Monthly Archives: January 2013

Figuring it All Out

Date: January 24, 2013

Author: astottler

Tomorrow is Friday! I leave on my ski trip tomorrow! Yay! So much work to do though…My day today included a lot of food…and I definitely didn’t feel so great. Bah. So I’m just going to go through my food pretty quickly. It wasn’t a terribly healthy day for me, needless to say…

Preworkout was 2 granola balls.

Breakfast:

Smoothie, half a whole wheat bagel with blueberry cream cheese, scrambled eggs.

Close up on that smoothie! This smoothie was…interesting. I had a plan…my dark chocolate blueberry smoothie. First of all, there were no clean blenders, I had to clean one out myself, which is a little gross given I’m not sure how clean I could have gotten it…plus there were no bananas…which is the base of my smoothie. I threw in blackberries, peaches, plain yogurt milk, spinach, cocoa powder, vanilla protein powder, and a little apple juice (because nothing in here was sweet). Plus a spoonful of peanut butter. It ended up turning out ok…

Lunch:

Caesar salad, sweet potatoes, egg foo young (not really sure what this is), carrots and cabbage, plus something that I really don’t know what it is. The other thing was kind of like tofu…but it wasn’t tofu. Something with an “m” maybe? This meal seemed a little greasy, to be honest. I felt kind of gross after, and this is before I started overeating!

Plus a cute little bowl of fruit! I couldn’t figure out for the life of my what station this was, then I realized it was a fancy salad station, where you pick the toppings and they toss it up for you. I’ll have to try that if I see it again! Salads are way better when you don’t toss them yourself…

Ok, now let’s get into the trainwreck…I won’t go into detail…but hey, at least I didn’t break my challenge!

Pb&j crackers…ugh too sweet!

Have I mentioned I’m obsessed with cocoa powder? I was out of bananas (but I stole 3 today, mwahahaha) so I addded thawed blueberries to cocoa powder and mixed it up with pb…it’s not as good as you might think…

Plus half a granola bar. That made up my snack! Ugh. Stomachache for practice!

Dinner:

Don’t let the green on that plate fool you…there was a lot of salty greasiness…

Plus yogurt with raisin bran, mandarin oranges, pb, and cantaloupe.

And for good measure, back at my room, a granola ball and a banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter….

So I basically don’t feel so hot…My taste buds have been, shall we say, “overstimulated” the past few days. I think I need to just go a while with low salt/low sugar (low cocoa powder…) foods. I’m a little terrified about the foods over ski trip though. I’m not sure what my teammates meant when they said all they ate was cookie dough and cheese…I get the cookie dough, but I don’t know many college students that eat straight cheese…so we shall see…

Speaking of low sugar, I decided this Tuesday will be my day when I eat no added sugar! It would be impossible over ski trip…I’m doing this to raise awareness for all the added sugar in foods people wouldn’t even think of, in honor of Dr. Robert Lustig’s new book, Fat Chance. I’ll be documenting not only what I eat, but also what I don’t eat! It should be fun, so make sure to check it out! If anyone wants to join me, that would be awesome! It’s a great learning experience.

Ok, so back to my day besides food…

This morning was a 2x6k, which is the workout I’ve been dreading most of all. Well, I survived. It wasn’t that bad. I was able to get in the zone and kind of zone out. Unfortunately, my times were not where they should have been. On the positive or negative side, I’m not sure which, I finally realized that in the last 1-2 months I’ve been erging wrong. Or, in better words, I’ve developed a bad habit. Basically, I’ve been pulling only with my arms and not using my legs. So my legs won’t be tired after a workout. The biggest problem with rowing with mostly my arms is if you think about it, arms and much smaller than legs. And therefore aren’t as strong, and tire more easily. Which explains why I’ve gotten slower. So basically I have to really work on using my legs in the next few weeks, because this really needs to be fixed in time for a big erg test.

Yesterday, I talked about how pressed for time I am. In my math section today, I made a list of the things I have to do, and made a schedule for myself to do them by. Lists always make me feel better! Plus, one problem with my workload is I’ll often have a lot of big things lurking in the distance, so I won’t stay up late(ish) to work on them, because I’ll figure I can do that later. With my schedule, I’ll accomplish what I need to do each night. I must admit, I feel better already! (And I have yet to work on any items on my list…)

I don’t have much else to say today. My row on the water felt really good. I haven’t been in a bigger boat in a while, and they’re much more stable! And after practice, I ate dinner with some of the other walk-ons I trained with this fall who either quit or went light-weight, so that was a ton of fun! Here’s to a healthy tomorrow, and have a great weekend everyone!

