As the quarter ends, I am getting down to the dregs of my food supply, so these pst few days have included more dining hall food and creativity. As a result, I’ll through some things from the past few days.

Yesterday night, I convinced myself I had strep throat. I have had allergies for a week, so my throat was a little scratchy. Plus, I was probably a bit dehydrated. In the afternoon I talked to someone in my dorm, who told me he had strep. That got me thinking…hmm maybe this isn’t allergies? Maybe I have strep? A few hours later, I was totally convinced that I was suffering from a severe case of strep throat. I was sitting in a meeting thinking, yeah, you know I AM kind of sore (yeah, that’s what lifting heavy things will do to you!). By the end of the meeting, I was burning up. Yeah, burning up at 98.6. So no, I’m not sick. I’m actually totally fine! (Physically, hah!) Phew! Since I was so sick a few months ago, the prospect of being sick again was kind of devastating. But never fear! I am fine!

Yesterday morning began with a great workout-weights plus a 4 mile run (training for my half). Weights included back squats, cleans to back lunges, push press, and assisted pull-ups. One set in to the push press/pull-up set, I realized how much I’ve been neglected my upper body lately. And now my armpits are sore. But on to the food!

I made something similar to my Dark Chocolate Blueberry smoothie. (It’s funny, the post with the recipe also talks about me thinking I am sick….I swear I don’t think that THAT often!) I can’t wait until I am home and can make this with better quality blueberries, and frozen bananas.

I packed a light lunch of hard boiled eggs and fruit. I realized halfway into my egg that I didn’t take  picture. And then started to take a picture of a half-eaten egg, when I realized, this looks kind of gross, these people really don’t need to see this!

So here’s a sun picture!

After my lunch, I decided to go to a local cafe in search of my Mystery bread. I have no clue what is in it, but it is sooo good. Sadly, they were out, so I settled for Mystery Bread 2.0, which I think turned out to be zucchini bread (judging by the green pieces).

Awkward selfie while reading in the sun…

.

Dining hall dinner…I am counting the days until I can eat at home! This may not look bad, but when it is all there is every. single. day. It gets old.

Here is Sunday’s dinner.

Basically the same thing, but in sandwich form. And they put wayyy too much cheese on here for my taste…

And a late night freshly baked gluten free banana muffin. Oh how I love my roommate. We get along well. She likes to bake, and I like to eat

Breakfast after spin was basically a repeat. Leftover smoothie (the banana I made it with was HUGE) and another muffin. 

For my 9 am class, it was the last class of the year, so my teacher brought breakfast. ANOTHER muffin, and some much needed coffee. I really liked the coffee. It seemed a lot blander than the kind at the dining hall, or my cappuccinos. Funny how that is a good thing for me. Coffee lover I am not.

Dining hall for lunch…meh. The salad had way too much dressing and was super soggy.

But in other news, I started packing today, and sent a carload of stuff home (yes, I have THAT much stuff in my room). 

My mom stopped at Trader Joe’s and brought me some goodies.

These things are seriously the best. And it’s no secret I LOVE mango.

Also, today, I discovered the impossible. Given how many search terms I get for my blog relating to “healthy mug brownie” it seems like everyone is looking for the secret that is in itself a contradiction. Well guys, I think I may have stumbled upon the answer. Yes, the true meaning in life.

I wasn’t even trying to make a mug brownie. I was just trying to make a chocolate version of the microwave coconut macaroon I recently discovered. But we all know I am a bit heavy handed with cocoa powder. And apparently milk….This creation was a bit liquidy, but in the mix was milk, unsweetened coconut, chocolate protein powder, sweetener, and TONS of cocoa powder. Over break I’m going to play around with this a little bit and get back to you guys with a recipe. Expect a lot of deliciousness starting in one week! I have a TON of ideas. I think I’ll also do a review on said sweetener.

Also, guess what guys???

Ohhh yes. Half #2 here I come (yes I still have yet to do #1…).

What is the best thing you ate today? Any races or events coming up?

