I typically eat yogurt for breakfast every morning. While I’ve gone through a few phases where this hasn’t been the case, for the most part of 6 years I have, but it definitely has evolved over the years. Shall we take a look?

High school: my first major yogurt eating began when I started going to the gym in the mornings, and then straight to school. The cups were nice and easy to pack, and I would often do the Fage yogurts with honey on the side, so I could add as much or as little as I liked. I love how the honey gets cold!

As I started getting more interested in nutrition/sugar, I amped up the nutrition, and added apples and walnuts to plain Greek yogurt instead.

My friend caught me eating it in class!

Freshman in college: pre-mono. I didn’t eat yogurt that much, but a couple of times I mixed plain Greek yogurt with brown rice syrup and cocoa powder for a post-workout snack.

Freshman post-mono: When I had mono, I took 1,002 antibiotics, so I was really trying to get more probiotics in my system, which is when I rediscovered yogurt. It quickly became an obsession. The best combo? Vanilla Greek yogurt+pumpkin bread+sunbutter. YUMM. I still think this is the best combo, I just never seem to have it anymore.

Obsession level:

Summer after freshman year: I went through a granola/cereal in yogurt phase. With flavored yogurts, like pineapple. Topped with fruit and sunbutter.

Soph fall: not a ton of yogurt, but I did go through a major pumpkin obsession, so all the pumpkin products went into yogurt! A favorite was pumpkin butter+sunbutter+some type of quick bread.

Soph winter: a very brief foray into overnight oats. Sometimes I got cravings for them, but I only like them with flavored yogurts!

Soph winter: During my real foods project, I discovered the beauty of full fat yogurt. I topped it with no sugar sunbutter (which I sometimes, but rarely, crave in this specific context) and berries on the stove. One of the best discoveries over.

Soph spring: I didn’t really have cooking facilities in a dorm, so berries like the above were not always available to me, so I adapted to the dining hall. Every morning I wanted pancakes, so I compromised by topping yogurt with dining hall fruit and a pancake.

DC summer: For most of the summer, I wasn’t feeling the yogurt thanks to the heat, but by the end of the summer I discovered a delicious and healthier alternative to my quick bread in yogurt desire: heat banana and mash with cocoa powder. Put on plain yogurt, top with sun butter. SO good.

Junior year: The dining hall had sunbutter! I made my whole breakfast work there. Plain Greek yogurt, sun butter, and fruit, often canned pears.

Summer 2015: I did more of flavored yogurts without toppings. Partly because when I had to start work at 7am and eat breakfast really early, I wasn’t in the mood for much.

Fall Senior:

2 choices: yogurt with just something sweet like jam, or pumpkin butter or yogurt with fruit+sunbutter (especially persimmons).

Last month:

Plain Greek with jam (tropical or homemade berry)+sunbutter.

This week:

Back to the berry compote and sun butter!

So now I think I need to recreate basically all of these. YUM

What’s your favorite way to eat yogurt? I would love to find a new phase

Post run breakfast was the same old-plain greek yogurt with berries and sunflower seed butter. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to switch it up, partly because it’s delicious and refreshing, but partly because I’m scared my berries will turn alcoholic before I can eat them, because the last batch did! So far so good though!

I didn’t pack a lunch today because I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to eat it between classes. In the end, I did get a chance to stop by a cafe on campus for a chicken and pesto sandwich on whole wheat.

My second morning class has air conditioning, but it’s always on SO high that even though I brought a sweater specifically for that class, I was still freezing my booty off! I have never been so happy to walk outside in nearly 100 degree heat-to thaw!

However, my afternoon class is most definitely not air conditioned. I spent 2 hours staring at a computer screen and melting my brain. Not fun. I then picked up LITERALLY the best, most amazing, refreshing, and cool thing in the world. An iced latte! (decaf)

Crossfit today was pretty empty. I guess everyone got fed up with the what yesterday and decided not to show today! For the strength, we worked on power snatches and I FINALLY PRed by 5 pounds! The WOD was a tabata of pull ups, push press, sit ups, and dumb bell cleans. The push presses were probably the most difficult for me!

After my workout, I headed to dinner at the dining hall. I’ve actually been digging the dining hall lately-today they had HUMMUS, which is rare and exciting. I filled up a bowl with salad, chicken, and plenty of hummus!