No clue what happened to this…

Do you ever have train wreck days?

Allergy Attack

Date: January 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How’s everyone doing? My allergies have still been raging pretty much all day. I took allergy medication last night and went to bed so I wouldn’t wake up for my workout too drowsy. And I slept with double pillows, which probably helped my nose but now my neck is pretty sore. In my medication-induced sleep, I tossed and turned and kept finding myself thinking about half marathons. Odd. After a granola bar, my morning workout was pretty unpleasant. While my nose is clearing up, I awoke with my lungs feeling full. Ew. So basically for my erg I felt like my lungs were going to explode. Although each part of my workout was better than the last. My 30 minute run felt much better. And my allergies have been progressively improving throughout the day so I’m hopeful that tomorrow I will be much better. Plus, I’m still really sore (though less sore than this morning).

After my workout, I made myself a smoothie.

I’ve been wanting to do my blackberry-watermelon smoothie for a while, but there weren’t any watermelons today. Or bananas. And to make a good smoothie, I knew I needed some kind of sweeter fruit. The solution? An apple! My smoothie included blackberries, a little yogurt, a little frozen peaches and mango, a small apple, and milk. Topped with peanut butter of course! On the side were some eggs. Not really sure what was in them though….And on my way out I grabbed a piece of French toast.

Not worth it. It is never as good as I am expecting…

Around the beginning of my first class, I started developing a sinus headache. Everything from the lungs up was aching…after class I took Advil and just lay down for a bit. Lunch was a random mix of things in my room.

These guys are pretty good though not quite as flavorful as I was hoping…

Thai chicken soup (I picked this up from Whole Foods over the weekend), celery, and a cracker. I wasn’t really feeling the cracker, so I opted for half a slice of European style rye bread.

I topped all this off with a bit of trail mix and my banana mixture (banana, dark cocoa powder, peanut butter). I’m not a big fan of meals like this that have a ton of random things thrown together. That was kind of what all my meals were like today. I think I prefer lunch in the dining hall, where I can have a big salad.

Before practice, I had an orange, 2 granola balls, and on the way out the door, one of the delicious ThinkThin bars (German Chocolate).

Practice held a new experience for me. Today I rowed in a double for the first time. Not only is this the first time I’ve rowed in a 2 person boat, but it’s the first time I’ve sculled, which means rowing with an oar in each hand. It was interesting. Kind of like learning to row for the first time again, except I picked it up much more quickly. I was grateful I was in a boat with a total of 4 oars, because that is much more stable than a 2 person boat where each person has one oar. After practice was dinner out of my fridge:

A salad with greens and tomatoes that I stole from the dining hall yesterday, plus avocado, olive oil and White Balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. A sweet potato. Leftover cheese souffle. Not a bad meal. I had more of my banana mixture for dessert, but this time I added a little bit of liquid egg whites. Not my best choice because I think the egg took away from the sweetness of the banana.

What an attractive picture, right? I borrowed the banana from my roommate. I think she has at least 15 very ripe bananas. She’s way better at stealing them from the dining hall than I am! She loves to bake, so I think she’s gonna make something with them. Right now I think she’s working on some type of pear muffin/cake. I’m not sure if this counts as a sweet….either way I’m pretty full so I should pass. My eating was kind of all over th place today. I think I ate too many carbs. Do you ever get that feeling? I don’t know how to describe it. Also, I don’t think my meals were as enjoyable as they could have been because I was kind of panting through them. As it turns out, we tend to breathe through our noses when we eat…

Well, that’s all I have for today. I really hope my allergies clear up for my workout tomorrow. And especially by Thursday. We have a 2x6k at max effort which I’m really dreading…have a good night everyone!

What new experiences have you had lately?

Lazy Monday

Date: January 22, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I can’t believe the weekend is over already! These long weekends always fly by! My allergies have been terrible all day. I don’t know why my cats set them off so badly yesterday, but once my sinuses go crazy, it’s hard to stop them. I’ve been popping decongestants like it’s no body’s business (no more than the recommended dosage of course), but I’m not sure how much it has helped. The 2 things that do help: eating hot food and exercise. Let’s go through my day, shall we?

After an interesting night, I got up around 7:30, 8ish. My goal for this weekend was to get completely caught up on sleep, so this was a lazy morning. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but one of those delicious bars I got at whole foods the other day sounded just about right.

