Hi friends, I’m popping in with a super quick full day of eating that I recorded on Monday, but things got a little bit crazy and I haven’t posted. I have a few minutes now because I don’t start work until 10:30, and I’m trying to delay my breakfast as much as possible because I won’t have lunch until around 3. So Monday.

AM workout was Crossfit. We did heavy squats and strict press. I felt the struggle of not squatting for a long time, and was having a lot of difficulty with one set of 5 at 85% of one my rep. 165 is not usually heavy for me, but I have no clue how I made all 5 reps given how ugly they were. WOD involved double unders, sit ups, and kb snatches. I did singles, which felt fine for my Achilles! Jumping higher would have hurt, hence singles. My Achilles has been progressively feeling better, which is really good!

Breakfast:

Peach kefir, vanilla cereal, sunbutter, plus amazingly big blackberries.

Mid-morning I took Chloe for a quick walk. It was the first walk since my tendonitis flared, and I was hurting by the end. Such a beautiful day though, and she needed the exercise.

Lunch:

Salad with grilled chicken, roasted asparagus, goat cheese, truffle salt, and champagne vinaigrette. On the side was GF cheddar crackers.

Snack: Luna bar+blackberries, with a side of a curious kitty.

That evening I taught my first spin class of the quarter! Thankfully, my Achilles felt totally fine.

Dinner: This was thrown together super fast.

Eggs, spinach, and cheese in the microwave, with a side of avocado toast loaded with everything bagel seasoning.

Dessert: the last of my carrot cookies from the freezer.

Nighttime snack: Luna bar.

Here’s some bonus from Tuesday:

Chloe takes her first ride in my new car and is actually an angel. *knock on wood* I seem to have broken her habit of trying to climb into the front seat.

Lunch of a wrap with sundried tomato laughing cow, spinach, and chicken. Side salad with super amazing aged white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Witht he high quality vinegar, the simple salad doesn’t need anything else!

Tuesday night’s workout was killer, which I want to share because it definitely helped dictate my evening food. We started with heavy cleans (it was supposed to be 5×3 at 95% but LOL I haven’t hit anywhere near that in years). The WOD was LONG.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of heavy front squats, pull ups, and box jumps, with a 100m run after every round. I currently cannot step down from a box, so I subbed wall balls. I used 95# for the squats. The workout took me about 25 minutes, and just seemed to go on forever. I didn’t think it looked that bad, but it was just a lot of time under physical stress! The soreness from the squats has not come in yet, but I know it will anytime!

Post-workout I knew I needed protein so I sipped on peach kefir (basically yogurt) while making dinner. I made shortcut ginger squash soup, but skipped the croutons because #dead and #hungry, so we had toast and roasted asparagus on the side instead.

The soup has basically no protein, so I tried my last new flavor, the oatmeal, Flapjacked cookies. I did my healthier swap of applesauce for butter and egg whites for eggs, and added a few chocolate chunks. They’re SO good. I’ve been really impressed with all of the flavors. In my experience though they cook a lot faster than the actual time, although my swaps may play a role. I pulled these out at 7 minutes, and they were perfect. The package says 9-11.

I just got back from AM Crossfit, and it was kind of rough so I think it’s going to be breakfast time now! We did squats and heavy bench, and I got talked into Rxing the WOD with 155# deadlifts. It was 15 minutes of rowing, wall balls, and deadlifts. WHEW.

Have a good one everyone!

Wow. I meant to blog Friday, but it’s already Sunday. I worked Friday and Saturday at the vet, so it feels like my weekend is just starting!

I have some adventures, workouts, and delicious food to catch you all up on!

First things first: my tendonitis? Not good. It’s been bothering me a lot, and feeling really weird. It’s definitely better than it was the first few days, but it’s bad. It’s unfortunate that it flared up right as I was starting work again, and on my feet literally all day. It’s painful, and it feels like there’s rubber rubbing against rubber when I flex my foot, which is a really weird feeling. It was also visually a little swollen, although that’s gone down. I’ve been diligently icing, as well as electrocuting with a little handheld electrical stimulation machine. Workouts as of late have been strength based, and designed as to not aggravate it at all.

Thursday morning, I went to the gym for a little lift+non-impact cardio. I did 4 sets of 8 single leg split squats and RDLs with 25# dumbbells, and 5×8 dumbbell bench press, I think with 25s. Next, I did an ab workout video, and finished with 8 rounds of HIIT on the spin bike (seated), 1 min on, 1:15 off.

Post-workout breakfast was an amazing Cara Cara orange and a flapjacked.

