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Ugly Christmas Sweaters

I can’t believe this is basically my last day of break? Where did the time go?? I have so much I still want to do! I am not ready to go back to dining hall food!

Yesterday morning, I went to an early Crossfit class. We did a new movement I’ve never done before, and it smoked my hamstrings! We also had a double WOD-the first was 10 minutes long, with 5 burpees and 2 hang cleans every minute. This was brutal. The cleans were heavy, and I was huffing and puffing like crazy! The regular workout involved wall balls, box jumps, and chin ups. I used a pretty high box so I took my time during the jumps. 

After Crossfit, I headed to the gym to do yoga. I had intentions of running a couple of miles before class, but my legs were totally smoked and I wasn’t keeping any kind of decent pace so I just hung around until class time. Class was awesome-lots of hamstring stretching. Between that and Crossfit, my hamstrings certainly are feeling it today!

After an unpictured lunch of Butternut squash soup, I headed off to meet up with a friend for some yoga by the bay.

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We set up along the route I normally do my long runs on. it was perfect, and the weather was calm. After yoga, we walked along the bay trail and just caught up. Such a great afternoon. 

For dinner, we had Asian Lettuce cups from Cooking Light, plus brown rice and snow peas.

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Later in the evening, I met up with two other friends for a late Christmas Gift Exchange and a tea party. My friend was a wonderful hostess, and everything was set up so nicely!
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The presents we received were some assembly required-they were ugly Christmas sweater kits! We each had a sweater, which came with all sorts of adornments, like bells, reindeer, plain felt to cut, and little presents. Image

Here’s my finished product!

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My friends are much more artistic than I am-here are the sweaters all together!

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Unfortunately, I didn’t get into bed until well past midnight, and spin this morning was very early. I had plans to run my treadmill workout after class, but with staying out late and eating cookies, I didn’t have the energy and called it quits after completing a mile. My morning was spent catching up on sleep-pot workout naps are the best! Followed by lunch-tomato soup with cheddar and a sandwich thin with homemade raspberry jam.

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I have a lot to still do today-I need to go grocery shopping and do some food prep before returning to school, I also need to make some more canvases, and who knows what else!

One of my big focuses for the New Year is nutrition. Ironically given I started a healthy living blog, my nutrition has slipped in the past year. I don’t mean to say that I’m eating awful foods, but my eating lacks the scientific approach that helps with optimal eating. To PR my 5k, I’m fairly certain good nutrition is extremely important-I exercise enough. I’m taking a Nutrition class next quarter as well-I may start a weekly series where I share a few things that I’m learning in class-would anyone be interested? 

I also got the new version of the My Fitness Pal app-the new version is much better! I was never consistent about using My Fitness Pal in the past to track food, but it actually is really nice-it even tells you where you’re lacking or over doing it on things like vitamins, sugars, and saturated fat. For instance, I’m already at double the recommended amount of sugar for today! It’s a nice tool to help see where to make changes. In a few weeks, I’ll give an update on how things go-I’m hoping I won’t get sick of tracking because I really do think it’s important to be mindful of what you’re putting in your body!

Have a great Friday!

Do you track what you eat?

My Little Adorable Wake-up Call

I must admit, I haven’t been the greatest about posting. Or at least it seems! With Christmas less than a week away, there seems to be so much to do! I think I’m actually more or less done with Christmas shopping. I CANNOT wait to share with you guys what I’m doing for people, but it will have to wait until after the recipients who read my blog have opened their presents!

I never recapped my last day (ok, morning) in Solvang!

Here are a few of the last pastries of the trip (or of the next few months-WHEW we ate a lot of pastries!)

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Blueberry boat.

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Cappuccino at an adorable bakery.

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A much more delicious version of a poptart.

On our way out of town, we stopped to see mini horses. I really want one. Not quite as much as an ostrich, but still!

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It was a long drive home, but a delicious and interesting dinner made up for it. I tried Ethiopian food for the first time! (For others in the area, it was called Walia).

I honestly couldn’t tell you what anything was. We got somethings with chicken, some things with other meat, and veggie combos. But really, everything I tried was excellent. What is really cool also is how the food is served. There were no utensils-the table got served all the dishes on a giant platter.

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(Excuse the awkward hand in the picture).

This was served with Injera, which is sort of like a spongy bread made with teff. It has a vaguely sourdough flavor, which was great to cut the spice.

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You use the Injera as a utensil and kind of just go at it. Being the totally neat person that I am, somehow I ended up totally soiling 3 napkins, and still ending up with food all over my hands, while the rest of my family had barely used one napkin. I don’t get it!