Sorry for the poor definition, I didn’t have the light on because my roommate was still sleeping. I topped this with some nuts for my healthy fat. After eating, I curled back up in bed to get going on my new book!

I really love it! It’s a great read; although it is definitely science-y, it isn’t meant for the scientist, it’s meant for the general public. I’m obviously not all the way through, but I’m hooked. Although I’ve hardly gotten to any parts where he describes the dangers of sugar. I ended up falling back asleep a little bit, which was great. Once again, fixing up that sleep debt! My eating today was a little strange just because of my schedule, so I ended up snacking through the day until dinner. I had weights at 1:30, so I ate snack/meal #2 around 11.

More peanut butter banana bread (plus extra pb), an apple microwaved with cinnamon, celery (gotta slow down those carbs!), and a small cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I don’t think I’ve ever had almond milk by itself before, but I didn’t have any regular milk and I wanted some protein. Well, I actually wanted something cold to soothe my super dry throat…This meal was nice and steamy, and my allergies cleared up quite a bit.

I worked and relaxed for a couple of hours before weights at 1:30. Weights was nothing different. But lotsss of squats today. 4×50. I didn’t put any additional weight on the bar today. Why? I’m so sore from my workout yesterday! I forgot how sore my own weights can make me! My butt, and hamstrings….augh. Plus my abs are still a little sore from Friday’s extra ab work, and my right arm is a little sore from pitching briefly yesterday.

After weights on the way to a meeting with my professor, I chowed down another half of a delicious Chocolate Mint ThinkThin bar.

I ate the other half some other time throughout the day, maybe after lunch? These are soooo good. I highly recommend them. Although they are a little higher in sugar than what I’d prefer (10g, which is generally my limit when buying granola bars), they don’t have any artificial sweeteners. My meeting with my professor went really well. Apparently the first draft of my paper wasn’t quite as bad as I thought. Who knew?

After the meeting came another snack.

A nectarine and one of the Peanut Butter granola balls I made yesterday. Perfect! I really love the crunch that the chia seeds give these bars! I thought the brown rice crisps would get soggy in the fridge, but it was totally fine!

After more work, I headed to the gym for a spin class. This is the class I went to last quarter but now can never make because I normally have practice, so I decided to go for old time’s sake. Plus, I was hoping it would loosen me up a little bit! I did a few minutes of abs beforehand, which were surprisingly difficult. I think it is because we had some ab rollouts in weights today…I took Spin a little easy, and I feel a little bit better. The thing about this type of sore, is it doesn’t exactly help to roll out, or it is simply not worth it. Rolling out= so painful! Now that I’m sitting down, I don’t really feel sore, but any time I get up…whew.

After spin was dinner. I was lacking in veggies today, so I made sure to get some greens!

Caesar salad, a few potatoes and zucchinis, veggie souffle, and a small piece of tilapia. Plus a few chunks of pineapple (which was a little too acidic for my dry mouth…) I also grabbed some greens and tomatoes in anticipation of tomorrow’s dinner. Cheese souffle leftovers! When I returned to my dorm, I was in the mood for something more. I started off eating a banana with peanut butter, then shifted gears and threw the banana in the microwave with this:

And topped with peanut butter. I love this dark chocolate cocoa powder, it gives a ton of flavor! I didn’t take a picture of my banana mix because you’ve seen it before, and frankly it just looks black….

Overall, today was not a bad day. I wish my allergies would get better though! Since I’m starting to get more school work, I want to try to schedule a certain amount of time to work on my blog, and not just work on it here or there, because honestly I need to focus. But I’m well under my time limit today! Another piece of fun news: my friend wanted to try to do the Disney half marathon with me in May, but I’ll still be in school and probably in the middle of my season, so I can’t really do that. However, I may be able to convince her to do the Giant’s half with me in August!

I’ve never really talked about my race experiences. All 2 of them. Over the summer, I trained for the Giants 10k, which was in San Francisco and finished on the field.

My sister ran the 10k as well, and my parents walked the 5k. I ended up finishing first in my age group, but I didn’t know that until later so I didn’t get a medal. I think my time was around 52:00? Then over winter break, I ran the Silicon Valley Santa Run, which my friends were going to do with me but ended up not.

Check out all those Santas! I believe I finished around 25:00, but I could have been in better running shape (I had hardly run at all before, mostly erging and other workouts). But it was a fun experience! There was snow at the finish line, and cookies and milk! I definitely want to do this again next year. I also have always been dying to do a Turkey Trot! This year I ran on my own, maybe 4 miles? I take Thanksgiving very seriously, and I want to do anything to maximize my appetite for the big meal!

