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Cleanup Crew

Happy Thursday everybody! Only a couple of days until the weekend, right?? I’m thinking this weekend might be a good time to go up to the city (San Francisco), try out the frozen yogurt place I had no appetite for post-race, and drive the route of my next half marathon! It’s hilly-I want to know what I’m getting myself into!

Yesterday was a good day, AM spin-VERY early. I am no longer ever having dark chocolate before bed-I was seriously dragging! I spent the rest of the morning finishing up my final presentation for Health Psychology. I did a study on the effects of aerobic exercise versus yoga on reducing stress. Fun fact-in Psych studies, to induce stress, you make your participants count backwards from 400 by 7s, yelling at them to go faster and making them start over if they’re wrong. Fun! 

Lunch was a basic one-tomato soup with cheddar (seriously SO good) with a side of popcorn. That popcorn is kind of significant-it was some of the swag I got from my half marathon’s expo!ImageAfter my 3 hour class, I hustled my way over to Crossfit for a 6:15 class. It was a decent WOD-not a lot of heavy lifting so not one of my favorites. We did kettlebell clean and jerks, which were really weird. I’ve never done them before so I stuck to a low weight; I didn’t want to smash my wrists!

I stayed after class to clean up the box. That was my first day of cleaning. It’s really not too bad-wipe stuff down, sweep, mop. I actually really like just being around the box/fitness environment. There was a small WOD going on while I was cleaning, so I got to watch them suffer. It’s a cool way to get to know the trainers better (and earn a free membership!). It took me about 45 minutes.

At that point, I was more than ready for dinner! We had asparagus with garlic aioli, plus cornbread (with whipped butter and honey). The main dish was a butternut squash-chicken vegetable soup, recipe found hereImage

This morning I was awake early for the kitten nursery morning shift! And since you obviously need to see kitten pictures…

ImageImageImageYou know how I’ve said many times before how I’ve picked out which kittens I’m dying to adopt? Well this time I REALLY have. The difference is this one kitten really does need me. He’s a little black kitten. He’s by himself, and he’s misunderstood. (Cliche, right?) To some he may seem like an anti-social cat, but I know better. He demonstrates all the personality facets of a typical black cat. On his sheet, someone notes he doesn’t like to be touched, and is kind of antisocial (TYPICAL black cat). He seems quiet and withdrawn, but given my black cat experience, that’s not exactly it. I’m worried that this behavior might not be conducive to future adoptions, or future success in his adoptive family. Even worse, he would really do better in an environment with fewer variables-different people caring for him everyday, people with not enough time. He’s losing weight, which is bad. I think this is because people are not putting enough time into him. I had him out for at least 45 minutes today. He doesn’t eat a ton on his own, so I had to syringe feed him. He’s fussy but eager to eat; if one didn’t have enough patience he’d be written off. In addition, he kept wriggling away while I was feeding him to wash his face…yeah that’s a black cat all right. 

As for anti-social? Not exactly-he’s a sweetie if you get to know him better. I tried to feed him in my lap, and that didn’t work because all he wanted to do was sit on my shoulder. I’m not sure how I’d be able to at least foster him, but he needs something. 

ImageIn other news, I had full intentions to work out after the kitten nursery, but instead went to Whole Foods and ate a muffin. And bought cinnamon kettle corn-ADDICTIVE. In my defense, I probably needed a rest day anyways. 

One more thing-I posted my first “real” article on the local fitness blog- The Link Between Heart Disease and Mile Times.

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What’s you mile time?

Back in the day I was able to break 7:00. I definitely can’t do that anymore! I want to do a timed mile soon though!

WIAW-Post Race Recovery

Happy What I Ate Wednesday! Thank you to Jenn for hosting!Image

After my half marathon on Sunday, I’ve been trying to refuel well for as fast as possible of a recovery. This means lots of carbs and lots of protein. The good news? I’m no longer hobbling around like an old lady! Score! Here are some of my eats from this past week. 

ImageTaco salad from the Abs Diet cookbook. Plus some fresh guac-it’s been too long!

What I love about this salad is the dressing-it’s simply salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime juice with chopped tomatoes. This salad recipe has inspired my family to make our own dressings for salads-even a simple dressing like this makes the salad taste so much fresher! Most dressings can be whipped up in just a few minutes. If you haven’t made your own dressing before, I highly recommend trying it. 

