wasn’t going to make these lifts. I think the mental aspect of weightlifting is incredibly important, and in high school, this is something that really shaped me in other areas of my life, which is one reason I fell in love with weight lifting. I actually wrote part of my college admissions essay about this. I can’t believe I’m actually sharing this, but I think it is really important so here’s a little excerpt:

“In weightlifting, I learned to push through mental roadblocks, launching myself into uncharted territory. With my mind, I could push my body further than with sheer strength. With difficult lifts, I found that if the thought of failure crept into my mind, I would instantly fail.”

Also note that I was a much better writer 3 years ago-being a science major does not foster the same types of skills…

I think that weightlifting has been a huge influence in shaping who I am.

Anyways, back to the workout. After squats was push presses and bent over rows. Then conditioning. My trainer asked me how my legs were. I said they were okay, to which he replied, “Oh, I thought they’d be shot.”

The answer should be yes, they were shot, because then I proceeded to do conditioning full of burpees.

6 minutes, on the minute:

1. 1 power clean (85#), 10 burpees

2.  2 power cleans, 8 burpees

3. 3 power cleans, 6 burpees

4. 4 power cleans, 4 burpees

5. 5 power cleans, 2 burpees

6. 6 power cleans, 1 burpee

I honestly surprised myself that I even finished 10 burpees in a minute!

But yes, now I’m feeling those squats. I started to get sore 2 hours later. So this should be interesting.

Foodwise?

Breakfasts

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I mashed up a ripe banana with cocoa powder and then stirred in oats. I topped all that with plain Greek yogurt and sunflower seed butter.

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Eggs+oatmeal. My berries to oatmeal ratio was 2:1 which was just about right. Oatmeal isn’t exactly my thing.

Lunch

For the first half of this week, I packed really unphotogenic sweet potatoes stuffed with black bean soup, chicken, and avocado. Plus a veggie. I’ll spare you the pictures. I finally settled on a favorite work lunch of a salad with dates, feta, chicken, nectarines, and champagne vinaigrette.

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Dinner

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Black bean soup with cheese and avocado.

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Salad with corn and avocado, topped with Trader Joe’s BBQ chicken.

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Parmesan encrusted chicken over garlic spinach, with a sweet potato on the side.

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Take out-a chicken burger with dijon and avocado on a gluten free bun.

And of course-this is necessary:

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How was your week?

 

Weekend Adventures

I start my summer job tomorrow, but this was a great kickoff weekend! I had some college friends stay with me, and it was an awesome time!

We started with a home-cooked meal of my guacamole salad on Thursday night.

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Friday morning, we were up early to head into the city! (SF)

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Despite the fact that I went to the Ferry building a week ago with another friend, that’s where we were headed!

It was an absolutely beautiful day in the city.

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I was actually pretty warm in my long sleeves and boots! Gotta love San Francisco.

We explored the Ferry building a bit before grabbing lunch. We are all very indecisive people, but eventually settled on a cafe. I had a beautiful rotisserie chicken, and an amazing salad with nectarines, feta, and dates. I will definitely recreate that salad for the blog!

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We walked around about before grabbing ice cream to take outside.

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I had olive oil ice cream with fudge sauce. I didn’t think I’d like the olive oil flavor, but it was delicious! It had a touch of orange, and the savory-ness of the olive oil had a similar effect as salted caramel does.

After enjoying the sunshine, we made the trek back to meet up with another graduated friend for dinner. It was a Mexican restaurant, and I had a delicious salad with cheese, avocado, pumpkin seeds, and chicken. Plus plenty of chips and salsa!

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I also split a side of plantains.

Unfortunately, that night one of my friends had to leave, so the next morning two of us made the drive to Monterey. My friend returned from South Africa on Thursday (I picked her up at the airport), and I moved her into her summer apartment in Monterey.

On the way up, I had to offer her the true California experience by stopping at a fruit stand for cherries in Gilroy.

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We rolled in around lunchtime, and hit up the Giant Artichoke for lunch. My friend had never had whole artichokes, so I showed her how to eat the leaves.

I’m so spoiled in CA.

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For my main meal, I ordered an artichoke veggie sandwich and skipped the bread.

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After lunch, we explored Cannery Row first by foot.

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It was definitely cool out! Highs in the 60s. While walking, we saw a sign for “free chocolate tasting,” and wandered into a shop that offered chocolate tasting with a complimentary mini glass of wine for only $3!

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We got to pick out which chocolates we tasted-mine were mostly caramels because I’m nut-free. The salted caramel was delicious, but I went home with the caramel apple chocolate-it tasted just like fall and was very unique!

Then, I showed my friend how to explore Monterey in style. In a surrey-a sleek 4 wheeled bike.

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I had the pleasure of driving this bad boy.

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It was a great way to get in some movement and take in the beautiful views of the water.

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Neither of us was in the mood for a big-deal dinner, so we stopped at a little Indian cafe. I was hoping for more vegetables, but the food was good!

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We were both stuffed by the end!

It was sad leaving my friend this morning, but it was such an awesome weekend full of friends and adventure!

What did you do this weekend?

Busy but Not Busy

Hey guys! This week has flown by. What did I even do?? I start work next week!

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Sunday evening I went to the county fair. I went by myself, and it was 95% just to see the animals! I seriously contemplated buying a cow.

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Plus there was a petting zoo! Totally worth the $3 to feed the ruminants. Speaking of which-guess what just came on Amazon? I’m pretty pumped to read this. Yes, this is a textbook on the digestive system of ruminants (cows and goats and sheep, etc)

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Workout wise this week, I’ve done some morning Crossfit, some spin, and some workouts with my old trainer from when I was in high school! I first lifted weights with him. I was concerned coming back given the last time I trained with him I was in the best shape of my life, but it’s been good! I actually PRed my snatch by 8 pounds today. Except it was from the high hang-not even the mid hang. For those that don’t know much about weightlifting, usually you start from the ground because you get more power. Also-it was a power snatch not a full snatch. What all this means is I’m a lot stronger than my PR and next time I do full snatches I should be able to get even heavier! Technique is everything! Now all my lifts are in the triple digits!

