Pre-Workout: Cheerios

I was planning on doing Crossfit, but I could actually do zero of the movements with my wrist so I decided to just do a lift on my own instead. I did 10-10-8 back squats at 135-145-155, 3 sets of single leg split squats and pistols, and then some rowing for conditioning! 3x1000m with 4 minutes of rest in between! I think my average time was 4:13 per 1000? It took me back to my rowing days though!

Breakfast: Cottage cheese with pumpkin pie filling and sunbutter, plus a few grapes. The saltiness of the cottage cheese pairs perfectly with the pumpkin—kind of like cheesecake (but I wouldn’t take it that far).

Lunch: Same thing as yesterday, but packed since I was at school all day. Chicken, nectarine, apricot cranberry goat cheese, balsamic vinaigrette.

Snack: It ended up being a pretty warm day, so I went and got ice cream with a few friends. I had salted caramel.

And then when I got home I had a few carrot sticks.

Dinner:

Of course I had a dinner-making snack:

And I know I recently posted this meal, but here it is in context. Zucchini noodles, apple chunks, chicken apple sausage, and white cheddar laughing cow. Seriously so good.

Dessert: Same as yesterday. Pumpkin pie filling with dark chocolate chips and whipped cream. And a piece of dark chocolate.

Bedtime snack: The same rice cake with pumpkin cream cheese, and a couple of pieces of dried persimmon.

And that’s it! I’m currently trying to hurry up and get my studying done for the night because I have early morning spin to teach tomorrow!

Here is your obligatory kitten picture:

Pre-Workout:

A couple of handfuls of Cheerios.

I teach 6:15am spin on Mondays and Wednesday now, so this was before my class! I’m still getting used to the early schedule, but it was a blast! I’m impressed at the class I get that early on a college campus!

Breakfast:

A couple of pumpkin crackers (these are really good and taste similar to Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup crackers, but with more spices).

And then a persimmon protein smoothie. One frozen persimmon from last year’s bounty, milk, salted caramel protein powder, and a few shakes of cinnamon.

Mid-morning snack: I don’t normally do a morning snack, but breakfast was on the earlier side and I didn’t have class until 10, so I had some of these carrot chips. They’re my newest obsession.

Lunch: I’ve had the same salad literally every weekday with a few variations. This one was nectarine, Trader Joe’s rosemary balsamic grilled chicken (this is amazing), Trader Joe’s apricot cranberry goat cheese, and light balsamic vinaigrette.

Whenever I had lunch at home, I always have to have something sweet. I try to keep it on the healthier side, so I had a square of 78% dark chocolate and half a piece of my sister’s homemade (!) chocolate.

Snack: Banana with Trader Joe’s unsweetened sunbutter. I actually really like this because I think it tastes a lot like peanut butter.

Dinner: Of course I have to have a bite of something while I cook, so I had a few of these:

And then my actual meal was a fall kale salad: kale massaged with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper, butternut squash, dried cranberries, parmesan, and chicken apple sausage.

Dessert: I forgot to take a picture, but I had the exact same thing as last week that I shared before—pumpkin pie filling with dark chocolate chips heated up and topped with whipped cream.

And a ginger chew.

Evening snack: Rice cake with pumpkin cream cheese.

What do you think—was that enough fall foods??

I’ll leave you with this:

Happy fall!

I met her when she was 7 weeks old, and fell in love with her. When she needed a new foster a couple of weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity. I foster failed within a week. Jackson has been the most amazing older brother and they became instant BFFs. He didn’t hiss when he met her, just trotted up and wanted to play. It took about 5 minutes for them to start playing, and they literally played ALL NIGHT that first night.

Also new is that this has been my first week teaching spin for fall quarter! I taught a class the last two weeks, but this is the beginning of normal fall classes and I have 3 a week! It’s been fun but I need to adjust my sleep schedule for the 6ams because they have been wiping me out.