On other news, I am going on a ski trip with my dorm this coming weekend. I am slightly terrified, because I’ve only been skiing once. I talked to a few of my teammates who had their ski trips this past weekend, and during our weigh in at weights, they were moaning that all they ate all weekend was cookie dough and cheese. So I think I’m going to have to pack a ton of granola bars, because I don’t think I can handle that….

Any other suggestions for food I could bring?

Good But Not Great

Date: January 21, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s Sunday, and I’m back at school! Let’s go through my day!

I began with a quick breakfast before hitting the gym. I decided to do some experimenting, attempting to capture that amazing buttery, cinnamon-y goodness of cinnamon raisin toast with butter, but in a healthier way. I started with my French Toast base. I mashed up a banana, and then mixed in milk, and egg and egg white, cinnamon, and vanilla. I ended up only using half of this mixture because I wanted my bake to be more bread-y. I tore up a slice of whole wheat bread, and placed that in the mixture. And the final touch? A mix of cinnamon and dextrose (this is a glucose heavy sugar, you could use regular cinnamon sugar) to fill in the cracks! After baking this in the microwave for 1.5 minutes, I topped it with a little Smart Balance. Here’s the result:

It was good, but not amazing. I didn’t really capture the buttery factor enough. Oh well. That with a smudge of peanut butter and a cutie, and I had myself a meal!

Not bad at all!

At the gym, I went to Spin, and then made up yesterday’s missed workout. It was my favorite weights workout, plus a few embellishments. Here’s roughly what I did:

Back lunges from a platform(several inches)- sets of 3 each and decreased reps when weight got really heavy (I started at 135. last set was 175)

Single leg RDLs, 6 each leg, 4 sets. I worked up to 55 pounds. I supersetted this with 25 heel raises

A tiny (just a few minutes) of work on the erg trying to bring up my stroke rate (I have a lot of trouble simply moving fast enough)

1/2 kettle bell swing tabata (I did 2 minutes of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off)

3×1 minute weighted plank (Place plate on your back)

Plus stretching and rolling out! I’m usually really bad about stretching, and I want to try and make a better effort! This workout tends to work muscles that complement each other for maximum exhaustion, and I’m already getting a little sore! I love having go-to workouts that I know will make me sore every time. Single leg RDLs do that for me. No matter how many or what weight, I’m almost always sore from them. Just a disclaimer: I’m not a trainer, and please don’t try this workout if you haven’t worked with weights before!

My gym is right next to Whole Foods. How perfect is that?? I needed to pick up some things, so Whole Foods was my next stop. I had a short list, but natrually I had to explore the whole store!

Free smoothie sample anyone? I was just telling my friend the other day how I haven’t had any free samples in a while! Love them! At whole foods, I got some random healthy ingredients, and some dried fruit and nuts. Nothing too exciting, but always fun! Oh, plus some soups for this week! And after the grocery, guess what time it was?

Ohhh yeah. Not that that cake was mine….but wooo!

I had a great big salad while watching the game!

Rotisserie chicken, apple, walnut, dried cranberries, and of course, avocado! All tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. And on the side? Only the best bread ever!

Cranberry walnut! Plus it’s whole wheat! This is one of my favorite breads! I really wanted to try my hand at baking some myself over the summer, but I never got around too it. Seriously, this stuff is so good! Can’t stop at one piece!

At halftime, it was time for me to get to work. I’ve talked about how great it was to have protein bars in the freezer last week, so this week, I decided to make something as well.

5 Minute Peanut Butter Granola Bars! Recipe courtesy of Anne from fANNEtastic food. The recipe called for Chia seeds, and I knew I’d never be able to use up a whole bag before they went bad. But look what Whole Foods had?

How perfect is that? 3 shots was just about right! To this recipe, I added raisins and skipped the ground flax, because I didn’t want to open a whole new bag (which I ended up opening anyway….) Aaaand the final result?

I ended up deciding to roll these into balls because I liked being able to have a bite sized piece, so that became this:

Perfect! I like how these granola bars aren’t too sweet. What first attracted me to the recipe was that they had brown rice syrup.

After my granola bars, I did a little experimenting. We had some leftover hazelnuts from a recipe over Christmas, so I tried my hand at hazelnut butter.

