I think it’s been hot here, but I’ve actually been FREEZING all day inside! And I didn’t pack  single long sleeve shirt to wear for warmth. 

I wanted to talk a bit about food+fitness while I’m here. I currently don’t have a gym membership or a Crossfit membership, and I’m trying to figure out how I want to do things. I’m not off soon enough to make any evening Crossfit classes, but I could potentially make a 5:30am one. That being said, what I’m doing is important and I really don’t want to be tired all day, or the days will be rough. I might get some drop in Crossfit classes and go 2x/week, or I might do a gym membership and go after I get off. Crossfit is about 4 miles closer than the nearest gym though, and a lot of gyms are really hard to join for a month (because they’re impossible to cancel). This all would be a lot easier if I could just go for a run for exercise! I’m hoping that by the end of my time here I’ll be able to a bit. So far, my foot is feeling good, despite long hours standing on it.

Workouts so far this week:

Monday night (after dinner): 15 minute Blogilates abs video: Extreme Abs 3. Who knows, maybe I’ll be crazy out of shape but have super strong abs by the end of the summer??

Tuesday night: I did the inside of Murph (sort of). There’s plenty of space in my dorm to exercise, so I did 100 sit ups (in place of pull ups), 200 push ups, 300 squats. I broke that up into 20 rounds of 5-10-15. It felt SO much easier than actually doing Murph! I did work up a little sweat though.

That did have me craving harder workouts again though! Still not sure what I want to do.

In terms of food, I’ve been sort of lazy. Breakfasts have been Luna bar+fruit (I had the BEST watermelon on Monday!). Lunches have been packed—nothing complicated because I was super tired by the time I got to the grocery and didn’t buy much, plus I wasn’t sure how much time I would have. They’ve just been sunbutter and raspberry jam on gluten free bread. The bread is frozen, so I actually make my sandwich on frozen bread, then stick the whole thing in the fridge the night before. It’s been pretty good by lunchtime! On the side, I’ve been having some of the awful snap peas. I also threw in some blueberries today that I brought with me all the way from California! They are far better than the blueberries I’ve been getting here. For a snack, I’ve been having chocolate cupcake Luna bars. I think they’re growing on me, but today was the last one I had, and they’re hard to find!

Dinners have involved this exciting find:

I mostly was excited to find thin sweet potato that I could quickly sauté up. Dinner on Monday was this served alongside some spinach patties (frozen).

Since this was clearly not enough food, I also had some snacks (banana+frozen grapes, sunbutter and jelly toast).

I actually planned my workout around tonight’s dinner. I wanted to roast some stir fry veggies that I bought, so I wanted something I could do in the dorm while those all were roasting.

I actually ended up eating the entire container because they shrunk SO much! I had that with a hemp+greens veggie burger. I actually loved this! I loved the subtle hemp flavor.

That’s all for now! Still not sure what tomorrow’s workout will look like. I also desperately need to hit up the grocery for more veggies!

What is your favorite at home workout? 

Second of all-I guess this makes the first post on my ‘journey’?

My morning began with a trip to the gym. I’m teaching spin this weekend, and my playlist was pretty terrible, so I had to make some adjustments. It was 1000x better afterwards! Phew! I want to practice it one more time before teaching though. I also did some abs (because I never do them) and calf raises because I’m hoping strengthening my calves will help my plantar fasciitis. Hopefully.

Normally I would do a dining hall breakfast but it was already closed so I had a banana and sun butter in my room, followed by a persimmon.

I ended up only having one class today, which was unexpected. My lab was postponed due to a gas leak in the building, so I gained 4 hours in the afternoon.

For lunch, I went to the dining hall with my friend.

Clam chowder (surprisingly good), salad, kabocha, and a small slice of super thin crust pizza.

I also had 1.5 small cookies.

My afternoon wasn’t nearly as productive as it should have been, but such is life. For a snack, I munched on some sweet potato tortilla chips-seriously, these are good! I also had a pomegranate.

My roommate brought these back from her farm (right??) and it was so good! That being said, if you want an exercise in mindful eating…this thing was so difficult to eat! And my desk looked like a murder scene afterwards.

