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Is This Adulting?

I wasn’t actually planning on posting today because I have a big test tonight and lots and lots of school work (yay), but I happened to come across a post I wrote almost exactly 2 years ago. (For the record, I swear I don’t spend my time reading my own archives.)

Here’s the post.

My first thought upon reading it was, “Wow, look how far I’ve come.”

At that point in my life, I was quite a mess. No getting around it. My classes were crazy stressful and I was struggling in them, and I had the added pressure of uncertainty with what I wanted to do with my life. Also, around that time I had recently finished my 100% whole foods challenge, and that messed with my head quite a bit. Post-challenge, my eating habits were erratic and as a result I was pretty anxious.

Now, I feel like I have things mostly figured out. I’m enjoying my classes, studying hard, and doing pretty well. I figured out what study methods work best for me. I’m working ahead on all my assignments so everything is pretty low stress. IMG_6933

2 years ago Aurora. How did my hair look that good?? Also how is that dorm lighting decent?

I know what I want to do with my life now. And I’ve taken steps to get there. I have a plan. Well, for the most part.

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I work some. I teach spin. I am comfortable with who I am, and I understand who I am. I mean, as well as a 21 year old is capable of doing.

And finally, my eating habits are better and more stable than they’ve ever been. Granted, my stomach issues kind of force that. But I finally feel like I’ve figuring things out. In a few weeks, I intend to do a whole post on this, but I’ve been feeling good. I’m happy.

Multiple times lately, I’ve stopped myself and thought “life is really good right now.”

I’m trying to get excited for my next chapter, but I’m also not ready for the end of this life. I’m trying to soak up every moment of my last year. How did this happen??

I guess college really is a time for growth, and I’m so happy I’ve been able to document that on my blog. It’s little moments like this that make us realize how much we change, often for the better.

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WIAW-The Best Ice Cream

Happy WIAW Friends! (As usual, huge thanks to Jenn for starting this link up way back when!).

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This week has been surprisingly low-key. Which is some ways is actually unfortunate because I know I have a lot of craziness coming up that I can’t get ahead on!

Anyways, WIAW. One thing that wasn’t from my full day of eating that I still want to share because it was definitely the best thing I’ve eaten all week was this ice cream.

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Tin Pot’s TCHO chocolate. Yes, here in the Bay Area, we have designer chocolate. This is hands down my favorite ice cream in the world. The texture is perfectly smooth, and the (local, SF) TCHO chocolate flavor is dark and rich. Tin Pot also has a lot of other awesome flavors but I can never bring myself to get anything but my favorite! My friends and I decided that gourmet ice cream needs to be a more regular thing, given we’re also extremely close to Smitten (Nitrogen ice cream).

Back to a full day of food, the regularly scheduled programing!

Pre-workout:

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I went home for dinner on Monday, which meant that I returned with a delicious set of snacks. This lemon poppyseed bread was a GF version of this recipe. The flavor was on point, but the texture was a little weird. A little dry? Maybe from using GF flour, or maybe because I cut down on the sugar. I think I’m going to try combining the flavor of the lemon poppyseed with the texture of the cranberry orange bread I’ve been making lately.

Workout:

Crossfit was a doozy. Apparently we’ve been killing arms lately. I’m still recovering from pull-ups on Thursday. Strength was sets of 3 hang power snatches. My shoulder is finally feeling strong stabilizing overhead, and I worked up to 75# which I think is the most since my injury!

WOD: 3 5 minute AMRAPS, 1 minute rest of the following:

60 calorie row

50 pull ups

40 burpees

30 push press

20 push ups

I barely made it to the push ups and my arms were done!

Breakfast:

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Plain nonfat Greek yogurt, cherry+blueberry fruit blend, sunbutter. Plus an assortment of crackers.

Lunch:

I had leftovers from dinner at home. I’ll share that picture first because it’s much prettier, and then show the reality of tupperware lunches.

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This was a fennel and spinach soup with roasted red pepper yogurt sauce that I found on Cooking Light’s top soup recipes. Last night, served with corn tortillas broiled with parmesan and herbs. At lunch, served with GF everything crackers.

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Mid-class survival:

Since I have to eat lunch on the early side, I packed a few crackers to eat in my last class so I wouldn’t be crazy hungry when I got home.

