For those interested in health, the holidays can be a tumultuous time. There are conflicting tensions between the desire to maintain physical health while still enjoying holiday foods and festivities.

I knew in the past this has been an issue for me. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holidays. I love the traditions, the food, the special events. But I also value my health. In the past, this tension would make me crazy, anxious, and angry around the holidays. I was always trying to avoid sugar, resist the goodies. But I would be miserable and feel like I was missing out. And I would inevitably give in and eat all the foods anyways, eat a ton of them, and feel terrible.

By the time the actual day of Christmas rolled around, I would be a mess. And every year around the holidays I would gain weight.

Last year was the first holiday season in many years that this didn’t happen. It was partly because I was still so sick then with my chronic stomach issue. I physically couldn’t go crazy eating things without my body turning on me. But that changed my perspective, because I appreciated what I could and did eat more. I think that experience, plus some maturity and changes in values, has shifted how I look at food and the holidays. That being said, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how to stay “healthy” throughout the holidays. (Note the quotations).

1. Don’t think of it as “surviving the holidays.” Think about “enjoying the holidays.” I know it’s easier said than done, but the holidays are not about dieting and resisting delicious food, they’re about family, traditions, and joy.
2. Similarly, I really don’t recommend trying to avoid all the holidays foods. In my experience, that leaves me miserable and craving them even more. Life’s too short to not enjoy eggnog, or a Christmas morning mimosa, or your Grandma’s special homemade pie. Letting go of that restrictive mentality isn’t easy, but it’s freeing.
3. Trust your body. Don’t stress the changes. Here’s the deal. No one is going to wake up every single day weighing precisely the same amount. So many factors go into play. We see these stats everywhere: “Americans gain an average of 5 pounds every holiday season.” Here’s the deal. I guarantee that is not 5 pounds of pure fat. Carbohydrates hold 4x their weight in water. If you eat a lot of sugar or bread products over the holidays, your body will retain water. But guess what? That will disappear when you return to your normal routine. I finally started trusting my body. If I eat a big, delicious meal and lots of sugar, I realize that I might gain some weight but I don’t freak out because a) it’s not that serious and b) I trust that when things return to normal my body will too.

All those were more ways to mentally approach the holidays. While I definitely preach enjoying everything, I also want to make it a priority this holiday season to still feel good so I can fully enjoy everything. So I do want to talk about some ways to do that as well.

1. Maintain your normal routine as much as possible when not at events. Go to holiday parties on the weekends, have a good time, and enjoy good food, but eating cake and cookies at a party on the weekend doesn’t mean you have to say “screw it” and eat junk all week. Stick to your normal workouts, eat your normal meals. I guarantee you will feel better.
2. Make some healthy holiday treats. Some healthy swaps you won’t even notice. If you’re making gingerbread, why not look for a lower sugar recipe? If you’re making your own treats, why not make some healthier ones to have on hand? I personally plan on making some healthier treats that I don’t feel bad about enjoying on a regular basis. That way I never feel like I’m missing out on anything (And check back here for some recipes!)
3. Get physical. No matter what I’m eating, I always feel 100x better when I get some exercise in.
4. Start some new fit traditions. One of my favorite traditions that my family and I started doing was the Santa Run. It’s a 5k that finished at Christmas in the Park, a little Christmas village in downtown San Jose. It gets us in the holiday spirit! Last year on Christmas day, my family started our morning with a dog walk/run along the bay, followed by festive drinks, and it was an absolutely beautiful morning. Plus, Chloe got to join in! Take a night walk to look at lights (especially if you live in CA like I do and it’s not freezing!) Not every holiday tradition has to revolve around food.

Those are my thoughts for how to approach the holidays. Trust your body, and just think about trying to feel your best to enjoy the season. Again, it’s not that serious.

On that note, let’s finally dive into WIAW, Jenn‘s baby! Now that I’m home, my food is a little bit more interesting so I want to share it more!

