cocoa powder | Fitness is Sweet

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! I’m a little bit behind on posting. Friday night dinner was a repeat of the salad from lunch, plus some leftover brown rice. I also had some banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter, and a slice of cinnamon raisin toast. I went to the dining hall just to grab some bananas and decided I might as well at least eat something while I was there, so toast it was!

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!

Happy Friday! Who’s ready for the long weekend? I sure am! I don’t have practice until weights Monday afternoon, so I’m pretty pumped! It’s 2 pm on a Friday, and I’m done for the day! Yayyy! I’m posting early today because I don’t have a lot to do right now, and I won’t have much to comment on earlier in the day anyway.

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?

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