For dessert, I had a cool cup of plain Greek yogurt with cereal and strawberries, as well as a small slice of lemon cake. I’ve been really into lemon lately, ever since I came across this recipe that I’m dying to make! I had a lemon luna bar earlier as well-so perfect for summer!

And now, I’m sitting in my room sweating. Gotta love lack of air conditioning! Also-I only have 4 weeks until summer…what??

Do you have any exciting plans for the summer?

1. Fruit. This is such an easy one, and I especially love it during the hot summer because it just seems so refreshing!

2. Veggies and guac. I snacked on this quite a bit during the school year. If you buy a pouch of the guacamole spices, it’s as easy as mashing up half an avocado and dipping.

3. Part of a bar. During the school year, before a workout I’d grab half of a Thinkthin bar. Right now, I’m sampling my wide selection of quest bars. I’m finding I enjoy them in small pieces because for me they start tasting funny by the end of the bar, and they’re pretty dense which can be hard on my stomach. Eating a bite or two of a bar here and there may be obnoxious if you live with people who would actually like to eat a WHOLE said bar, but the Quest bars are mine so no shame.

4. Laughing Cow with carrots. This is the perfect mix of protein and produce. It’s just what I need to make it through the afternoon!

5. Yogurt. Specifically, stand-alone yogurt. For a snack, I prefer something that is satisfying as is. For example, vanilla yogurt wouldn’t be a good snack for me because I’d need granola and sunflower seed butter. Coconut yogurt is perfect for this.

6. Coffee with milk. Sometimes you do need a little pick me up, especially in the morning. If you’re like me and like the milk to coffee ration more on the milk side, this is perfect. The milk has protein and some carbohydrates. And yes, I’ve used this as a post-workout recovery drink. No shame.

7. Leftovers. Many times, snacks are seriously lacking in nutritional value. Leftovers are the perfect mini-meal, and they often include easy to grab veggies. The other day I grabbed some leftover sweet potato wedges for a snack-more delicious and nutritious than chips!

8. This smoothie. I do best when my snacks are on the light side, especially if it’s right before a workout. This smoothie really hits the spot because it’s super refreshing, tasty, and sneaks in some veggies.

1 cup dark chocolate almond milk

handful of spinach

half of a frozen banana

large handful of ice

pinch of xantham gum

Blend and enjoy!

9. Dark chocolate. Sometimes all you want is something sweet. This will fulfill that while offering antioxidants and a small caffeine boost.

What are some of your favorite snacks?

WARNING: If you’re looking for a healthy lifestyle, today may not be the best example. But such is life. 

I actually slept 8 hours last night. I can’t even remember the last time! I had weird dreams though-driving to softball practice on a motorcycle??

I went to 8am Crossfit. The workout included lots of thrusters and push presses (a brutal combo), and more double unders. Thankfully, I didn’t have to do a million and two single unders-I just had to attempt doubles for one minute each round. Way easier on the calves! And I actually did string some double unders together too-something sort of clicked!

Post-Crossfit.

I decided to go to the dining hall to restock on eggs.

And might as well get breakfast while I’m there, right?? Plus, after seeing these vats of yogurt….Swoon.

I also did something crazy…I drank decaf coffee! Who am I? Drinking coffee for a reason other than caffeine?? It was eh. (That’s what I get.)

I decided to pack lunch today-it was time to attempt pumpkin yogurt! Sadly, my yogurt got a little beat up in my bag and ended up leaking all over my lunch bag…it could have been much worse!

Here are the ingredients:

Plain yogurt, pumpkin pie filling, cinnamon. And yes, I did pack the entire cinnamon container-I’m just cool like that. 

Yummmmm. So if we’re keeping a tally-yogurt #2 for the day.

After my Ochem section, I was mentally done. I’ve worked pretty hard this week, and my brain was feeling it. I decided to take a break and just watch an episode of How I Met Your Mother. SO good. Here are a few pre-football snacks:

I mashed up a small avocado with my guac mix and BAM. Instant guac party of one. 

Pumpkin pie filling and sunflower seed butter. Pumpkin pie filling obviously isn’t the most nutritionally sound food, but folks, I have a big can to finish and it’s delicious. Hence, the don’t do as I do. Also, multiply this by more as a later snack.

Snap pea crisps and a pumpkin granola bar from Trader Joe’s. These are not my favorite, but interesting to try.

