Exactly one year ago, I (partially) dislocated my shoulder.

(And in true Aurora fashion, I had no idea how serious and how far it was going to set me back at the time.)

I couldn’t lift my arm up. I couldn’t straighten my arm because the weight of my arm hanging down was too painful. Going through the x-ray scanner at airport security was interesting…I couldn’t raise my arm up so of course I got flagged for a pat down!

My shoulder was messed up. I spent the following week in Hawaii, unsure if 1. my shoulder was actually in place and 2. if I was going to need surgery to repair. Thankfully, it was in place, and I didn’t need surgery.

It was 2-3 months before I could even squat, because I couldn’t hold a bar. At the same time, that next month I was so incredibly sick with my gastroparesis (at that time still undiagnosed), so I can’t imagine I would have been getting too crazy anyway.

I let my shoulder rest. I let it heal. I did my physical therapy, and slowly started getting back into things. Then I worked my butt off.

This time a year ago, before my injury, I couldn’t really do pull ups. Maybe a kipping here or there, on a really good day.

Today, I knocked out this workout:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

pull ups

wall ball

hang power clean

I hopped on the pull up bar with the biggest smile on my face. I teared up a little at the end. I literally built my shoulder up from nothing, and worked my butt off to get where I am now. My shoulder isn’t 100%; if I do a lot of overhead stuff day after day it gets creaky, and I don’t know if handstand push ups or pul ups from a dead hand will ever happen (kipping allows my shoulder to be in a better position). But I’m sure as heck proud of where I am now. A whole lot can change in a year. I definitely never pictured myself typing up a blog post, a year later, about how I could bust out pull ups, while sitting in my bed in St. Louis.

I am so, so thankful and appreciative of what my body can do. I don’t think pull ups are something I will take for granted. I’m amazed every single time I do them in a workout. I feel so lucky for what I can do, but I also realize how hard I worked to get here.

Take some time to appreciate your body. Let your injuries heal. Don’t be stupid—it may seem like the end of the world at the time, but look where I am now.

Since we’re on the topic, I wanted to give a quick foot update. It feels great! When I work it a lot (jumping or running), it feels weak but not painful which is HUGE, especially given I walk 5-6 miles a day around the zoo. That being said, I think I’ve managed my recovery extremely well. I took everything in baby steps, and was careful not to rush things. Right now I’ve worked my way up to 3 miles. I have no intention of going further than that for the next month or two. I’m hoping to work up to a 10k for Thanksgiving but I’m not going to push it. And I decided at the time of the injury that I wouldn’t do any distance for at least a year; it’s just not worth the risk. I’m going to stick to 3 miles for a long time. Maybe the 10k Turkey Trot, but otherwise 3 miles is a solid place to be. I don’t want to point fingers at all, but I have seen other bloggers with stress fractures return to running heavily pretty soon post-injury, and have recurring problems. I don’t want that. I want this to be it for good!

On the topic of serious things, I owe you guys a couple of posts. One is an update on my stomach condition, and the other is the final post of my #TransformationTuesday series. Things have been pretty crazy lately, but I do still plan to follow up on those.

Enough of the serious talk now. How about some food+animals? Sound good?

My friends, it’s time. I haven’t gone head over heels for pumpkin yet, but we can start here. Honestly, I didn’t love this is yogurt because the flavor was too subtle. My favorite way to eat it is by the handful, but I think the cereal would be delicious in a rice crispy type of dessert.

Tip: look for this at Target!

Just another day at work. This is Holly.

I might actually be getting a little tired of spaghetti squash. I seasoned the squash with garlic and mozzarella.

It has still been blazing hot here lately, so I suggested my roommate and I take a trip to Ted Drewes, amazing frozen custard that originated in St. Louis. I got vanilla with hot fudge and it was amazing and smooth. Better than Rita’s, for sure, probably better than Shake Shack too.

Dinner post Crossfit today was a frozen meal, a tamale. I really love tamales, and was tired of spaghetti squash, so I added some spinach, ate it with carrots, and called it dinner.

I’ve been craving chocolate like crazy the last couple of days, and instead of stuffing my face with less delicious substitutes, I decided the smart thing to do was just buy some at the store and satisfy my craving, because a little chocolate is definitely healthier than a lot of random things! Plus, I needed to buy tissues. My allergies have been CRAZY lately; I’m allergic to something blooming. I had to take heavier duty allergy medicine last night which was unplanned, because I couldn’t stop sneezing. Sadly, I took it later than ideal and was definitely a little dopey for the first part of the morning!