Pre-Workout:

My new favorite pre-workout food is Cheerios. I don’t even know what time zone I’m on right now, but I had plenty of time before morning Crossfit to eat! I had a bowl of pumpkin spice Cheerios. (We ordered a few boxes online from Target because they were getting hard to find!)

Workout:

I did some technique work on snatches. I used 65# for a complex of a power snatch, overhead squat, and full snatch. Then we worked on bar muscles ups (LOL). I practiced some turnovers (assisted) and worked on negative pull ups. The WOD was a 7 min AMRAP of 5 power cleans and 10 toes to bar. I have toes to bar, but the coach and me do knees to elbow instead so I could really focus on getting into a good position that should later help me string together toes to bar. It was a lot more shoulder intensive the way he had me doing them! I used 85 for the cleans.

Breakfast:

I had the same breakfast most days in St. Louis and I’m finally sick of it. I discovered some chocolate KIND granola in the pantry, so I centered my breakfast on that. I made a yogurt with with Fage 2% a little bit of maple syrup, and cocoa powder. Topped with granola and crunchy Sunbutter. I had jumbo blueberries on the side.

Lunch:

I had more leftover lemon chicken rice soup, with added spinach. I also seasoned it with thyme lemon bay sea salt, and topped it with feta. On the side are leftover roasted shaved brussels with truffle salt.

Snack:

I had another sea salt chocolate bar from 88 Acres (more info here) as well as a Medjol date, since it had been so long since I had one strangely enough. So good!

I also nibbled on some Cranberry Orange bread while cutting up some slices for the freezer.

Dinner Part 1:

I volunteered to sub a 7:30pm spin class this evening which is a super awkward time for me, especially since I’m still sort of on St. Louis time. I decided to eat a light dinner pretty early.

Trader Joe’s GF cornbread with a little whipped butter.

And a small bowl of butternut squash and chicken soup.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to come to a spin class that late, the week of Thanksgiving. Since it’s at the university, most people are gone for break. Luckily, I had a few people, and had a blast! It’s different teaching here, and it’s good to be back.

The rest of the evening didn’t go as planned. I drive an older car, and it can be pretty finicky. I had a lot of issues with the engine when I first started driving it a few years ago, but since then it has been fine. It didn’t appreciate not being driven too much while I was gone, it turns out. It took a while to start driving there, and when I got in to drive home after spin, the engine started shaking like crazy and then just died. Thereby stranding me 25 minutes from home. The worst thing was I was able to get out of my parking spot before it died, so I was directly blocking in a few cars. I called Triple A to get it towed, and my mom came and picked me up. Thankfully the process was relatively painless all things considered, and I’m grateful I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot and it didn’t die on the highway. That being said, I don’t have a good feeling about what may be wrong with it.

When my mom and I drove off around 9:30, we were both on the exact same wavelength: froyo. When I had mono freshman year of college, I ate mass quantities of froyo so I still remembered more or less what places were open until 10! We stopped at Yumi Yogurt, which is pretty big in my area. I got a butterscotch flavor burst with mini m&ms. Sadly, aesthetics were sacrificed in favor of more toppings but this was delicious, and the perfect post-workout refuel!

While it’s never fun watching your car get towed, I’m thankful the situation wasn’t worse. A

And on that note….

How do you approach the holidays?

Airport—off to the next adventure!

I have this uncanny ability to always have the furthest gate, but the advantage is when changing planes I get to see every food option in the airport. Salad with roasted corn, grapes, goat cheese, chicken, agave champagne vinaigrette.

In terms of my foot, it’s likely a stress fracture but I’m still waiting for an MRI to come back to know for sure. When I have more details, I want to do a full post on that. In the meantime, I’ve been playing the game of “how many ways can I keep myself amused on a spin bike?” Luckily, I’m certified in that!

While I am totally swamped, I did want to take the time to blog about this weekend. Lots of pictures!

