Apple | Fitness is Sweet

Wow, this past week was A LOT. No tests, but tons of lectures and time spent in class/lab! Thankfully, this weekend was a chance to catch my breath and gear up for another long week! I’m going to do a day in the life post this coming week, if you’re curious! For today, I’ll give your daily (weekly?) dose of animal adorableness, share my Halloween costume, and catch you up on what I’ve been baking and eating!

Cuteness, feat. my the kittens my friend is babysitting, my sister’s new kitten, and of course Rina (who sadly has not been feeling too well lately, but seems better today thankfully!)

The great thing about vet school is you are always surrounded by adorable animals.

As for my costume, I did something new and different this year! I’ve been a baseball player a majority of the last 10 years, so it was time to switch it up. I was a Tasmanian Devil! Are me and Yindi twins?

We had a vet school Halloween party this weekend, so that was my chance to get dressed up!

Since this is a fitness blog or something, in terms of workouts, this past week was more running than normal, Crossfit, and weights on my own. Plus a soccer game! I’m getting stronger with weights, which is awesome. I’ve been pushing myself more on cleans at Crossfit, and I’m seeing and feeling it pay off!

Unfortunately, I’m having pain around the bone on my ankle when I run. I traced it back to starting right after a run where I both wiped out and then rolled my ankle, so I’m not sure what is going on with that, but it’s still bothering me a month later, so I’m going to take the whole next week off of running and see if I can work it out! The stinky part is I feel like I’m getting into much better running shape with soccer!

Ok. Food? Food.

As you may recall, I got tons of apples last week, so that’s quite a theme here! Plus zucchini. Always zucchini. This week it was $0.69 a pound and they were HUGE. I actually think after I finish this batch I’m going to take a break and branch out to other foods.

Baking

I made a mini-apple breakfast bake for the week. I based it off of another recipe I’ve made before, but kind of winged it. I mixed up 2 eggs, half a cup of milk, and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. Then, I tore up 3 pieces of GF bread and put that in the bottom of a loaf pan. I poured my egg mixture over it, and then placed 2 slices apples on top. Finally, I topped it with about 2 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar.

I put everything in a pan the night before, and then in the morning, I put it in at 400 degrees while I went for a run. When I got back, it was ready! It baked for about 30 minutes.

My next project was Blueberry Zucchini Bread. The funny thing is, when I got my school laptop, when I opened Safari when I first got it, one of the “favorites” bookmarks was a recipe for blueberry zucchini bread that I swear I’d never seen before. Well, it looked pretty good, so I finally had to make it happen! I made a few adjustments: I used 1/3 of a cup of both the sugars (2/3 total) and reduced the oil to 1/3. And my zucchini was a little bit larger than what it called for. It came out great!

Finally, tonight I made a super simple oat flour banana bread. After eying this recipe on Instagram, I made it happen. Healthy 5 Ingredient Flourless Banana Bread. This recipe would have been super easy if my blender was a single person blender (aka tiny) so that was interesting. I added 2/3c of chocolate chips, and then topped it with an additional banana for style points.

I really love the texture of oat flour based breads, and this was delicious!

Breakfast

This is the only one I have a picture of. I got unsweetened apple butter last weekend and it’s AMAZING. This is cottage cheese with apple butter and sunbutter.

Lunch

Subway salad. I learned that the carved turkey is seasonal, and it’s back! I get my salads with carved turkey, provolone, and oil and vinegar, salt and pepper as the dressing.

This may be my last peach salad! I also LOVE the Trader Joe’s cranberry chèvre, especially in salads. I used some grilled chicken from the freezer this week.

Same thing, but with Bosc pear.

Chicken, fig, and goat cheese salad. Lately I have been packing rice cakes with my salads at lunch, but they really don’t keep my full. I recently transitioned back to crackers and it makes a noticeable difference!

Yesterday I went to Panera to study, and I had a bowl of the butternut squash soup. It tastes like fall! We’ll forget the fact that it was 85 degrees outside. I brought some rice cakes to eat with it, and had an apple on the side.