That all said, it’s fall so you know I’m enjoying seasonal foods. And zucchini. Always zucchini.

This is my new favorite dish. All the flavors of fall despite the summer veggies! Zucchini noodles with apple sautéed in, white cheddar laughing cow, and Trader Joe’s chicken apple sausage which is super mapley.

I felt like such a real adult peeling and cutting and roasting carrots. I served them with cheesy zucchini noodles and a salmon burger.

I love this breakfast for fall. Cottage cheese with sunbutter and pumpkin butter.

I finally got my first Jamba Juice Pumpkin Smash of the season! This is actually one of my favorite fall foods, and I never know when to get it because a smoothie is always seems awkward to have between meals. I went after teaching my first 6am spin and had this for breakfast. It’s basically ice cream for breakfast, but all this teaching is burning up my metabolism. Today I taught spin and then went to Crossfit, and instead of eating a banana for a snack like I was going to, I had some frozen donut pieces and it was amazing.

Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi with zucchini slices and trader joe’s butternut squash pasta sauce.

Dessert of pumpkin pie filling and chocolate chips.

And finally, pumpkin pie filling and sunbutter with cottage cheese.

I haven’t posted in a while but I did want to share some of the workouts I did when my wrist was much worse than it is now. It’s not healed, but it’s so much better and there’s a lot I can do.

Workout 1:

4×5 barbell squats

4×8 single leg squats supersetted with pistols (to a bench for me)

20 minute (or 15) AMRAP: 30 sit ups, 20 lunges, 10 box jumps

Workout 2: No Barbell Workout (perfect for busy gym times)

4×6 heavy single leg RDLs

4×8 single leg squats supersetted with pistols

3 Rounds of tabata for conditioning (20 seconds working, 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes—one tabata for each set of movements)

1. Squat jumps/ speed skaters
2. Air squats/ lunge jumps
3. In and outs with a twist at the top

Workout 3:

Heavy backsquats

Hip flexor exercises—3×20 (fire hydrants, etc)

MetCon: 5 min AMRAP of kettle bell swings and box jumps 3-6-9….

That’s all i have today! Enjoy the fall season!

I was a day ahead of myself all week so it was a great time for a 3 day weekend!

I was missing my college friends, so a trip outside of Davis on my day off was just what the doctor ordered…Friday morning after a couple of hours of study time, I drove an easy 1.5 hours south to see my college roommate. It was so, so nice to see her and chat about life. Her persimmon trees were absolutely GORGEOUS!

We chatted for a while before whipping up a delicious lunch. We made fall-themed salads with hard boiled egg, butternut squash (cooked in the microwave, then sautéed with turmeric and garlic salt), chicken, and sunflower seeds.

After lunch, it was time to pick some persimmons! (Also…admire her adorable kitty).

There are two varieties of permission; one that has to be eaten soft (the pointy ones) and one that is perfect crunchy. It’s a little early in the season for the soft ones, but I managed to find one and of course ate it right off the tree (which was horribly messy.) We spent about an hour picking while chatting on the phone with another one of our best friends. It was so much fun to talk to them both, and to pick persimmons! I may have gotten a little carried away…

I, um, went home with over 40 pounds of persimmons. However, they keep a really long time, and I’m currently averaging 3 persimmons a day (and I’m sharing), so I’m pretty confident I can finish them!

That day was the perfect fall day, and the perfect break from vet school.

Since we’re talking about fall, I recently realized that Thanksgiving is almost here, and I’m running out of time to eat all the fall foods! So I decided to make that a priority! Here’s what I’ve been eating:

Breakfasts

“Chocolate” yogurt (cocoa powder and maple syrup) with blueberries and sunbutter.

Such a perfect fall breakfast: pumpkin Noosa yogurt and a persimmon.

So fun fact: I like to eat my persimmons sliced up. On the side, yogurt with pumpkin pie filling (don’t judge; it’s less sugar than pumpkin butter!) and sunbutter.