Then, it was off to my first flag football game of the year! It was really fun-we lost but I wasn’t expecting anything crazy. I got knocked down twice by the same guy and skinned my knee up a tiny bit. #battlescars Ok, technically I ran into him, and when a smaller mass and larger mass collide, guess who falls? Putting my Physics knowledge to use people! 

On the way back to my dorm, I saw my little friend from last year! DAY. MADE.

He actually had a tag this year-his name is Finnegan, and he lives with the Resident Fellows in a dorm nearby. And he always seems to pop up around exam times…

I debated 1. going to yoga 2. going to the dining hall 3. eating in my dorm. I chose the dining hall. Nothing exceptional today-I got some type of fish which was pretty good. 

They also had a baked potato bar today, which was fun. I got a small potato with all the fixings.

Aaaand because I obviously didn’t have enough sugar in the form of pumpkin pie filling, this happened. 

Soooo yeah. That’s that. The rest of the nigh is homework time for me!  Tomorrow morning, I’m hoping my calf is sufficiently recovered so I can get a solid run in. I’d like to get one more speed workout in-I’m hoping to get 3 miles in-.5 mile there, .5 mile back, and then 8×400 repeats. Cross your fingers!

Do you ever get into food ruts?

But let’s start from the top, shall we?

I woke up bright (well, dark) and early for a morning gym workout. The workout was 10 minutes working on snatches, followed by a WOD of 21-15-9-9-15 deadlifts and squat jumps. The workout originally called for burpees, but that would have taken me much more time than I had. The bar was SO ROUGH. My poor hands were getting torn up so badly! I looked around-and there’s only one bar out of like 8 like that at the gym, but they were all full. I then did 5 rounds of 250m row/7 rdls, and finished with some abs. This workout was nothing too crazy-just something to get my blood flowing!

When I walked out of the gym, I was greeted by this:

The weather is starting cool down a little too-it’s sunny but with fall skies and a little bit of bite in the air. I had a long day ahead of me, and it was chilly, so on the way back to the gym, I stopped for a cappuccino.

BEST. THING. EVER. So worth the extra trip-and I went before getting ready instead of on my way to class, so there was no line. 

I seriously love this weather-Sweater Weather! Do you guys know the song Sweater Weather? I think that’s going to be stuck in my head any time I wear a sweater. What I wore today was basically the epitome of fall-boots, a sweater, and a scarf. 

I’ve been feeling so put together lately in terms of my outfits (ok, technically I’m still wearing leggings…), and I really do think it makes a difference on my outlook of the world. Here’s a sunny selfie of yesterday’s scarf. 

Yes, I live in California. Yes, 70 degrees is considered cold. 

Today was just such a productive day, and I feel so much better about my classes. I love Mondays and Wednesdays because I have all afternoon to hole up in a library or cafe and just accomplish things. I actually am not minding problem sets-minus Physics. I don’t mind spending hours working things out-as long as I eventually get it. I’ve said it before, but this is really something I was missing last year.

After class, I tried this new to me yogurt.

I saw it on Beth‘s blog a while ago, and have not been able to find it anywhere! Needless to say, I was super excited.

It was delicious! I ended up throwing a couple of dates I had packed for snack on top, and those really complemented the flavors perfectly. Next time, I would throw chopped dates on top.

Here’s a shot of the cafe. Kind of a basement, but cozy and quiet. Several study snacks happened as well.

Like my placemat? I really need to stop eating ON my school things.

Pumpkin bread. Because we know I’m obsessed.

After finished most of my work, I headed back to my room for a run. Since it was in danger of getting dark, I threw on the only long sleeve neon shirt I had. Is it too soon? I don’t think so.

So I set out for 4 miles-I was really in the mood to run. The weather was perfect, I was feeling great…until like .2 miles in when my calf reminded me that I did 600 jump ropes yesterday…and doing that many after not jumping rope in a month will make me sore. I immediately turned back-with my history of calf issues, I was NOT going to push anything this close to the race. So not worth it. I switched gears and went to dinner instead-not a bad alternative!

A really delicious turkey burger, salad, polenta, and fruit. I love turkey burgers. I should seriously just get 2 turkey burgers and veggies and call it a day-and not mess around with the other suspect items.

Paella-it tasted really fishy, so not really my cup of tea. Oh well, can’t win them all. 

Then, tonight I had a sorority recruitment event-cookie decorating. Hence the sugar high. It’s the worst kind too-store bought cookies and store bought icing=my body hates me. Eh, live and learn. Here’s my first creation. Not my best work.

