I put the pictures into this post before the words because I didn’t think I had anything to say. I was having trouble coming up with something to write about; my life hasn’t seemed crazy exciting lately, but honestly it normally hasn’t been exciting in the past 4 years of blogging, yet I’ve still written. I realized I couldn’t come up with anything to write because I haven’t been crazy passionate about health and fitness lately. At least not in the same way.

It’s not at all that I’m burned out on health and fitness (food+exercise) like I have been occasionally in the past. It’s just that work right now is all-consuming. I like working at the vet, and I feel like I’m always there. When I get home, especially after the closing shift, I’m totally wiped out. As I fall asleep, I have a million things from the day running through my head, and pretty much every night I have a vet-related dream.

At the same time, I still want to feel good and strong. It’s just that I’m sort of moving on autopilot with health and fitness. And that’s totally fine! The night before or at the beginning of a day, I plan my meals for the day and pack my food and schedule my workouts. And then I follow that plan (more or less), and then I start over the next day.

My point here is that prep is SO important. By the end of the day (or the middle for that matter), I don’t have the headspace to make decisions about health and fitness. It’s so much better to have it all ready to go. When I’m more immersed in the vet world and less in the social media world (and in scrubs 24/7), I’m less ambitious about health and fitness. But my point is, it’s not something you always have to think about or be passionate about to still be healthy and fit.

So here is my “autopilot.”

Salad bar salad on my day off. I learned I sort of like canned pickled beets. In a salad, at least. Who knew?

This salad was quite the winner. Grilled chicken, goat cheese, and blackberries tossed with olive oil and blackberry white balsamic vinegar.

This was sort of a surprising winner! I was trying to make some sort of “cookie dough” to put in ice cream. I thought I could mash a banana together with cocoa powder and chocolate chunks (and a touch of salt) to get that, but what I got was more like a chocolate sauce. No complaints here though! Still tasted fantastic!

Most days lately I have not been feeling yogurt in the mornings, but this yogurt bowl came out really well! I mixed plain yogurt with cocoa powder and honey, and the added toppings: vanilla cereal, blueberries, and sunbutter.

Friday, my packed lunch ended up being kind of small and low on protein because we didn’t have a lot in the fridge. I decided that 1. it was Friday and 2. I needed protein, so I walked to froyo on my lunch break and made a healthier bowl: nonfat chocolate, tart, and honeydew froyo with strawberries.

Friday night, one of my college friends and I went to an ale house to hang out and try some interesting beers. The first we tried was a strong, dark Belgian style beer. 

This second one was the real winner though. It was brewed with chamomile and was perfectly fizzy and refreshing. Bonus: It was a St. Louis beer! When I saw that on the menu, I knew we had to try it. It was so nice to catch up with my friend before she moves tot he East coast in a few weeks!

On Saturday, I was only working the afternoon. I took the opportunity to return to my favorite Saturday morning spin class. I ended up loving the wrap I came up with for an early lunch. Egg whites with spinach and garlic and herb laughing cow cheese, plus some Trader Joe’s bruschetta.

After work on Saturday, I suggested my parents meet me for dinner downtown near where I work. I never got my cinch de mayo meal, so I requested Mexican. I got a burrito bowl style salad with corn tortillas and rice on the side. Yum!

And of course we stopped for froyo. A less healthy bowl for me this time! Chocolate froyo with butterscotch and marshmallow sauces, and french vanilla with Ghiradelli chocolate sauce. Plus chocolate covered raisins.

Sunday morning, my parents walked the dog along the bay while I ran. My speed is coming in, which is exciting! I ran the first mile at 8:30, and it felt amazingly easy so I picked up the pace! My Achilles is also starting to feel better. Every run it goes a little bit farther without hurting. 

Post-run/walk, we picked up Ike’s sandwiches. I split a turkey avocado on GF bread with my mom. They use a really good GF bakery for the bread!

I also made some kale chips from our wilting CSA kale. I topped mine half with nutritional yeast and half with white cheddar popcorn seasoning. 

After lunch while watching the Giants lose again, I did a little baking!My mom found this recipe on buzzfeed for gluten free lemon poppyseed bread, and I’m officially obsessed.