This morning, I awoke with a stiff/sore calf. At this point, it seems that the best remedy is Spin class-how convenient. I left Spin feeling much better. Once again, I am so grateful my calf held up for my race. The race igniting a running fire under me, but I’m forcing myself to take AT LEAST a week, probably two, off of running before I start training for the Nike Women’s half. My calf needs to be 100% better before I start again!

After spin, I had been planning on trying a new protein smoothie recipe. Instead, I decided to put my pineapple Chobani to work.

ImageInstant pineapple frozen yogurt! I didn’t actually need to coconut water-I only added a splash and I had no trouble blending. I simply blended a pineapple CHO with frozen pineapple chunks!

ImageThis probably could have used a bit more time in the blender-it was super chunky and not as thick as a result. 

Cinnamon raisin toast has been happening a lot lately. I blame the race 🙂

ImageCinnamon raisin toast topped with a little butter and cinnamon sugar is a great treat that’s on the lighter side. It’s healthier than a cinnamon roll while still hitting all those key flavor notes, but it won’t leave you in a sugar coma!

Midmorning, I was craving banana bread. I made a microwave version!

ImageI mixed up a banana, egg beaters, coconut flour, a pinch of baking soda, and a splash of almond milk. Plus bittersweet chocolate chips, which obviously MADE the dish!

ImageIn the future, I think I would omit the coconut flour. It masks the banana flavor a little too much!

More carbs were the name of the game later in the afternoon. I made a spin-off of PB&J. Did you know that in middle school/beginning of high school I ate a PB&J sandwich every day at lunch? I was quite the connoisseur. I had the brand of PB all figured out. I also used to put two different types of jam on the sandwich. 

My aunt makes the best jam in the world and sends us tons of it. My favorite is the raspberry-she grows her own raspberries for the jam! I’ve always loved PB&J, but somehow my face seems to object to peanut butter now. Sunflower seed butter and jam isn’t quite the same, but it’s a close second!

ImageI also had some leftover turkey taco mix from the previous night’s dinner. 

I made the mistake of eating a fairly large snack, and then another granola bar, right before Crossfit. Ugh, not the best idea! 

At Crossfit, we worked on snatches. I kept being too far out in front on mine, probably because my hips are so tight from my race!

The WOD was harder than I was expected. The Rx for the deadlifts was 155, but I stuck to 135 since there were so many reps. Here’s the workout:

25 deadlifts

25 toes to bar

25 box jumps

25 toes to bar

25 deadlifts

I really liked this workout! I really need to strengthen my abs though-my core was really quaking on the deadlifts! Also-I start cleaning my box tomorrow! I mean, a membership in exchange for cleaning is awesome, but to be honest, I just want to spend more time around the box. And hey, if I’m in there anyway, it’s an excuse to work on my pull-ups!

I was not hungry AT ALL after Crossfit, but I decided I needed to refuel. I made a chocolate coconut protein smoothie.

ImageThe coconut flavor came from shredded coconut and coconut extract. I’ll post the recipe once I perfect it-it could have used more coconut extract! This time I think I added a little much xantham gum and not enough ice. I’m kind of at a loss with the amount of xantham gum to use-I either add to much or too little! Help?

Today while pumping gas, I thought about two things. 1. This freaking car is such a gas guzzler-I just got gas last week! 2. My irrational fear related to pumping gas. I’m scared that somehow I’ll manage to blow up the gas station by spilling gas. It kind of freaks me out when the nozzle drips because I’m imagining that scenario. 

Aaaand once last thought for the day. I FINALLY got my first post up for my town’s fitness blog! It’s just an introductory post, but here it is! Don’t worry-this new blog won’t change anything about Fitness is Sweet. I’ll link to the other blog from here, but I’ll mostly discuss different things. I’ll definitely discuss anything relevant (such as workouts, interesting studies) on here as well!

Have a great week!

Do you have any irrational fears? Do your cats like to “help” you blog? Mine does…He’s here right now!

How do you recovery from a race or competition?

Science Experiments on Myself

How was everybody’s Monday? It’s my first official day of spring break it it was rather unexciting. Here is last night’s dinner though: citrus grilled chicken, sweet potato, asparagus, and fruit salad.

