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WIAW-Yoga FINALLY

Happy Wednesday! I finally actually have time for a WIAW post, AND I actually took pictures! Thanks Jenn for hosting!

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I am proud to announce, I’m FINALLY out of my food rut. Which equals being out of my blogging rut-phew! Do you ever read blogs that inspire you to eat better? I recently discovered The Oatmeal Artist-the oatmeal is so creative, all I want to do is eat oatmeal, and eat make oatmeal creations of my favorite desserts! I really want to try the banana-mango. I love that idea! To be perfectly honest-I’ve never made baked oatmeal, and I’ve never made stove top oatmeal…I’ve always had instant either with instant hot water, or the microwave! Or overnight oats, of course. So I think that may need to happen!

Ok, on to the ACTUAL food (and exercise).

So…I haven’t been to yoga in FOREVER. Last week, it occurred to me that there is a yoga class after spin in the morning…and I always have an extra hour after spin in the morning before class…so it really made no sense NOT to go! Plus, after softball last night after not so much as picking up a ball since last summer, I was a bit sore!

After spin, I headed over to yoga. As I brought myself into the first down dog of the day, I had that feeling. You know-the revelation of “I’ve been SO stupid.” The entire back of my legs was SO tight, from my hamstring all the way down to my achilles. Then I remembered how I have the tendency to get sort of injured whenever I’m running and I neglect yoga, which is why I think my Achilles tendonitis has flared up so badly lately. I left the class feeling fantastic (and apparently all my yoga muscles have withered away…whoops). When I woke up this morning, my Achilles was so painful I could barely walk and I was expecting it to be “one of those days.” After yoga, it was pretty fine. You better believe I’m going back on Thursday!

And since this is, after all, What I ATE Wednesday, let’s get on with the food!

Breakfast was a current favorite-Whole milk Greek yogurt with berry compote and sunflower seed butter, plus a mango on the side. I have to say, I may be a sort of convert to Whole Milk yogurt. It’s just SO creamy!

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Lunch was packed, thanks to my freezer! I thawed out the grilled chicken with mashed butter-sage sweet potatoes last night, and then added some of my precious roasted carrots this morning. It always amazes me how well chicken freezes!

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For dessert, I had some dates with unsweetened chocolate (more than just this picture). I credit dates for helping get me out of my food rut. Why have I waited so long to restock them?

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Today, it was quite hot out.

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I actually didn’t feel the heat TOO much, which I’m taking as a good sign given I’ll be battling the heat and humidity of Washington DC all summer! Anyways, to cool off, I had a raspberry chia kombucha.

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And the last of my roasted carrots. It’s always a sad, sad day when I finish them off!

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Crossfit today was a bit rough. We worked on cleans as the strength, and then the WOD was the following:

3 rounds:

30 overhead walking lunges

30 wall balls

30 push ups

So, yeah-my shoulders are done.

For dinner, I made a giant salad with all kinds of fun things-carrot/raisin salad, zucchini, chicken, sunflower seeds. I also has a veggie soufflĂ© on the side-I couldn’t find any smaller plates or bowls so I just threw it on top. Classy, as always.

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Not necessarily the prettiest, but it got the job done! For dessert, I had some cereal on top of plain Greek yogurt. I ate the top of the yogurt and brought the rest back to my dorm for tomorrow’s breakfast.

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Food rut=obliterated! Happy Wednesday!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten this week?

WIAW-Cocoa Powder is Not a Food Group

Happy Wednesday! We made it this far-wooo! This is my last week for a little while without a midterm, so I’m trying to soak it all in!

Since it is Wednesday, we’re going to celebrate WIAW with Jenn!

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Things I learned from my Nutrition class diet assessment: dates are not a food group. Things I learned today: neither is cocoa powder. Ever since I started making homemade chocolate, my cocoa powder seems to be disappearing before my eyes. I’m out of my normal cocoa powder!

I use the term homemade chocolate a bit liberally-it’s more like moist, fudgy, warm, gooey deliciousness. I’ll let you know how much like chocolate it is if I ever actually let it cool…

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There are two variations of this-one that actually is smooth and probably like chocolate if I actually let it cool, and one that is almost cakey, like the inside of a lava cake. I think it’s about time I actually gave you guys a recipe for that, so stay tuned. I need to actually measure everything out!