On Monday he went easy on me and we didn’t do much conditioning, but today I had conditioning involving intervals of slam balls and max effort 250m rows. Killer.

Foodwise, what’s been going on around here?

Breakfast

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Eggs, oatmeal, and fruit are the current formula. A couple of days ago I made oatmeal with cocoa powder stirred in (and a banana). I make a big batch and then can have it throughout the week. It was super convenient to grab a few bites before morning Crossfit!

Lunch

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A sweet potato stuffed with chicken, spinach, salsa, cheese, and guacamole. This is great for a quick lunch!

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Super ugly but got the job done-spinach, quinoa veggie blend, and chicken maple apple sausage. Plus guacamole and carrots. I love these individual packs of guacamole!

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Lunch with my sister! A turkey sandwich with smoked gouda. I ate the insides out since I’m not doing gluten right now. On a side note-my stomach seems to be healed!

Dinner

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Brussels, laughing cow, and maple apple chicken sausage. This is an old Carrots N Cake recipe!

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Chicken vegetable soup with a side caesar salad (which was massive).

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A frittata with potatoes and cheddar, broccoli, and Trader Joe’s Polenta.

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Homemade banana ice cream. Banana, cocoa powder, and a touch of milk to get it moving.

Puppy

I swear she’s gotten so much bigger already! She went from 8.5 to 11 pounds in the first week we had her! Her snout and body are both longer, and yesterday she seemed to find her bark. She can be a handful-sometimes she goes psycho-puppy on us and is a biting machine that cannot be contained. She’s an angel when sleeping.

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My friends came over to visit her yesterday evening. Totally already killing her selfie game!

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SF Workout and Ballgame

Well guys, I am tired but I’m supposed to be keeping the puppy awake, which is not really working out too well. When puppies want to sleep, they SLEEP.

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Friday was an awesome first real full day of summer. I started the morning with my current go-to breakfast-oatmeal, eggs, and blueberries.

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I cooked the oatmeal on the stovetop with plain soy milk, banana, and vanilla extract. I made a big batch so I’ve been eating the rest of it every day since!

Then, midmorning my high school friend and I headed up to San Francisco for a workout adventure! While in DC, I did some Outruns, were were group runs mixed with bootcamp stops. I thought it would be fun to do it here, so I created a little workout for us. We started at the Ferry building.

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And then ran on the Embarcadero towards Fisherman’s wharf. We covered a total of 3 miles, and stopped every half mile for a bootcamp session.

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These were our stations:

1. 6 minutes: 1 min each 2x of jumping jacks, mountain climbers, and plank

2. 5 minute AMRAP: 5 squat jumps, 10 lunges each side, 10 plank dips

3. Abs (I’m still sore from this one): 6 minutes, 1 minute each: plank, Russian twist, bicycle, in and out, plank, Russian twist

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(Meeting a friendly dog mid-plank.)

4. 3 sets of 10 squats

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5. On a bench, 3 sets of 10 each: push ups, step ups, dips

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The whole point of starting at the Ferry building (besides the fact that it was flat) was to grab lunch there afterwards, and we were more than ready post-workout! Since I’m not eat gluten right now, I was excited to see a Gluten-free cafe!

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I got a turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce on a gluten free roll. It was an absolutely beautiful day in the city, so we enjoyed lunch outside with a view.

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We stopped at an ice cream place for dessert.

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The secret breakfast is their most famous flavor, but I went with salted caramel cacao nib, which was delicious!

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I also picked up a gluten free pumpkin chocolate chip muffin to go from the cafe.

That evening, I went to a Giant’s game with my dad-my first of the season. We have the prettiest ballpark.

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Unfortunately, we lost, but it was still awesome to be back there! Also-how cool is this-we now have a garden, with an avocado tree!

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They have two food vendors there, and I was able to watch the game while enjoying an asparagus salad with truffle oil, and a gluten free flatbread with roasted asparagus.

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SO good!

Hopefully next time we bring home the win!

What was your last workout?

Do you watch baseball?

 

SUMMER

Guess what? It’s officially summer for me! Which means more blog time and puppy time!

I finished my last final Wednesday afternoon, and was almost immediately on puppy duty-she came to school and got to meet all my friends!

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I didn’t actually move out of my dorm until yesterday though.

 

Moving out is always fun….I always forget how much stuff it actually is! I managed to be pretty efficient though-I think the whole process took 4 hours, which seems like a long time but could be much worse.

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First item of business back was a workout at my home Crossfit! I have a feeling I’m just going to be really sore a lot of the time these first few weeks. The stuff we do there is harder. Thursday’s workout was rope climbs, ring rows, and bent over rows, and then the following WOD:

10 rounds:

10 push jerks

10 hand release push ups

10 knees to elbow or V ups

My arms are still so sore 2 days later.

Here are Thursday’s meals. I’m trying to balance my meals more with protein, carbs, and vegetables.

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The dining hall was closed so a sort of random breakfast-formerly frozen mashed sweet potatoes, and cottage cheese with sun butter and blueberries.

Lunch was a Trader Joe’s salad with chicken, dried cranberries, kale, broccoli slaw, and sunflower seeds.

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And finally, my first dinner home was guacamole salad with a side of brown rice/quinoa.

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On the way home from Crossfit, I picked up some Greek yogurt bars. The verdict? Good! Light and perfect for summer, and not too sweet!

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I have another post with some SF adventures to come!