I think I owe you all some food pictures, especially with my fantastically limited diet. As for how that’s going-I’m not ready to start adding things back yet, and I’m feeling ok. I sometimes feel bad, but it’s pretty good and lately hasn’t been a problem. So I’m feeling PRETTY good.

So-the weekend! I worked on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday because I had a recruitment workshop. I had to pick up my employee key tag from the gym I’m going to start subbing at (which looks exactly like my membership key tag from when I was a member).

And the gym was right across from Whole Foods, so I grabbed dinner there.

Turkey meatloaf, quinoa salads, and normal salad. The real highlight though was raiding the dairy free/gluten free bakery area. I picked up this AMAZING brownie which I think was made with garbanzo beans?

Saturday’s meal schedule was really strange since I had my workshop, but I had a super early dinner of sushi-type of things, which I dipped in vinaigrette. Yeah…

Then, my sister and I got full body massages! I had never had one before, and it was so nice! Although the next day I felt a little bruised. Afterwards, we went out for Pho, because rice noodles are one of the few things I can eat!

Then, I went home for Easter! Yes, we are in our 20s and still do egg hunts.

Also-know what is gluten and dairy free? Jelly beans. YUM. I had so many! Because Easter is one of the times where candy mid-morning is 100% acceptable.

After the hunt-we ended up not finding anywhere near all of them, although we found one with a giant hole far from where it started so maybe animals played a hand-we met up with my grandma and uncle for brunch at a fancy hotel.

I actually managed pretty well to avoid gluten/dairy/nuts.

I brought my own soy sauce in my purse that was gluten free. Cute. Sushi, smoked salmon, salad, chicken.

Corn taco with beans, guac, rice, and salsa. Plus more sushi and jasmine rice.

I also had some dessert. I had a few bites of gluten/dairy containing things, but I think it was ok, especially since I’m doing a full other week of total elimination. My favorite was peach crisp!

After brunch, we did some egg dying!

Which is what I will be eating for the next week straight. These are all for me:

In other news, I did my last major long run of half training yesterday. It was 9 miles, and it was a mix of great and really, really sucky. Saturday-Monday I was dealing with really bad allergies (that always occur the week of formal recruitment), so my lungs felt disgusting. My stomach was kind of off so I felt gross. And my new shoes are definitely not ready to be raced in. HOWEVER. My legs felt fantastic! They weren’t even tired, so I’m taking that as a good sign! That being said, I still have no expectations for race day. It will definitely depend on how I feel!

What did you do for Easter?

Let’s start from the top. I’m being a good person and going to yoga again! I went again this morning after spin (spin is necessary prior to morning yoga or else I’m insanely stiff). I can already feel myself loosening up, thank goodness! My hips were super tight, so we focused on those today. I was the only one in the class-surprise, surprise, 8am fitness classes aren’t super popular with college students. It is really nice to have the personal attention! I want to go to that class as much as possible-I think it’s really going to help my tendonitis.

I was glad I snacked on a granola bar (KIND great grains) before my workout because I was pretty hungry by the end!

For breakfast, I finished up the last of my berries with plain greek yogurt and sunflower seed butter, plus a mango and another granola bar on the side.

I only had one class today, but I had a busy afternoon! Lunch was a quick one-scrambled eggs with manchego and a sour grapefruit!

After lunch, I ran out to embark on the first of many errands. Stop 1-a party store for a tutu for Bay to Breakers on Sunday! I also got some fun socks and face paint! I’m ready! (minus the whole distance running thing. Ehh race clothing is clearly more important.)

From there, I went straight to the allergist. At my last appointment, they tested for food allergies. This time, they tested environmental allergies. The verdict? Welp, I’m allergic to basically everything. Severe to pretty much all the trees and pollen they tested for, as well as pretty severe for dogs, somewhat for cats, and super strong for dust mites. Sooo there’s that. There’s not a lot I can do about it for now, but most of the time I don’t have terrible reactions to things and it’s ok. But let’s just say they had to give me allergy medication after doing the dest because my skin was reacting so severely!

After the appointment, I raced back to school for softball practice. There wasn’t a huge turnout, but I got to play catch and shake out my arm, which was nice. We ended in time for me to rush to the earlier Crossfit for a strength day (no WOD). One of the movements we did was weighted planks-doing a plank with a weight plate on your back. I absolutely love this. I used to do them with my trainer way back then, and I loved them so much I did them on my own a lot. Well, my core strength is about half of what it once was! Hah!

I ended up missing dining because there was a special dinner thing going on that ended earlier, so I went to Whole Foods. I’m trying to be more frugal, and I walked out of Whole Foods carrying all my groceries in one hand!

Somewhere between finishing Crossfit and eating dinner, I got pretty dehydrated. I didn’t go back to my room at all in the 8 hours or so I was gone, so I ran out of water at the end of my workout. I figured it wasn’t a huge deal, but by the time I was walking around Whole Foods, I was deliriously thirsty so I grabbed everything as fast as possible! I got a green smoothie-technically. They were out of mango, so I substituted blueberries, turning my smoothie a lovely shade of brown. I seriously could not have cared less how it looked. Or how it tasted for that matter-as long as it was cold and liquid, it was the best thing in the world. I CHUGGED that smoothie!