Mid-morning, my mom and I drove over to Davis! We got there early enough for lunch at Panera, where I had a Fuji Apple Salad.

We also had time to drive around and locate a brewery and Crossfit (conveniently next to each other) before meeting up with my future roommate and her adorable pets! So yay! I have a place to live!

Before heading out of town, we stopped at Temple, an amazing coffeeshop that I stopped in a few years ago when I was in Davis for a conference.

Decaf capp, gluten free blueberry muffin (delicious, and limey a future dietary staple).

Also spotted: chicks!

On the drive home, we stopped for gas and stumbled upon an amazing fresh fruit and veggie stand. We brought home some super fresh and super cheap produce. This stand is probably 10 minutes from my new home! What a find!

We made it home in plenty of time to go to the Giants-A’s exhibition game (pre-season, end of spring training).

Thank goodness it’s baseball season!

Of course, beer is necessary for baseball.

As well as gluten free cauliflower truffle flatbread. I love SF.

I also tried hand tossed warm caramel corn for the first time. It’s so messy, it has to be eaten with a fork!

Most of the game was pretty uneventful: not a lot of hitting. We finally broke through for a few runs late in the game though!

We left a bit early because I had work the next day.

Friday morning’s workout was another solo one at the gym. I started with deadlifts and worked up to 175, which is only 75% for me, but I haven’t lifted heavy in a LONG time (read: not since St. Louis). Then, I did some bench pressing. Not too crazy of a weight, but enough to hopefully build a little strength. I was trying to roughly follow the Crossfit programing of the day. I heavily modified the WOD to be tendonitis-friendly, and did the following: 2000m row, 50 dumbbell thrusters (20s), 2000m row.

For breakfast before work, I had my current go-to: a protein smoothie with banana, protein, cocoa, and milk, with pumpkin spice Cheerios.

One adjustment I’m having to make with work is tweaking mealtimes. I work the later shift, 10-7, so I don’t get lunch until 2 at the earliest on those days. I’m trying to eat a filling breakfast, and have it as late as possible, since I”m usually ready for lunch right at 12.

Lunches this week have been leftover stew with crackers.

For dinner after work, we had leftover sweet and sour chicken bowls with artichokes from the produce stand. 

The sweet and sour chicken was a recipe from the Cooking Light magazine (and I can’t find it online). It was cooked in the slow cooker, and served with brown rice and Asian slaw. The chicken was SUPER delicious, perfectly favored and perfectly tender. Original dinner:

For my Friday night dessert, I made some Flapjacked cookies. Instead of using butter, I used applesauce and a little salt, and then egg white in place of egg (mostly because I was making a small amount and 1/3 of an egg is hard to do). The honestly came out perfectly, and I think I liked them better with applesauce, which helps the nutritional info a lot!

You really can’t go wrong with warm chocolate chip cookies though, right?

I’m going to end this post here, but weekend happenings will come soon, including puppy hour!

Hi friends! Today (Tuesday) is my last day before I start working again! I’m going to be working at the vet I’ve worked at in the past.

I started my morning with a delicious Cara Cara orange and a Flapjacked muffin.

The first thing on the agenda for the day was a walk with Chloe! It was nice and sunny out!

Next, it was time for a track workout!

I feel like this track is at the edge of the world. It’s got great views of the bay.

My workout was 400m repeats. I’m officially in 5k speed training mode! I spent a ton of time warming up, because I was pretty sore from squats on Monday. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a great workout. The past week or so, I’ve been dealing with a little bit of tendonitis in my Achilles, and on my first repeat it started bothering me. I got through 5 repeats and called it there. I think a combination of a 5k on Sunday and a lot of double unders in 17.5 on Friday put a lot of work into my calves, tightening my Achilles. It came on kind of suddenly during my track workout, so I’m hoping it goes away as quickly as it came!

I want to talk a little bit about 5k speed training. For the last 5k, I was trying to get in 2 runs a week, but sometimes it was only 1. Now that I’m not teaching so much spin and the Crossfit Open is over, I want to put some work into speed. My goal race is April 23. Last week, I was thinking about my training. I was ready to step up my running a lot, and go for 3 days a week including a speed day. However, my formerly broken foot was feeling a little achy after a few intense workout days in a row, and I realized I would have to be smart about how I train. This little tendonitis flare up is another example. So going forward, this is the plan. 1 day of a normal 3 mile run, 1 day of a speedier 3 mile run, and 1 day of EITHER a track workout OR directed cross training, depending on what was happening that week. If Crossfit has a lot of jumping, it can be hard on my foot, so I would skip the track workout. If I’m on my feet all day at the vet and my foot is feeling it, I would skip the track workout. For now, my directed cross training will be 8 rounds of HIIT on the spin bike. 1 min on, 1:15 off. But for this to actually be effective, I have to really crush the intervals. Because of my tendonitis, I’ve already decided to scrap my planned run on Thursday!

