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MIMM-Chocolate and Friends

Happy Monday. Who has the day off? My weekend has certainly been marvelous so far!
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Marvelous is..

Oatmeal! x2. Banana oats topped with strawberries, sun butter, and a dollop of plain yogurt.

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Marvelous is…

An iced chai! I had every intention of spending the day working at a coffeeshop so I got a big chai tea! The only problem was that I for somer reason woke up much too early that morning and could barely keep my eyes open so I left for a nap…whoops. There went my productivity!

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Marvelous is…

Trying a different dining hall for lunch! It was actually really good! They had about 9 types of cream cheese, which looked homemade. I tried the cinnamon raisin, triple berry, basil and olive, and chive and onion.

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Marvelous is…

A dessert party! My sorority had a Valentine’s themed party on Saturday, so I got to dress up and eat delicious things. Fun fact-there are 3 girls in my sorority who seriously want to go to culinary school-let’s just say that we eat well!

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Marvelous is…

A kick butt run! There’s no question I’ve gotten in better shape and faster in the last few months. I did the same run I’ve done a couple of times before-it’s one of my absolutely favorite places to run because it’s SO pretty! There’s a fairly big hill in the middle-the last time I was proud I kept my pace until 11:00 for the hill. I ended up powering up the hill around a 9:00 pace! And it wasn’t death!

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Marvelous is…

A reunion with my best friends from high school! We actually went the same place the same weekend last year! (Sadly, it was the last day before I was sick for 2 months…)

Last year:

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This year:

(Excuse my sweaty-just ran self)

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But more importantly-the delicious food! We couldn’t decide between sweet or salty, so we got pancakes for the table to share. 

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Marvelous is…

Relaxing at home! I spent the day lounging around with these guys and watching the Olympics.

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Things are going to get crazy starting tomorrow because I have loads of studying to do and a crazy amount of stuff to do this week!

Marvelous is..

Homemade chocolate for my family! And heyyy I finally took down the recipe for those interested!

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Ingredients:

2 T coconut oil

2.5 T maple syrup

1 t vanilla extract

2 T half and half

1/2 c cocoa powder or cacao powder

1. Melt the coconut oil and maple syrup in the microwave, about 30-40 seconds and blend well. Then stir in vanilla.

2. Stir in cocoa powder and half and half (if the half and half is very cold, you may need to heat the mix up a bit).

3. Chill in the fridge on wax paper, or grab a spoon and enjoy!

Marvelous is…

Visiting my home Crossfit tomorrow morning! Yay!

What did you do this weekend?

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’?