Snack:

A bite of quesadilla:

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And a honeybell (grapefruit crossed with tangerine)+ one of my custom raaw macaw bars. This one has a date, sunbutter, and oat base, and contains chocolate chips and dried cranberries.

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Workout #2: Teach spin. The air system was broken so it was a completes sauna in there. Everyone was sweating buckets—the spin studio was at least 15 degrees warmer than the rest of the gym! I made sure to drink lots of water.

Dinner #1:

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Grilled chicken breast (not bone in, which was exciting), salad with caesar dressing, grilled veggies. Plus an AMAZING gluten free brownie. The chef recently started making more desserts gluten free! The brownie had a slight tinge of cinnamon, and it was salty, gooey, and delicious. I would have loved a second one but my caffeine tolerance couldn’t handle it sadly!

Close up:

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Dinner #2:

The other part of the quesadilla from earlier, plus half of my other flavor of raaw macaw bar (double workout days=more food!). This one has a cinnamon sunbutter base, and has sea salt, chocolate chips, and tart cherries,

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And that’s my day of eating! It’s only 9pm but my bed is looking awfully enticing already…

What is your favorite baked good?

Mine might be muffins (like real muffins, not the healthy kind)—love the blueberry muffins from the box, with fresh blueberries thrown in, and then topped with sugar. Even better in bread form.

Day in the Life Winter 2016

Hello! As promised, I’m popping in for another day in the life! So here we go!

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6:33: Get out of bed. I woke up about 15 minutes earlier, and am getting up an hour before my alarm thanks to an early bedtime!

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Record the night in my sleep journal, which I have to keep as homework for my Sleep and Dreams class. It was a good night’s sleep!

Then it’s time to get ready for my morning workout. In this process, I accidentally started updating the software on my phone which took foreverr and was super frustrating while I was trying to take pictures of everything. GRR. Some photos had to be taken retroactively.

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Daily vitamins: probiotics plus a gummy multivitamin. I know they’re mens, but the differences are not significant and when I couldn’t find my normal brand I went with what looked most delicious.

Next, I head downstairs for a pre workout snack and realize I have a friend.

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Was not expected that! He has quite a presence in the corner there. We’re having a Star Wars themed dinner in my house on Friday, which I’m assuming is why he’s there!

I go in search of the gluten free crackers.

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I usually do about 2/3 of a serving pre-run, and there were only about 5 crackers left so I supplement with another 5 from a bag in my room.

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7:15: Check weather and bundle up (although not enough because #CAgirl).

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7:30: Get going on my track workout!

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I start with a one lap warm up and then stretch. I’m less than 2 weeks from race day, so I’m honing in the paces a little more. I planned to do 3x800m at 8:00 pace with a 3 minute rest in between because my track workouts have been around that distance lately, but then I realized that was silly because on Sunday I ran 1.5 miles at that pace with no rest, so I upped it to 4x800m plus a 400m sprint at the end. I’m happy to report that I felt good and solidly hit my paces!

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I made it halfway through the workout before caving in to the gloves. #CAproblems

I finished around 8 am.

8:15: Back at the house, it’s breakfast time! The yogurt in the house right now is full fat plain Greek. I topped about half a cup of that with a peeled persimmon and sun butter. I spent some time trying to arrange it to not look like something the cat threw up, and I assure you it looks much better in the picture than in person.

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While eating, I scroll through my Timehop and find this post.

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1 year ago today was my first flare up, which means I’ve been dealing with this illness for a year now. I’m definitely doing better, but I had no idea what a rough road I had ahead of me at that point!

On a happier note, here’s a time hop of baby freshman Aurora.

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After breakfast, I pack up my food for the day. I’m out of the house all afternoon and through lunch.

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Then I shower and get ready for the day. I have a piece of this gum along the way! So good. I ordered like 12 of these off of Amazon.

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It’s about 9:30 now and I don’t have class until 11:30. I spend this time finishing up my spin class—I didn’t choreograph the last hill—and doing some Psych reading.

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Along the way, my stomach starts to feel a little funny so I have a few crackers hoping that it’s not in the process of flaring up.

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11:15: Leave for class. I bike, but it’s clear across campus.

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I love this shirt but it kind of makes me crazy to look at…

11:30: Animal Enrichment Lecture. This is an awesome class. Senior pre-vets have the option to do it, and we meet once a week for lecture and once a week for hands on time with the animals. Last week, we got to hang out with pigs! Today in lecture we talked about pigs—various breeds, behaviors, and how to handle them.