Lunches

A variation on my typical weird but quick and easy go to salad: chopped salad with american cheese, guacamole, and ketchup, topped with an egg. On the side, I made some amazing cinnamon apple tea, that I stirred fresh ginger into. Apparently I actually have a lot of tea in my cabinet that I’ve never tried.

Ok, this really is pure fall. Salad with persimmon, cranberry goat cheese (I love this in salads), and chicken.

Subway salad with turkey, provolone, veggies, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. Nothing new here. Plus avocado.

My typical salad.

Pear and cranberry goat cheese salad with chicken and a side of leftover roasted butternut squash.

Another persimmon salad.

Chipotle with classmates after volunteering at a clinic that Davis puts on. I feel like my Chipotle order isn’t super conventional. I get a salad with fajita veggies, chicken, corn salsa, fresh salsa, and of course guac.

Dinners

Roasted carrots, roasted zucchini, and my baked tofu (breaded in nutritional yeast/onion powder/garlic powder).

Zucchinni pad thai.

Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup (the fresh one). Super good. I’ve put quality cheese in it. It’s good with aged gouda, but I think it’s even better with aged cheddar! Toast on the side.

Ok, this was a good one. Roasted butternut squash, parmesan, dried cranberries, over a bed of kale massaged with balsamic, olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Side of the same tofu.

More pumpkin soup with a GF ciabatta.

Same salad, except with chicken. For this ciabatta, I spread the center with butter and a little fresh garlic, and then wrapped it in foil and put it in the toaster oven.

One of my favorite forms of zucchini: noodles seasoned and tossed with parmesan, and then topped with Harvest fall pasta sauce.

Super simple: zucchini scramble with soft garlic and herb cheese, and avocado toast.

And finally for dinners, this may not look like much but it was delicious! Roasted butternut squash with parmesan and an egg. I wish I had more squash left for this meal!

Sweets

Blueberry zucchini bread from the freezer.

Ok. So I bought a big can of pumpkin pie filling. I mix it with egg white, then microwave it for a little makeshift crustless pumpkin pie. With whipped cream of course.

No egg this time; cold pumpkin filling with a GF cinnamon cookie and whipped cream.

I had a fair amount of Halloween candy leftover (we got all of 1 group of tricker treaters, and I was grateful just to get any!), so I brought some to school, and then made banana bread with some. I chopped up milky ways and 3 musketeers.

Thursday evening…I impulse bought a cake at Trader Joe’s. It was 100% one of those weeks, and this was delicious. I stuck some in the freezer for later also!

We routinely have bake sales at school to raise money for clubs, so this weekend I made GF brownies. I had to try them first (this is actually a time when I had to try them…I’ve never used a GF brownie mix before. This was Betty Crocker).

Etc.

This is my new favorite thing. A tea latte with soy milk. I found a coffeeshop where you can get any type of tea in your tea latte. This was peach apricot!

Honey lavender beer.

Decaf cappuccino for study time!

And now, after that long post, it’s time to hit the books (or…the iPad…).

This time I didn’t even try to get a smaller bag because I’m confident I’ll go through it!

Today, I’m going to catch up on all the delicious (often zucchini-based) meals I’ve been eating, and also talk about a little fitness!

The fall weather has me craving longer distances, running-wise. My foot (post stress fracture a year ago) is starting to feel really solid. My tendonitis is feeling better….although it seems to have been replaced by my old plantar fasciitis….

Anyways, I think I’m going to slowly and carefully start building a little more distance. Maybe do another half, if everything feels good. Not soon, I’d be shooting for the spring or even next fall. But for now, I would love to do a 10k! I’m a faster human than I was before when I was doing more runs. So I’m going to play around with it, and see what happens! I miss my Sunday morning long run tradition! I actually don’t think I’ve really run more than 3 miles since last November, when my foot got pretty sore for a while after a 5 mile run. So we shall see!