And now let’s talk running. Let’s talk races. Let’s talk about the future. I (obviously) have my next half in ELEVEN DAYS. I am SO incredibly excited-and I feel strangely prepared. It helps I’m not injured (knock on wood) right before the race…But being the overeager person that I am, I’m starting to think about what comes next. Life after half marathon training? Huh? First off-I know if I’m not training for a race I’ll never run. It just won’t occur to me. I’m doing a 10k Turkey Trot in November (obviously), and then I’m doing a Santa Run in mid December. This one is a 5k, and I’m racing it to PR. To be fair, I’ve only done one 5k (last year’s Santa Run). And I hadn’t run in a long time-I was in really good shape from rowing, but there wasn’t a ton of running happening. After my half, I’ll be focusing a ton on running fast. I obviously want to PR, but I THINK if I work hard between now and then, I can break 24:00. We shall see.

So…then what? I want to do the Giant’s race….in August. Maybe the Nike women’s again if I like it. But before then? There’s an abyss! BUT. BUT. I think I found a race-and I’m this close to signing up. Rock n Roll San Francisco on April 6. It should be a fun one-it goes across the Golden Gate bridge! I think it would be a good warm up for the Giant’s race, which is a much flatter course and therefore a better one to run hard for a PR. The timing is pretty good too. So…thoughts? GAHH I’m so excited about everything right now! 

It’s almost race day!

What’s the best race you’ve done? Suggestions? Favorite part of fall?

This is my first WIAW from college. First, let me just state that I hate the furniture in my room this year. It’s dark and small and immovable. So basically it’s impossible to stay organized. So I’m blogging from my headboard-less bed next to a giant pile of books that travels from my desk chair to my bed regularly because my desk and shelves are full. Such is life.

But let’s get on to the day of eats. Today was an example of both how college life doesn’t have to be unhealthy, and how it can be unhealthy.

I started my morning with a few dates pre-run. I had a 4 mile run scheduled today, and decided to do speedwork. I ran a mile of warm up and cool down(half a mile to the track, half a mile on the track). I then did 400 repeats for 2 miles. I haven’t really done these before, but they seemed perfect given all my recent foot issues. Having rest time was crucial for my foot and it actually felt really good. I liked these, but I think I prefer the 200 distance way more. 

Post run, it was breakfast time. I think this here is an example of how hard I tried to make dorm food look pretty/interesting. Plus, you all can admire my new dorm pet (aka my plant).

I am well stocked on fruit right now since I only just got here, and it’s a lifesaver. Unripe melon gets old fast.

I had one class this morning before eating some food I packed. The original plan was a salad with a hardboiled egg, but there wasn’t much left in the dining hall last night, and I was at a loss for dressing.

Plus the lettuce looked kind of old, so I tossed it in favor of some of the veggies from my fridge.

After my Physics lab, I headed to one of my favorite places to eat on campus for some mystery bread. This stuff is so good-oh how I missed it!

So why, you ask, is this one of my favorite places on campus? They have the most amazing selection of quick breads and baked goods. I pretty much always stick to the same thing since I love it, but I’m sure something pumpkin will have to happen soon.

(This is only a fraction of what they have.)

Today was a pretty snacky day. Besides what’s shown, I also had a Thinkthin bar, dried mango, multiple types of cake….more on that in a minute.

I went back to Crossfit tonight. I did like it better-that could be because the WOD had rowing, and any WOD with rowing has my heart. It was rowing+thrusters+pull ups. Hopefully in time this new box will feel like home, but it’s just not the same as my old one. 

Dinner tonight was a little different-I passed on the gross looking salad this time and went for other random veggies instead.

Grilled chicken, a taste of mashed potatoes, some type of Greekish salad, and citrus beets. Not going to lie, my expectations were way too high for those beets. But hey, dining hall food isn’t really supposed to have flavor, right?

I was all set to type up this post when I got a call from my sister. She and her boyfriend are training for a marathon, and they had just finished their 18 mile run….miles away from their apartment. Being the nice person that I am, I picked them up in my tiny car. (I usually say my car seats 2, or 2+3 others with no legs.)

Despite the little detour in my night, I did score some groceries.

While tonight I haven’t accomplished as much as I might have liked, I finish class at 12 tomorrow and have allll day to spend in the library. 

