granola bars | Fitness is Sweet

Phew. I am pooped right now! I have to wake up in 6 hours, but I really couldn’t miss out on the What I Ate Wednesday party-hosted by Jenn! This seriously does make Wednesday so much more fun!

First, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your comments on yesterday’s post. It was really interesting to hear all your perspectives!

Today was a really relaxing day. Kind of. I’m trying to cure my social media addiction before school starts, as well as soak in the last bits of summer. Therefore, I’m trying to spend more time outside and ditch the technology a little more. Yesterday I felt like I was in a computer-induced fog all day. When I spend too much time with my technology, time passes in a blur and I don’t really experience anything!

Anyways, I started my morning by waking up before my alarm (yay!) and heading to the gym for my first ever tempo run! I was a little nervous. Which was actually really silly-the run was only 3 miles, the splits being 10, 8:30, 10. And I know I can run 3 8:00 miles…so not sure why I was worried. I then spent the rest of the time before yoga doing some of my all time favorite lifts-back lunges off a step and single leg RDLs.

I walked out of yoga feeling fantastic and totally at peace. It wasn’t quite lunch time, so I stopped into Peet’s for a cappuccino. Yes, I actually chose to drink coffee without desperately needing it! This is probably my favorite cappuccino-the milk foam was so smooth! It’s all about the milk foam with me 🙂

I wish they sold extra small coffees though. I can never finish it-I was a low caffeine tolerance, and a high caffeine awareness. I was sad I couldn’t finish this, but realized my heart would be racing if I had tried. Sad. You better believe I cherry picked all the milk foam though!

To say I developed a taste for coffee is an exaggeration. I’ve developed a taste for cappuccinos….Which could become an expensive habit….

After sipping my drink and reading in the sunshine, I stopped by Whole Foods for some protein bars for my trip (I have quite a few training runs while on vacation, and vacation food before a training run=bad idea) as well as lunch from the hot bar. I had some lackluster Chinese vegetables, a chicken potsticker, avocado and kale salad, and sweet potato polenta. I wish I had skipped the Chinese food though-the kale salad stole the show. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like the citrusy salad, but it was perfectly light and summery.

I couldn’t find ThinkThin Divine bars (which are chocolate and coconut), so I had the taste for chocolate and coconut. I happened upon these bars-they’re also gluten free!

They fit into my sugar standards for a granola bar (only 8 grams!) as well, so I was sold. These far exceeded my expectations-they tasted just like fresh coconut! The perfect sweet finish to my meal.

Confession: I wanted to sit outside of Whole Foods to eat, but I opted to sit inside because my pictures would look bad outside. #bloggerproblems

I then sat outside on a bench to read some more. This was my view. Isn’t this a cute little neighborhood?

Later in the day, I changed into shorts for a walk with my audiobook.

So here’s a question-did I purposefully match my outfit perfectly or are those the only colors I own?? I’ll let you guess the answer to that one.

I’ve been really enjoying these walks lately-I like my book!

Afterwards, it was time for a snack before a possible softball doubleheader.

I had a delicious farmer’s market nectarine, carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow, and one of these guys.

I’ve fallen in love with the peanut butter flavor in the past, but the cranberry orange was just as good. If you see these guys- BUY THEM.

My softball game went well-it’s the playoffs, so we play until we lose. We won both games tonight, and were pretty hungry afterwards. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom and I all went out for Bermese food in downtown Palo Alto.

You know you’re underdressed when the waiters pull out your chairs for you and place a cloth napkin on your lap…whoops.

The food was delicious though!

We were right next to a gelato place…Let’s just say it’s taking a little time to wrap my head around eliminating sugar for good. In good time my friends.

But for now-caramel chocolate and creme brulee FTW.

And since this is supposed to be What I ATE Wednesday, not what I DID, here are some more fun things from the past few days.

Ask and you shall receive-the recipe for banana chocolate chip custard is here.

I’ve been loving my snack plates lately-this one is an Asian pear from the farmer’s market, a fig, and carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow. This is my first time trying the flavor, and I must say-I’m a fan!

Dinner last night was a good one as well-Asian Lettuce Cups from the Cooking Light app, served with steamed snap peas and garlic and herb brown rice and quinoa.

And lastly-one of my favorite meals from the week. We bought green onion pancakes from the farmer’s market (seeing the theme here?), and served them with a fig and goat cheese salad (with leftover chicken).

As you may have noticed, I’ve been kind of obsessed with figs this summer.

And I’ll leave you with that. Have a great day!

Do you like Farmer’s Markets? Favorite find? Do you ever unplug for a day? Are you addicted to social media?

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great day! My day went pretty well! I have some more interesting food things to share with you today!

I got to sleep in this morning as well, no alarm! I didn’t have class until 12:30, but I had to do a workout this morning. I woke up around 7 and decided to make myself some breakfast in my room before my workout. What did I make? Only the best Oatmeal ever! Peanut butter and banana oatmeal!

Banana Oatmeal:

Ingredients:

1 ripe banana

1 packet of plain instant oats (I used quaker)

2/3 c vanilla unsweetened almond milk, or other milk of choice ( I usually eyeball it, less dishes!)

2 egg whites (once again, this is an estimate)

Instructions:

First, mash up the banana in a microwave safe bowl.

Add other ingredients and stir.