Otherwise, I’ve been doing basically all Crossfit lately. I need to get back to spin classes, and yoga. While Chloe was here, I didn’t run at all (just walked a ton!) in an effort to get my plantar fasciitis to feel better. It’s not bad, but I’m trying to really take care of it!

So let’s go through, shall we?

I finally made zucchini lasagna! It tasted great, but presentation left a little to be desired.

I had 2 layers of zucchini noodles, with a ricotta-parmesean-+1 egg in the middle, with tons of pasta sauce, and topped with mozzarella. I froze most of it for when things get crazy (or I get lazy).

Pumpkin smoothie! I genuinely thought this was going to be disgusting, but it was actually delicious! I blended up half a packet of Flapjacked vanilla smoothie mix, half a frozen banana, half a cup of milk, half a cup of canned pumpkin that I had leftover, plus tons of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Yum!

In other zucchini news, once I bought another large batch of zucchini, I invested in a more legit spiralizer and it was the best decision. 100% worth it, and I love it.

SO I’ve been making tons of zoodles.

This was a great combo: parmesan, mozzarella, chicken, garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

And then there’s the classic marinara. Similar to spaghetti squash, in my opinion the key is to get the squash tasting good before you put sauce on. I used various seasoning blends and salt and pepper.

I’ve also been into non-green green smoothies lately. Mango juice, frozen berries, and spinach.

When Chloe was here, I got a few Trader Joe’s salads because cooking with her was hard, and she was time consuming, and I had to run home in the middle of the day and shove food in my face while entertaining her. This one is my favorite. I used to eat it a lot in undergrad, especially when I was sick because it doesn’t have anything I’m allergic to. Broccoli slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, kale, chicken. YUM.

More healthy pumpkin bread from the freezer. I think I’m going to make more soon because I have a lot of ripe bananas.

My go-to BBQ chicken salad has been making a comeback! Dressing is just salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime. Then I tossed together corn, tomato, and lettuce, and topped it with BBQ chicken, cheese, and guacamole. A break from zucchini—what??

I love the pumpkin yogurt-fig-sunbutter combo. Plus a peach. The peaches are good, but I can tell they’re reaching the end of the season. Apples season is coming, my friends!

I went to the weekend farmer’s market, and they had a gluten free bakery that comes to our market back home! The best part is I already know what things I’m not allergic to. Naturally, I had to pick up a flour less chocolate torte.

I did my Wednesday night farmer’s market thing as well and of course picked up a tamale. This week was chicken! I had some of my favorite fall harvest salsa on the side, plus a salad tossed with Bolthouse cilantro ranch.

Dessert of chocolate Halo Top and fancy caramel sauce.

I ate the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner Saturday and Sunday without even realizing it! For my lunches, I had my favorite salad. I admit this is super weird, but I like it and it’s quick and easy. Lettuce, American chess,e deli turkey, chopped with scissors, and then dressed with guacamole and topped with ketchup.

Dinners were a zucchini scramble with reduced fat alouette. I realized that it is going to expire extremely soon, so I repeated the meal Sunday.

Served with a peach one night and GF cinnamon raisin toast the next.

Here are a couple of other fun (seasonal!) things from this weekend:

I found this pumpkin wheat beer and of course had to try it! Sipped while cuddling with the cat on the couch and streaming Stanford-UCLA football. Fall feels like football season, and I hadn’t caught a game yet. It was a good one! We came out on top! It made me nostalgic for my alma mater for sure though!

My Starbucks fall drink of choice: decaf cappuccino with one pump pumpkin spice.

And FINALLY. FINALLY, I made zucchini bread. After buying probably 20 pounds of zucchini over the past month and a half. I made pumpkin-zucchini chocolate chip bread, so it’s also seasonably appropriate! I love this recipe: just 1/3c honey as the sweetener!