12:45: Lunchtime! Class ran a little bit late today. I have leftovers for lunch. Sweet potato chicken soup and a cornbread with a drizzle of honey.

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Right before lunch my stomach started feeling a little funny and while I hoped it was just because it was empty, I suspected it might be more than that. After lunch I took my first stomach med of the day in hopes of staving off the issues a little bit. I love these new tums—they’re chews and are pretty tasty! Despite my concerns, I powered through my meal because I needed the calories for my spin class that night.

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1:15: Leave for my 1:30 class.

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My 1:30 is Sleep and Dreams, and today we talked about Lucid Dreaming (being aware that you are dreaming). It’s pretty cool how they proved it! The lucid dreamer was able to give eye movement signals from within a dream.

2:20: Break between classes. I was supposed to eat my pear at this point to meet my morning calorie goal, but it was clearly not happening. My stomach started getting angrier.

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I spent more time doing Psych reading. The reading is on Depression.

2:45: Pop a single pepto to try and quiet my stomach enough to eat my afternoon snack because I HAVE to get at least those calories in before teaching spin that evening. Hate my body a little bit. I do develop a theory about what caused the problems today though. I had a persimmon this morning, and can link flare ups to two other instances where I ate a persimmon. This was a late variety persimmon, and both other instances were this same type, so maybe it’s this particular type that is an issue, and the other ones I had earlier in the season were ok? I can’t actually think of any cases where I had this type of persimmon without a flare up. So I suppose persimmon season will be prematurely ending for me :/

3:00 Sex and Gender in Physiology. Today we’re talking about hormones.

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Thankfully, I’m starting to feel better and have a Luna bar in class. I have to be pretty precise with the timing so that I’m neither full nor starving by 5:30.

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Dealing with my stomach is such a freaking process.

4:30: Arrive at my dorm. I ordered more stomach meds on Amazon and am pretty pumped that they’ve arrived because I’m out of the orange flavor and am getting a bit tired of berry. I think I just need to accept that these are my life right now.

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I’m feeling a lot less like death than earlier, but still a bit rough and since I’m teaching spin, I take a full dose of pepto and of my new Tums. I really try to avoid taking these when I can, but Spin can be rough so it’s worth going all out. Thanks to my stomach, spin teaching days are especially stressful because I HAVE to be feeling good come 5:30.

4:30-5 Get ready for spin. The stomach meds are working. They are amazing. They are a lifesaver. My stomach returns to its normal size and I get pretty hungry. Uh oh. Nothing to do now though—my stomach is definitely not happy enough to eat right before class.

5:10: Bike over to class.

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Again, bundled up. I was freezing all day, so 2 jackets it is.

5:30: Teach spin! Last night I was inspired to choreograph an epic, disgustingly heavy hill, and my class just nailed it. It was awesome! Even better? My stomach 100% behaved itself. I thought I might have problems from being too hungry, but it behaved! Yippee!

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6:30: Dinnertime! On the menu is turkey with olive tapenade, and rosemary roasted potatoes (with ketchup of course). I had some greens on the side with light champagne vinaigrette, which I bought myself because I’m sick of the sugary dressings we have! I also grab some greens for second dinner later on, and for lunch tomorrow since I’m packing again.

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This much meat is probably not wise, but I’m starving and don’t have too many other things on my plate.

For dessert, I have a few chocolate covered gluten free pretzels.

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I also grab part 2 of lunch tomorrow to claim for myself: gluten free pizza, AKA pizza made on a tortilla! There’s only one without sausage, so I don’t want it to get eaten up!

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7:15: Start typing up this post while trying to decide if my stomach is going to rebel again or if the flare up actually seems over.

7:45-8:15: Work on more Abnormal Psych reading. Decide my stomach is happy enough for second dinner.

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This absolutely hit the spot. Gluten free bread, spinach, egg, and a sprinkle of mozzarella. Egg cooked in the microwave because I don’t need anything fancy! I also had a couple of bites of potato and half of a kettle corn rice cake for “dessert.” I’m trying to work more real foods (plus veggies and protein) into my late night meal, so this was perfect.

I spent the next 30 or so minutes doing more reading and then headed to a women’s health event downstairs where I had a couple of pieces of chocolate.