I feel like it is definitely possible to eat well in college, but it does take some discipline. Today I started to fall back into old habits a little bit. I guess one thing to consider is that it is okay to indulge occasionally, but you need to pick and choose, and other delicious things may come up later in the night (like pumpkin cake-not passing that one up). One big thing for me this year is I’ve avoided the dining hall for breakfasts, and I’ve packed lunches. As for breakfast-it’s just too hard for me to pass up pancakes and muffins everyday, and I know they make me feel awful. I’d rather keep food in my room and start the day off on the right food. As for lunches-last year I got in the habit of buying, but the serving size was almost always too large, and I felt bad throwing stuff away. Plus, it’s easier to pack something cleaner. 

So that’s that-my first few days back! I promise to try and keep my pictures interesting, even if that means buying a lot more plants. Or a puppy. 

Have a great Wednesday, and eat something good for me!

How did you/do you stay healthy in college? How do I keep my room organized when there is zero space?

So let’s talk running. Sunday was my 11 mile run. I have a whole routine down now. Wake up at 6:45, eat breakfast, and leave at 8:30 for a 9:00 run. Since I run by the bay, I have to run early to beat the wind. I had my typical pre-run breakfast. 

I felt much more confident going into this run than last week’s 10 mile run. For some reason, 10 miles seems like so much, and anything beyond that basically seems the same. If I could do 10, I could do 11 right? I wanted to pick up the pace a little bit from last week too. 

I started off having no trouble with my “goal” pace. I say that in quotes because it’s my ideal pace but not what I was expected to maintain (spoiler-I didn’t maintain it). Immediately, I was feeling better than last week. This could be for a number of reasons. 1. I had logged more miles the week leading up to this run than last weeks. I skipped a longish run last week. 2. I had already done a long run and probably most important-3. I didn’t do a killer leg workout 2 days before, so my legs weren’t sore at all (my arms though were a different story). Moral of the story? Do heavy leg days early in the week. Anyways, the run. 

I swear the longest part of the run is the mile or two leading up to the turnaround. And the miles right after the turnaround…I did stop to walk a few steps every few miles to get try and get some feeling back in my toes. Gosh I love my feet. I really shouldn’t complain-my feet behaved much better than expected and much better than last week. I think I was landing with a slightly different part of my foot, so for a good part of the run my big toe was numb, but it didn’t hurt because I wasn’t striking on the nerve I usually hit it on. 

I took my goo at the halfway point. It was really disappointing. I tried the Power Bar brand of chocolate and it didn’t taste good. The Cliff bar kind from last week was better, and had a better list of ingredients. I just never got a chance to make it back to the store to pick up another one. Here’s a question for you runners-for a half marathon, do you fuel once or twice? Before training, I was thinking I’d do it at miles 5 and 10, but at this point I feel like by mile 10 I just want to power through until the end. 

Here’s the crazy part about this run- my slowest miles were definitely the middle miles, but my fastest was the 11th mile. What?? Like, it was probably a minute faster. Ok…I obviously need to start running the rest faster! It’s funny-I’ve been listening to an audiobook on my long runs, and beforehand, I discovered that only if I hit my “goal” pace would I finish my run before my audiobook ran out. Hey, it’s extra motivation! I ended up running out at the VERY end of my run. Nothing too terrible. So that was that!

Here’s the view of SFO from after my run:

I actually felt better after this run than after the last one, in terms of ability to move. I was stupid though and didn’t wear my compression socks, and my calves were sore already yesterday afternoon. Whoops.
What’s the best thing to do after a run? Go yogurt shopping obviously!

Heaven right there my friends. It’s been too long!
By the time I got home, the post-run-crazy-hunger began setting in. I was sooo salty from my run and my body was craving salt like crazy. After a few handfuls of cheddar popcorn from the Farmer’s Market yesterday, I was ready to break open some yogurt. I tried pineapple Chobani, which I’ve never tried before.

Topped with some gluten free granola from the Farmer’s Market, blackberries, and sunflower seed butter. Perfect!

I spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy. And desperately trying to keep up with the 1000 incoming text messages I was receiving. Bloggers sure are a talkative bunch (but I love them for it). Saturday night I went to dinner with my friend, and when I got back I had 148 texts. I felt so popular-I’ve never gotten that many before! Haha.
Dinner last night was leftovers, plus corn on the cob. At the Farmer’s Market, there was a huge line for a corn vendor. I mean, the line was going around the corner, and no other vendors ever had any type of line. Plus, they weren’t the only ones selling corn. Naturally, the long line made my mom WANT this corn. We ended up walking away with 10 ears. It was really good-but enough to cause a giant line? I don’t know.