Check back in next time for more zucchini adventures. I probably have at least 3 pounds left! I’m trying some different things this week. I’m thinking teriyaki stir-fry, Mexican style, and pad thai!

It’s been a WILD week. I have a TON of pup adventures to share, but for now, I have a test tomorrow so I’m just going to bust out a quick fall day of eating as a little study break.

Rina even has her fall look going on with the pumpkin-colored bow:

(It should be noted that she has since forgiven me for said full week of pup adventures…)

Pre-Workout:

You know it. I love this flavor of Cheerio in general, and was eating them way into the new year this year thanks to ordering a few boxes at the end of the season.

Workout: I wasn’t feeling the Crossfit WOD. Plus I’ve been doing CF a lot lately and wanted something a little different. I’m still doing my squat program, and with the influx of undergrads to campus this weekend, I figured going early on a weekday morning to the campus gym to try and get a squat rack would be wise.

Breakfast:

Pumpkin spice Siggi’s+sunbutter+figs. Mango on the side.

Lunch:

I had a 3 hour gap around lunch time and was SO tired. I debated napping, but I really needed to study so I went the caffeine route. I got a small black tea, and only drank half of it but got the buzz I needed! (I’m super caffeine sensitive.)

My actual meal was a fig and goat cheese salad with deli turkey, plus BBQ rice cakes.

Snack:

Dinner:

I made a salad with dried cranberries, parmesan, roasted sweet potato, and a balsamic drizzle. On the side, I had Trader Joe’s BBQ pulled chicken.

Dessert:

And study snack:

Another study snack may happen later on as well.

Back to the books I go!

This has been a really low key weekend, which was needed after a few crazy ones. I was traveling the last 2 weekends, and had an action packed weekend the week before that with my parents visiting.

Friday morning began with a great Crossfit workout—front squats and deadlifts! I love anything with power movements. We did 10×2 front squats, and I used 125 lbs. The WOD was

15 deadlifts (135 lbs)

15 box jups

15 deadlifts

15 box jumps

rest 3 minutes. repeat.

For breakfast I had something a little bit different. I’m trying to make my way through the freezer, so I made a protein smoothie with a frozen banana, milk, cocoa powder, and Quest salted caramel protein.

I haven’t been feeling meat as much lately for some reason, so my lunch salad was meatless. Pears, dried cranberries, and lots of goat cheese in champagne vinaigrette, with crackers on the side.

And a pice of chocolate.

I can’t believe I only have 2 weeks left of zoo life!

My wild Friday night included plan at a coffeeshop to work on my online Microbiology class. With all the travel lately, it’s kind of been put on the back burner.

I started out by ordering a sandwich. I ordered it on GF bread but I don’t think they actually gave me GF bread because I’ve gotten sandwiches there before that don’t look like that! Despite the results of my gluten experiment, I decided I didn’t want to lose mental capacity so I just ate around the bread. The sandwich was turkey, swiss, and herb cream cheese with a side salad.

After enjoying that, I ordered a baked pumpkin maple latte (decaf!) to sip on while completing an assignment.

I’m not normally a sweet coffee person, but this was no Starbucks. It was really delicious and actually tasted like coffee!

I was planning on watching Game 7 of the 2014 World Series (I have it on DVD) afterwards, but I was craving a book so I stopped by Target to pick one up. This was my night:

I like this book! There’s definitely a lot to it, and it’s fairly dark.

Saturday morning I was supposed to teach spin, but no one came to the class. Instead, I headed out to a 9am Crossfit for some clean and jerk work and a partner WOD. In groups of 3, we split 75-60-45-30-15 push press (65), calories on the rower, and kettle bell swings.

Afterwards, it was time to hit up a St. Louis must-do.

Rumor was they have GF donuts Friday and Saturday mornings, and I picked up a GF pumpkin spice cake donut!

Of course I had to try a bite in the parking lot (but managed to save the rest for when I got home because it needed milk).

