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Who’s up for a challenge?

Hey guys! Today was pretty low key. My guacamole party last night was awesome! I wish I had more pictures but my phone was hooked up to my speakers! A lot people had who recently joined frats or sororities were gone, so pretty much everyone else in my dorm came to my room to hang out.

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Sorry for the terrible picture! I even got to talk to a pro-fro. That’s what we call prospective frosh (freshman). And if they’re committed here, they become fasho-fro (for sure frosh). We like our abbreviations here! Next weekend is admit weekend, and I get my very own pro-fro. It’s crazy that my freshman year is coming to an end. I feel like I was just at admit weekend!

This morning I started my day off right; mango and yogurt!Image

My morning was pretty low key. I have yet to do a workout today, but I ate an early dinner so I can do something later tonight. Lunch involved avocado, yay!

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Mexican salad, with tons of guac! 3/4 of a waffle were also involved (because I seriously fail at making half waffles).

After lunch, I participated in a Psych study, which involved virtual reality. Very cool! I have to participate in 7 hours of Psych studies for my Psych class. Yay for being a guinea pig.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, and my sorority had a picnic to try and recruit new members. There was lots of delicious food, and we hung at in the fountain for a while (I swear that’s a normal thing to do here) to stay cool. I however had a few too many chocolate covered pretzels, and returned with a racing heart. Which transitions perfectly into the title of this post. Anyone interested in a challenge?

It’s that time of year. New year’s resolutions are long gone. The weather is getting nicer. If you’re like me and are constantly around sweets, maybe you’re also like me and have started giving in to them a tad too much. So who’s up for some Spring Cleaning? How about a no sweets challenge? Finish the month off right and join me in abstaining from sweets for the rest of this month. “Sweets” is kind of a loose term, so interpret it however works best and is most practical for you. For me, it means to avoid desserts, baked goods, muffins, waffles, etc. Anything too sweet. My yogurt is going to be as sweet as it gets. If you want to join in, just comment below and I’ll post tomorrow with everyone’s links! It’ll be fun, I promise! And I can offer some tips throughout the challenge. The most beneficial part of this challenge is it forces you to reflect on what you are really eating. And for me personally, it is an opportunity to get back into the healthier habits that I never seemed to be able to find after Spring Break.

On a similar note about healthy habits, I am currently trying to retrain myself to have a different routine upon entering my room. I completely cleaned up my room, so the environment is different. I am trying to train myself to chew gum upon returning, rather than snacking. Don’t you just love doing science experiments on yourself?

After the picnic, I wanted a light dinner so I went with another meal of yogurt. Image

I got this new Yoplait greek yogurt, and was surprised it only had 7 grams of sugar. Yet I had a vague feeling at the back of my mind that there was a reason I had never gotten it before. Sure enough, I realized it had Sucralose (artificial sweetener). Blech. I ate it anyway, since I don’t have that much yogurt, but it kind of stunk. I wish food labels had to advertise that they have artificial sweetener.

My night hopefully holds a workout. Maybe a bike ride before it gets dark, or some kind of gym thing if it’s later. I want to do my 6 mile run tomorrow morning. Have a great weekend!

Will you join my in my Spring Cleaning No Sweets Challenge? Comment below!

MangosMangosMangos

Wow, long time, seriously no post! Want to know a result of my lack of posting? My phone keeps dying. Since I need my phone near me for my alarm, it does’t get to charge at night. So as it turns out, my phone’s main charging time is while I blog, when it is connected to my computer.

So why haven’t I been posting? I’ve been busy…This weekend was Rush. And my meals have been scattered and boring or odd, because rush was during dinnertime. Lots of protein bars were consumed. And I didn’t have a ton going on that was worth posting.

I’m supposed to reflect on my week for Operation: Get Healthy. To be honest, I completely forgot about it until I saw Miranda’s post. Oops. So in summary, I failed miserably, and have gone in the wrong direction. On the plus side, my exercise has gone mostly according to plan, although I decided upon waking up that Friday needed to be a rest day. Which was fine by me, I didn’t exactly plan a rest day into my workout plan, so it made sense to take it when I needed it.