Also-I’m still not 100% sure how the rest of the project is going to go…I haven’t decided, and I kind of went off it again today. I want to try to finish strong, so we’ll see how it goes. But food. I ended up using Monday’s food as the day for my diet assessment because it was much more normal-the day I had originally used was the day I had a lot of the tapioca made with half and half-and I’m pretty sure I never eat that much saturated fat! Honestly I’m not feeling great physically now with my most recent eating choices, which definitely argue that I should try to stick with it! My run Monday morning was awful-I had the worst stomach cramps the whole time, and I decided to not worry about pace and just get it done-it was my long run of the week since I’m officially in half training, and at this point the miles are all that matters!

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Breakfast on Monday featured a new Trader Joe’s find-pesto gouda! It was good! A good addition to my eggs. It was a green breakfast!

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My packed lunch came together in no time at all! A sweet potato filled with cottage cheese and sunflower seed butter. I may be weird, but don’t knock it until you try it! It was reminiscent of my high school lunches of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but this is an upgrade since it actually has veggies and better quality protein! Plus there’s that whole nut allergy thing…

Yesterday evening, I decided I should actually do the quidditch workout that I’ve been torturing them with for the past few weeks. It was quick but good! I was definitely shaking by the end! I haven’t done this many squats in a long time, and my knee was chirping at me a bit at the end. But I’m sore today! Maybe not “can’t walk” sore, but it’s definitely there!

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Roasted carrots are addicting and life changing. I’m realizing more than ever that if I had better foods on hand, my eating habits would be so much better. I could gobble these up like candy, but they’re gone so fast! Today, when they were all gone I resorted to dates as a snack-when I would have preferred carrots! The amount of dates I’ve been eating has gotten out of hand. I think I need a date detox, haha! If only I had more carrots on hand, it would be easy!

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Trader Joe’s grain and lentil soup, with pesto gouda on top! This soup was really good-but I liked the cheese on top for interesting texture!

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Fire-the highlight of my Monday! We had to film a video for my sorority recruitment. I wanted to take a selfie with my sparkler but as I brought it near my head I thought better of it. Which is probably why I still have my eyebrows…

Speaking of lack of eyebrows-we learned today that in Ochem lab this week, there’s a relatively high chance of messing up the reaction and making TNT. Awesome….

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Breakfast Tuesday morning before quidditch-goat milk yogurt, sunflower seed butter, applesauce.

Quidditch training was fun. I need to get better at not laughing so much at their pain though…Today was a new workout, and I think it kicked everyone’s butt! For the conditioning, I introduced them to EMOM (every minute on the minute), with 5 burpees and 5 push ups every minute for 10 minutes. I need to try this for myself sometime!

I decided to get coffee afterwards-which I strangely probably didn’t need because I had so much energy! 5 hours of sleep-go figure!

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I mixed it up and got a latte. Partly because I went to a different coffeeshop, and I know their cappuccinos aren’t as good. But this was delicious! My coffee-ing was cut short though when the campus coffeeshop and surrounding area was evacuated due to a bomb threat. It turned out to be nothing, but the area was closed off for a while!

My lunch pictures are kind of embarrassing. Yes, I eat salads out of ziplock bags.

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This one was grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, olives, and hummus. The sad part was that I really don’t like cherry/grape tomatoes, which I seemed to have forgotten about…

After Crossfit today, all I wanted was roasted carrots. Guess what I didn’t have? Roasted carrots. I went to the dining hall with high hopes-they sometimes have them although they aren’t very good. They didn’t have roasted ANYTHING. I got beets from the salad bar and microwaved them with olive oil, but that didn’t really change the fact that I’m not a big fan of beets. Sigh-I tried!IMG_6632

In terms of my food goals for the near future, I think I’d feel better if for starters I cut down on the dates. While they’re not horrible for me, it’s becoming clear that they are just a lackluster replacement for the real, nutritious foods that I’m craving! I think I’m going to try to avoid them completely for one day, just to break the habit. It’s amazing how much of eating is about habits!

What is one of your major ‘food groups’?