And then Thursday. That was an interesting day, thanks to a 4:30 am wakeup, courtesy of this little guy:

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He’s sort of in the habit of coming into my room in the middle of the night-loudly. For some reason, at 4:30am, he desperately needs attention, and won’t stop meowing and purring, which would be great and all if I actually wanted to be awake then…

I went to my home gym for a spin class with one of my favorite teachers, and then desperately needed to go to yoga because I’m so tight, but yoga was an awkward amount of time from the end of spin-not really enough to leave…so I killed time by doing some abs and a treadmill workout. I started with an 8:00 mile, and then did 10 2:00 intervals at about a 7:30 pace, with 2:00 of walking in between. It was a good one-my legs were done by the end. I’ve been really loving running lately-ever since my 5k, I’m starting to feel faster in my every day runs. I think part of my problem was being overly ambitious in my 5k-I wanted to break 24:00, when I should have been racing to break 25:00-next race I will definitely not go out so fast!

After yoga, I over caffeinated myself with a curiously strong cappuccino. Image

After some quick grocery and Christmas shopping, it was lunchtime! I picked up some turkey apricot soup at Whole Foods, plus some carrots and guacamole.

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Whole Foods’s eggnog selection was quite dissapointing-they didn’t have either of the two types I was hoping for. I got a baby jar instead-it was good but very vanilla flavored.

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My afternoon was spent cursing my printer and working on Christmas things. Then, I threw a bunch of things together for dinner, and the flavors worked really well together!

The basica idea was sweet potato nachos-all the toppings, but with sweet potatoes in place of chips. The result reminded me more of deconstructed veggie tacos, or a Mexican style vegetarian chili.

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Topping the sliced sweet potatoes was this mixture-my idea was for this to be black beans, but I’m also trying to incorporate more veggies into my life, so I added some kale, and half a can of diced tomatoes and jalapenos, plus salt, pepper, and taco seasoning. (Of you’re wondering about the things in there that look like carrots and cabbage, the only kale I found came in a ‘salad mix.’)

Then, I topped everything off with guacamole (of course), fresh salsa, and cheddar cheese.

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And believe me, much more guacamole was added after the fact. I’m just a little obsessed. I’m seriously considering making a 2014 calendar consisting only of avocados. Too far?

And with that, I leave you. Hope everyone has a great day-and remember, I’ll do the drawing for my 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway tonight at 9:00pm PST.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever woken up to?

Given I’m cat-deprived, I can’t complain about Charlie too much. I used to have this alarm clock that had nature sounds, and for some reason it was set to blast the sound of rain as my alarm, so it sounded like extremely loud static. Not pleasant.

WIAW and Graduation!

Hello everyone! Happy Wednesday- the one time in the week where we all come together and enjoy delicious food! And of course, thank you Jenn!
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Guess what? I’m actually ahead on post ideas. As in, I have 2 posts that I’m planning on writing up. What?? Who am I? So be on the lookout for those. I also had some excellent suggestions from you guys for how to make my pictures pretty- pic monkey! So naturally I had quite the fun time today playing around with that! And…naturally this was my subject-so let us commence What I WISH I Ate Wednesday!
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Heh heh. Editing is fun. Although this didn’t actually need anything to look mouthwateringly delicious. Did you guys know there’s even a spray tan and a nip and tuck feature? Although I assure you, this froyo does NOT need to appear smaller! 
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As you can see, I definitely have a type 😉

So let’s move on to what I ACTUALLY ate:
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A salad inspired by Beth and my laziness. A salad with spicy avocado hummus and beautiful Farmer’s Market heirloom tomatoes, topped with a runny egg. 
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Normally I would have my hummus salad with a hardboiled egg since the yolk is delicious combined with the hummus. However, I was not about to hard boil eggs (that takes TIMEEE), so I decided to try this! My opinion? Two thumbs up!

As you may know, I’m trying to change my snacking habit. (It takes 21 days to change a habit, so that’s how long I’m skipping snacks for!) And just a clarification, I’m not necessarily trying to restrict food intake, just break the habit of mindless snacking. One thing that was interesting that without snacking, I didn’t want as much food at dinner. Interesting! So that’s one day down!

ANYWAYS. Dinner was delicious!
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The breakdown: a couple of recipes courtesy of Cooking Light: Asian Lettuce Cups and Steamed Sugar Snap Peas. The lettuce cups are delicious- they have ground turkey, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. They’re fun to eat, and would also make a great finger food at a party (but granted they’re a bit messy). Also on my plate was a Garlic Brown Rice and Quinoa mixture.
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I love this stuff-it’s more interesting and has more flavor than plain rice, and it’s still super versatile. I’ve seen it at both Whole Foods and Costco. For dessert, I had some papaya and dark chocolate. 
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I love Hawaiian papaya, I just wish it wasn’t so darn expensive! Blah.
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I love super dark chocolate. The lower square is 91%. 