Now, it’s approximately 10pm. On the agenda is the rest of my reading. It’s definitely not imperative that I finish tonight because I have plenty of time tomorrow morning before class, so I’m going to pack it up around 11 and get ready for bed then most likely!

That’s my day! I guess it turned into a “day in the life with stomach ailments” but hopefully that gives you some insight into my day to day happenings!

What does your day look like?

Healing and Moving Forward

On Wednesday night, I took a yoga class.My first in over 3 months. My first since hurting my shoulder.

When the teacher asked us to set an intention for the class, I decided on “healing and moving forward.” That was cause for some reflection. There I was, standing on my mat. My shoulder was strong, my stomach was calm.

2015 was a difficult year health wise for me. Just to be clear, overall I actually really loved 2015.

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But 2016 will be the year of healing. Healing and moving on from the issues that plagued me throughout the past year. It’s time to look forward with optimism.

Another thing that’s bringing on this post is how much better my stomach has been lately since making some changes. It’s definitely not perfect, and I have to be very vigilant, but I feel like a new person. Now, it’s easy to fall into bad habits that might harm my stomach (aka overeating) so this is a precarious balance, but I’m hoping that knowledge is power and I’ll continue on as I am.

Last night was a senior night. On senior nights, my school buses the seniors to and from downtown. I wasn’t actually able to make any last quarter due to scheduling conflicts, but I remember wanting really badly to go to the one the first week of class last quarter but being too sick to go.

Last night, I was able to go. And I was so grateful. Grateful for my health. Grateful to be able to have fun like a normal personal without the intense worry about how my stomach would behave. It was such a stark contrast to how I was that time last quarter.

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Right now, I’m grateful for my health and all that I can do, because it is not something to ever take for granted!

WIAW-A New Routine

Happy Wednesday! I’ve now been to all my classes, and while I’m a bit overwhelmed, I’m really excited for all of them! This quarter I’m taking Sex and Gender in Physiology, Abnormal Psych, Cosmology, and Sleep and Dreams.

Now that I’m (hopefully) getting into a groove with my new eating habits, I thought I’d do another WIAW link up with Jenn and the gang.

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Before Crossfit, I had another piece of Cranberry orange bread. Love it.

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Crossfit was really tough. The workouts at this Crossfit are hard, I’ve determined! Haha. They tend to be longer. This one took me about 14 minutes.

3 sets

15 box jump w/step
10 no push up burpee
5 power clean and jerk
250m row
Rest 1

Post Crossfit, I had some fage 2% with homemade cranberry sauce and sun butter. Cranberry sauce is the easiest thing to make. I had no idea. I just threw leftover cranberries on the stove and eyeballed water and sugar. This is probably tarter than most which is fantastic!

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My first class today was at noon, so I packed a lunch and ate early. Miltons GF everything crackers+leftover Tuscan Chicken and Vegetable stew.

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After a couple of classes, I came back and had my afternoon snack. I grabbed a couple of slices of turkey on the way in with a piece of avocado, and then had one of my Raaw Macaw bars.

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After doing some reading, I headed to the gym for a short spin workout. The classes I teach start up again next week and I have a ton of new music, so I wanted to get a feel for the choreography.

I was hungry when I got back so I had a few more crackers to take the edge off.

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One thing about having to eat small meals is I have to be careful not to get ravenous because I have to really be in control when I eat my mini meals.

Dinner came shortly after—for some reason this looks like more food than it was, but I had some roasted sweet potato, roasted garlic kale (SO good), and a small salad with rosemary chicken and sesame dressing.

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Dessert #1 was an Enjoy Life gingerbread cookie. These are so good—soft and spicy! I prepackaged a few desserts before coming back to school to help with portion control and because it makes me feel more organized.IMG_5520

For the first time, I grabbed dinner #2 while getting dinner #1. This is mostly because I think I need more vegetables, and the vegetables are never present as leftovers from dinner.

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I only ate about 1/2 of the drumstick because I wasn’t really feeling it. The disadvantage of getting food beforehand is that it’s hard to be intuitive about what I need so I’ll reconsider that in the future. For second dinner dessert, I had 3 GF chocolate covered pretzels.

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And that’s a wrap!

What’s your favorite kind of quick bread?

Quickbreads are one of my favorite things so I’d love an idea as to what to make next 🙂