And now I’m off to make a spin playlist for this weekend!

How have you dealt with injuries?

I had a super exciting moment Thursday though.

Less than 2 months ago, I couldn’t hang from the bar with my shoulder injury. Even before hurting my shoulder, I only did a few toes to bar ever (during the open last year!). The last few weeks I’ve been doing more core work, and last week I started working on some toes to bar before or after the Crossfit class. I got a few, but never more than 2 without having to rest.

When I saw toes to bar in Thursday’s workout, I thought I’d try them and do what I could.

Well, something clicked. The toes to bar felt awesome, and I ended up doing 48 in the workout! WHAT?? I was so excited, and was just having the best time with it.

Toes to bar coming in right before the Open? I’ll take it!

Thursday night I watched the open announcement. To be honest, I’m really not a fan. I think walking lunges are really impractical for smaller boxes. I’m not sure how my box is going to do it, but it’s definitely not ideal. I think we might have to do the lunges/burpees outside, and burpees on cement? Yuck.

In non-Crossfit news, I’ve had some fun food lately.

Mexican food in salad form. Look how beautiful the avocado is! Honestly I feel like taco shells dilute the flavor of the good stuff!

Giant chip. Love.

Yogurt. Blueberries+cherries. Sunbutter. This blueberry blend reminds me of waffles. Probably because I used to put something similar on waffles in the dining hall freshman year.

Lunch with my mom and sister. It’s Parent’s weekend at school. Tomato soup with cheddar, GF bread with butter and cranberry spread. My mom also sat in on my Sleep and Dreams lecture.

Eggplant lasagna, cod, veggies. The eggplant lasagna is awesome—eggplant in place of noodles!

The real highlight—ice cream date with my friends! We piled into my tiny car (it was not pretty) and drove to Smitten, home of the nitrogen ice cream. This ice cream is ridiculous. Unfortunately I’ve become crazy sensitive to chocolate lately (caffeine+maybe the other stimulant—theobromine), so I only got through about half of this, and still felt the effects. Seriously, this past week has been so bad on the chocolate front. I had a single ghiradelli dark chocolate raspberry square last night and felt like I was dying. Cool, body.

Well, it’s off to bed for me! I’m sure dreams of burpees, lunges, and pull ups will be running through my head!

I tried really really hard to take pictures today!

My morning began with a track workout. Not ideal after my long run yesterday, but I needed to time a 400m sprint for a class project by Wednesday so I trudged out there. Prior to the run, I had some crackers and a few pieces of dried mango.

I ran a total of 3 miles per my training plan, including my timed 400m.

Post-run was my typical breakfast-not the most interesting but gets the job done. Plain greek yogurt, banana, and sun butter.

After breakfast, I headed out for my fake first class. I dropped my 9am, but I’m trying to fill that time with other work so I scheduled myself to be at a coffeeshop for the first hour of my day. A latte (decaf) beats biochem right now!

After my morning classes, I headed back to the house for lunch. Today was pho-I wasn’t sure if the noodles were gluten free so I stuck to chicken and veggie toppings. Yum!

After lunch I was craving something a little sweet and carby, so I had a couple of dates and a pumpkin muffin from the freezer.

These are green because I used sunflower seed butter in place of almond in the recipe, and there is a chemical reaction between sunflower seeds and baking soda!

After an afternoon of classes, I pulled some zucchini bread out of the freezer-I totally owe you guys that recipe!

Crossfit today was good-I can now do a burpee with no shoulder problems, which I couldn’t really last week so this is progress! We did 5 rounds of 3 hang power cleans, 5 burpees, and a sled push at max effort, and then took a full recover, repeating for a total of 5 rounds. It’s crazy-I’ve been away from my school Crossfit for 3 months and I feel like everything is different-the people, the equipment-so weird!

Dinner was a salad from Trader Joe’s-rainbow slaw. It was a little plain for my liking-needed some meat! I grabbed a few pieces of chicken from the dinner at the house as they were closing up, plus some mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse.

After dinner, I had some caramel cheddar corn and a gluten free brownie.

