tuna | Fitness is Sweet

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I’m actually especially happy this Wednesday because by some miracle, I don’t have the 2 problem sets I normally have this week, OR a lab report. Which means my week basically ended after today’s midterm. In terms of the midterm-it didn’t make me physically ill, so I’ll take that as at least a decent sign! And as always, I’m linking up for What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks to Jenn for hosting this weekly party!

Guys. I just want to say, I’m doing something crazy right now. Laundry. Go me! I had to push it until midterms were over, so now I have no excuses. And no underwear. Needless to say, it’s time! I’m just doing a single load though because that’s all I can force myself to fold in one night. Who needs darks, am I right??

But let’s talk about some food. And fitness.

Yesterday morning I did a track workout-10x400m repeats. Nothing crazy. I may have eaten a bit too much the day before and felt kind of sick during them, so I didn’t push them like crazy.

Breakfast was amazing, and a new favorite. Full fat, super high quality Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter, and berry compote (frozen berries reduced down on the stove). Amazing. Just like PB&J!

I’m going to run through the food from the last couple of days in no particular order-I had some snack days, and not everything was captured or necessarily a full meal!

Brussels sprouts with butter and parmesan, and an apple. Yeah, doing tupperware dishes is on my post-midterm to-do list as well…

Cheese and crackers, and a blood orange. We got fancy cheese at our marathon Whole Foods expedition, and they certainly have not disappointed. These two are manchego and goat gouda. And crackers never tasted so good-for the last 2 weeks, the only snacks I had very sweet things, like fruit, yogurt, and nut butter!

More brussels, more parmesan. Eaten cold. In retrospect, they probably would have been better hot…

But the microwave was in use-I’ve been dying to try making oat pancakes for the longest time! And all I have is a microwave…

It’s kind of hard to evaluate how they turned out. They might have been really awesome on a griddle. Or with the oats actually ground up. The flavor was fine-lots of vanilla and slightly sweet! Oooo I bet they would have been awesome in a waffle maker…

In the microwave, they just didn’t quite solidify. The recipe was half a cup of extra thick rolled oats, half a cup of unsweetened apple sauce, an egg, vanilla, and a pinch of baking powder. I’ll have to try these again at home sometime! (Or sneak my batter into the dining hall…hmm).

I roasted some blueberries in the microwave for topping, plus some whipped butter.

Because sometimes you just want pancakes for dinner! I also bet these would have been even better with maple syrup-the butter kind of got to me for some reason! Mmmm or nut butter…moral of the story-microwave pancakes are hard to do!

Last night, I ended up going to the gym pretty late-as in, 10:30pm. I did an hour long spin workout-instead of a set playlist, I plugged in an hour long race playlist and just rode whatever felt right. As a spinner, I think these types of rides are especially important-figuring out what works with what, and just enjoying riding on my own an kicking my own butt. The only late night workouts I’ve done have been spin, and I actually really like it-I feel like I get extra adrenaline!

This morning, I was up bright and early to train quidditch. I always forget how much I enjoy it! And torturing them. We did a new conditioning today-and when I was explaining it, someone remarked “If she’s this happy, this can’t be good!” It was great-we really took it to the next level today with a tabata of thrusters and push ups. It’s amazing how fast these exercises get difficult when doing tabatas! My sister’s boyfriend was evening failing on the push ups by the end-and he regularly does push ups with her sitting on his back! Major success in my book 🙂 I think I’m going to do their leg workout myself this weekend. I haven’t actually done the full sequence, and I’m craving more intense workouts right now.

This pretty much sums up my morning-coffee and chemistry.

Lots of yogurt. Lots of sunflower seed butter. Lots of berries. Perfection.

Semi-homemade guacamole with carrots and the following crackers. For the guac, I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

Dinner after Crossfit tonight was a different one. We finally put some of our Whole Foods goods to use.

Roasted carrots.

And the crowning achievement-sushi bowls! My roommate suggested we try making sushi, and I suggested we just be lazy and throw it all into a bowl.

We threw some short grain brown rice in the rice cooker, and then mixed it with some rice vinegar for that sushi rice flavor. Plus some Nori (seaweed), toasted sesame seeds, steamed kale, avocado, cabbage, coconut amines, and tuna. The tuna was really good-we got some in a jar marinated with herbs and olive oil. I’m no usually a tuna person (I’ve lived with cats way too long to not associate it with cat food) but this was flavorful in all the right ways! Major win in my books! Plus-leftovers!

Also-I’m starting to really fall in love with running. Which is fabulous. My race was great. Aside from the result, it actually was fairly enjoyable. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up until the last .5 miles, which was a huge improvement from my previous 5k where I felt really sick pretty much as soon as I took off…

But the biggest reason? I’m starting to feel fast again. I’m starting to feel like myself again. I’m freaking excited for tomorrow morning’s tempo run. I’m doing hill sprints later in the afternoon-can’t wait for those. I want to do sprints. I want to be fast.

