tan | Fitness is Sweet

Guys. Vet school apps. AUGH.

That’s about where I am right now.

I also feel like I’m in such a rut.

I have massive sleep debt from the end of school, plus eating different things on a different schedule has me feeling really BLAH. It’s honestly hard for me to function as a human being when I’m not eating normally. I feel like I have had no motivation to do anything lately. Including blogging.

I do, however, have some food to share, so let’s jump to that, shall we?

This was actually the best simple lunch. I had leftover chicken with ketchup (because ketchup is bomb), GF avocado toast, and super delicious sautéed grated zucchini. I just threw it in a pan with some olive oil, garlic powder, truffle salt, and pepper. Also key: squeeze out some of the excess water.

I made some of my healthy double chocolate banana bread for my college roommate. Her family had a graduation party, and graciously invited me to come. I made the 2 hour drive on Saturday afternoon, and had a fantastic time meeting her sweet family. We spent one last night together as well, before I drove up the next morning for father’s day festivities (more in a minute).

While baking that up, I made something for myself too. In the theme of trying tons of Pinterest recipes, I tried Healthy Pumpkin Zucchini Chocolate Chip bread. I was instantly drawn to this recipe thanks to the low sugar content-only 1/3 of a cup! I used GF flour, and subbed canned sweet potato for the pumpkin, since I had some on hand and thought it would make it a bit more summer-y.

I decided to leave out the chocolate chips, because I made this bread to eat pre-workout early in the morning. As you can see, however, the smell of double chocolate chip banana bread baking had me craving melty chocolate, so I threw in a few chocolate chunks on one end, halfway through baking.

This bread was delicious! It was so moist and fluffy, and I loved sneaking in some extra veggies!

This was YET ANOTHER Pinterest win. Chicken avocado soup. Because you can’t go wrong with fresh CA avocado, can you? On the side was Cooking Light Parmesan Corn Muffins. The muffins had parmesan and chives, and were delightful with a pat of butter.

My mom also made plum crisp, using our favorite blueberry crisp recipe. We were gifted mass quantities of plums, and this pretty much finished them off. It was quite tart, but delicious with a little frozen yogurt.

This dinner was a total wing job. I wanted something lighter than originally planned, so I used some things we had in the fridge to whip up miso soup and sautéed zucchini (made the same way as before). We had some extra miso paste that needed to be used, so I sautéed some mushrooms with garlic, and then added broth, miso paste, and spinach. Once that was ready to go, I tossed 3 beaten eggs in for some protein (egg drop soup style). It ended up being delicious!

Now-Father’s Day

First of all, I want to thank my dad for supporting me every step of the way. Through catching for my pitching in every location possible (dark gyms, Hawaiian vacations, paring garages, and most notably, Belgian schoolyards), flying across the country and waking up at 2am CA time to spectate my race in 30 degree weather, reading every blog post, and trying every random baking concoction I come up with. I know I wouldn’t have gotten this far, or be who I am today without you.

On Sunday morning, I drove home from visiting my friend. I left early and made CRAZY good time. It was supposed to be a warm one, so around 9:30am we headed out to the bay for a dog walk. My parents walked the dog, and I went for a bike ride.

In sunburn news, I tried really hard to even out my terrible tan line, but I don’t think it did much.

Literally every time I wear shorts, I get comments wherever I go.

Then, my sister and her fiancé arrived and we all went to the county fair.

First order of business: taro boba.

Then: food! I had roasted corn and a giant turkey leg.

My family also shared a giant brick of curly fries. The rest of them shared a cinnamon roll and funnel cake. the strawberry funnel cake looked and smelled SO good. I had some of the strawberry jam and whipped cream off the top and it was fabulous.

Next up: PIG RACING! If you’ve never witnessed baby pigs running around a track, you’re missing out. The Alaskan racing pigs come to the fair every year, and the crowd cheers them on while being treated to a plethora of pig-related puns from the emcee.

Then: ruminants!

I could honestly sit and watch cows for hours. They are such majestic creatures.

For our final fit of fair festivities, I wanted to “throw things and win things,” aka play fair games. We tried quite a few, and I won a little pig stuffed animal. Victory!

At this point, we started to feel the heat a bit and relaxed with a TV show before the Warriors game. Sadly, the game didn’t go as we had hoped.

In the middle of the game, we ordered Door Dash delivery for a restaurant of my dad’s choice. I had a teriyaki chicken bowl, with half brown rice, half greens. I requested it without teriyaki, and whipped up a quick GF version with tamari, honey, rice vinegar, garlic powder, and sesame oil.

It came out really well!

We drowned our sorrows of the game result in more Netflix. I hope my dad had a good day despite the outcome though!

How did you celebrate father’s day?