Saturday morning I lifted weights, focusing on snatches (they needed work). I ended up doing a Crossfit style workout of snatches and box jumps, and ended up doing 65 snatches for the day. I thought I was going to be horribly sore, but I wasn’t!

After my workout, I went out to lunch with my parents at Calafia. I ordered a bowl that included lentils, quinoa, spinach, and yams in a curry sauce.

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Afterwards, we went to Cold Stone. I haven’t been there in ages. Did you know they have frozen yogurt now? I was sold. Their ice cream is pretty rich and usually gives me a stomachache, but the froyo was fine. Image

With cookie dough. 🙂

After lunch, we hit up Whole Foods. Soooo have I mentioned I love Manilla Mangos, that happen to be on sale at Whole Foods from now through summer? Well….

I would say that I am now the proud owner of 26 mangos. But I’d be lying. Because I’ve eaten some since Saturday. Yes, I bought 22 mangos (I had 4), but at a good price, I swear!Image

This is about half, the other half are in a basket. Now, I didn’t just wake up Saturday morning thinking, “I’m going to buy 22 mangos today.”

See, what happened was the green mangos were at the front of the store. SInce they weren’t that ripe, why not get 10? Oh, but 2 more to make it an even dozen.

Then, in the back of the store were the ripe mangos. And since the sale is by sets of 5 mangos…

Let’s just say I am quite pleased.

I also restocked yogurt. Whole Foods brand of greek yogurt is delicious! And the vanilla doesn’t have that much sugar, which is even more awesome.

Sunday was spent mainly avoiding my long run. I meant to do it right after waking up. Yeah, I did it at 3:30. But at least I did it! One reason I really wanted to run it was I wanted to clock the distance and try out my Garmin. I got it maybe 4 years ago. I never figured out how to charge it, so it lived in my closet for a few years. I took one look at the watch and the charger and said, “I am an idiot.” Yeah, it’s that easy to charge. Apparently it took a high school degree and half a year of college to acquire the knowledge to do that.

Anyway, the run. My guess was that it was about 5 miles. It was about 5.4. And folks, this is a HILL. The run takes me up into the hills on a paved trail past 2 satellite dishes, and is pretty brutal. To get to the trail is a mile. Then, it is 2 miles up and 1 mile down. And the first mile up is STEEP. Like REALLY STEEP. But I got it done and felt awesome.

I did this run a ton at the beginning of the school year when I was in good running shape from my 10k. I ran it 2 or 3 times a week easily. Yeesh. I’m far from those days.

The only food picture I have from Sunday is a yogurt bowl.Image

Vanilla greek yogurt, Sunflower butter, and an attempt at a 2 ingredient pancake with sweet potato instead of banana. ( Plus vanilla and cinnamon.) I wasn’t a big fan.

A brief Monday recap: I began my morning with a faster paced run, about 1.5 miles. I sped up my pace at each chorus of the songs I was listening to. Then, I did this morning that I found somewhere on the internet.Image

I wasn’t a big fan, since I’m used to using weights for these exercises. I could do body weight squats FOR DAYS. Buuuut I haven’t done hardly any push ups since getting sick, so like 2 months. Yeah. They were hard. And guess what? My abs are sore. From push ups. Cool. But hey, I guess if it gets the job done…Image

Breakfast wasn’t very good. For some reason my smoothie tasted weird. Maybe the watermelon was a bit too ripe. And the eggs and potatoes were kind of greasy…Image

Lunch: chicken sandwich, minus the bread. Because I can’t afford to fall asleep. On that note, I am seriously questioning how much this whole bread thing might have been affecting my academic performance. Let’s be honest here. I haven’t gotten a ton of sleep lately, although this is totally my fault, and my choice. But I’m still WAY more alert and awake in class, and guess what? When you’re alert and awake in class, the material makes much more sense, and is way easier to understand. Given that lack of sleep doesn’t cause the extreme drowsiness that bread did, I wonder how much better I would have grasped the material if I didn’t eat it.

