Charlie | Fitness is Sweet

Happy Wednesday! That means-you guessed it-another edition of What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Jenn.

By the way, did you guys see her chocolate chip banana bread recipe? It looks AMAZING! I was going to make it but was short a ripe banana, and my dad may have killed me if I made it ~~and ate it all~~ while he was out of town.

But now onto what I actually DID eat!

Saturday lunch-leftovers. Sloppy joe meat (with turkey) in a lettuce leaf, plus leftover sweet potato wedges.

ANOTHER fruit bowl. I’m kind of obsessed with these. The best ones include bananas and peaches. WIth or without peaches though, there needs to be a tangier component than just banana-like berries or even apple in a pinch. Topped with crunchy sunflower seed butter for some healthy fats.

I also tried a new chobani flip-vanilla with corn flakes, honey oats, and praline pecans.

I paired it with a slice of veggie pizza and broccoli. My overall opinion? A little boring. And corn flakes+yogurt are not a great combination, just because they got super soggy.

Since over the weekend I was still on my no sugar challenge, when my parents broke out the peanut butter cups, I decided to make my own no sugar version. I heated up unsweetened chocolate and coconut butter (unsweetened chocolate is really hard), and then filled mini muffin cups first with the chocolate, then sunflower seed butter, and then topped with chocolate again. I also added a touch of sea salt to the top-to make them gourmet of course! I wouldn’t recommend using no sweetener if you aren’t use to the taste of unsweetened chocolate, but this would work just as well with dark chocolate.

One thing I love about summer is going to Farmer’s markets. I love tasting all the fruit-especially peaches. White peaches or nectarines are by far my favorite! However, fruit is not the only amazing foodie find at Farmer’s markets. Have any of you ever gotten kettle corn there? It’s the best kettle corn ever. When you get it, it’s so hot and crisp. What better to munch on while browsing the produce?

I do love my fresh produce though too. Some highlights-white raspberries and butternut squash hummus! I love topping salads with hummus, and I prefer less sharp hummus for this. Butternut squash worked just perfectly!

Also from the Farmer’s market-artichokes and corn. I also had a grilled portabello mushroom, but sadly we could not find any at the Farmer’s market.

Also-a side note: I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I haven’t posted many pictures of my breakfasts lately. That just means they’ve been super boring and/or really quick and early in the morning. For example-this morning I grabbed a Thinkthin bar before Crossfit. And as much as I’m sure everyone wants to see the same picture every other morning….

So far this week my workouts have been good ones. Monday was my first run of half marathon training 2.0. It took me about 3 hours to get going…but hey, I still did it. I realized I haven’t A) done that run in my newer shoes and B) done that run since the beginning of my first half marathon training. I did a 3 mile run in my neighborhood. It’s pretty hilly, so it was great practice for the hills of SF. It’s a run I’ve done a million times throughout high school. I did it once, at the very beginning of my training, and was DYING. I was in pretty awful shape at the beginning of my training-after recovering from Mono a month or so prior, I never really got back into running shape. Well, the run was sooo much easier. It’s good to know the 10 weeks of training I put into for my first half helped me be in better shape.

Confession: the whole time I was climbing the big hill I was think “I’m scaling this hill, just like Spiderman.” #facepalm

I refueled afterwards with an iced chai tea latte. A weak iced chai tea latte-because who has time for something to ACTUALLY brew fully?

When I make my chai tea lattes, I brew the tea directly into the almond milk, which I heat up. Since I’m adding ice, I find it gets too watery if I brew it in water and then add milk.

Aaaaand one last piece of deliciousness to leave you with. Remember how I said I wanted to bake Jenn’s chocolate chip banana bread but was a banana short? Well, I wasn’t just going to let a good banana go to waste. Or a good craving for chocolate chip banana bread to go to waste. Instead, I whipped up a concoction that turned out to be a pretty awesome banana chocolate chip custard. So let’s go with that.

I don’t have the exact recipe. But there’s only one solution to that-I’ll have to make it again and measure it out! I kind of just poured and mashed, but I used 1 banana, liquid egg whites, a dash of salt and baking powder, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

Have a great day everybody! I’m sorry this post was a bit disjointed-I was a bit behind on food posts so I kind of just threw it all out there. I’ll leave you with some kitty love.

I really wanted to take a selfie with him-because I’m cool and take selfies with my cat…but I didn’t get quite that angelic facial expression…

Do you love microwave cooking as much as I do? What’s the best way to train for a hilly race? Favorite summer produce? Anyone else take selfies with their cats? Please?