After being sick for so long with no desire for anything sweet, I think my sweet tooth is coming back with vengeance! It’s a little frustrating because I feel like after every flare up, I have to relearn how to eat. Hopefully no more stomach flare ups though!

What is your favorite pumpkin product?

I think mine is pumpkin bread but I’m craving a pumpkin chocolate chip bar right about now!

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

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.

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

After lunch, we explored Cannery Row first by foot.

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!

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.

I had the pleasure of driving this bad boy.

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

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!

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?

Anyways, that was quite a long winded way of saying it’s Wednesday-yay! WIAW! Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting.

You want to know why I’m loving WIAW right now? Because when I’m posting less, or posting about specific things, I don’t get to share what I’ve been eating as much, so I get this accumulation of pictures that somehow seem silly to post if not on a Wednesday. WIAW is an excuse for a foodie photo dump, right?

Pancakes+eggs+mandarin oranges at breakfast. I think I’m officially no longer a syrup on pancakes person. Butter all the way-it may have something to do with the fact that I’m a syrup snob and really don’t like the dining hall corn syrup/maple syrup. Yuck. On another note, I just bought a vat of Grade B maple syrup at Whole Foods. More on that in a minute.

Pumpkin bread. This is from last Wednesday-my Wednesdays are long days so I needed a little pick me up between studying and my last class!

This dinner was 50/50. Tilapia with mango and cucumber was on point, as were the roasted carrots. I wasn’t a fan of the lentil puff pastry though.

More breakfast. I was across campus at the track and decided to stop somewhere different. While it may look very similar to the other breakfast, the pancakes there are far superior. They’re sort of vanilla-y.

Dining hall lunch-balsamic chicken salad, veggie flat bread, and broken rice with scallions. Plus roasted butternut squash.

This was dining hall chicken masala. And I have to say, they nailed it. The chicken was SO tender and flavorful. Well done.

Whole Foods dinner-hihglights were the mushroom polenta and various colors of roasted sweet potatoes.

So…I’m kind of over the whole “eat a specific diet” thing (like Paleo, 100% real food, no sugar). One thing I’ve learned over my 2+ years of blogging about food is that 1. I don’t have time or energy for that and 2. It makes me freaking crazy. That being said, I wanted to shake things up a little and get more creative so I decided to roughly follow a new plan (note the word roughly-it’s very low key)-whole foods + unlimited chocolate. So to start my new healthy eating endeavor I went to Whole Foods and stocked up on mass amounts of quality chocolate. And Grade B maple syrup for homemade chocolate. Spoiler alert-the “plan” is going well. I like chocolate.

This is one of my favorite soups-and it’s really good cold the next day too (or maybe I’m just used to eating cold food out of tupperware at this point in my life). The best part is it has chunks of sweet potato!

On Superbowl Sunday, my eating schedule was bizarre. Lunch at 10:30, pizza at 3:30 (what meal is that even? Dinner?). I was a little hungry towards the end of the game so I went to the dining hall for a chicken fajita salad. This was quality guac.

Dining hall dinner-salad, stir fry tofu, sweet potato fries. Plus a mini corn and potato casserole. The reason for no picture? It slid off my plate and exploded on the floor. It took my a little time to gain the courage to grab another one!

And finally-one last breakfast! I brought back the berry compote! This is just cherries+blueberries boiled down. Full fat yogurt+berries+sunbutter. I missed this!

Wow guys, that was quite the roundup. I should get on here a little more often, shouldn’t I? I feel like this has been an eventful week in terms of life stuff, so I really should do more updates! Also I’m realizing as I grow up (…and that makes me sound young again) I’m gotten so much more introspective so maybe we’ll have some more reflective posts. That being said, everything is going well over here right now!

What is your favorite kind of chocolate (and where can I buy it??)?

This morning, after being stupid and staying up way too late finishing my book, I was up bright and early for half marathon training. 4 miles today! Since I’ve done a variety of pace/speed based runs this week, today was just  comfortable pace. It was actually pretty cool out at 6am!

Now I totally get why Anne runs with her camera-there’s just so much to capture here!

Post run, I had the best breakfast ever. It’s been a year since I’ve had a combo like this. I added blueberry lemon banana bread to vanilla yogurt, and topped that with blueberries and sunflower seed butter. Seriously, so good.