On the side was leftover chicken sauteed with white wine, mushrooms, and zucchini. Kettle corn was also consumed. Farmer’s Market seriously have the best kettle corn.

I also was dying for some fro-yo, so I made a little fro-yo sundae.

I topped vanilla frozen yogurt with chocolate sauce, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream. YUM.

And staying true to the title of this post, here’s this morning’s breakfast-another yogurt bowl.

Stoneyfield vanilla greek yogurt, gluten free granola, a chopped up nectarine from the Farmer’s Market, and a scoop of sunflower seed butter. I really like Stoneyfield-it’s smooth and not super sweet. My biggest issue with the Chobani that I’ve tried is lack of tang, at least for the key lime and pineapple flavors. I feel like those should be at least a little tangy. Maybe the new key lime? I’ve only tried the one in the flip.
Also, I love this new granola. It’s only sweetened with maple syrup, but it’s still not that sweet. It was a great maple-y flavor because of this. Technically, it’ Coconut, Cranberry and Cocoa Nib, although I don’t taste the cocoa as much. No complaints here though! I need to go get ready for the day-have a great Monday!

What is your favorite flavor of yogurt?

First off- HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all the mother’s out there, especially my own, who has put up with me through a lot.

Also, to all mother’s out there: make sure you’re not the only on taking pictures! Many years from now your daughter may be writing a blog post for which she will have trouble finding pictures of the two of you together. 

Although she does not know it at the time I am writing this post, my sister and I are surprising her my coming back for lunch! I’ll let you know how that is tomorrow!

There are a few things I want to touch on about Saturday. First. It was very unproductive. And I skipped some events because I wanted to get things done. But that wasn’t great. It’s ok though, it was only Saturday. Some R&R is necessary. 

Brunch. I have a love/hate relationship with it. The food is really good, but it completely messes up my entire eating schedule for the day. This may be why I struggle with eating well on the weekends. I went with half of a whole wheat bagel, toasted with cream cheese and eggs, plus a salad with guacamole. Half of a waffle was also consumed, although it went unphotographed. 

Brunch always leads me to snacking. Which causes problems. I had a big grand workout planned, but I kept eating and then having to digest. Here are some snacks:

Greek yogurt, cranberry orange quinoa, and cocoa sesame seed butter. Citrus+chocolate works, right??

Blueberry-pomegranite kefir, zucchini bread (from the freezer), and sunflower seed butter. 

Numerous other snacks included bananas with sunflower seed butter, and granola with a protein bar.  Dinner was just meh but here it is:

Well guys, this is it. It is the ending of an era. That’s right, I’m finally getting over my sunflower seed butter and my yogurt obsession. Since ditching some of the sugar in my diet, I don’t find these items as enjoyable. Or maybe consuming 10,000 jars of sunflower seed butter in a quarter is too much. I’m not sure. But I’m feeling ready to move on. It’s not that I dislike these things, but they don’t hold quite the same level of joy for me as they did in the past. :'(

I may try plain yogurt and see if that is more appealing. But as it is, I only have a bit of yogurt remaining anyways. I guess I’ve been more into produce lately: fruits and veggies. Produce kind of shaped how well my week went last week; I focused more on eating fruit and veggies, and it helped me eat more healthfully overall. Which takes us to the next topic of conversation.

As any normal American, I don’t eat as nutritiously on the weekends as on the other days of the week. For me, starting Monday on a positive note is crucial, and sets the tone for the week. Last Monday, I really focused on clean eating, and ate mostly fruit and veggies (minus the pizza that may have slipped its way in). As a result, I felt great the whole week, and had no difficulty eating well. Which is why I want to try something different this Monday. Before I say anything. let me first iterate that it is not necessarily something I believe in, but just want to give a try. A juice cleanse! I was inspired when last Monday I tried Trader Joe’s Green Juice and actually enjoyed it. It is a bit sugary (from the fruit) so the plan is to mix it with a more unpalatable and veggie heavy drink. I wasn’t sure whether to blog about this, but since it’s only a day, it’s not really going to change anything anyways. And the idea has always intrigued me. 

But on to the title of the post! Lately, I’ve been finding workouts online and writing them on Post-its. I regularly take these post its to the gym with me when I work out, but they get really rumply and crinkly and gross. So I decided to laminate them with tape!