It was good, but to be honest, I think I would have liked it more baked. I don’t really like the fried flavor. But my first donut in a very long time was well enjoyed.

I also really like this milk, so I wanted to mention it. It’s filtered to have lower lactose and high protein than normal milk, but mostly I like it because I actually have a pretty strong fear of sour milk, and I feel like if it’s super filtered that’s less likely to be an issue!

My entire day basically consisted of reading my book on the coach with kitties. Mostly Yoyo, but Scooby joined us for a little bit. He sat on my lap but kind of spilled onto Yoyo and was directly on top of him, so I LITERALLY had cats on cats.

Saturday night I went to a Crossfit night out.

My local Crossfit here organized a night out at a local bar. It was a really fun night; it was nice to actually talk to people outside of working out (though of course the topic of Crossfit was brought up once or twice ). It was really interesting learning more about people’s lives outside of them gym, and of course I had to try some local craft beer! It just makes me all the more sad to leave these people in 2 weeks!

One really nice thing was that it was within walking distance of my house, and while the temperatures have dropped quite a bit these past few days, it was a really nice, crisp night to walk.

Sunday morning at 6am, Yoyo busted open my door and before I knew it I had 2 kitties snuggled up on my bed.

Despite their antics, I managed to sleep a little bit longer!

My main event for Sunday morning was going to Crossfit run group. It’s basically just people meeting at the gym to go run together. There was a short and a long option. The short was 1.5, and the long was 5…1.5 seemed a lot shorter than what I was hoping for, so I decided I might as well go for 5 and turn back if necessary. I hadn’t run this far since my stress fracture; I had only run 4 miles 2x, and 3 is my normal distance.

My foot performed fantastically! I was able to cover 5 miles pain-free, which is pretty huge. My legs were feeling it by the end though! A group of 3 of us did the 5 mile option, and apparently our average pace was 9:36, which is not too shabby! It felt good to run longer again, and I’m sure I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. My plantar fasciitis is flaring a little bit from the increased effort though. Running on my foot is pretty variable. I think the fact that I spent the entire previous day on the couch is part of why I was able to cover those miles pain free. I walk and stand a ton at work, which limits my mileage.

I was HUNGRY when I got home and had a few gulps of chocolate milk while preparing lunch.

I messed up flipping my egg, but somehow it turned out perfectly bread shaped! I’ll take it! I made an open-faced egg sandwich with American cheese. On the side was a salad with goat cheese and dried cranberries.

After lunch, I facetimed a friend back home, while mixing up pumpkin bread (and dividing the recipe in half!) Somehow, despite multitasking, I think I managed to not screw anything up.

I asked my mom to dig up my favorite pumpkin bread recipe which I haven’t made in a little while. The recipe is from so long ago, it’s 1. pre-blog and 2. on paper!

I tried to find the link to the recipe, but I can’t find it!

I cut the recipe in half, used GF flour, and used a bit under 1/3c brown sugar and 1/3c maple syrup in place of the full cup of sugar. I also sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top of one side!

Delicious!

Chilly temperatures+pumpkin bread?

NOW it’s fall.

I spent the afternoon studying. I went to Rise for a cozy decaf cappuccino.

Dinner tonight was another warm fall favorite: soup! I heated up some mushroom lentil soup and topped it with fat free cheddar (kind of rubbery but trying to use it up!). On the side I had some buttered toast.

For dessert, I sautéed up some apples with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. I don’t think I added nearly enough butter, and the edges got sort of caramelized. I served that with some vanilla Halo Top.

It was a great, relaxing, low key cozy fall weekend!

What do you like to do when the temperature drops?

But again, I think a lot of the good times that were had in the boot were because of the awesome people I was with. I’m missing my college friends like crazy now, and while I’m excited for a new opportunity in a new city, I’m sad I won’t see them every day. I think it’s finally getting real that I won’t be going back to Stanford this fall.