So let’s get to today’s workouts! This morning I went to a yoga class, but I complete my 4 mile training run beforehand on the treadmill. I did some intervals and some steady. It’s amazing how much intervals can kill your legs! Yoga was really good as well. I haven’t gone in 2 weeks- not since I tried Bikram. I’m sooo tight. I guess that’s what running will do to you! I need to make it a priority to go more often. Also, my arms are pretty weak. I can’t remember ever before my arms having this little muscle. For years, I was playing softball regularly, which included pitching, which kept my arms strong and muscular. And then of course, rowing kept that up (I actually bulked up a ton in my shoulders during winter quarter…). Even after lying in bed for weeks with Mono, I still had a little of my rowing muscle left over. However, now with no sport, and running pushing weight lifting out of my routine, I’ve lost that. Yoga plus Crossfit tonight left my arms quite jello-y. At Crossfit, I worked on handstands-I was against the wall, and got about a foot away from a decent handstand. Not bad for my first time! 

I also worked on deadlifts. It was a super light weight for me, but I was technically still in an Intro class. I was able to Rx the WOD though in terms of weight! Here’s what it was:

4 Minute Tabatas (20″ on 10″ off 8x) of each:

Deadlift (95)

Kettlebell Swing (35)

Hand Release Push Up

I finished with a total of 171. I did the hand release push ups on my knees though since I wanted to maintain good form, and there were a lot of them. This WOD was HARD. My arms were jello. Yoga plus hand stands+ push ups=jello arms. 

But you want to know the best part? The coaches determined that I don’t have to do the “on-ramp” which is the 1 month program beginners of Crossfit have to go through to learn the lifts, since I already have a really strong lifting background and basically know all the lifts. Yay! (Hence-graduation. I’m no longer an ‘Intro’!) What does this mean for me? I get to do the regular WODs, come in for any of the workouts, and save $75! Woo hoo! I can’t wait to go in again-not sure when that’s going to be though! See you all tomorrow!

What is your favorite way to eat froyo? Are you going to the Healthy Living Summit? Crossfit-love it or hate it?

WIAW-SUMMER

Hey guys! Happy WIAW! Thanks a lot to Jenn for posting, as always!

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First, what’s up with this being a running blog now? Haha, I feel like that is all I have been posting about lately! More on that in a minute. Some of you may remember way back in the day when this was more of a rowing blog! I started this blog during rowing training camp, so for the whole 10 days, the posts are pretty much:”We ate. We rowed for 2 hours. We ate again. We rowed again. We ate. We ran 6 miles.” etc…So in that spirit, more on running in a bit! First some delicious food. 

After frying my brain in a 3 hour chem final, an amazing salad and frozen yogurt were necessary fuel to motivate me to study for my next exam.ImageImageI LOVE FROZEN YOGURT.

My last breakfast at the dining hall of the school year!ImageI’m cool and I eat french toast from a bowl. But that way the syrup stays separate and doesn’t drench it.Image

And then, FINALLY SUMMER! Yay!

After my final, it was packing time. It took me about an hour to move out, after I was pretty much already packed. Seeing an empty room was so weird!ImageYeah, I have a lot of stuff…ImageAnd last dining hall meal of the year! Plus, since I had to thaw out the freezer, helping my roommate eat her frozen baked good was kind of a necessity. 

And then….HOME! Home is where the heart is? Pshh. I disagree. Home is where the cats are. Image

And the first thing I do when I get home? I raid the pantry. This is what I found for a snack:ImageThese things are so good! I’ve gotten single serving packs from whole foods before in different flavors, but these are from Costco, so there’s no messing around with a wimpy single serving!

And then it was time to run. Last night I pumped myself up for a really good run today-on the treadmill. First, I want to thank all you guys so much for your advice and encouragement on running! I decided I would go at a good pace on the treadmill and just push through- after all, no matter how bad it was, it could not possibly be as bad as a 6k test (this is a test for rowers-it is 6k as fast as possible and it is basically torture. Like the worst thing ever. Seriously). 

So I went out there today and had a really, really great run. I seriously could not have done it without you guys! I was thinking about you all during the entire run (as well as counting down every .01, and calculating how much I had left-1/50 down, 1/25 down). I busted out 3 miles in 24:27. This went way beyond my hopes- I am sooo happy with this! I can’t remember the last time I ran 3 miles this fast! I guess that’s what a day off, plus ton of foam rolling will do for you! So thank you all SOSOSOSO much, your comments seriously motivated me!

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Post run happiness.