The ingredients are super simple. It is made with oat flour, which I have never baked with before, and I cannot get enough of the texture. I froze most of the loaf, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to last. I’m already dreaming up other recipes for oat flour!

And FINALLY, Sunday night I went out to dinner with my friends I was with in DC. (Wow, that was a long time and many states ago.)

We went to a Korean restaurant that I had only been to once before. I love the little appetizers they give you.

For my meal, I got a tofu bibimbap bowl. I managed to not entirely scorch my mouth; it’s served in a hot clay pot so the rice gets crispy at the bottom, but the whole things stays really hot for a long time!

The food was good, but the company was better! We’re all about to start grad school; it’s amazing how far we’ve come since DC!

Does your passion for health and fitness ebb and flow?

Hello! Guess what? As of yesterday, I’m 23!

Festivities kicked off Tuesday night when a friend invited me to paint night!

The instructor took us through step by step instructions, thankfully! I found myself constantly battling the urge to add a touch here or there while I waited for further instructions, but every time I added that something, I regretted it!

I think it’s really cool to see how everyone’s paintings looks so similar yet different. I had a blast painting, and over all I’m sufficiently happy with how it came out. An artist I am not.

And here is the instructor’s example:

My friend also brought my some beautiful flowers, which made quite the kitty-safe bouquet along with the birthday flowers from my mom!

*Note: daisies and roses and cat friendly. Lillies are toxic to cats.*

Wednesday was my birthday. I thought it would be fun to document a full day of eating on my birthday, since I was at work all day and didn’t do anything crazy exciting to celebrate. That being said, last year I had a midterm on my birthday, and in high school I would have AP tests on my birthday! Plus, it was basically designed to be my ideal day of eating!

Pre-workout: Cheerios. As per usual.

Workout: There was no 7am Crossfit, and I am not waking up for 6am on a day I work late. So, I went to the gym. I stuck to my go-to leg exercises and had a great workout! I’m pretty darn sore now.

5×5 back squats at 80%

3 or 4 rounds of:

8 split squats with 25# dumbbells/ 8 pistols (to a bench)

3 rounds: 6 RDLs with 50# dumbbells

10 minutes of abs

Breakfast:

Flapjacked muffin with mango. It was a mediocre mango, but mediocre mango beats no mango.

Snack: Protein Smoothie while working.

2/3c milk, 1/2c frozen blueberries, a handful of spinach, and half a flapjacked chocolate protein smoothie packet.

Lunch:

Salad with leftover grilled chicken, goat cheese, and amazingly sweet blackberries. A side of cheddar GF crackers.

Dressed with blackberry white balsamic vinegar and eaten outside.

My biggest achievement of the day happened at lunch:

I have reached the elusive 100 day snap streak! Ahh!!

Work went fine. I didn’t get bitten/scratched/pooped on, and I got off on time, so no complaints!

For dinner, I requested a frittata featuring CSA ingredients…and then promptly forget to actually fill the CSA box with said ingredients. Whoops.

Dinner: Frittata with broccoli, spinach, green onions, mushrooms, sundried tomato, and topped with truffle goat cheese. Side of roasted carrots.

Dessert: CAKE!

I wanted dinner on the lighter side so I would have space for cake, and I had a massive piece!

(Plus a champagne toast.)

Cake of choice was GF chocolate with homemade buttercream. The correct buttercream is the one on the back of the powdered sugar box. Served with berries.

Afterwards, Chloe helped me unwrap a few presents. 🙂

Not a bad way to start 23!

What is your birthday cake of choice?

 

 

 

Hello! I thought it would be nice to do a full day of eating, since I don’t have anything crazy exciting to share from the last couple of days, and I always like reading these! I’m currently sipping Kombucha at Whole Foods (so cliche, I know) while I type this up!

Yesterday morning started with a little bowl of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and Crossfit. We did heavy back squats and strict presses, and then a WOD with a little running, thrusters, and lateral bar over burpees.