Sigh.

(Featuring: Boot goes to the beach, boot goes win tasting in Napa, boot goes to the Giant’s game, boot goes to senior nights, boot goes to a Stanford baseball game, boot ‘graduates” from my sorority, and boot does murph.)

After that absurdly long introduction, let’s get into WIAW, shall we? Thanks as always to Jenn for starting the fun all those years ago.

For breakfast, I had a few crackers alongside a smoothie bowl. I recently bought Quest salted caramel protein powder, and so far I don’t hate it. I want to try it in waffles/pancakes at some point though!

In the blender went 1.33 bananas, milk, cocoa powder, and protein powder. I topped it with some KIND Raspberry granola.

I taught a noon spin class on campus. It was a class I made when I had a broken foot, and it was fun to actually be able to do the full class for real (I couldn’t stand before).

I had some business to attend to on campus, so I packed a lunch because I knew I would be hungry post-spin. I had a Trader Joe’s chicken, goat cheese, and beet salad, and a few crackers.

When I got back, I had snack part 1: a farmer’s market peach that was absolutely delicious.

Snack part 2 was a new purchase: a Flapjacked muffin. I saw these the other day and actually am not allergic to anything in them, so I was excited to try them out! Plus, given my physical activity for the day I knew I wanted plenty of protein, and these pack 20g in.

I overcooked it a tiny bit. When I originally took it out, it seemed too soft still so I added a few extra seconds and apparently that was too much. It was good though! The cinnamon chips were a good touch!

Before dinner, I attended a spin class. Normally I would never double up spin, but since it’s my last week and I had one spin credit left to a local studio, I wanted to go to one of my favorite teacher’s classes. It was a fun one! I always like her music.

For dinner, we had roasted corn and spaghetti squash mac and cheese.I haven’t had mac and cheese in forever so I was excited!

I love the idea of using spaghetti squash. Honestly, I’m not a huge pasta person. I’m all about the sauce! And who doesn’t love sneaking in extra veggies? This may be my favorite way to eat spaghetti squash thus far!

For dessert, I had my final 2 leftover grad cupcakes: chocolate with caramel frosting, and caramel with chocolate frosting.

A little while later, I had another snack. Because, hello, 2 spin classes, I needed the calories! Another thing I was super excited to try? Pumpkin spice cheerios! We finally found them! Yes, they are good. And I’m ready to dive headfirst into pumpkin. I was crazy into pumpkin a couple of years ago, but less recently. I think I’m due for another year of being crazy into pumpkin. And clearly I’m starting off strong with 2 pumpkin items in one day!

I also had a few milk chocolate chips to cap it off.

Have you had any pumpkin yet? What’s you favorite fall food?

I love pumpkin bread!

Let’s compare:

What the heck?? How did that happen??

This morning I went for my first run longer than 2.5 miles since my half. It was uneventful. I’ve been embracing the shorter runs lately, especially with midterms and other life craziness! Plus I’m in love with my 2.5 mile route. It feels like fall! I broke out my santa run shirt-after Halloween means that’s officially acceptable. My spin classes are going to love me when I start busting out the holiday tunes! For the sake of my own dignity I will wait until after Thanksgiving for that. I’m a firm believer that the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is the magical period when it is acceptable to start celebrating Christmas but also to still eat all the pumpkin.

The weather here has been gorgeous as well, minus a rainstorm earlier this week. It’s quite brisk in the mornings, but warm enough during the day that long sleeves/cardigans and scarves are tolerable.

I spent my Sunday doing reading from our hammock!

For some reason, I haven’t been feeling sunflower seed butter at breakfasts and have been doing greek yogurt with jam.

I know this looks like a spoonful but the bowls+spoons are huge!

The food situation has been better as well. I think our new chef is adapting to the tastes and needs of my house. More vegetables, less oil, the return of grilled chicken to the salad bar, and sufficient food for leftovers.