Hey guys! I still can’t believe I forgot about WIAW last week. Let’s just say I was more than ready to go with it this week! As always, a huge thanks to Jenn for hosting 🙂

I began my morning with an early spin class. My calf was sore after Sunday’s run, but after spin class I walked away feeling 1000x better. In an attempt to get a head start on the day, I walked over to Starbucks for a strawberry smoothie and some reading for Psych. Sadly, my productivity was short lived. After about an hour of work, a nap was beginning to feel really necessary. 6 hours of sleep a night is not enough for me! Since it’s summer and I didn’t have to go in to the lab, I saw no problems with a nap.

Sometimes simpler is better-lunch was a plate of snack items- carrots with laughing cow, celery(one stalk with sunflower seed butter, one without), and a Chobani flip. I’m obsessed with the coconut yogurt; I can’t find any of the new flavors anywhere around here though!

I finished the meal with something sweet. A dark chocolate square and a mango log. I picked up a bag of mango logs at a fruit and garlic stand on the way back from San Luis Obispo. We passed through Gilroy, which is the garlic capitol of the world! You can even smell the garlic as you drive by; it’s crazy! The mango log is basically dried fruit ground up in log form and wrapped in coconut. Probably with some sugar added somewhere along the line. They’re DELICIOUS.

I spent the afternoon attempting to catch up on work for my Psych class with my little homework helper.

Please note the previously black shirt-I swear that cat sheds like no other.

I also spent some time reading blogs-please tell me I’m not the only one who gets hungry from reading food blogs?? So being the healthy living blogger that I am, I whipped up a protein cake. I would post the recipe, but it wasn’t exactly a winner. I should have added cocoa powder, which I forgot to do. The “cake” (and I’m using this term loosely here) was made up of protein powder, egg whites, a splash of almond milk, a splash of apple sauce, and some chocolate chips. Like I said, this wasn’t a winner. However, chocolate chips can right a lot of wrongs, so I didn’t mind. I think in the future, I’d prefer more of a sweet scramble kind of deal with no protein powder, banana, and chocolate chips.

Before dinner, I went to Crossfit. I got new Crossfit shoes at the Reebok outlet last weekend, and I was more than ready to try them out!They were awesome! The shoes I had been wearing were worn out and not great for weight lifting because they weren’t so flat. I used to lift weights in flatter shoes which coincidentally were terrible for running. These guys are the best of both worlds!

Lots of Olympic Lifting happening today! Our strength portion was snatches, which I’ve found a new love for. Not gonna lie, I like showing off juuuust a little. Plus, the movement feels so smooth.

The WOD was Elizabeth-my first of the girls!

Cleans and ring dips for 21 reps, 15 reps, and 9 reps. I didn’t Rx this. This is my first time doing cleans at Crossfit, so although I can clean 95 pounds, it had been a little while since I’d done them, and when I lifted weights in the past, I always did fewer reps. I went with 85 pounds for the cleans, which was just about right. I broke up each round into roughly 5s (putting the bar down and resting a little every 5 reps). I also didn’t Rx ring dips. Anything strictly upper body is pretty awful for me. I used a band, and I didn’t do them on rings, I just did regular dips. Well, with those modifications, I finished in 7:43! And my clean muscles will be sore tomorrow…

When I first started lifting weights with my trainer (3 years ago), I only heard him say the names of the lifts, I never saw them written out. I thought “cleans” were actually “clings.” Haha!

When I arrived home, dinner was waiting for me. We had corn and potato chowder with added rotisserie chicken and finished with cheddar cheese and green onions. On the side-asparagus and garlic aioli for dipping.

Not a bad day of eats! I wanted to show a few more pictures to you guys. Here’s my lunch from yesterday:This little guys LOVES meat. I was making turkey wraps, and he would not leave me alone! He kept trying to eat the food off my plate, trying to eat the turkey out of my hand, trying to eat it out of the container. And of course, when he wants something all he does is purr, act super sweet, and forcefully try to push his head into my food. It was so hard to get this picture-I almost had to sacrifice my lunch for the sake of a good picture. The things I do for you guys…

Also, check out this tan line from my hike the other day. Fun fact-I also have a tan line from the strap of the bag I was wearing during the hike. Nice. You know what else is sad? I have a sunscreen tan line. On my face. Only it’s worse than that-I have a tan line from rubbing the sunscreen off the edges of my face with sweat when I run. In other words, I have pale blotches on my cheeks. At first I thought some face product was messing with my skin. Nope.

On another positive note, I’m getting so psyched for my half marathon on Sunday! I’m feeling much better about my calf, although I’m not sure I’ll run at all before the race and risk it tightening up again. We’ll see!

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

What did you eat this week? Highlights? Details?

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