After my workout, I drove to the mall for lunch at a bakery with my parents. I got a small fruit salad with chicken and a sesame ginger dressing.

After lunch, we walked over to See’s to pick up some Mint Scotchmallows before they get phased out. For those not in places with See’s, first of all, I’m sorry. Second, a Scotchmallow is caramel and marshmallow, covered in dark chocolate. For the mint ones, the marshmallow is mint.

Of course, I wasn’t going to turn down a free sample! I had a free Chocolate Buttercream, and one of the mint Scotchmallows.

Later in the afternoon, I had a Lemon Luna bar for a snack. It’s been FOREVER since I’ve had a Lemon one! These used to be my jam a few years ago, and the bright lemon flavor tastes like spring!

For evening Crossfit, we worked on 5×3 cleans at a heavy weight. I used 115#, and it felt far heavier than it should have. Yeah, cleans need some work. The WOD was dips, sit ups, and running, but I subbed rowing for the running.

For dinner, we made hearty chicken stew with butternut squash and quinoa. Served with Brazilian cheese bread.

For dessert, again I had salted caramel Halo Top with marble bread.

I’m still loving my rice cakes. Evening snack was the same rice cake with cream cheese.

Now I’m off! Big day tomorrow!

Hi friends! I have another Quick and Easy meal idea for you, and then I’m going to go through some food and fitness post-Crossfit Open.

Today’s meal idea is PaleOMG’s 5 Ingredient Butternut Squash and Sage Casserole.

The flavor combo of butternut squash and sage is genius. I modified the recipe a little bit to meet our needs, and I have a few suggestions for how to make this even quicker and easier! For the eggs, I used a full carton of egg whites because #lazy. In lieu of sausage, I added Quatro Formaggio cheese and spinach.

We served it with french toast with nice maple syrup! (Apparently it’s nearly impossible to get Grade B maple syrup anymore? This one was “formerly Grade B.”)

So how can this be even quicker, easier, and better for a single person? First of all, buying pre-cut squash is key. Second, the squash can be steamed in the microwave instead of roasted. Lastly, it would be easy to assemble a single serving and just microwave the whole thing!

Monday morning began the beginning of Crossfit post-Open. We haven’t really been doing any strength since the Open started, and our strength pre-Open was long sets.

Pre-Crossfit, I had a small handful of Chocolate Cheerios because squat day.

For the workout, strength was 5×5 bench press at 80% and 5×5 back squat at 75%. Oof, I haven’t squatted in a while. The first set honestly was the worst.

The WOD was a quick one, since the strength took most of the time. It was:

3 rounds:

15 wall balls

12 step ups with kettlebell

9 knees to elbow

Also, now that the Open is over, I’m breaking in my new Nike Metcons! They’re the 2s, so the same as my old ones, but a different color!

Post workout, I broke out a throwback “yogurt” bowl.

This throwback is from Summer 2013. Peach kefir, vanilla cereal, and sunbutter. Plus a pink lady apple from our CSA.

Mid-morning, I took Chloe for a walk in the lagoons. I listened to a couple of podcasts, and she was relatively well behaved!

For lunch, I made a salad with leftover roasted butternut squash, goat cheese, dried cranberries, deli turkey, and balsamic vinaigrette. Avocado toast with everything bagel seasoning on the side.

 

I spent some time in the afternoon cutting t-shirts in preparation for making a t-shirt quilt. Obviously I had a helper.

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this before, but we actually found Charlie as a kitten at a softball tournament when I was in high school. He was actually sleeping on the shirt from that tournament!

For a mid afternoon snack, I had a slice of chocolate cranberry bread from my freezer stash, along with a ginger chew.

I went to an evening yoga class. I like this one a lot because it’s a lot different than my typical vinyasa. This class stretched out my muscles that were already sore from morning squats.

For dinner, we made a veggie scramble with mushrooms, shredded carrots, spinach, tomato, scallions, and a delicious goat gouda. Served with rosemary potatoes from our CSA.

For dessert, I broke into my freezer stash again for marble bread (chocolate banana swirled with persimmon) and salted caramel Halo Top.

Then, my nightly snack was a brown rice cake with whipped chive cream cheese.