It’s been in the 80s (for the first time this year!) this week, so a smoothie bowl felt just about right for breakfast. My smoothie bowls had been massive the past few times, so I scaled back all the ingredients but kept my ratios so it would still taste good! Frozen mixed berries, plain Greek yogurt, frozen mango, milk.

I topped with with vanilla crunch cereal, banana slices, and honey. It’s better with granola than cereal though!

Lunch was a blogger fail…It came out pretty ugly and I had the feeling I was supposed to take a picture, but it wasn’t pretty. I made pizza eggs with leftover pizza sauce and mozzarella. Here’s a recycled picture:

Instead of avocado toast on the side, I made a super delicious and simple salad of butter lettuce dressed just with fancy white balsamic, salt and pepper, and truffle goat cheese. Plus some Quaker Cheddar Rice Cakes. Those things are crazy good.

Some exciting news from Monday was that my t-shirt quilts came! I think I mentioned this already, but I sent a whole bunch of old softball t-shirt to Project Repat to be made into a t-shirt quilt and they came out super well!

A certain someone was really into them, and curled up under them within minutes. He LOVES digging through clothes, and he loves fleece, so these cozy blanket quilts are this kitty’s dream!

My afternoon snack was the usual:

That evening, I taught my spin class. My family was hoping to go to Sweetgreen again, but it was randomly closed. We had Chloe, so in search of outdoor seating options, we opted for Gott’s Roadside, which is sort of like a gourmet burger stand type of restaurant. We were intrigued after passing one in Napa with lines constantly loaded.

I celebrated the beautiful weather with a Stella.

Can you tell my family likes ketchup? We had to laugh when my dad returned with a full sized cup of ketchup.

We shared sweet potato fries and garlic fries.

In my opinion, the best way to eat sweet potato fries is with ranch AND ketchup. Things gleaned in college, my friends.

For my main meal, I had a California chicken sandwich on a (massive) lettuce wrap. It came with jack cheese and avocado, and of course I loaded on the ketchup.

Right next door was gourmet ice cream, which we definitely could not pass up! I had salted butterscotch which was delicious but is better with chocolate sauce.

Despite being crazy full after dinner, my body burned through the fuel (thanks to a hard spin class) and I was hungry around 9pm. I hate my usual brown rice cake with whipped berry cream cheese while watching the Giants win(!). Here’s to May, my friends!

Hello! Just a quick post today to recap the weekend. I didn’t have work Friday, but I did work Saturday so my schedule was a little weird!

Friday I spent most of the day in various meetings. I actually managed to flare my stomach a little bit, which ended up with me feeling really gross and hungry when we reached the train station, so I had to buy an emergency bottle of water and Doritos.

Friday night, my family went to San Francisco to see the play Noises Off, which my parents had seen before and remembered as being super funny. We drove halfway to the city and then took the train the rest of the way so we didn’t have to try and park. The stop we got off at led right into the basement of a big mall with a food court, so we grabbed a quick dinner there. I decided on Pho from the Loving Hut, a vegan restaurant, plus fried rice to share.

We shared a few pastries for dessert: mango mousse, chocolate mousse, and creme brûlée.

The play definitely was funny! It was about producing a play, where just about everything goes wrong.

Saturday, I worked all day. I made another smoothie bowl for breakfast.

Because it was a nice, warm day (or so I’m told, I didn’t actually make it outside all day), we grilled burgers for dinner. I had a turkey burger on a lettuce wrap, with sides of chips, coleslaw, and roasted sweet potatoes.

Sunday I began my morning with a casual 3 mile run. My achilles handled it pretty well, and it felt okay after so that’s big progress!

The main event of the day was another Giants game!

It was an absolutely beautiful day for it, and my friend and I had a great time, if we pretend the 9th inning didn’t happen. We are definitely pretending the 12th inning didn’t happen (thankfully we left after 11).

For dinner, I used a leftover turkey burger to make a cheeseburger salad, something I’ve been wanting to try for a while! I tossed lettuce lightly in balsamic and then added tomato, onion, American cheese, and a chopped up turkey burger. Plus lots of ketchup.

In all seriousness though, I do love my team. This season so far has been…painful…but statistically the season has to improve, thanks to the law of averages. So fingers crossed, and knock on wood!