On the side, I has cornbread and tortilla soup.

Other eats from the evening: a date with unsweetened chocolate, and some of my beloved goat Brie.

I’m still feeling sort of tired/thirsty/out of it-it’s so hard to cool down! I’ve been chugging water all evening, so hopefully I’ll perk up!

What’s your favorite cheese?

Marvelous is…

Moving back into my dorm this week! I actually do think I’m ready for school to start. This has been a very low key summer, which is exactly what I wanted, but I’m getting a little antsy.

Marvelous is…

Jumping onto the pumpkin bandwagon early with a new recipe! Baby pumpkin pie-and it’s microwave friendly! The recipe should be up Monday night.

Marvelous is…

Fig and goat cheese salads. Can’t. Get. Enough.

Marvelous is…

Rocking my 10 mile run today. I beat my last 10 mile run time by over 4 minutes!

This is my last flat long run for a while since my race is hilly. I’m a little nervous because up until this point all my long runs have been flat. As far as today’s run? It felt pretty good. The shoe insert I carved out helped my foot feel better at least somewhat-it didn’t become an issue until the turnaround point. I’m convinced I would be soo much faster if my foot didn’t kill me every run. I’m getting custom inserts made so hopefully that fixes it. Also-I took a look at the carved inserts after my run, and since they’re foamy, they completely flattened, which is probably why the hole stopped helping. Oh well. Also, I rolled my ankle around mile 2. It wasn’t too bad so I shook it off and kept going. I think ice and compression socks may keep it from being an issue. 

Marvelous is…

Post run lunch. WIth a side of ice bucket (for my foot pain and ankle-killing 2 birds with one very, very cold stone).

Lunch was a couple of baby sweet potatoes topped with spinach and an egg with spices. I also had a smoothie-cherry, pineapple, and lots of pineapple coconut water. So refreshing!

Marvelous is…

The fact that no matter what random clothes I pull out of my closet, I always seem to be wearing the same colors.

Marvelous is…

Relaxing post run with an adorable kitty. I’m going to miss him so much when I leave! And the poor thing-he has allergies so right now his eyes are pink rimmed, runny, and itchy. 

Marvelous is…

Soaking up the last bit of summer with one more summery meal. Yes, I realize this contradicts the above statement about pumpkin.

I made Grilled Peach and Chicken salad, except I used nectarines instead of peaches.

And for dessert-some of the last summer fruit in the form of a fruit bowl. Topped with sunflower seed butter-perfection.

What is Marvelous in your Monday? Are you excited for fall or sad that summer is ending?

Long time no post though, right? I have tons of food to catch you guys up on, so I’ll just go over some highlights here in a minute. But first. Why haven’t I been posting? SO much work this week! Why does it feel like every week is such a hard week? Oh, that’s right, ROWING. Also, I haven’t exactly felt like posting because, well, I haven’t really been eating too well. And then this wouldn’t be a “healthy living blog,” it would just be a food blog, or, a junk food blog. To be perfectly honest, I’ve had a lot of difficulty eating well since the holidays. It’s been really hard for me to get back on track! And lack of sleep definitely isn’t helping matters…Does anyone have any tips for getting back on track? I’ve currently ditched all sweet items in my dorm room, as well as (most) nuts. 

So how are my allergies? My skin was clearing way up…but here’s the weird thing. I replaced the nuts in my diet for a ton of coconut (yeah, I know, not the best strategy…) and my skin went downhill again. So what am I allergic to? This is really odd. I broke down yesterday and had a granola bar as well, so that probably doesn’t help matters….

Being the awesome person that I am, I wanted to do a little test for my allergies that I was pretty sure wouldn’t work (it didn’t). I put a little coconut butter on one side of my face, and a little peanut butter on the other side. I wanted to see if it would cause a breakout. It didn’t. But it was only on for like an hour (yes, I walked around with pb on my face for an hour…I’m pretty cool) and I didn’t really expect to see many results. 

Ok, I will go through all the food in a bit (I don’t have my connector cable with me now, I’m between classes), but first let’s talk about this morning. I had a 6k test! For those of you who do not know, this is the most painful thing in rowing. It is basically 6000 meters on the rowing machine at an all out effort. This was only my 3rd 6k test, and I was really expecting to see a lot of improvement in my time and PR. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, which I was pretty disappointed about, Given the fact that I’m fairly new to rowing, I really should be PRing more. My fastest 6k was my first one! At least this was faster than my last one, but still, it’s frustrating. This does make me wonder though; if I had better nutrition, would I have been able to PR? To be perfectly honest, I put on some weight since my first 6k test, and I’m thinking this could be seriously slowing me down. So now I have a new motivation to eat well! And I have a new plan. I have the tendency to reward myself with sweets: for doing something well, for a hard workout, for a good grade. So my new idea is to reward myself with peanut butter. That way, I will get to enjoy a reasonable amount of peanut butter and still feel like I’ve gotten that little reward. So instead of waffles, I can have a scoop of peanut butter on my oatmeal! This morning after my 6k? I made my favorite ever smoothie! Peanut butter and banana! Sidenote: I know that you’re supposed to remove the banana peel before freezing bananas. I just never thought about why. I was planning on this smoothie post workout so I popped a banana in the freezer last night so it would be really awesome. But I was in a hurry and just tossed the whole thing in. Yeahh that was not the best idea. In case anyone is curious, the reason it is bad is because it is impossible to peel (you probably figured this out). However, I was very determined. I wanted my smoothie, dang it! So I persevered. Here’s the recipe, it’s super simple!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