Well guys, I’m still sick. I actually had a pretty high fever last night and decided that even if I didn’t have a fever this morning, the workout was not happening. But I still set my alarm and called my coach in the morning. I had a slight fever when I woke up but unfortunately it went back up. Also, when I woke up at 5:45 to call my coach, I was freezing because I was absolutely drenched in sweat. I had to change my PJs, and my bed was soaking. Ew. That’s probably TMI. I don’t even recall being THAT sweaty…though I felt like I was sweating all morning! I had a class cancelled today, so I decided to skip my other section and just stay in all day in an effort to be better tomorrow. So basically I’ve watched Glee and read blogs all morning. Awesome. The thing is, I don’t feel THAT bad. I just have a high temperature. Though to be fair, right now I’m just coming off of advil. My temp is up, but I feel ok. The temperature seems to rise before my body reacts. But hey, I get to update you on my eats! Breakfast this morning:

(sorry for the shadow) Chocolate protein smoothie with frozen banana (yes, I took the time to peel it this time), soymilk, cocoa powder, and chocolate protein powder. Breakfast has been getting more creative lately though. There was cuban beans and steak today! I went with some beans and a scoop of pre-made egg scramble. Plus some frozen berries. I was then craving a waffle. Again. (Still am). But I didn’t have one. I decided to try a little experiment. I had a slice of Gluten-free toast with peanut butter. I felt fine after. So I guess it really is the Gluten, not just grains in general. After breakfast I watched Glee and sweated. I also drank some Coconut water. Hydration can’t hurt, and since it’s pineapple coconut water, it has tons of Vitamin C!

For lunch, I really wanted frozen yogurt but didn’t want to trek over to the froyo place alone. Maybe dinner! Instead, I went to the dining hall. Chicken, jasmine rice, veggies, and totally delicious cinnamon-maple something butternut squash. SO GOOD. I also had some froyo at the dining hall (which wasn’t exactly fully frozen) with a couple of ill-planned cookie. Stupid gluten. But I’m sick! I can’t be bothered with will power! <- bad thought process.

After lunch I read food blogs. And seeing as it’s only 3:30….I’ve been reading more and more about Paleo and I’m becoming so convinced that it is the solution for me. If only I could stick to it! It was definitely easier getting started at home! I also checked out Whole30, and it’s totally something I’d consider this doing this summer, but there’s no way I’d be able to do it at school with limited food choices and in the middle of season. 

I recently made myself a snack, as I was craving more sweets (this is what I get for falling off the Paleo wagon). I vaguely remembered finding a recipe somewhere that made cookies with just peanut butter, honey, and eggs, so I decided to try my hand at a microwave variety. It was delicious! When I figure out the recipe I will post it. I mixed peanut butter and honey and melted them together. Then, I whisked in some almond meal, vanilla, and egg white. 30 seconds in the microwave and I had a delicious treat!

Ok, so it’s not the prettiest thing. And I made it in a paper cup, so who knows how this would have come out on a plate. I ate it with a fork. SO GOOD. But then, it occurred to me…how would a chocolate version be? Naturally I had to test it out. Same method as above, but with almond butter instead of pb, and added cocoa powder. Not bad, but I didn’t like it as much as the pb one. 

This is actually a terrible picture. Sorry! It’s probably not good that I now have the ability to make delicious things right at my fingertips. There’s a reason I don’t keep sweets in my room! And all the nuts I’ve been eating lately….let’s just say my face isn’t too happy!

But don’t worry, I got some veggies in! Guac and carrots!

I couldn’t snag any salsa last weekend, but I went home and my mom got me guacamole mix! Perfect! I’m now pretty full though…A light dinner is definitely in order! 

I really do hope I’m better tomorrow. I haven’t been this sick in a long time. I haven’t had a fever in 3 years, and I’m sure it wasn’t this high! What is going on with my body? WHY AM I NOT BETTER YET?

Any Netflix suggestions?

Today was my Zero Sugar Day and it went well! I can’t wait to take you guys through everything!

The hardest part of my day to figure out was my early morning pre-workout snack. I had a difficult time thinking of anything without sugar. Granola balls? Nope. Frozen quick bread? Sorry. Even the oatmeal bread has a tiny bit, even though it doesn’t taste sweet. I decided to soak some oats in milk overnight. Here’s the thing. Cold, plain oats. Ugh. I had to add a little nut butter to make them at all edible, and I was only eating a few bites anyway! I guess I could have made banana oatmeal the night before, but I guess I was just being lazy. Truthfully, I can’t wait to get back to my granola balls tomorrow.

My morning workout was really good. I’m working on trying to use my legs when I row, and my legs were feeling tired at the end, which is fantastic. I opted for spinning over running as the last part of my workout, and that was a good decision. I hadn’t spun in a while, so it felt good! During my erg and spin, I listened to a radio show featured Dr. Lustig. Awesome, as always!