These last few months of running (aka my whole “official” running career) have been sort of tough-I’ve improved so much, and definitely done distance I never imagined before, but the few extra pounds from my freshman year put a HUGE dent on my speed. Plus, my feet kind of hated me. To be honest, I credit my project for helping me find my love of running again-due to some miracle, my feet are cooperating and I cannot wait for my next long run. And to be honest, losing some weight is definitely helping. Heck, maybe that’s even why my feet are improving. But I have the desire to run-as an athlete, as a racer. I also think that with these continued diet changes, I could make leaps and bounds with my speed, which is exciting. Post-project, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. But for now, I’m going to roll with it.

(I really like this picture but I couldn’t come up with an excuse to include it…so here?)

What is your favorite pancake topping?

Hey everybody! It is Thursday….which means officially one week until my first Crossfit class! That’s right, I signed up for the first Intro class offered when I get home. And the other benefit? It’s free! While I am totally pumped, I’m not looking for the initial stages of everything. Every time you start a new workout regime, there is always that adjustment period where you have to get comfortable with everything and familiar with all the exercises. And it will be a little different for me since I know all the Olympic lifts already…I don’t really want to relearn everything! I remember going to the gym to lift weights with my trainer for the first time the summer after my sophomore year of high school…I was sitting there thinking, “I am never going to be comfortable here!” Hah. Little did I know I would fall head over heels in love with weight lifting and that gym in general! And speaking of weights, I did my Leg Demolisher workout again! I do those sets of 8 minutes of back squats so often…while it is still hard, I am never as tired or sore afterwards anymore. I need to mix it up! Either change the amount of rest, the duration, or the weight. Or maybe try it with front squats! When I woke up yesterday, I was not feeling a workout, and I dragged around a bit before getting there. But while I was there, I was thinking, “I have never regretted a workout.” Haha, how cliche of me!

Since I had fresh-non-dining hall milk in the fridge, I was drawn to it after a sweaty workout! This is another habit from my trainer. He always told me to drink chocolate milk after my workouts. I used to drink Silk Chocolate Soymilk, since we always had it around, and then I advanced to either plain milk or homemade chocolate milk with honey and cocoa powder, because it was less sweet.

Sadly, I am out of paper cups. That’s what I get for eating literally everything out of them! Sign. My choices were either a mason jar or a mug. I decided to take the hipster route. Is it possible to make a glass of milk artsy?

Yesterday I was sitting outside at lunchtime, in the broad daylight (if that wasn’t obvious) when I saw this guy:How cute is he? I’ve never seen raccoons during the day before. He was just scrounging around for food, and climbing in the trashcan!

After class (it was my last day of classes! One of my Professors got all choked up!), I decided to take a much needed nap. I set my alarm to get up for yoga, but when it went off, I was soooo groggy (and hungry!) that I canned the idea of yoga. Plenty of time for that in the summer!Dinner! Greek salad with hummus, potatoes, a stuffed tomato, and cheese enchilada. I really didn’t like the cheese enchilada-it was nothing but cheese and soggy tortilla!-so I went back for chicken instead. Overall, a very satisfying dinner. My friend also make coconut brad, which was sooo good! Hint-it is partly my inspiration for a baking experiment I am planning 🙂

I stayed up too late last night. When my alarm went off for spin, I kind of felt like I had been run over my an 18 wheeler, so I decided, hey, there’s all summer for spin (noticing a theme here?) It was unfortunate, because I really shouldn’t have had to be up so late but I had to turn in a group project my midnight and at 11:45, I still was waiting on my group.

Sugar that was consumed last night probably didn’t help my morning state. I went to a birthday party last night, and then later to an event by the Chem club with more sweets. Do you guys ever feel like this? I like to call it a sugar hangover. Headache, sluggish, stomachache…But I mean lack of sleep obviously isn’t helping matters! Plus, I only just realized that my legs are actually pretty sore from yesterday…

I went to a dining hall I recently discovered, and I AM IN LOVE WITH THEIR SALAD BAR. That was where I got the Greek salad with hummus last night! Check out this bad boy!Plus, they have yogurt! Which I had some of later. Corn, carrots, soybeans, black beans, tomatoes, broccoli, some random grain mix, and shredded tuna. As a general rule, I don’t like tuna. I have lived with cats all my life, and it reminds me WAY too much of cat food. But I actually enjoyed this. In a “this tastes kind of weird but it’s good for me so I like it
kind of way. I’ll take it!

It’s so weird for me to blog mid-day. I almost always blog at night, although I suppose everything will change come summer. I can see myself at Starbucks with my computer between my AM spin and yoga classes. And from my spring break experiences, blogging at night does not work because I usually end up watching baseball or TV with my family.

I’m planning on today being a low key day. It’s dead day. I’m not sure why it is just one day. The other quarters had Dead Week (although those had classes all week). FInals start tomorrow, and go Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, although all of mine are Monday or Tuesday. Plans for the day include a 4 mile training run, and catching up on my reading. In Psych, we’re reading about mental illness. I thought it would be a great supplement to watch a film on mental illness, but Netflix stinks and has hardly any movies available for streaming…Any suggestions?

Have you ever done Crossfit? What did you think? Any advice?

How do you feel about new workout regimens?

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