After studying for chem, I went to Crossfit. We usually have one class a week that is just strength, which was what today was. Before I get into that, let me just say that today is the first day since MONDAY that I’ve been able to walk like a somewhat normal person. Apparently we started this new program that includes high reps of squats. I don’t think I’ve ever done a set of 10 weighted squats. My gosh. That was Monday night. I went in again Tuesday morning where we proceeded to do 120 wall balls and 50 air squats. Yeah. I’m still sore, and I’m hoping today doesn’t make me unable to walk tomorrow. I love weights…but man.

Today was…more squats. Yay? It went better than I was expecting. We did sets of 8, which wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. We also did 5 minutes of rowing, stiff leg deadlifts, and planks. So a pretty low key day.

For dinner, I made some wraps in my room. Turkey, garlic and herb laughing cow, spinach, and red pepper on a whole wheat tortilla.

I downloaded a Blogilates meal plan a while ago, and while I never really followed it, I’m a fan of these guys. They are easy dorm food, super filling, and I’m already dreaming up variations.

After dinner, I was still hungry and craving something sweet so I thawed out a couple of frozen pumpkin muffins.

These probably weren’t the best choice. What I really want is to make some pumpkin bread. I have a fantastic healthy recipe, but I’d need to go home to do it because I have no ingredients here. I also desperately need something for before morning Crossfit, which I’ve been going to more. Back in the day when I used to do morning weights, I always had banana bread or some type of quick bread and it worked great. I just don’t really have many carb sources in my room right now, and I always get so light headed so that needs to change!

Overall thoughts? Not bad, definitely areas for improvement. And now I’m off to do more work! Yippee.

My summer shape up goal for this week was to try a mainly Paleo style of eating, as I’ve felt pretty good in the past when I’ve tried eating in this way (although it was only a few days in the past). My basic guidelines have been to avoid dairy and grains, so not totally Paleo. So without further ado, here are some of these new eats!

Spaghetti squash and turkey meatballs, topped with almond milk mozzarella. For the meatballs, we simply balled up Italian seasoned ground turkey, and they came out really well! As for the almond milk cheese-it’s pretty good. I wouldn’t necessarily eat it in something where cheese is the focus, but it works in tons of different things. 

Leftover blueberry lavender smoothie from Gina. For this, I used egg white protein powder.

This is a Turkey and Havarti sandwich from Cooking Light. My mom and I both LOVE this recipe! This is hers- bread, mustard and mayo, arugula (spinach works), red onion, havarti cheese, turkey, and sliced apple. Put in the oven on broil until the cheese is bubbly, then top with ground pepper. The pepper makes it! Here’s my Paleo version:

No bread (hence the tinfoil), and almond milk mozzarella cheese. SO delicious! Make this-you won’t be sorry!

Chocolate covered frozen banana-the chocolate fudge sauce isn’t exactly Paleo, hence the “ish.”

My new obsession! The mango-cocout flavor is so good!

Snacks. The Thinkthin Divine bars are sooooo good. They are gluten free, and MOSTLY kind of Paleo. 

href=”http://www.blogilates.com/videos/healthiest-quesadilla-ever-obesity-as-a-disease” target=”_blank”>This quesadilla from Blogilates. This was a great use of almond milk cheese-this meal is totally Paleo!

Mangos which I am obsessed with. Remember when I had over 20 mangos in my dorm room? Yeah, not one went bad :)<a

See’s dark chocolate (left over from Easter…). One thing about avoiding grains is my desserts are mostly just dark chocolate, or Baker’s chocolate with raisins. This is likely keeping me sane. 

Any Star Trek fans out there? Yes, my family owns a Starship Enterprise pizza cutter. 

In other events in my life, I finally picked up my new shoes, and they’re ever prettier than I was expecting!

I wore them this morning for my 3 mile run and I’m in love! (Sidenote-I think 3 miles is my mental limit on the treadmill…) I can’t wait to wear them for my 10 mile run this weekend. To clarify, I can’t wait to wear the shoes, I’m terrified for the run!

Today also marked the beginning of summer quarter. I went down to school yesterday to get instructed on the research I’m doing for a Professor, and I went back today as well. It’s not glamorous work (looking at pictures of mouse carcasses) but hey, I’ll take it! Wednesday is my first day of Health Psychology, so I’ll be sure to share anything interesting I learn from that! Hope you all have had a great week so far, and have eaten some deliciousness!

What are you thoughts on Paleo? On food sensitivities?