Hey guys! I haven’t exactly checked in in a little while. Not with a more normal, day in the life type of post at least. I don’t exactly have an excuse-sure Wednesday and Thursday were fairly busy, but I kind of decided to watch TV at night instead of post. I felt bad yesterday so I threw up a post I had been saving. I had a specific topic to write about but I’ll save that for another post so this isn’t crazy long.

Wednesday morning, on the way out to 5:45am spin, I was greeted by this:

Silly cat.

My spin teachers are in the habit of talking about doughnuts. Meh. After spin, I headed off to run, only to be met by a dead Garmin. It died about 5 minutes in to my 5 mile run. I thought it would have given some type of warning to charge it BEFORE it died?? Then again, maybe I left it on again….Luckily I had done that same distance at the same place so it was fine. And I took a super easy pace.

Since I had woken up at 5:10 that morning, caffeine was in order, especially with the day’s midterm (and studying for midterm…). My mom has been meaning to use her espresso maker more so we made a cappuccino!

It was really good! Cappuccinos are about the only coffee drink I’ll have. I’m kind of obsessed with milk foam. And extra bonus-I can add as much as I want (read: a lot)! So this was even milkier than what I would order. Would they look at me funny at the coffee shop if I order extra milk foam?

My midterm went well. I suffered from the fact that I haven’t actually written anything on paper for the last few months. There were essay questions, and my hand was dying. But at least I got to write about the obesity epidemic, one of my favorite health topics!

I had a softball game Wednesday night, and my sister and her boyfriend decided to come home for dinner when they realized we’d be having waffles. I’ve been dying for waffles or pancakes lately, so when I saw a whole grain mix in our pantry, I knew it was time.

I topped mine with butter and hot blueberries-just the way I like it! On the side (because obviously the waffles are the main dish), I had a frittata with spinach, goat cheese, and caramelized onions. And some frozen cherries! Yummm. By the way, that’s not the only waffle that was consumed that night. Just the only one that would fit on the plate.

Thursday morning was a rough one at the kitten nursery. One of the kittens has scabies, which is a skin disease that can be transferred pretty easily to other kittens and to humans. Everything was basically on quarantine, and we had to wear gowns the whole time. The poor kitten was feeling just fine, but we weren’t allowed to play with her at all. However, this wasn’t the worst part of the morning.

One litter of kittens was not doing well. They were new 2 weeks ago, and I remember them all being super active and playful. This week however, they were much mellower and clearly not feeling well. They had pretty loose stools, and some were loosing too much weight. One little kitten was just not doing well at all. She had lost a lot of weight and wasn’t eating much, so we were supposed to bottle feed her, but she resisted that as well. The only positive is she did purr when I picked her up. Last night, they sent out an email that they had to euthanize her because she was suffering and wasn’t going to make it. That’s the hard part of this job-these kittens are so tiny (she was .27 lbs today) and who knows what has happened to them before they come in. As volunteers, we do as much as possible to keep them healthy, but sometimes there really isn’t anything we can control. When I got home, all I wanted to do was give my kitties a big hug. I’m so grateful they’re healthy, happy, and loving. I have to be thankful for the cats that I can save-we rescued Charlie from Stockton. This is Charlie the day we found him.

He was wandering around the hotel we were staying at (for softball) calling out to us. Stockton is not a nice place-it has some of the highest crime rates in the country. At one of the softball fields we played at, you could hear gunshots from the field. The hotel was adjacent to the highway, and it was clear he had been dumped. We saw him that morning meowing at us before the game, and between games we returned to search for him. We bought some cat food at the store, but couldn’t even find any boxes-we ended up finding some cardboard (like a box, but no top or bottom) that kind of held him in. It was 90 degrees though, and he was an escape artist. He ended up in the engine of two different cars. On the 2 hour drive home, he sat on my lap in the box and cried if I didn’t constantly have my hand in the box.

If we hadn’t taken him home, the hotel would have called Animal Control-my dad was looking into nearby shelters, but they were full. When he talked to the hotel front desk, they told him to call animal control. Animal control would have euthanized him.

I can’t even imagine how someone could have dumped him. He’s one of the sweetest cats I’ve ever met-I’ve never once seen him angry. He’s never clawed anyone. And the only time he bites is if he gets a little too frisky. He’s such a softie-I can’t imagine why someone wouldn’t have wanted him.

I guess what I’m saying is appreciate your pets. Give them a hug and be thankful for them, and feel happy you saved them. Not all animals are so lucky.

Archives

WIAW-Summertime Loving

Hug a Cat