Most of them are WODs, and I thought it would be easier to have them in one medium, together. The ultimate plan is to make some type of pretty poster to put on my wall that I can stick all of them to for easy access when I want to pick one for a workout. I haven’t figured that part out yet, but I’m satisfied with the finished cards!Most of them came with names, but I gave names to most of the ones that didn’t for ease of reference. For example, the one I did the other day that featured pull-ups, push ups, and squats I titled “Popeye” because it killed by arms for several days after. And Popeye has huge arm muscles, right?

I’m slightly obsessed with Crossfit. Yet I’ve never even tried it. Sad. This summer though I want to try it!

Aaaand to tie this post together again: Happy Mother’s Day!

Tell me something awesome about your mother.

As usual, my day began with a 7am spin class. There are these two adorable ducks that have been hanging out near the gym. Which is nowhere near water…And Wednesday they were sleeping in the grass outside my dorm. I’ve been meaning to snap a photo of them but I didn’t get the chance, until I saw them snoozing on my way back from Spin. Too cute!I attempted to make my breakfast look pretty…I had been planning on using my real camera in my room when I am eating instead of my phone, but my roommate is still asleep when I am eating, so it is kind of dark. And it’s not really fair to wake up my roommate just to take a picture….For some reason, my iPhone takes better pictures in this awkward lighting…Who would have known?

My 9am class had a midterm, but it was not difficult. I was done in half an hour. Then, I went to the library to study for today’s midterm, since I knew I had a lot going on tonight. At the library:What is that, you may ask? It is a Coupa Coffee machine! You swipe a credit card and select your drink, and it makes it right in front of you! I had a Cappuccino. Milk foam (AKA the only reason I like this drink).Espresso.

The finished product!

I spent 4 hours in the library working yesterday…with a lunch break A salad from the actual Coupa. No salad machine! Although how awesome would that be?? This is what I got: 

beverlyhills chopped salad

chopped mesclun greens, romaine, chicken, tomatoes, olives, asparagus, and avocado topped with gouda cheese and tossed in a dijonmustard vinaigrette

YUM. I also learned you apparently get wayyy more when you get it for there, and not to go. Look at the height on this thing!

After 4 hours of hard work, my brain was pretty fried. In Psych section, we talked about our week’s project. We had to pick a social norm, violate it, and get a picture of ourselves doing so. The best was a person who wore tons of makeup on one half of her face, and people thought she was actually insane. Mine was boring. I went to the dorm lounge and did my homework upside down. I thought it was weird, but no one so much as looked up. Apparently I do stuff like this normally? I have been caught doing yoga with my textbook before…Yesterday I got the best idea for what I should have done. I should have walked around with a camera to all my classes and taken a picture of everything. How perfect would that be for the blog??

After class, I had to do laundry. I had an event last night, and not too many clean clothes. Although it turns out I had everything clean that I needed….Oh well I needed towels. Unfortunately, since I was under some time pressure (had to make it to yoga), I only did a really small load that would dry in time. And I still have a ton of laundry…as in, I have very few clothes. As in, my workout clothes are dirty. Good thing I have so many! 

Pre-yoga snack:

One thing I’ve noticed since I gave up desserts is things are starting to taste really sweet. Like this oatmeal-ish thing. Interesting…It’s been a week guys! And honestly I don’t miss desserts. I was thinking, “I’ve had no desserts in the 19th year of my life! Maybe I can do the whole year!” Somehow, I doubt THAT is going to happen!

Yoga was awesome, as usual. I can feel myself getting stronger again. After yoga, I headed to Spring Fair. Yesterday, all the dining halls put out their best efforts in a Fair, where we could get tickets and get all kinds of delicious things. Since the fair was in the plaza, all the dining halls were closed. Aaaaall of the bikes.I got Hawaiian food from the best dining hall on campus. To be honest, I was disappointed. It was kind of plain. Then I got a lettuce leaf (that sounds sooo filling) and a veggie empanada from a different place. The empanada was good, but not my favorite combo of flavors. 

After the Fair, I ran back for a shower before heading out…to make challah! My school has a program called Challah for Hunger, which makes and sells Challah to students and the proceeds go to charity. My sorority is vaguely Jewish ( I’m not. Only like 3 people are…) so we get a chance to do some of the baking sometimes. 