Friday right after class, I headed to my MRI. Totally fell asleep in the middle of it. You know you’re in college when…

We had been considering going out to dinner before senior formal, but given I wasn’t going to get back from my MRI until 6, we scrapped the idea and ate at the house.

My friends and I got ready together, and I popped a bottle of fancy champagne, courtesy of Black Friday shopping at Domain Chandon.

Then we took some pictures before boarding the bus to SF. I never look fancy so be prepared for a bit of a photo overload.

Formal was held at the Metreon, which had a gorgeous view of the city from the balcony.

It was so fun to see everyone from my class so dressed up!

There was a live band playing, a (crowded) Photo Booth, and plenty of food. Not a lot of Aurora-friendly food, so I didn’t have much, but it looked good! The mac and cheese was a hit, and I had some chickpea channa masala.

We got on one of the earlier buses back, but even still, I wasn’t in bed until around 2.

Saturday morning, I was up bright and early at 6:30am to be at a conference I was working at and attending as part of the pre-vet club. The conference ran 8-6, so it was quite a long day after 4.5 hours of sleep! I have zero caffeine tolerance so I can’t drink coffee, but I found that a few sips of green tea here and there really helped. Yes, my tolerance is that low. I don’t get it.

The conference was One Health focused, and was very interesting. One Health is the concept that the medical, veterinary, public health, and environmental fields are intertwined and all interact with each other. As such, we need to link them in our approaches to problem solving in various realms. For the conference, we had tons of speaks, ranging from MDs, veterinarians, and researchers. The conference covered 4 main areas: influenza, Seizure/Epilepsy research, Antibiotic Resistance, and Bats (as a vector for disease). The influenza section touched on particular types of flu epidemics, and the spread of flu from animals to humans (and vice versa). My favorite section was the Seizure/Epilepsy research. Presenters shared research in both humans and animals, and two of the presenters showed some incredibly cool research on new technology for predicting seizures (in epilepsy) based on brainwaves, and then potentially trying to prevent them. In the antibiotic resistance module, speakers discussed the growing problem of antibiotic resistant bacteria, resulting from over prescription of antibiotics and of uniform antibiotic dosage within the food animal industry to increase growth rate. Antibiotic resistance is a serious issue, because it is not unforeseeable that in the future we will no longer be protected by antibiotics. For those unfamiliar, antibiotic resistance occurs because bacteria can mutate and evolve at extremely fast rates, and can change in a way that allows them to evade the effects of antibiotics. The final module was on the spread of disease through bats.

One of my roles was a lunchtime discussion facilitator, and in my group, we spent a lot of time discussing animal use in research (something I am fairly knowledgable about) and the public’s view of it.

It was a long day, but I definitely learned a lot!

Immediately after the conference, I went out to dinner with my family for a little early birthday celebration since I have a midterm on the night of my actual birthday. Per my choice, we went to Lyfe Kitchen.

Goat cheese and mushroom flatbread to start.

And a gluten free chicken and avocado sandwich for my main meal. Plus garlic parmesan sweet potato fries to share!

We went back to my sister’s apartment for cake afterwards, and I got to hang out with her kitty, Lava!

Lava is a sweetie, and extremely easy-going. The only way to blow out candles clearly is with a cat in your lap! I certainly tested out my range.

My mom made a beautiful ice cream cake!

Gluten free chocolate cake on the bottom Strauss mint chocolate chip ice cream on top. It was delicious! (Was/Is. Definitely had a slice Sunday night!)

Sunday has been spent simultaneously trying to get my life together and trying to enjoy the last half quarter of senior year. I started my morning with a spin class, because I can only spend so much time on a bike by myself. I let the instructor know beforehand that I couldn’t stand on the bike, and it was still a great class. (Sidenote: I taught a class Wednesday without standing, and my class were rockstars! They were super understanding an followed my cues perfectly!)

I spent Sunday afternoon grinding away at a take-home test, before breaking for a little fountain hopping.