One day for lunch, it was all salads, which was awesome. Asian with shrimp, chicken caesar, and butternut squash with parmesan and brussels sprouts.

Dinner of chicken, kale+veggie+tomatoes, and parmesan polenta.

Make your own tacos in salad form-Mexican rice, black beans, chicken, tomato vinaigrette. There has also been homemade salad dressings lately which have been awesome!

A dinner of leftovers because I was gone late at Crossfit-chicken, more polenta, leftover salad, roasted sage sweet potatoes.

Salad+chicken with roasted cruciferous veggies (my fave) and rice pilaf.

I made my own little concoction today as well-cinnamon apples heated up in the microwave on top of oats, sun butter, and a touch of honey. I heated this up in the microwave as well and the oats actually got toasty! The things you learn.

In other life news-check out this photo of my little guy!

And finally-I’ve been loving time hop. Today’s memory from 3 years ago was great. The context is it was my first regatta for crew.

My father, everyone!

I had to start my Friday off on the right foot pre-midterm. An amazing Fuji apple from the farmer’s market with cottage cheese and sun butter. My midterm was a time crunch. I walked out with my brain fried, and grateful that I planned a track workout right afterwards! 4x400m-nothing too crazy, but homework for my exercise physiology class! I spent the afternoon running errands-including a flu shot, new running shoes, and some study time in Peet’s. That evening I went to Crossfit for some squats and a lighter workout that involved lots of push ups-my shoulder is getting stronger!

My evening plans involved friends and a nice bottle of wine.

I still cannot believe I will be leaving these people in less than a year!

Saturday morning I had planned on going for a fall run, but my legs were not feeling it. They had been feeling a little rough between my race, spin classes, and sprint workouts, so I went for a leisurely morning bike ride. I did a beautiful 15ish mile loop, and the good news is I felt much stronger than the last time I did it a year ago-those spin classes must be doing something!

Post ride meal scavenged from the fridge:

Sautéed garlic spinach, rice, and leftover chicken (served with ketchup of course!).

That evening was our Homecoming football game. My Crossfit actually arranged a tailgate prior to the game, so I enjoyed some time outside of the gym with my workout buddies. Everyone looked so different not in workout clothes!

At game time, I met up with some friends.

Our mascot is a tree, and each year, it is quite the honor to be the tree. The trees are crazy-they usually have to do some sort of insane stunt to get the position, although many of these are kept under wraps. The tree makes its own costume each year, with many different interpretations, including a palm tree, the traditional pine, and this year a willow. A fun part of Homecoming is seeing the tree reunion!

I left at halftime (we were up by 2 touchdowns already ) to head over to a Wine and Cheese night hosted by my sister. She had an extensive cheese selection, and pumpkin creme brûlée made before our eyes with a hand held blow torch. (How cool is it that she has that??) It was also fun to see her friends and discuss the wedding!

Sunday morning I was up bright an dearly to sub a spin class at my off-campus gym. It was a good class, and I left energized!

The main event for the weekend though?

PUMPKIN PATCH. There’s a historic farm across the bay (that has baby animals in the spring) with all kinds of ruminants, plus a full on pumpkin patch. I made my friends commit to going weeks in advance because I didn’t want anyone to miss out!

First up was the goats. I’m pretty sure these goats are the babies of the pregnant mothers I saw in the spring!

The most exciting thing? I got to see my cow! I saw this cow when it was young (maybe teenaged?) my freshman year of college, and when I returned last spring, it had grown so much! This year? I got quite the wonderful surprise when I saw that it had a young calf! My cow is all grown up!

After exploring the cornfields, it was time for the pumpkin patch! I was on the search for the perfect pumpkin.

After an extensive search, I found the one!

On the way back to campus, we stopped for pumpkin froyo. Because basic. And because fall. I got pumpkin froyo and salted caramel froyo. SO amazing.

I love fall!