And after my run, it was straight to yoga! This was much needed. It’s been far too long since I’ve gone to yoga. I think it should help my tight legs as well. Image

And now for my first home cooked meal! Turkey burgers in a lettuce wrap, with homemade ketchup from this recipe, sweet potato fries, and brussels sprouts. 
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After dinner, we had some frozen cookie dough we were planning on getting rid of because no one was a huge fan, but I wanted to see if you could microwave frozen cookie dough and get a decent result. The answer? YES.Image

If I have learned anything from this past year of college, it is that you can make anything in the microwave. That and the many varieties of mold found on old food (oops). 

And to celebrate summer, I had a small slice of my frozen birthday cake!Image

Sooo sleeping in on my first morning of summer? I’m still trying to decide how insane I am, and whether or not I want to go to a 5:45 am spin class. 

In other news, my first Crossfit class is on Thursday! SO excited!ImageWhat is your favorite thing about summer?

Admit Weekend

Today marks the start of Admit weekend! That means over 1000 high school seniors are visiting campus to decide if it is a good match. We have 2 staying in our room. I have yet to meet mine (I met my roommate’s), yet her stuff is in my room….

Let’s do a quick recap of yesterday. I began my morning with an almost 4 mile run. I wore my Garmin, which definitely made me push my pace more, although I am still out of shape.  I was like 7 minutes faster than the last time I ran it when I was first recovering.  I did a quick ab circuit, then ate some eggs and yogurt. ImageFor lunch I got a salad at the salad place. That place is crazy expensive! My salad was $12, which I would never pay for a salad, except for the fact that for me it isn’t “real” money. I can se my meal plan dollars that come with my meal plan, which I always have a ton of extra at the end of the quarter. I saved the other half for dinner (they’re HUGE).Image

Southwest salad with salmon and avocado.

I went to yoga last night as well. Yesterday, I discovered something interesting while doing my reading homework. I do a lot better with my reading (more focused) if I do it while doing yoga/stretching. So yes, today I am sore from doing my homework. I am already getting more flexible though, so I’ll take it!

This morning began with an abs circuit which I found here, and Spin. I also wrote up a Spin class for myself, complete with music, to do later this week. GAH I want to teach Spin so badly! I need to get Spin shoes at some point though…

Breakfast was a classic: yogurt with half a muffin and sunflower seed butter. Plus a mango.ImageI was SO tired this morning. I took a long, very disorienting nap after my 9am class. Lately, I’ve been confused over what day it is. Well, in my dream, I was confused about what day it was. And in my dream it was Admit weekend, and a few other events happened that are happening now. SO confusing. Except in my dream the Admits threw a huge party and got arrested. That hasn’t happened yet. There are a few things I am still trying to decide if I dreamt or read in a half-awake state…nonetheless I woke up quite confused. Lunch was out of my microwave: a scramble with egg beaters, the rest of my spinach, and the rest of my garlic and herb laughing cow. I think a grocery trip this weekend is in order. I think I’m going to go home on Sunday. Not gonna lie, I want to use my home gym and go to my abs class on Monday at home. Image

After my afternoon class, I decided to do some yoga in my room, since I couldn’t go to a class today (I had to pick up my Admits). I whipped up a 20 minute playlist and got to work on the floor in my dorm room. It’s weird, all this stretching has made me crave yoga. I was sitting in my morning class and couldn’t think of anything that I wanted to do more than half moon (I was sore). 

In Psych, we talked about how whatever environment/state you are in when learning something, you will remember the material more if you are in the same environment/state. Since it is a Psych class, it should be acceptable to start doing yoga during a test to help me remember, right?

Dinner was with Admits at our boring dining hall. ImageIt was SUPER crowded. And not that good. Salad, beets, and veggie pot pie filling over brown rice (hey, it’s healthier than with a biscuit, right??). 

Plus lots of snacks today. Probably too many. It’s nearly impossible for me to practice intuitive eating if I’ve eaten anything sweet. I simply cannot detect the signal, which as a future nutrition scientist, is super interesting to me. 

Warning: I am about to nerd-out. 

My hypothesis is that this is related to the fact that fructose (a component of sugar) does not inhibit the hunger hormones when you eat it, meaning it doesn’t make you less hungry. Additionally, leptin is not stimulated, which is the hormone that tells you you are full. This is super interesting to me because this was an effect I’ve read about numerous times, but never really thought about how it felt in myself. I’m totally going out on a limb here, but the feeling I get to simply stop eating (before I even get the feeling of fullness), which is super subtle, by the way, is actually my leptin signal. Cool, right??

Ok, sorry for that tangent! I’ll keep you guys updated on my efforts to convince the Admits to come here!