Today’s lunch! I wanted something light before my soccer game so I made a variation on the weird salad I do, and it was really good! Lettuce, American cheese, guacamole, a drizzle of ketchup, and an egg. No shame.

Dinner

My favorite Trader Joe’s Salad! It kale kale, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, and chicken.

This was a weird combination of flavors, but I was STARVING and didn’t want to take the time to bake tofu. I had zucchini noodle with butternut squash pasta sauce, and teriyaki tofu on the side.

More zoodles with butternut squash pasta sauce, and a scrambled egg on the side.

Check out how many zoodles this one zucchini made!

Zoodles with smokey seasoning, Trader Joe’s Harvest salsa, Mexican cheese blend, and avocado. Scrambled egg+1 egg white on the side.

Zoodles stir fried with garlic and soy sauce, and then topped with teriyaki tofu.

Dessert

This was a masterpiece. Baked apple (microwaved…I’m impatient) with cinnamon, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce.

And apples with caramel sauce. YUM.

It’s kind of strange to write 2 posts basically back to back. Well, here’s today!

I woke up at 6:30. Ugh, this definitely wasn’t enough sleep. I went to bed kind of late because I was working on my paper. I grabbed a few bites of my peanut butter protein bar from the freezer. I really love having this just hanging out in my freezer. It’s really nice to be able to grab a few bites of something quickly. Plus, Since I was erging soon after waking, I didn’t want a full piece of quick bread. My erg workout was a little bit frustrating. My legs felt pretty tired right away. It’s frustrating because I feel like I’m not getting any better, and my pace is slower. But then I have to remember that these are new and different types of workouts, and I’ve only really been doing them on this schedule since, oh I don’t know, last week! I’m a little concerned the slower times are a result of all my indulgences over the holidays though.

After my erg was a 40 minute run. My legs were pretty shot at the beginning, which I wasn’t exactly expecting. I stopped to stretch a couple of times at the beginning, and about halfway through the run I had recovered significantly. I ended up turning back a little sooner than planned so I could make it back in time for my 10 am.

This morning I was running super late, and I had to decide between a shower and a good breakfast. Guess which one I chose? I wanted something filling (but not heavy!) for breakfast because I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to eat until later, and this guy kept me full for 6 hours! So what’s in that? Well, not vanilla for starters. Normally I add a ton of vanilla, which totally makes the dish. I spent a good 5-10 minutes searching for my vanilla, and I absolutely could not find it. I was sooo mad. But the dish was delicious anyways! I added a bit more cinnamon to compensate (more on that later). Along with cinnamon was a banana, egg beaters (egg whites), unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and pieces of torn up whole wheat bread. Plus a nice dollop of peanut butter! When I actually have all the ingredients, and have time to measure it out, I’ll be sure to post the recipe!

But back to the cinnamon idea. I was sitting in class today contemplating my delicious breakfast when it occurred to me: could I recreate the delicious goodness that is buttered cinnamon raisin toast, but in a marginally healthy way? And could I make it into a french toast bake? I have high hopes for this one guys. It’s definitely something I need to experiment with!

I had a full day of classes, basically straight from 10-3. After class, I came home and chopped up an apple, coated it with cinnamon, and popped it in the microwave.

Plus a little peanut butter? SO GOOD. This is one of the best non-dessert desserts. It’s also really good with almond butter, but I didn’t want to open a whole packet of Justin’s almond butter just for a small bit. Like the peanut butter apple combo? Make this. Peanut butter apple crisp. Plus, it’s microwaveable! I liked it but didn’t love it the first time, but it certainly grows on you! Here’s my picture from the first time I made it:

And it’s super healthy: no sugar! Make this! You won’t be sorry! It is a great snack too!

Ok, off to yoga! More later!

This morning, I had big plans for breakfast. It’s my modification on Tina‘s French Toast Breakfast Scramble. I call it my Microwave French Toast Bake!

Archives

My Halloween Costume+New Recipe Finds

Cinnamon Dreams