Happy Friday!

What was my first thing on the agenda after classes today? A 2 hour nap! It was glorious.

I was up bright (well no, it wasn’t actually light out yet) and early for weights. Beforehand, I had some Sweet Potato bread that I pulled out of the freezer the night before to thaw. I think I made this sometime in the fall. Ohh modern conveniences. You can find the recipe I used here. I stumbled across it on Healthy Food For Living a while ago, and I’ve made it a couple of times. This time, I reduced the white sugar to 1/4 c honey instead and it turned out great! I love low sugar recipes!

I drank some milk to go with this. 

I enjoyed weights this morning a little more than last time. I think the workout was shorter, so I actually had time to finish without being super rushed through. We did power cleans today, which I was excited about. The trainer instantly knew I had done them before. 🙂 However, I had a minor embarrassment when I went to add more weight to the bar. I’m used to adding 25 lbs to each side and easily be able to do the exercise, but here, the plates are in kilograms. Which I forgot. And I added 25 kilograms to each side. I realized as soon as I picked the bar up, so it’s not like I actually tried to clean it, but still embarrassing. Other than that, the workout went well. After weights, we do a timed run of a loop of the campus. I finished in 36:16, slower than last time. My legs were more burned out last time, but I think I had more difficulty today because it was about 34 degrees out (according to weather.com) and I had a lot of trouble loosening up my muscles. Plus, I ran the loop the other direction than I normally do. It shouldn’t really make a difference, but who knows. 

I didn’t get any pictures of breakfast because I went straight from my run, but I had a smoothie with banana, blueberries, peaches, mango, and strawberries. Plus milk and plain yogurt. One thing I love about smoothies is that I can make a different kind each day, and it almost always turns out well. My smoothies entirely depend on the fruit available at the dining hall, so that is kind of important. I topped it with a bit of peanut butter. On the side, I enjoyed half a whole wheat english muffin topped with cream cheese and scrambled eggs. Also, the dining hall had interesting fruit today. Kumquats and fresh blueberries. I had to get a few kumquats because, well, it’s KUMQUATS in the DINING HALL. I made the mistake again (I did this on Monday too) of sitting down to eat immediately after my run. The problem? My knees tightened up and I couldn’t walk very well for a minute after standing up. This is probably bad for me. I definitely don’t want any knee problems when I’m older. After breakfast I rolled out the muscles around my knees my a PVC pipe. It felt amazing. Lately, I’ve only rolled out with foam rollers because they are what is available at the gym/practice, but they don’t do a lot for me in comparison to the pipe. 

Today was sooo cold. I wore 2 jackets, plus gloves. As it turns out, my hands get so cold when I bike, so gloves are a must. I was really tired today. I could barely keep my eyes open for half of my Chem class, but halfway through I got my second wind and powered through that plus Math. Then, lunchtime!

Mixed greens salad with tomato and mozzarella, apricot glazed chicken, brown rice pilaf, and a stuffed portabella mushroom. I love that the rice pilaf is made with brown rice. Everything was delicious. The chicken was the best I’ve had in a while. It was moist and flavorful. The mushroom was awesome as well. I’m not exactly sure what it was stuffed with.

I was super tempted to grab dessert, but luckily I got distracted by a text from my friend. When I finished texting, my craving was gone. 

After lunch, I went back to my room for and amazing and much needed nap. For some reason, whenever I wake up, either in the morning or from a nap, my first instinct is to eat. Interesting. I had a granola bar.

As well as frozen cherries, and the tail end of my oatmeal and crackers with peanut butter. Today, again, I dressed for practice with the mission of not getting cold. Well, once again, I succeeded, because I wasn’t on the water. We were missing a few people today because they had dorm ski trips, so there weren’t enough people to make up my boat. Instead, I got to row on a rowing machine inside. My workout was 2×20 minutes on the rowing machine, and then 30 minutes on a spin bike. I was actually happy to be on the rowing machine. I had a couple of technique things I wanted to work on, and I wanted to work on putting more power in my legs, so this was the perfect opportunity to do just that. I was satisfied with my workout. Unfortunately, I was not prepared to work out inside. I didn’t have my iPod, but luckily I did have my phone which I was able to blast (well, as loud as an iPhone can blast). I’ve learned that I can’t listen to music on long rows. I just get too bored. Instead, I listen to health podcasts. Lately, I’ve been on a series called Nutrition Diva’s Quick and Dirty Tips. I really like it because it consists of 5-8 minute long segments, each about a different nutrition topic. The variety keeps it interesting.

The only thing about my workout was, well, remember how I dressed to survive a blizzard? That was what I got to work out in. I had my warm spandex pants, plus 2 long sleeves. I ditched one of the long sleeves, but still, I couldn’t exactly work out in my underwear. The experience kind of reminded me about a part in Seabiscuit (my team read this over break) that describes what the jockeys have to go through to make weight. They used to pile on warm clothes and run around a track to sweat the weight off. Yep, that was me right there. I didn’t feel super heated, but I was sweating buckets. 

Tonight, I started my initiative of making more dinners in my room. Almost all the ingredients I had on hand, and the rest I took back from the dining hall yesterday. 

I had an egg scramble with egg beaters that I had on hand, spinach and mozzarella from the dining hall, avocado which I had on hand (I get my hands on it anytime I have an opportunity), and pesto, which my roommate got from Costco a little while ago. On the side was a sweet potato.

Pesto is awesome! You can add it to almost anything and it will make it better!

This meal was entirely made in the microwave. Most of the ingredients are staples. There is no reason not to make a healthy meal when it is this easy! I challenge you to come up with one thing you can’t cook in the microwave! Well, I don’t know about meat, but hey, it might work!

Speaking of things made in the microwave, I believe I’ve mentioned before that you can make brownies in the microwave with brownie mix plus the add ins (eggs, canola oil, water). This was a very dangerous discovery, considering I have a Costco pack of Ghiradelli brownie mix in my dorm room (it was left over from a class project). I was craving something warm, chocolatey, and cakey after dinner. However, I usually feel pretty gross after eating a whole mug brownie. I thought to myself, there has to be a way of making this healthier. I may have mentioned this before, but one time I tried to make a freeform healthy chocolate brownie by throwing ingredients in a mug and microwaving them. Healthy, it was. And it certainly tasted healthy….to say the least. Well, this time I decided to use the brownie mix as a base. I started by mashing up half a banana and microwaving it until it was nice and soft. I stirred that up with some plain greek yogurt, cocoa powder, egg whites, and some of the brownie mix. Not a ton of the brownie mix though. Then, I stirred in some pieces of my 99% chocolate (because I may have picked out some of the chocolate chips from the mix a while back…), and popped it in the microwave with my fingers crossed. 

The result?

It was good but not spectacular. It was more of a protein-y souffle, and it wasn’t that sweet (which was probably good). It had a very strong dark chocolate flavor, which was amplified by the addition of greek yogurt. I ended up eating it with some peanut butter, and it was tasty. The good news? I didn’t feel super sugared out or gross after! So I guess it truly was healthy!

Ok, that’s enough from me tonight. Time to go be social like all the other college students without a blog to maintain!