My workouts always take longer than expected. I cut my spin a couple of minutes short because I was worried about missing breakfast! See, here’s the thing about coming late to breakfast…the smoothie ingredients are pretty picked over. I put pretty much everything there in my smoothie, and it was an odd mix, but it tasted fantastic!

Frozen blueberries, grapes, milk, and an orange (peeled). Plus a hardboiled egg!

So what could I not have due to the challenge? Pancakes and waffles obviously. No cereal. None of the dining hall peanut butter; that stuff definitely has sugar (my own does not). No yogurt that wasn’t plain. Fruity yogurt is loaded with sugar! No bread. This may surprise some people. It’s nearly impossible to find bread without added sugars. The only place I’ve really seen it is Trader Joe’s, and maybe some loaves at Whole Foods. Needless to say it’s a rarity! 

I spent the morning studying for tomorrow’s Organic Chemistry midterm! Then lunch before class:

Greens topped with salsa and corn, grilled chicken, and brown rice. Plus a few berries. It’s possible that the chicken had some added sugar, but fairly unlikely, as I couldn’t detect any sweetness. I have seen pre-cooked chicken breast at the grocery before with added sugars though. 

So what didn’t I have? No salad dressing. Almost every salad dressing has sugar. I was planning on just mixing up oil and vinegar, but then I saw the salsa. No ketchup with my chicken. No bread (again). No tomato sauce. I challenge you to find any tomato sauce without sugar. I’ve found like one…ever. No sauces in general. Many have added sugar. No soup, I really have no way of knowing what is in it, and many recipes nowadays call for sugar. Obviously no dessert. 

After class, I ate a quick snack before practice. I was planning on an orange, but I had been thinking about that new almond butter all day. So, due to my indecision, I went with both. 

This stuff is unbelievably smooth!

Check it out!

It looks just like peanut butter, but it’s not! Craziness! I also realized that I haven’t really eaten a banana at my favorite ripeness for eating straight banana lately. This guy was perfect. Not too sweet, just at the point where there is not more green. Yum! Of course, for oatmeal or smoothie purposes, I’m fine with riper bananas. the riper the better for oatmeal! For sandwiches, I prefer them just a tad riper than this one is. Perfectly yellow!

And there’s my orange! I cut them a little strangely (small pieces), but they’re way less messy to eat this way! I also had a small handful of pistachios.

So what did I not have? No granola bars. No sugary nut butter. No dried fruit with added sugar. No chocolate cake. Speaking of which, when I came down to my dorm’s lounge, there it was, staring at me. The very cake that broke my sugar challenge. I laughed in its face and kept walking. No sugar for this gal today!

Practice was good today. I was in a double again, which is my second time. Even though the water was a bit rough, I still had a great row. I improved so much since the first time I was in a double!

Dinner today was from my room. So far, this is my favorite dinner I’ve made in my room, and I’ve made it once before.

Step 1: Steal cheese and spinach from the dining hall!

Step 2: Wash a bowl that really should have been cleaned a while ago….

This is what I came up with! It’s basically an egg scramble. I LOVE having liquid egg whites in my fridge. they can add protein to any meal, and they last forever! So here we have liquid egg whites, mozzarella, spinach, pesto and avocado. Yum!

While I prepared this, I snacked on some of this trail mix:

You better believe it has no added sugar! Which is awesome for trail mix! I also enjoyed half of a banana with peanut butter.

After a meeting, I returned to my room, only to realize that my cocoa powder somehow managed to dump itself into my clothes drawer. Now, I absolutely love cocoa powder (it’s my new obsession), but it gets EVERYWHERE. The problem with living in a dorm, is I don’t have a kitchen in my room. My desk is my kitchen. Cocoa powder is everywhere. Why do I bring up this incident? The smell as I was cleaning it up brought on a major craving for this:

Which, naturally, I took care of. Hey, I had an extra half banana lying around, right? 