Stonyfield has some of my favorite vanilla Greek yogurt because the sugar content isn’t bad. Only 12g including lactose sugars! That’s way better than most!

At work, I got coffee.

Pleas note the size of that cup. It is not big. 12oz. It is not full. But it apparently was WAY too much caffeine for me. I’m pretty sensitive, and it was bad. I felt awful the whole day. And, I have a family history of heart problems with too much caffeine (granted it was from way more than this) so it freaks me out if I get at all over caffeinated. I’m not sure if the coffee here is just extra strong, but it’s gotten to me a lot more than usual. My cappuccinos at school are even on the small side for cappuccinos I guess! The weird thing is it is sort of unpredictable when it’s going to hit me too much. I had a little less than this on Monday and was seriously dragging all day (maybe they slipped me decaf?). Anyways, it was enough for me to vow off coffee all together for at least a week. It will be just tea for a while! Ugh.  Not good.

Since I got caught in the storm and didn’t cook last night, I bought lunch. I tried something slightly new-a humus sandwich! It’s just hummus and veggies on a whole wheat pita. It was good! The cafe also has other interesting varieties of hummus that I should try at some point.

Also, because I’m doing the whole full disclosure thing-I had a piece of my weakness, marble bread.

After work, I headed to Crossfit. We worked on headstands (!) (yeah, I’m not good at them) and bench presses before going outside for a running related WOD. Which is probably not the best thing for me right now, to be honest, because this week has been very running heavy. My calves were really tight. I’m doing a fair amount of running this weekend as well, so it’s something I need to watch. I’m also going to have to figure out a schedule that isn’t going to torch my calves running every day. That would be a great way to get injured, especially as the long runs get longer. I’m doing OutRun again tomorrow, and it probably will be one of my last because the mileage is adding up quickly!

After Crossfit, I snacked on some chocolate yogurt while making dinner. Definitely not as decadent as it sounds, but still good! And perfect for after a tough workout.

I roasted brussels sprouts while I chatted with my family, and had a black bean burger to go with them.

I also threw together something I’ve seen going around the blog world-2 ingredient oatmeal cookies. First of all, calling them cookies is quite the exaggeration. They are just banana and oats. I added cinnamon, vanilla, and raisins for cinnamon raisin. These will be perfect pre-run/workout for me though!

And now I’m off to finally catch up on blogs!

I slept 9 hours last night, but I’m definitely still recovering from the previous night, so this was pretty awesome. 

I’m pretty sure Valentine’s Day is a good excuse to eat cookies as pre-run fuel, right?

These were a Valentine’s gram-one from my roomie and the other from my favorite K-pop star. Yeah, I didn’t know I had one either. 

I decided to be over the top pink today because I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually worn this sweater, and it’s just too perfect for Valentine’s day. I guess pink isn’t really my color which is why I haven’t worn it much!

For this morning’s run, I did my 50 minute treadmill workout. I took it kind of easy though-I woke up sore and tired-so I didn’t do any of it at 1.0 incline, and it actually felt fairly easy!

I also made some awesome scrambled eggs this morning. With goat gouda <3

After class (more on that in a minute) I experimented with popcorn and my new chocolate making skill-chocolate coated popcorn!

Not the biggest winner though-the popcorn wasn’t very salty on it’s own, and I made with chocolate with just maple syrup, nonfat milk, and cacao powder.

And besides Valentine’s candy, I did eat some veggies! I really liked this Trader Joe’s salad!

Now onto Valentine’s day. I know some people get sad/depressed being single on Valentine’s day but it really doesn’t bother me. I mean come on-either way, this is a chocolate holiday! Priorities, people! Last Valentine’s day, I had a 6k test (rowing) and then went to the beach with my rowing team. 

In terms of Valentine’s I’ve given out, my favorite thing of the past when I was less busy/had better access to a kitchen for the holidays was M&M cookies. I used a chocolate chip cookie recipe, and then replaced the chips with holiday M&Ms of choice. They were always a big hit, and definitely one of my all time favorite cookies! Sadly, that was wayyy pre blog so I have no pictures…

AND in the spirit of Valentine’s day, I’ve decided to share a little story with you all. I don’t usually talk about this aspect of my personal life on here, but I thought you guys would get a kick out of the awkwardness of a high school relationship. 