1 frozen banana 

1/2 c skim milk (or more if your blender is not powerful enough to blend)

1-2 T peanut butter to taste

1. Add to a blender (break up the banana as much as possible for easier blending).
2. Blend. Enjoy

So simple! The longer you blend it, the fluffier it gets! I don’t think I’d ever had one of these smoothies with a freshly frozen banana before, so it was extra frosty!

Well, this is a great transition into the food portion! Before my erg test, I had a slice of Banana Bread and a little milk. 

After, to go along with my smoothie, I had half a whole wheat english muffin with cream cheese and egg scramble/egg whites. Plus like 1/3 of a pancake with syrup. I didn’t take a picture of this because my plate didn’t look very good. After my banana massacre…

But I did get some pictures of lunch! I ate an early lunch (around 11) because I was getting a little hungry, and my legs were starting to burn from this morning. Plus, who can sit in a cafe and work with food that close? 

I decided on a chicken pesto sandwich, plus a bran muffin. I figured the bran muffin was a little treat, but definitely a step up nutritionally from last week’s giant apple fritter. Plus, it would not make me feel gross, especially on a 60 minute run!

No picture from dinner though! The beach run with my team was fun (well, as fun as running on sand can be…), but I ended up getting my feet and therefore running shoes soaked and sandy! So much for a Friday run! Our coaches brought us chocolate and apple cider for a toast post-workout at the beach before we headed out to dinner. 

Dinner was a fun experience but the restaurant was frustrating. It was a seafood place, and they were out of every fish except for maybe one kind, as well as steak, and garlic bread. Plus, they ended up messing up our order, such that my table got our food at least half an hour after the other table. Luckily, I had nothing to rush back to do! I enjoyed a chicken casaer salad. 

Back at my dorm, I went to Late-Night Dining with my friend to get a warm, gooey giant cookie. We have meal plan dollars that come with our weekly meal plan, which let you buy things from other places, like late night. I almost never go to late night, which is where most people use them up (yeahhh morning practice!). The quarter is already more than half over, and only a small portion of the meal plan dollars carry over. I realized I could buy 97 more giant cookies this quarter! That’s over 3 a night! Yesss. Haha, don’t worry, I won’t do that! But finally, let’s play catch-up on food!

Ok, I need to comment on this one. This was one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. Like ever. I brought back some fresh tomato salsa from Saturday’s Mexican brunch in a tubberware, and I had the genius idea to mix it with some salt, pepper, and avocado! This is seriously the best guacamole I’ve ever had. I ate it with celery sticks. I’ve made this multiple times and just cannot get over it. At home, whenever we would get fresh salsa, we would never finish it. Ohh how naive I was. This mixture is awesome, and super easy! This is my banana mix with regular cocoa powder, instead of dark cocoa powder. It is completely different! Maybe fruittier? Topped with unsweetened coconut.

These are the coconut truffles I made the other day. Yes, I was too lazy to actually make them balls. All they have in them is coconut (unsweetened), baker’s chocolate, coconut oil, and then they are rolled in cocoa powder. I actually started eating these in the morning before my workouts in hopes the caffeine in the chocolate would wake me up a little bit!The biggest reason for this photo dump is that I seriously was planning on blogging, so I took the pictures, and I don’t want them to go to waste!

Another attempt at a healthy mug cake. This one actually worked out, but for some reason it exploded from the bottom…getting mug cake ALLLL over the microwave. This had banana, liquid egg whites, vanilla protein powder, cocoa powder, whole wheat pastry flower, a bit of dextrose, and some of my crumbled up truffles as chocolate chips. Not bad! I actually made this one other time, and it was pretty good as well! It would be 1000x better with real chocolate chips. 

This is me realizing I could make awesome French Toast in the microwave. European style bread soaked in egg white, vanilla, and cinnamon.

My first post-peanut butter attempt at Banana Oatmeal. I topped it with blueberries and coconut. Not too shabby!I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get this veggie sandwich for its massive amounts of avocado. This thing might have had 2 avocados on it. It was crazy, I don;t even think I was able to eat all the avocado!Mug cake number 2! Way better/less messy attempt! Although it was close to popping…there was a giant air bubble on the bottom!

And now I leave you with one more picture. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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?