So, today I proved that you can enjoy a day of great eating with ZERO added sugar! I actually enjoyed today’s eats more than a lot I’ve had lately! (That avocado-pesto scramble…mmmm.) Sugar is lurking in places you wouldn’t think of. Almost every processed food item has added sugar. Crackers, cereal, sauces. It’s everywhere! Dr. Robert Lustig argues that the addition of sugar into so many foods today is one of the reasons behind the obesity epidemic. So what happened? The problem is two-fold. Around the 1970s, the government’s health division began denouncing fat, saying it was the cause of the weight problem, as well as heart disease. As a result, they launched an effort to remove fat from the American diet. The problem? When fat was removed from processed food, it tasted like cardboard. So what did the food industry do? It added sugar instead! Yogurt is a great example. Non-fat, fruity yogurt has tons of sugar, without the fat. For those of you that cannot tolerate the taste of plain yogurt (I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan), have you tasted full-fat yogurt? It is way more tolerable. This is just one example. Tons of fat-free items hit the markets and sold like crazy under the veil of “health foods.” What else happened around this same time? High fructose corn syrup hit America. It was first developed in Japan, and soon after we got it here. So why was HFCS so appealing to food manufacturers? It was SO CHEAP. Much cheaper than sugar. As a result, they added it to EVERYTHING. Salad dressing, bread, pasta sauce. And it only increased their sales! For the record, HFCS and regular sugar are metabolized the same by your body, so one is not necessarily worse than the other. HFCS was simply cheaper, so manufacturers added so much of it in everything.

Sooo, we took the fat out of food, and replaced it with sugar. So, if fat is the cause of obesity/weight problems, and we reduced our consumption of fat, then why do we have more health problems now than ever? Hmmm…(Also, just a side note, the concept of saturated versus unsaturated fat was not well understood this initiative began.) Think about that for a moment.

On that note, I want to drive home the idea that it is possible to eat a sugar-free diet and still enjoy delicious food! Personally, I really wish the food industry didn’t add sugar to everything. I don’t need my bread sweet! Many Americans have simply grown so accustomed to the sweetness in everything, that we don’t even notice it. My friend from England was talking to me the other day, and remarking how sweet everything is here. Would you call bread sweet? You might if you had never had bread with added sugar before! I wish there were more options in terms of things without added sugar. While I hope to continue to limit sugar intake, I’m not going to continue zero sugar days. My pre-workout snack today? Blech. I’ll take my granola balls any day of the week! In fact, I can’t wait for one tomorrow morning!

What do you think about added sugar in food products?

Preworkout was 2 granola balls.

Breakfast:

Smoothie, half a whole wheat bagel with blueberry cream cheese, scrambled eggs.

Close up on that smoothie! This smoothie was…interesting. I had a plan…my dark chocolate blueberry smoothie. First of all, there were no clean blenders, I had to clean one out myself, which is a little gross given I’m not sure how clean I could have gotten it…plus there were no bananas…which is the base of my smoothie. I threw in blackberries, peaches, plain yogurt milk, spinach, cocoa powder, vanilla protein powder, and a little apple juice (because nothing in here was sweet). Plus a spoonful of peanut butter. It ended up turning out ok…

Lunch:

Caesar salad, sweet potatoes, egg foo young (not really sure what this is), carrots and cabbage, plus something that I really don’t know what it is. The other thing was kind of like tofu…but it wasn’t tofu. Something with an “m” maybe? This meal seemed a little greasy, to be honest. I felt kind of gross after, and this is before I started overeating!

Plus a cute little bowl of fruit! I couldn’t figure out for the life of my what station this was, then I realized it was a fancy salad station, where you pick the toppings and they toss it up for you. I’ll have to try that if I see it again! Salads are way better when you don’t toss them yourself…

Ok, now let’s get into the trainwreck…I won’t go into detail…but hey, at least I didn’t break my challenge!

Pb&j crackers…ugh too sweet!

Have I mentioned I’m obsessed with cocoa powder? I was out of bananas (but I stole 3 today, mwahahaha) so I addded thawed blueberries to cocoa powder and mixed it up with pb…it’s not as good as you might think…

Plus half a granola bar. That made up my snack! Ugh. Stomachache for practice!

Dinner:

Don’t let the green on that plate fool you…there was a lot of salty greasiness… 

Plus yogurt with raisin bran, mandarin oranges, pb, and cantaloupe. 

And for good measure, back at my room, a granola ball and a banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter….

So I basically don’t feel so hot…My taste buds have been, shall we say, “overstimulated” the past few days. I think I need to just go a while with low salt/low sugar (low cocoa powder…) foods. I’m a little terrified about the foods over ski trip though. I’m not sure what my teammates meant when they said all they ate was cookie dough and cheese…I get the cookie dough, but I don’t know many college students that eat straight cheese…so we shall see…

Speaking of low sugar, I decided this Tuesday will be my day when I eat no added sugar! It would be impossible over ski trip…I’m doing this to raise awareness for all the added sugar in foods people wouldn’t even think of, in honor of Dr. Robert Lustig’s new book, Fat Chance. I’ll be documenting not only what I eat, but also what I don’t eat! It should be fun, so make sure to check it out! If anyone wants to join me, that would be awesome! It’s a great learning experience.