Dinner yesterday was weird. I ate a little early, mostly because I wanted yogurt at like 4 o clock and decided it would be dinner. Image

I’m seriously considering making yogurt for dinner a regular thing, given how disappointing the dining halls have been at dinner lately, and since I always seem to want yogurt bowls. I just need to get enough veggies in throughout the day. And since I’m up later and want late night snacks (hence the failure of Operation: Get Healthy), maybe late night veggies are in order?

This morning I went to a Spin class. I like that it leaves my legs burning a little throughout the morning. This is what I used to get last year after spin (before I got in crazy good shape over the summer).

Breakfast was a quick one in my room. Image

Microwave egg scramble with veggies, nutritional yeast, and avocado. Made in the microwave! Plus some strawberries.

Lunch was a corn and black bean salad, although there was hardly any lettuce!Image

And snack was another yogurt bowl. Surprise, surprise. And a mango…surprise again, haha!Image

Dinner was super boring, but healthy (blah blah). Image

As I was tell you all earlier, I went through the rush process, and am actually pledging today, which I didn’t really expect to do. Let’s just say I was sold when i sat down last night, and the girl who was chatting with me suggested I take off my heels. I have a celebration for that tonight.

Not going to lie, I’m a little concerned about maintaining healthy habits with a ton of social events that will probably involve food, especially since this week I’m getting serious about achieving my health goals. I’m not sure what else to say about my goals other than I really need to take them seriously, as getting back into a good routine at school has been tough (read: it hasn’t happened). I think I’m going to talk to a nutritionist to help me with all this, because being healthy in college can get difficult!

What is your favorite type of yogurt?

Miracle Socks

Hey all! Looks like I have 2 days to recap, huh? FIRST. Let me just say that after practicing soccer Friday night, I was expecting my calves/front of my shins to be SUPER sore. After I was done practicing, I immediately put on my compression socks and wore them all night. I woke up Saturday morning amazed. Zero pain. My dad wore them for his soccer game for the first time today, and he is a fan as well. I just can’t say enough about how wonderful they are. 

Here’s Friday Night’s dinner:ImageChicken curry salad. It was alright. There was one spice that was really strong that I wasn’t a huge fan of. And it ended up being chock full of walnuts, which my face suffered from. Boo. 

Saturday morning was yet another yogurt bowl with sunflower seed butter and cinnamon apple bread. ImageBy the way, the cinnamon apple bread is just Whole Foods Gluten Free Cranberry bread, but we didn’t have cranberries, so we used apples. After breakfast, my dad picked me up for one last tune-up before tomorrow’s practice (eeeee). It was actually really painful. Not kicking anything for a long time mixed with lots of kicking all at once is not good. The heel/achilles was starting to hurt, and I bruised my ankle from kicking so much. ImageI went to brunch afterwards for a Mexican feast. No guac yesterday though. 🙁 That’s the only reason I like brunch on Saturdays!ImageYes that is a biscuit on top of my salad. I have a weakness for biscuits…The salsa was SUPER spicy. I really should remember this…I had to move it out of the way and my mouth was still on fire. Also not pictured was half a waffle with blueberries. It looked something like this:ImageSorry, this is a disgusting picture. For some reason all my waffle pics are pre-blueberries. Which is boring. I obviously didn’t have peanut butter though. 

Saturday was my rest day. It was a pretty low key day. I started a new book, “Homer’s Odyssey.” ImageIt’s about a little black cat who is blind. I’m a sucker for black cats. And I decided an inspirational and heart-warming book is just about what I need right now. Still working on that whole “changing my life” thing. And not going to lie, I checked the ending to make sure it doesn’t end with the cat dying, like so many “heart-warming” stories do. It cannot be qualified as heart warming if I am bawling my eyes out!