Fountain hopping is a huge thing here. Because of the drought, the fountains have been turned off for the past 2 years, but they turned them back on for the final month.

I was greeted with an unexpected roll out when my friends knocked on my door with a boom box.

It was the perfect weather for hanging out in a fountain. I hadn’t been fountain hopping since just after my freshman year! Crazy.

It was fantastic to see some friends I haven’t hung out with much this quarter.

Froyo afterwards was totally necessary as well.

I got plain with fruit from Fraiche, the froyo place on campus. (They also make their own normal yogurt and it’s so good! I never get it!)

And then it was back to the reality of take home midterms and pages and pages of reading. *Sigh*

How am I a senior though??

Let’s start with 16.4. I did it Friday night at my home Crossfit, and while it was a lot of fun, OOF. That was Friday night. It’s Tuesday morning now. Will my lower back ever be the same? Still TBD.

16.4 was a 13 minute AMRAP of 55 deadlifts at 155#, 55 wall balls (14#), 55 calories on the row, and 55 hand stand push ups. Obviously, I can’t do handstand push ups. I figured if I made it that far, that would be fantastic enough, so I decided to do Rx. I wasn’t sure how far I would make it into the workout, but got after it!

155# on the deadliest normally would be considered a comfortable but very heavy weight. But I’ve hardly done deadlifts at all in a while, so I was a little nervous. I started with sets of 10 and then did sets of 5 around 20 reps, and smaller sets at the very end. More than anything, my core was giving out on me! Definitely something I need to put some more work into. After the deadlifts, I stumbled over to the wall for wall balls. The ball actually felt SO light when I picked it up after deadlifts. That being said, I DEFINITELY struggled with the wall balls. They’re hard enough without 55 deadlifts in the recent past! In addition, I don’t normally do wall balls to a 9 foot target, and was prepared to get no repped. Which definitely happened, but not too much. When i felt like my reps were declining, I broke up the set to avoid wasting energy on a no rep. That being said, this was such a struggle. I couldn’t even do sets of 10, and by the end a set of 5 wasn’t even happening. However, my home box has a Crossfit games Masters athlete, and she was right there with me coaching me on. When a games athlete tells you to pick the ball back up, you pick the ball back up. I think I got to the row around 9:30. Luckily, rowing is sort of one of my strengths. I used the first minute or so as a “recovery” since I was sucking air from the wall balls, and then picked it up, busting it out at the end. I ended up finishing the 55 calories at 12:59. I’ll take it!

I was BEAT afterwards, but SUPER happy with how I did. I was actually the only non-masters female athlete to do this workout Rx at my box! But my core and hamstrings were done. Anytime I bent down, it took all the strength in the world to come back up! I went in the first heat (because I don’t like to see how painful it is) and stuck around for about 4 more heats, watching and cheering.

So, 16.4 done, 165 reps!

(And check out this adorable corgi cheering us on!)

The next morning was a REST day. I legit could not bend over.

That afternoon, I went to a farm with my friend to see baby animals. Unfortunately, we seemed to be a bit early in the season, but there were some young goats!

Afterwards we made a mandatory froyo stop. Cake batter and chocolate with chocolate chips for me!

Dinner was another tortilla pizza, this time with grilled peach, chicken, gorgonzola, and balsamic.

Sunday morning was race day! I ran the Hellyer 5k for the 3rd time. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling even more beat up from 16.4 than the day before. Ouch. Lower back was still not functioning.

We brought Chloe to the race, and she made another puppy friend.

It was a chilly, but luckily the forecasted rain had not yet begun.

^Me attempting to stretch my back. Back still feeling rough. OUCH.

So apparently when you put your bib on with two jackets on over it, it comes out kind of crooked. Oh well.

I was hoping to approach my PR in the race, but out of the gate I knew that wasn’t happening. Some days your just don’t feel right, so I decided to just not die and do my best on that day. The race was Alice in Wonderland themed, and there were quotes printed out throughout the course which I thought was a fun touch.