Ok, so back to my day besides food…

This morning was a 2x6k, which is the workout I’ve been dreading most of all. Well, I survived. It wasn’t that bad. I was able to get in the zone and kind of zone out. Unfortunately, my times were not where they should have been. On the positive or negative side, I’m not sure which, I finally realized that in the last 1-2 months I’ve been erging wrong. Or, in better words, I’ve developed a bad habit. Basically, I’ve been pulling only with my arms and not using my legs. So my legs won’t be tired after a workout. The biggest problem with rowing with mostly my arms is if you think about it, arms and much smaller than legs. And therefore aren’t as strong, and tire more easily. Which explains why I’ve gotten slower. So basically I have to really work on using my legs in the next few weeks, because this really needs to be fixed in time for a big erg test.

Yesterday, I talked about how pressed for time I am. In my math section today, I made a list of the things I have to do, and made a schedule for myself to do them by. Lists always make me feel better! Plus, one problem with my workload is I’ll often have a lot of big things lurking in the distance, so I won’t stay up late(ish) to work on them, because I’ll figure I can do that later. With my schedule, I’ll accomplish what I need to do each night. I must admit, I feel better already! (And I have yet to work on any items on my list…)

I don’t have much else to say today. My row on the water felt really good. I haven’t been in a bigger boat in a while, and they’re much more stable! And after practice, I ate dinner with some of the other walk-ons I trained with this fall who either quit or went light-weight, so that was a ton of fun! Here’s to a healthy tomorrow, and have a great weekend everyone!

No clue what happened to this…

Do you ever have train wreck days?

After an interesting night, I got up around 7:30, 8ish. My goal for this weekend was to get completely caught up on sleep, so this was a lazy morning. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but one of those delicious bars I got at whole foods the other day sounded just about right.

Sorry for the poor definition, I didn’t have the light on because my roommate was still sleeping. I topped this with some nuts for my healthy fat. After eating, I curled back up in bed to get going on my new book!

I really love it! It’s a great read; although it is definitely science-y, it isn’t meant for the scientist, it’s meant for the general public. I’m obviously not all the way through, but I’m hooked. Although I’ve hardly gotten to any parts where he describes the dangers of sugar. I ended up falling back asleep a little bit, which was great. Once again, fixing up that sleep debt! My eating today was a little strange just because of my schedule, so I ended up snacking through the day until dinner. I had weights at 1:30, so I ate snack/meal #2 around 11.

More peanut butter banana bread (plus extra pb), an apple microwaved with cinnamon, celery (gotta slow down those carbs!), and a small cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I don’t think I’ve ever had almond milk by itself before, but I didn’t have any regular milk and I wanted some protein. Well, I actually wanted something cold to soothe my super dry throat…This meal was nice and steamy, and my allergies cleared up quite a bit. 

I worked and relaxed for a couple of hours before weights at 1:30. Weights was nothing different. But lotsss of squats today. 4×50. I didn’t put any additional weight on the bar today. Why? I’m so sore from my workout yesterday! I forgot how sore my own weights can make me! My butt, and hamstrings….augh. Plus my abs are still a little sore from Friday’s extra ab work, and my right arm is a little sore from pitching briefly yesterday. 

After weights on the way to a meeting with my professor, I chowed down another half of a delicious Chocolate Mint ThinkThin bar.

I ate the other half some other time throughout the day, maybe after lunch? These are soooo good. I highly recommend them. Although they are a little higher in sugar than what I’d prefer (10g, which is generally my limit when buying granola bars), they don’t have any artificial sweeteners. My meeting with my professor went really well. Apparently the first draft of my paper wasn’t quite as bad as I thought. Who knew?

After the meeting came another snack.

A nectarine and one of the Peanut Butter granola balls I made yesterday. Perfect! I really love the crunch that the chia seeds give these bars! I thought the brown rice crisps would get soggy in the fridge, but it was totally fine! 

After more work, I headed to the gym for a spin class. This is the class I went to last quarter but now can never make because I normally have practice, so I decided to go for old time’s sake. Plus, I was hoping it would loosen me up a little bit! I did a few minutes of abs beforehand, which were surprisingly difficult. I think it is because we had some ab rollouts in weights today…I took Spin a little easy, and I feel a little bit better. The thing about this type of sore, is it doesn’t exactly help to roll out, or it is simply not worth it. Rolling out= so painful! Now that I’m sitting down, I don’t really feel sore, but any time I get up…whew. 