In high school, I ended up “going out” with a guy I really didn’t know much probably less than a week before Valentine’s day. So that was one of the most awkward Valentine’s days of my life. I had no idea what the proper etiquette was for something like this (I ended up making the perviously mentioned cookies). The worst part was that every year in the Spanish class I was in, the students make super cheesy, super silly valentines and plant them throughout the school. My new boyfriend was in the same spanish class, so I ended up making a ridiculous one for him. But he didn’t know enough Spanish to understand it, and when I explained it, he just flat out didn’t get it or apparently my sense of humor. “I think your socks are cute” is a lot less romantic in English….ohhh high school relationships. Let’s just say that one was destined for failure. 

And since we’re on the topic of cheesy Spanish things-check out this music video. Sexy macarena and creepy lyrics? Sign me up!

You’re welcome.

Also, since today is basically about chocolate (let’s be real here), here’s a video my sister made a couple of years ago. Has anyone heard of epic mealtime? She made a vegan chocolate mountain parody. In summary, no one was strong enough to lift it…

Aaaand now I’ve started myself on listening to Spanish music. Best way to spend Valentine’s day! I can’t wait to take Spanish again next quarter!

Speaking of academic curiosity-I freaking love Biochem. I love metabolism, but I also love the endocrine system and hormones. One thing we discussed today that I thought might be of interest to some of you was this particular process:

A testosterone hormone, androgen, needs to be converted into estrogen for a healthy reproductive system. An enzyme in fat cells does this conversion. So when the body is stressed (aka starving), fat cells are depleted, hence the loss of cycle. My professor also mentioned that in many people, running 45-50 miles a week will do this (although I can’t verify this and I’m sure it varies person to person). Another interesting thing is that this number applies to males as well-this type of mileage will actually result in lower sperm count. Who knew? 

Also, another totally random and interesting fact-lactation is actually a very strong contraceptive (hormones)-and in hunter gatherer populations, it is common for women to get pregnant about every 5 years (because the children breastfeed for a very long time). Even more interesting-this timing means that a woman may only get 6-8 periods in her life. And apparently there are study linking this to lower rates of certain reproductive organ related diseases later in life. Totally random, but I thought it was interesting!

On that note-everyone go out and enjoy your Valentine’s day!

This was supposed to be the Grand Finale of 12 Days, but my 11th day fell through and I have something else for the last day, so here it is!

And it will arrive looking something like this:

NOTE: I am not affiliated with any of these companies-I just wanted to do something fun for you guys for my blogiversary!

Note #2-I realized that most of these are chocolate-related…oh well? Hey, it’s non-perishiable and travels well, what can I say?

1. Sunflower seed butter. Because I’m obsessed.

2. Dried mango. This should be a no brainer.

3. Guacamole mix-I love having this on hand-it’s basically just spices that you add to avocado for instant guac. Perfect for an easy snack!

4. Crunchamame-green onion and chive. 

5. Green and Black 85% chocolate. I love dark chocolate, and this is by far my favorite. The texture is so much smoother than other brands!

6. Blackberry chia squeeze-fruit and chia seeds.

7. Square bar-chocolate coconut. I recently discovered these, and they’re delicious! It’s hard finding bars that aren’t full of nuts, and these fit the bill.

8. ThinkThin Divine bars. Chocolate coconut. What more could you ask?

9. See’s chocolate Santa. See’s is one of my favorite chocolates. I realize that not everyone has these in different places in the country, which is part of why I included it.

10. See’s chocolate toffee bar-this is straight out of my childhood. We used to sell See’s bars for band, and this was my favorite!

11. Peanut butter oat bar. This brand is AMAZING. The peanut butter is my favorite (which I tried before I knew I had a peanut sensitivity), but the other flavors are just as addictive. 

So how do you win this??

Simply comment below with one of your favorite things!

For additional entries (each is one entry):

Follow me on Twitter (@fitnessissweet) and leave a comment saying you have done so.

Tweet about the giveaway (something like this- “I’m entering @fitnessissweet ‘s 12 days of Christmas giveaway!) with a link, and then comment saying you have done so.

Instragram this picture and let me know you have done so

Since this is 12 days of Christmas, let’s give you all 12 days for this! The winner will be randomly chosen on the night of December 12! Good luck!

(Sadly, this is only open to US and Canada residents)

Good luck!