Other fun from yesterday: I went out to dinner with my sister. I wanted to steal the car, which requires her bringing it to me, so we decided to get something to eat in the process. We went to my FAVORITE restaurant in downtown Palo Alto, Lyfe Kitchen. If you live in the Bay Area, TRY THIS PLACE (Gina). It’s super healthy and delicious. I’ve gotten something different every time, and loved it each time. There are a ton of things I want to try as well.ImageImage(How cute is this? They have an indoor herb garden.)Image(Me being a good blogger and taking tons of pictures.)

I went with a quinoa wrap, which included veggies, edamame hummus, and avocado. It was served with hot sauce, which I surprisingly really liked. (I’m not a huge fan of spicy things.)ImageMy sister ordered a goat cheese flatbread pizza, which was delicious as well.ImageIt had notes of pomegranate, which added a touch of sweetness and extra flavor. 

My sister’s boyfriend lives in an apartment with a full kitchen, so I kept hearing stories of all the amazing things they were cooking up on a regular basis. “Oh, today we made scones.” “We had the most delicious quiche yesterday.” “We made the most amazingly rich gelato.”

Needless to say, I invited myself over to crash one of these baking parties sometime. ANd last night was just the time. I didn’t technically invite myself over this time, but it was probably implied. So what was the culinary delicacy on the menu last night? Lemon basil cakes. My sister has a couple of lemon trees outside her dorm, so we picked a bunch beforehand. Somehow I got stuck squeezing all the lemons (although somehow I expected this). My sister was in charge of ordering us around. How perfect. Haha. ImageMe and the sis. SUPER old picture. This is from when I visited her at her freshman dorm! (Ok, so 2 years ago…)

The recipe made cupcakes. We had muffin cups, but no muffin tins. #Collegeproblems. SO we improvised. Good idea?ImageYou tell me.

They were still delicious though! It was a lemon cake sprinkled with sugar and lemon zest (zested by yours truly), resting in a basil lemon syrup, topped with fresh whipped cream. ImageNot too shabby!

This morning I was up bright and early to go to spin. I had a quick breakfast before leaving. ImageSince I had to get there early to sign up, I did some ab workout beforehand. Spin was really tough today! i was panting the whole time.

Afterwards, I made a mango run. To Whole Foods.ImageMangos on mangos on mangos. 

Another thing I picked up at Whole Foods? Vanilla Chobani. Can you guys believe I’ve never had Chobani before? For some reason I was under the impression it was higher in sugar than other yogurts, but that’s not true. Whoops. I can’t wait to try it tomorrow! I also picked up a post-workout snack. ImageFrench toast and scrambled eggs with guac. Let’s be honest, I got teh eggs just so I’d have a vehicle for my guac. ImageMore veggies when I was back on campus. 

So I had a fun afternoon. When I returned the car to my sister, I somehow managed to lock myself out. Yippee. I got people to let me in the building, but all the RAs were gone (they have a master key) and my roommate was gone for the weekend. Yay. Alllll my homework was in my room. And my phone had very little battery. So what do I do in a situation like this? Walk across campus for froyo. Yes, my bike key was on that keychain. Ugh. ImageI don’t know if I’ve ever had chocolate yogurt at Fraiche, but it was amazingly good. Like it actually surprised me, it was so good.

By the time I got back to my dorm and did some work in the computer cluster, someone was there to let me in. YAY! I was locked out for about 2.5 hours. But it wasn’t the best time to get locked out, because there were very few people in or around my dorm. ImageMore veggies. 🙂 Brussels sprouts with garlic and herb laughing cow. ImageKefir with cereal and sunflower butter.ImageA square of raw dark chocolate. 

That all was supposed to be dinner, but it was kind of early and I wanted to see my friends, so I ended up going to dinner later, so now I’m basically stuffed. Social eating is probably not the best for the waistline! 

As strange as it is, I have no workout planned for tomorrow morning. Soccer practice/tryouts in the PM. And given my current stamina, I’m gonna need all the strength I can get! See you all later!