After spin was dinner. I was lacking in veggies today, so I made sure to get some greens!

Caesar salad, a few potatoes and zucchinis, veggie souffle, and a small piece of tilapia. Plus a few chunks of pineapple (which was a little too acidic for my dry mouth…) I also grabbed some greens and tomatoes in anticipation of tomorrow’s dinner. Cheese souffle leftovers! When I returned to my dorm, I was in the mood for something more. I started off eating a banana with peanut butter, then shifted gears and threw the banana in the microwave with this:

And topped with peanut butter. I love this dark chocolate cocoa powder, it gives a ton of flavor! I didn’t take a picture of my banana mix because you’ve seen it before, and frankly it just looks black….

Overall, today was not a bad day. I wish my allergies would get better though! Since I’m starting to get more school work, I want to try to schedule a certain amount of time to work on my blog, and not just work on it here or there, because honestly I need to focus. But I’m well under my time limit today! Another piece of fun news: my friend wanted to try to do the Disney half marathon with me in May, but I’ll still be in school and probably in the middle of my season, so I can’t really do that. However, I may be able to convince her to do the Giant’s half with me in August! 

I’ve never really talked about my race experiences. All 2 of them. Over the summer, I trained for the Giants 10k, which was in San Francisco and finished on the field. 

My sister ran the 10k as well, and my parents walked the 5k. I ended up finishing first in my age group, but I didn’t know that until later so I didn’t get a medal. I think my time was around 52:00? Then over winter break, I ran the Silicon Valley Santa Run, which my friends were going to do with me but ended up not. 

Check out all those Santas! I believe I finished around 25:00, but I could have been in better running shape (I had hardly run at all before, mostly erging and other workouts). But it was a fun experience! There was snow at the finish line, and cookies and milk! I definitely want to do this again next year. I also have always been dying to do a Turkey Trot! This year I ran on my own, maybe 4 miles? I take Thanksgiving very seriously, and I want to do anything to maximize my appetite for the big meal!

On other news, I am going on a ski trip with my dorm this coming weekend. I am slightly terrified, because I’ve only been skiing once. I talked to a few of my teammates who had their ski trips this past weekend, and during our weigh in at weights, they were moaning that all they ate all weekend was cookie dough and cheese. So I think I’m going to have to pack a ton of granola bars, because I don’t think I can handle that….

Any other suggestions for food I could bring?

Here’s a terrible picture of one of my experiments. Banana, mashed with cocoa powder, then microwaved with egg and some oats. It was ok, but nothing to write home about. I had a really fun Friday night. I watched some friends perform in a poetry slam (never been to one before, but some of the poets gave me chills!), and then I spent the night with my friends. 

Saturday, I was up bright and early, due to an inability to sleep in. I was really hoping I would be able to hold out until 10:30 when brunch opened, but I ended up eating something in my room around 8:30.

Sweet potato bread plus pistachios and frozen blueberries. This was the perfect fuel for a mini workout. Since we have some freedom this weekend, I decided to do some medium speed erg work. I was only on the erg for about 12 minutes, but I was really tired and sweaty afterwards! Impressive! 

As I’ve said before, Saturday brunch is my favorite meal of the week. So even though it was only 11, and I had already eaten, I couldn’t pass up he opportunity. I was planning on just having a smoothie, but the avocado was calling.

I make my Mexican food into a salad! Greens, chicken, black beans, salsa, rice, and a TON of smashed avocado! Yum! Plus a little watermelon. 

After my salad, I realized that today, for the first time, crepes were offered at brunch, so I had to try one. 

The crepe was actually pretty small and thin, and not sweet at all (so it fits my challenge). And don’t worry, on top is just reheated frozen blueberries, a little butter, and some peanut butter on the side. This guy was ok, but it gave me an idea, so I fixed myself up half a waffle.

Topped with more blueberries and a side of peanut butter! Now this was good! I may have to do this again! Some days there are whole wheat waffles available as well, so maybe then!

I don’t know what it is about brunch that is so darn delicious. I always have to fill myself up, because there are so many options! More on weekend eating later in the post! After brunch, I packed up my things and headed home. Since I had just eaten a big meal, I wanted to digest before hitting the gym ( which, by the way, never happened…), so I watched my parents eat. I don’t know what it is about being home, but I have the urge to snack on everything in sight!

I don’t have too many pictures, but here are some highlights: cashews with 100% dark chocolate (no sugar)-this is one of my favorite things! Cheese and crackers. Mango (though sadly, the mango was mostly bad…)

Some of these guys (so addicting!)