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Dessert was some delicious apple pie from the farmer’s market, with some frozen yogurt.Image

It was EXACTLY what I had been wanting. Enough of yesterday. This morning began with an early abs class. I absolutely love the class, which is one of the things I miss while at school. But here’s the thing. As we have talked about before, after having mono and not being able to exercise, my abs are probably the weakest part of me. So I woke up sore from yesterday’s ab work. So ouch. This class hurt. As in I couldn’t reach up high to get something because it hurt. And tomorrow will most likely be worse. I had been loosely planning on a run today, but yesterday I decided I would be better off letting my legs rest a little. Yeah, still sore. I think my groins may be sore from spin but I’m not really sure, I’ve never been sore from spin before. But last Thursday at yoga, I didn’t notice any issues until I felt like my muscles were being ripped apart in happy baby pose. An interesting description….And the only thing I had done that week was spin. Oh well. Breakfast this morning was AWESOME. I have TOTALLY been obsessed with yogurt bowls lately. Even though this is only my second one, I’ve been thinking about them a lot. Plus I got some new Icelandic yogurt to try.

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It was pretty similar to Greek yogurt, but my impression was that it was maybe a little smoother, or some how stickier (that’s a terrible description, but I don’t know how else to describe it). I topped it with warm pumpkin bread from the freezer and my new favorite, sunflower seed butter. That combo is amazing!Image

After breakfast I read a little and decided a nap was in order (what else is spring break good for, right??). Around 11:30, my mom and I decided our activity for the day would be to visit a local old farm and see the 20 newborn lambs. We decided to have an early lunch so we would have plenty of time. Since we got eggs at the farmer’s market yesterday, and I knew they’d be really fresh, I wanted to do something with eggs. I ended up doing a spinoff of the bowl from the Korean restaurant on Saturday. I sauteed mushrooms and spinach in teriyaki sauce, and heated up some instant garlic brown rice and quinoa. I topped this with an egg over easy, and dug in!

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We also cut up some oranges from the farmer’s market.Image

Our day’s plans were foiled, however, when we discovered that the farm is closed on Mondays. So what did the day turn out to hold! Spring cleaning! Of our pantry, that is. Our cabinets, fridge, and freezer never get cleaned out unless I initiate it, and we end up with food shoved everywhere and a million of one item because it is hiding in some inaccessible location. 4 cans of beans. 5 boxes of Triscuits. 4 cans of pumpkin. The list goes on. We ended up composting and donating a ton of stuff, and now the pantry and fridge are organized and reasonably empty (in a mostly good way). However there is one issue. We have a huge “sweets” basket, complete with all kinds of candy left over from Christmas. So naturally I had to check if some things were still good. And then I found the Nutella. My family doesn’t eat Nutella much, we only had it because I used it in a recipe. I much prefer Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut butter. Anyway, I figured I would just have a taste before getting rid of it. I’m not a huge fan of the stuff, but I must admit it was addicting! Especailly when I found some crackers that would go bad soon. The end result of this process? Sugar overload. Now I’ve talked before about how I have a pretty bad reaction to sugar, and I fully admit I am a sugar addict. That is why I attempted my No Sugar Challenge. A lot of times when I eat too much sugar I start to feel really hot. I’ve always wondered if this actually raised my temperature a measurable amount, so this time I figured, why not take my temperature? And guess what? 99.0. Slight, but certainly noticeable. Yes. I gave myself a sugar-induced fever. So I think it’s time to seriously cut back on the sweets again…That’s scary!

After cleaning out all our old food, we didn’t want to go to the grocery to get dinner and put more food where we had just cleaned things out, so we were forced to improvise. After several half-baked ideas, we ended up making Mexican bowls. Wow, I had lots of bowls today! My yogurt bowl, my (vaguely) Korean bowl, and my Mexican bowl! We heated up brown rice, fire roasted tomatoes (one of the many cans of tomato products we unearthed), black beans, frozen brussels sprouts, leftover citrus chicken, cheddar cheese (1 of 5 bags of shredded cheddar…) and salsa. Topped with guac from out mini avocados! On the to-do list for tonight is getting them ready to sprout!

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Tonight will most likely be low-key. Hopefully tomorrow I will get to see the baby lambs (don’t worry, pictures will be posted). I’m still on the fence about whether I want to go to 6 am spin or 9 am yoga. I think yoga may be more important for my strength, but I would like to do some cardio. Maybe yoga plus a run? We shall see!

What is your idea of spring cleaning?