Add a few more whirs, salt, dark cocoa powder, and a few squirts of honey…

Not bad! It was a little dry. It probably could have used more blending but it was kind of difficult in my food processor so I left it. I ate a bit of this on bananas. Again for today, good but not great.

After the Niner’s game (!) I pitched for the first time since my last softball tournament 6 months ago. I’m considering trying to play this summer, and I suddenly had an itch to get back at it a little. It went surprisingly well! I was way less rusty than I was expecting! It was nice to be back out there.

Today was certainly the day of making interesting food. I whipped up another recipe from fANNEtatic food, Blueberry Apple Cinnamon Yogurt Bread.

Helper? Not so much….

While the bread baked up (the batter was certainly delicious, and no eggs so no reason not to lick the bowl!), it was dinnertime.

This is my all time favorite dinner. All recipe courtesy of Cooking Light. Cheese Souffles, Thyme Mushrooms, and an herbs and greens salad. The salad always tastes so fresh; half of it is whatever fresh herbs you have on hand or buy!

Such a great dinner. And the bread was finished just in time for dessert.

Unfortunately, I took it out a little too soon so the middle wasn’t totally done. Instead of put it in longer, I decided it was fine, since I was planning on freezing most of it for later anyway, and when I freeze it, I always microwave it. Still delicious!

Ignore the sloppy spot in the middle…

After all that great food and a few episodes of Castle, I packed up and headed back. Ok, while I absolutely love my cats, I am allergic to them. That’s right. This future crazy cat lady is allergic to cats. I’m not sure what causes my allergies to flare up; the entire time I was home for break it was fine, but today, my allergies are going crazy! I guess that’s a sign it was time to come back! Although I’m sure I have a cat’s worth of fur on my person and on all my clothes…I found cat fur all over a shirt I was wearing the other day. The mystery? I had received the shirt that morning! How does Charlie do it? (Because it always seems to be his fur…)

I have a lot of work to get done tomorrow. I also have team weights, and I’ll probably hit up a Spin class later as well. Plus, I have a new book that I’m absolutely dying to read.

After a yearlong Biology project last year, I discovered a passion for the science of sugar, its metabolism, and its effects on the body. Dr. Lustig has a popular Youtube video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth. After stumbling across this video, I was hooked. I’ve watched it 3 or 4 times, and read several other books. Plus, I downloaded all the Podcasts and interviews I could find with Dr. Lustig, and listened to them while I ran (I know, nerdy, right?). I am beyond exciting. I totally forgot that the book was coming out this soon (January 2013 seemed so far away!), so I am beyond excited for this. I’m a little rusty on sugar metabolism right now, which is why I haven’t posted about it. But this seriously could not have come at a better time, during my 30 day no sugar challenge. After all, it’s a little hard to stomach all this with a belly full of cake. On my challenge, I’m not cutting out all added sugars, just sweets. In honor of the book release, and all the attention surrounding it, I am considering doing and blogging about a few days of absolutely zero added sugars to raise awareness of the sugar lurking in so many foods. I’ve done this for a few days before, and believe me, it is difficult to find foods. Especially bread. Trader Joe’s is one of the only places I’ve been able to find bread without added sugars. And this would be even more difficult at a dining hall, because ingredients aren’t listed on everything. So who would want to try this with me to raise awareness to the something so many food processors pour into our foods? We should be able to have more control over what we eat!

What do you think of a zero sugar day to raise sugar awareness?

Weekend Eating

Date: January 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone is having a great weekend! I’m a little bit behind on posting. Friday night dinner was a repeat of the salad from lunch, plus some leftover brown rice. I also had some banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter, and a slice of cinnamon raisin toast. I went to the dining hall just to grab some bananas and decided I might as well at least eat something while I was there, so toast it was!

Here’s a terrible picture of one of my experiments. Banana, mashed with cocoa powder, then microwaved with egg and some oats. It was ok, but nothing to write home about. I had a really fun Friday night. I watched some friends perform in a poetry slam (never been to one before, but some of the poets gave me chills!), and then I spent the night with my friends.

Saturday, I was up bright and early, due to an inability to sleep in. I was really hoping I would be able to hold out until 10:30 when brunch opened, but I ended up eating something in my room around 8:30.

Sweet potato bread plus pistachios and frozen blueberries. This was the perfect fuel for a mini workout. Since we have some freedom this weekend, I decided to do some medium speed erg work. I was only on the erg for about 12 minutes, but I was really tired and sweaty afterwards! Impressive!