Microwave on high for 1.5 minutes (I recommend putting the bowl on a plate and covering in case it overflows)

Stir, and microwave an additional 1.5 minutes.

Enjoy!

I always top mine with a dollop of peanut butter.

Today, I split this into 2 servings, as it is pretty filling, and I was eating fairly close to a workout. Just save the other half in the fridge and enjoy later! It’s good cold as well (or maybe that’s just me…)

For the first time as far as I can remember, I put on too much peanut butter! See?

I couldn’t even finish it! Craziness!

My workout was 60 minutes on the rowing machine, plus 20 minutes on the spin bike. Nothing spectacular. It’s interesting that after a long time on the rowing machine, I don’t exactly feel more tired, but my power output significantly decreases.

After a sweaty workout, I decided to have some post-workout fuel. I wanted something kind of refreshing, but I didn’t have many ingredients for a smoothie, and who wants to put together and then clean a blender? I’m all about saving the dishes. 😛

So what did I come up with?

Yogurt! I discovered this little creation over break, and simply could not get enough of it. It’s the absolute perfect post workout snack (I’ll get to why later), and it’s super easy and low dish intensive. Just add cocoa powder and brown rice syrup to greek yogurt to taste (I tend to like less sweet, darker chocolate things), and stir well!

And of course I mixed it in a Dixie cup, right? Don’t want to use those valuable bowls! This yogurt hit the spot perfectly! So why is this the perfect post workout fuel? It’s a combination of protein and carbohydrates, which helps replace anything lost during exercise. (Keep in mind, I’m not a dietician, this just comes from the million books I’ve read plus an awesome Nutrition class last quarter). It’s more natural than a protein shake; you know exactly what you are putting in it. Plus, a lot of times, you don’t need as much protein as is in a protein shake after a workout. I learned in my class that actually, the time you need the most protein is when Your muscles are repairing themselves, which is the time when you are sore. Carbohydrates are a priority, because they are our main source of energy, so that is what gets burned in exercise, mostly. Why is chocolate milk not ideal? The carbohydrates in chocolate milk come from sugar, which is a combination of glucose and fructose, its about half and half. I will definitely get into a conversation about fructose later on, but you really don’t need to replace your fructose stores unless you’ve been running a marathon, and to get enough glucose to replace what you lost through drinking chocolate milk, you are probably getting more fructose than is healthy. Glucose is what is mainly burned in exercise. It is what the body burns for energy (the brain needs it as well), and brown rice syrup is a great source of glucose. I will definitely get into fructose and glucose at a later date (it’s one of my favorite topics EVER).

After my snack, I got ready for the day and dealt with various random things until lunchtime, which was early because I had class at 12:30 and I needed to get textbooks beforehand. Lunch:

Salad with raspberry dressing and dried cranberries, teriyaki tofu over brown rice, and some type of sauteed kale/cabbage. It was actually a really good lunch. The tofu was really good, it actually wasn’t fried like it normally is, so it was soft as opposed to weird and hard. I think lunch at my dining hall is always fairly good, definitely better than dinner, but I hardly wen tat all last quarter because I had class around lunchtime. Though I think they stepped it up midway through the year.

I also had some fruit and a little bit of pasta because I really wanted to try it.

I’m in an Animal Behavior class this quarter, and I’m super excited for it. It looks really cool, and I learned some random things just on the first day. Did you know that many human couples have similar lengths of middle fingers? How random!

Before practice, I rushed back to my room to grab a bar.

It was a little bit sweeter than what I wanted, and I wished I had made the granola bars I had been wanting to make. Practice was uneventful, which is probably good.

Dinner was a salad (garden) with grilled chicken and cornbread (which was really good, haven’t had cornbread here before).

I also had a cup of cereal (although it was sugary cereal). I’m trying to wean myself off of eating so much sugar, but it’s definitely difficult! Back at my dorm someone brought in a ton of random pies, and I tried some that I think was chocolate cream.

Tonight was also the night of my guacamole party, which was at least planned. And my guacamole party, I mean a couple of friends and I made guacamole with some avocados I brought from home, plus limes, onions, and tomatoes stolen from the dining hall salad bar. Mash together, add some salt and pepper, and we were set!

Eaten with tortilla chips of course. Afterwards, I decided to make some protein bars I’ve had my eye on for some time now. I made Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein Bars, from After the Ivy League. I was a little worried about making anything with my protein powder, as I’ve never baked with it before (although these bars are no cook, yay!), and I’m not a big fan of the taste of the kind I have, but these bars turned out well! I added a little bit less protein powder than it calls for because I got scared, but they had really good flavor, and I nibbled at the edges quite a bit. They’re in the freezer now to harden, but from what I can tell they’re a definite win!

Tomorrow, no on the water practice, and no morning workout, so I can sleep in (relatively). Even though I slept in today, I was really tired by the middle of the day. I didn’t sleep that well last night, and I couldn’t figure out why, until I remembered other nights like this, when I’m really warm and tossing and turning all night. I’m almost positive it’s from too much sugar before bed. I had this problem a lot before the holidays when I ate a lot of junk, and I remember how much better I slept when I cut out sugar for a few days. So, goal for tomorrow? No sugar! It’s going to be a little experiment. To be honest, I can already tell I’m going to have a lot of work this quarter, and not that much time, so I need to make the most of the sleep I can get!

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