I basically spent the day eating a lot of foods with no nutritional value. Do any of you guys have problems eating well on the weekends? I don’t know what it is, but I always eat badly/eat a lot on weekends. Any tips? My goal for tomorrow is to pack each meal with awesomely nutritious foods!

What else did I do today? I made Julie‘s Peanut Butter Granola.

I made a few small changes. I omitted the cinnamon, and used 1 tablespoon of brown rice syrup and 1 tablespoon of honey, instead of 2 tablespoons of honey. Not going to lie, a lot of this didn’t make it into the oven, and hardly any made it through the day! While this was good, I liked her Almond Butter Granola even better! The almond butter perfectly complemented the vanilla. Yum! When I made it before ( I didn’t make it today), I made the same 1/2 brown rice syrup substitution, added raisins, and slightly reduced the amount of oats so it would be gooier. SO good.  I didn’t do a lot this afternoon but enjoy these guys.

I didn’t end up hitting the gym because I was full, and then time flew by, and I had plans with one of my friends from home tonight! Before I met up with her, we made breakfast for dinner!

A big ol’ egg scramble! In the mix was liquid egg whites, onions, tomatoes, spinach, cheddar, and chicken apple sausage. 

My scramble, with bruschetta, plus a biscuit with Smart Balance and a blueberry mixture I whipped up. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. I heated up frozen blueberries on the stove.

Good enough for me! I don’t know what it is about biscuits that makes them so irresistible. I definitely went back for thirds! Warm, flakey, buttery. What could be better?

For dessert, I heated up half a frozen banana and mixed in cocoa powder, plus a little peanut butter and granola.

Who needs sweets? By the way, at home, we have dark chocolate cocoa powder, which is why this is so dark. I like it though, I don’t need to add as much. I need to get some for myself!

After dinner, my friend and I decided it was a crafting kind of night. She had browsed a ton of blogs with awesome ideas, and decided to make a headband. We made a quick run to the craft store for materials. I love all the bright fabrics, and of course the adorable ones with cats…yes, I definitely have a weakness….While there, I came across the knitting section. I have not knitted at all in years, and have a ton of unfinished projects, but I decided my sewing skills were lacking anyway, so I went for it! I figure, knitting is something I can do while I’m in the van on the way to practice. There are actually quite a few girls on my team who knit. Random, right? 

I was a little worried about my knitting abilities after years, but it came back very naturally. Just like riding a bike! (Ok, that is such a lie! My first few weeks on a bike oriented campus after not having ridden in 10 years were…interesting. And painful.) Here’s what I picked out:

I’ve always liked mixing 2 different yarns at once! I think I may make this into a circle scarf my connecting the ends when I’m finished. Any thoughts? After some quality time with one of my best friends, I returned home and watched Caste and Friends with my parents and crazy cats.

Well, crazy or sleepy?

Have a great night! Here’s to a nutritious and healthy Sunday! Maybe I’ll make my favorite smoothie for breakfast and finally share it with you all! On tap for me tomorrow is Spin, plus my missed workout today!

Ok, so this morning I woke up at 5:45 for weights. Ugh. I definitely didn’t make my 10 pm bedtime last night, and after a hard day yesterday, I was dragging. My legs were still tired from yesterday. And throughout all this, one question was running through my mind. Uh oh, what is this tiredness is me getting sick? EVERYONE is getting sick! Gahh! 

As usual, my snack before weights was quick bread! More of the peanut butter banana. I actually found the recipe I used, which wasn’t the link I posted before (Though you guys should definitely try that one, it looked awesome!) The one I actually made was from fANNEtastic food, which you can find here. This bread is growing on me, I’ve started to crave it! I love Anne’s recipes because they’re mostly low sugar. I have been wanted to make another quickbread for a while, and I will hopefully do that this weekend! I need to restock my freezer! Also, her granola bar recipe looks great! I really liked having something around that was easy to snack on, and I like that the recipe has brown rice syrup.

Well, I powered through weights. I’m happy with how I did. I’m getting the hang of the workouts now, plus it’s less crowded as my teammates are starting to go to the later weights session more. After I finished my workout, I did 5×10 ab roll outs. As I stated in an earlier post, I think ab strength may be one of the keys to improving my rowing, so I got a little extra work in. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the baseball team was in the weight room after us. I definitely want to go to some of their games this spring, I LOVE watching baseball! (Go Giants! Anyone? Anyone?)