As I’ve said before, Saturday brunch is my favorite meal of the week. So even though it was only 11, and I had already eaten, I couldn’t pass up he opportunity. I was planning on just having a smoothie, but the avocado was calling.

I make my Mexican food into a salad! Greens, chicken, black beans, salsa, rice, and a TON of smashed avocado! Yum! Plus a little watermelon.

After my salad, I realized that today, for the first time, crepes were offered at brunch, so I had to try one.

The crepe was actually pretty small and thin, and not sweet at all (so it fits my challenge). And don’t worry, on top is just reheated frozen blueberries, a little butter, and some peanut butter on the side. This guy was ok, but it gave me an idea, so I fixed myself up half a waffle.

Topped with more blueberries and a side of peanut butter! Now this was good! I may have to do this again! Some days there are whole wheat waffles available as well, so maybe then!

I don’t know what it is about brunch that is so darn delicious. I always have to fill myself up, because there are so many options! More on weekend eating later in the post! After brunch, I packed up my things and headed home. Since I had just eaten a big meal, I wanted to digest before hitting the gym ( which, by the way, never happened…), so I watched my parents eat. I don’t know what it is about being home, but I have the urge to snack on everything in sight!

I don’t have too many pictures, but here are some highlights: cashews with 100% dark chocolate (no sugar)-this is one of my favorite things! Cheese and crackers. Mango (though sadly, the mango was mostly bad…)

Some of these guys (so addicting!)

I basically spent the day eating a lot of foods with no nutritional value. Do any of you guys have problems eating well on the weekends? I don’t know what it is, but I always eat badly/eat a lot on weekends. Any tips? My goal for tomorrow is to pack each meal with awesomely nutritious foods!

What else did I do today? I made Julie‘s Peanut Butter Granola .

I made a few small changes. I omitted the cinnamon, and used 1 tablespoon of brown rice syrup and 1 tablespoon of honey, instead of 2 tablespoons of honey. Not going to lie, a lot of this didn’t make it into the oven, and hardly any made it through the day! While this was good, I liked her Almond Butter Granola even better! The almond butter perfectly complemented the vanilla. Yum! When I made it before ( I didn’t make it today), I made the same 1/2 brown rice syrup substitution, added raisins, and slightly reduced the amount of oats so it would be gooier. SO good. I didn’t do a lot this afternoon but enjoy these guys.

I didn’t end up hitting the gym because I was full, and then time flew by, and I had plans with one of my friends from home tonight! Before I met up with her, we made breakfast for dinner!

A big ol’ egg scramble! In the mix was liquid egg whites, onions, tomatoes, spinach, cheddar, and chicken apple sausage.

My scramble, with bruschetta, plus a biscuit with Smart Balance and a blueberry mixture I whipped up. Ok, that’s an exaggeration. I heated up frozen blueberries on the stove.

Good enough for me! I don’t know what it is about biscuits that makes them so irresistible. I definitely went back for thirds! Warm, flakey, buttery. What could be better?

For dessert, I heated up half a frozen banana and mixed in cocoa powder, plus a little peanut butter and granola.

Who needs sweets? By the way, at home, we have dark chocolate cocoa powder, which is why this is so dark. I like it though, I don’t need to add as much. I need to get some for myself!

After dinner, my friend and I decided it was a crafting kind of night. She had browsed a ton of blogs with awesome ideas, and decided to make a headband. We made a quick run to the craft store for materials. I love all the bright fabrics, and of course the adorable ones with cats…yes, I definitely have a weakness….While there, I came across the knitting section. I have not knitted at all in years, and have a ton of unfinished projects, but I decided my sewing skills were lacking anyway, so I went for it! I figure, knitting is something I can do while I’m in the van on the way to practice. There are actually quite a few girls on my team who knit. Random, right?

I was a little worried about my knitting abilities after years, but it came back very naturally. Just like riding a bike! (Ok, that is such a lie! My first few weeks on a bike oriented campus after not having ridden in 10 years were…interesting. And painful.) Here’s what I picked out:

I’ve always liked mixing 2 different yarns at once! I think I may make this into a circle scarf my connecting the ends when I’m finished. Any thoughts? After some quality time with one of my best friends, I returned home and watched Caste and Friends with my parents and crazy cats.

Well, crazy or sleepy?

Have a great night! Here’s to a nutritious and healthy Sunday! Maybe I’ll make my favorite smoothie for breakfast and finally share it with you all! On tap for me tomorrow is Spin, plus my missed workout today!