Note: in taking these pictures I managed to coat myself and phone in flour and dough. Sacrifices, guys. LOTS of dough.All I was actually doing was braiding. 

Aaaand done!

There was plain, chocolate chip, cinnamon raisin (I want to try this!), and banana. I know there was going to be Sun-dried Tomato and some other flavors as well, but I had to leave.  I had to go to another sorority event. I didn’t actually decide to get any challah because I didn’t want to encourage myself to eat late at night, but that kind of backfired when I had yogurt after the mixer…

Ah well. It is Friday! Happy Birthday to my fabulous mother!

Any fun weekend plans?

No surprise what breakfast was!Vanilla greek yogurt, crunchy sunflower seed butter, pumpkin bread(ish).

And due to my stream lined breakfast process, getting to class on time was no problem at all!

After my 9 am class, I met with my Psych TA to discuss a paper I have to write. I’m actually getting excited about it; it is going to be on the cognitive effects of practicing yoga.

I then returned to my room with intentions of getting work done, but soon decided that a nap was probably a better option. 

This didn’t leave a ton of time for lunch before my next class, and given I was in the mood for yogurt, I decided to just roll with it, because I figured if I tried to eat something else, I would end up eating yogurt anyways. Plus some veggies-carrots with roasted garlic hummus, which I exchanged for guacamole about halfway through my meal. 

I decided to bring my workout gear to class so I could go straight to the gym, an save time/not lollygag. Since I was planning on doing a rowing workout, I planned to wear a skirt that day so I could already be wearing my spandex. I accidentally left my dorm wearing my shower flip-flops though! Oops! Giants flip flops+ skirt….not sure about that one. 

After class I headed over to the gym, but then sat in the shade for a bit and worked on Chem because I still felt pretty full from lunch. 

My workout really felt awesome. It was surprisingly nice to be back on the erg. Granted, I did a fraction of what I was doing towards the end of last quarter, but I’m totally fine with that. I don’t see any need to be on the erg for an hour and a half now. I actually looked back in my email history and pulled out the first workout we were assigned in the fall. Hey, gotta start somewhere, right? It was 4 sets of 5 minutes. I followed that with about 20 minutes of abs.

I was riding back from my workout while wearing spandex, and pondered whether spandex would be good to wear for biking, since it doesn’t move around like regular shorts. Then, I had the biggest urge to go for a bike ride. I’ve been wanted to go, but I’ve been a little apprehensive since my little spill. 

Results of my little spill:The picture doesn’t do it justice…

But I decided, hey why not? So I went for an impromptu 4 mile loop of campus, and it felt great too. I have to say, with my increase in workouts in the last few days, I am beginning to feel more like myself. This is how I thrive. I love pushing my body. And I’m finally beginning to see definition again in my legs which has been absent since I was sick. But mostly, I just feel strong. Which makes me happy. Although I must admit I’m still lacking in the running category…oops. Tomorrow’s workout schedule will be quite different. I’m taking the morning off, because in the evening, I’m doing….quidditch conditioning. I miss the agility workouts I used to do for softball, and my sister is in charge of the quidditch team, and was more than willing to let me tag along for conditioning. With the promise that no brooms were involved, that is. 

But back to dinner. I tried a new dining hall that is SUPER close that I only vaguely knew existed, and it was a success! Although it’s small, it was so nice to have a change of foods. And blue cheese polenta? Yum! They also had scones and veggie wraps!As well as a slice on edible beet (normally I’m not a big beet person).

Over dinner, I talked to some friends about housing for next year. The deadline is this weekend! I’m going to live with my roommate, but not sure who else or where. 

We also decided it was time to set up our fan. Our room gets super hot in the evenings since it’s in direct sun then. We’ve been putting it off because we weren’t sure where to put it. Well, as it turns out, we aren’t engineers. And the instructions weren’t the most helpful. But we are college students. Which means 2 things: we are creative and we don’t have a screwdriver. So here’s what we came up with:Pshhh who needs a stand anyways? This actually ended up being the perfect place for it, and our room has cooled down substantially. 

I just realized I never explained the name of this post…For my erg workout, I used a random playlist I found on my iPod that I made for spin sometime in the fall, with songs I listened to a lot then. Do you guys ever listen to music that you listened to during a certain time in your life, and the memories come flooding back? It reminded me of all my crew fun in the fall. Plus, I was doing a crew workout! 

Do you ever have “flashbacks”?