After weights, I was planning on finishing up a Greek yogurt I had in the fridge, but my coach was insistent that I drink a protein shake. I really didn’t want one of the ones from the weight room (ugh), so I had to promise her that I would make my own back at my dorm. Remember my idea from yesterday? I was considering making a protein smoothie with my vanilla whey protein powder, and adding cocoa powder. So that’s just what I did!

Plus a banana, milk, yogurt, a spoon of peanut butter, and 2 heaping spoonfuls of cocoa powder. And a more surprising ingredient? Frozen blueberries! Since my banana wasn’t frozen, I wanted something cold to thicken it up a little bit. The addition of blueberries turned out to be a great idea! The fruitiness of the blueberries really brought out the dark chocolate flavor!

I also had some fruit, and a little cream of wheat because I felt like I needed some carbs. I’m glad I decided to make a protein smoothie after all. After my workout, I realized I was pretty shaky, and the greek yogurt probably wouldn’t have done it for me. 

Here’s the smoothie recipe:

Dark Chocolate Blueberry Smoothie

1/4 c plain yogurt

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

1/2-1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used 1/2 because I’m always scared to add too much) or chocolate protein powder (just add less cocoa)

1 tablespoon peanut butter

1/3 c blueberries

2 heaping spoons of cocoa powder (more or less to taste, I like more)

milk (enough  to get it moving)

Blend and enjoy! Top with peanut butter if you like!

I definitely need to post my favorite smoothie recipe at some point because I’m actually sure of the proportions. That smoothie is good, but not my absolute favorite. Any guesses as to what my favorite is? I’ll post it next time I make it!

After breakfast I had a little time because I didn’t have to do a run this morning. I felt pretty tired, but I knew I was planning on napping later, so I compromised and drank a cup of caffeinated tea.

This is my favorite black tea! 

During class, I was feeling exhausted and a little shaky. I felt kind of weird as well. Again, I asked myself the big question, am I getting sick? I was starting to get worried, because I felt pretty off. Finally, I was sitting in Math, when I figured it out. I was definitely suffering from caffeine overdose. Now, keep in mind, I don’t drink caffeine that often, and whenever I have coffee, I have half a cup tops. It was a huge mystery to me why a single cup of tea would cause me to feel so jittery. Now I never have to drink coffee, right? If tea can wake me up this much? I’ve never really felt the effects of caffeine from tea before, so this was all very strange. The only thing I can figure out is that a) maybe because I just exercised hard, I was more sensitive? Or b) I put a TON of cocoa powder in my smoothie this morning….So it was probably a combination of things. I was relieved that I wasn’t getting sick, but I was a little uncomfortable for class. This morning was full of weird sensations in my body. I realized that going up stairs was really not tiring. However, down stairs? My legs were shaking like crazyyy! My hamstrings and glutes were pretty much shot! And after math, I was hit with a huge wave of hunger, out of nowhere! Good thing it was lunch time!

I caught up with my sister at lunch. Can you believe I haven’t seen her since basically Christmas? Which is kind of strange, considering we go to the same college. Here’s what I ate:

This is basically the best salad ever. We have a salad restaurant here, and this is the only type I’ve ever gotten. It’s a Southwest salad, with beans, cheese, corn, tomatoes, salmon, and a cilantro dressing. It comes with tortilla chips, but I prefer it without. Normally they have avocado too (they didn’t today), which just puts it over the top. SO good. The thing is though, these salads are huge! It may not look like a big container, but they absolutely cram it in there! Especially if I get it with chicken (they put so much in), it’s super heavy! I usually end up picking the best parts out, and still walking away completely stuffed, but this time I came prepared and brought tupperware so I could portion away half of it (which will probably be dinner tonight). Then after picking up some school supplies, it was back to my room to relax. I wanted something sweet, so I grabbed a few handfuls of that spicy trail mix. I didn’t really want to eat a ton of cocoa powder before attempting to sleep, so I decided not to get creative. 

The rest of my day will be spent relaxing! We had a suggested run or erg this afternoon, but my body is so done. I feel way better and stronger now that it’s been a few hours since my workout, but I think I’m best off taking the rest of the day off and hitting it hard again tomorrow. I have some freedom in my workouts, and you can bet I’m going to take advantage of that! I probably won’t post again today. Dinner will most likely be a repeat of today’s lunch. I have an avocado in the fridge, but I don’t want to end up with an extra half of an avocado sitting around if I’m going to be gone. I might experiment on my “dessert”, so I’ll let you know if I come up with anything amazing! Have a great weekend!

Any plans for the long weekend?