But overall, I’m happy with it!

I also had the pleasure of meeting blog reader Rina; we’ve been trying to meet up for a while now, so this was a pleasant surprise!

Rina is super speedy and placed second in her (our?) age group which is awesome! It was good to finally meet you Rina!

After the race, my family and I (and Chloe) stopped at a gluten free bakery near home for brunch. We got some baked goods to share (cinnamon roll and blueberry lemon muffin), and my mom and I split a chicken and avocado sandwich on foccacia!

It was a busy weekend!

Check back in tomorrow for some more food details though—so nice to have the freedom of a kitchen!

I had to start my Friday off on the right foot pre-midterm. An amazing Fuji apple from the farmer’s market with cottage cheese and sun butter. My midterm was a time crunch. I walked out with my brain fried, and grateful that I planned a track workout right afterwards! 4x400m-nothing too crazy, but homework for my exercise physiology class! I spent the afternoon running errands-including a flu shot, new running shoes, and some study time in Peet’s. That evening I went to Crossfit for some squats and a lighter workout that involved lots of push ups-my shoulder is getting stronger!

My evening plans involved friends and a nice bottle of wine.

I still cannot believe I will be leaving these people in less than a year!

Saturday morning I had planned on going for a fall run, but my legs were not feeling it. They had been feeling a little rough between my race, spin classes, and sprint workouts, so I went for a leisurely morning bike ride. I did a beautiful 15ish mile loop, and the good news is I felt much stronger than the last time I did it a year ago-those spin classes must be doing something!

Post ride meal scavenged from the fridge:

Sautéed garlic spinach, rice, and leftover chicken (served with ketchup of course!).

That evening was our Homecoming football game. My Crossfit actually arranged a tailgate prior to the game, so I enjoyed some time outside of the gym with my workout buddies. Everyone looked so different not in workout clothes!

At game time, I met up with some friends.

Our mascot is a tree, and each year, it is quite the honor to be the tree. The trees are crazy-they usually have to do some sort of insane stunt to get the position, although many of these are kept under wraps. The tree makes its own costume each year, with many different interpretations, including a palm tree, the traditional pine, and this year a willow. A fun part of Homecoming is seeing the tree reunion!

I left at halftime (we were up by 2 touchdowns already ) to head over to a Wine and Cheese night hosted by my sister. She had an extensive cheese selection, and pumpkin creme brûlée made before our eyes with a hand held blow torch. (How cool is it that she has that??) It was also fun to see her friends and discuss the wedding!

Sunday morning I was up bright an dearly to sub a spin class at my off-campus gym. It was a good class, and I left energized!

The main event for the weekend though?

PUMPKIN PATCH. There’s a historic farm across the bay (that has baby animals in the spring) with all kinds of ruminants, plus a full on pumpkin patch. I made my friends commit to going weeks in advance because I didn’t want anyone to miss out!

First up was the goats. I’m pretty sure these goats are the babies of the pregnant mothers I saw in the spring!

The most exciting thing? I got to see my cow! I saw this cow when it was young (maybe teenaged?) my freshman year of college, and when I returned last spring, it had grown so much! This year? I got quite the wonderful surprise when I saw that it had a young calf! My cow is all grown up!

After exploring the cornfields, it was time for the pumpkin patch! I was on the search for the perfect pumpkin.

After an extensive search, I found the one!

On the way back to campus, we stopped for pumpkin froyo. Because basic. And because fall. I got pumpkin froyo and salted caramel froyo. SO amazing.

I love fall!

So let’s dive in!

Preworkout/breakfast:

I woke up pretty hungry and had my typical pre workout snack of quick bread. I went with cherry vanilla bread over pumpkin because I cut the slices of the cherry thicker than the pumpkin.

At Crossfit, I worked (I say I and not we because I was the only one at the 7am class!) on double unders and reverse pull ups. My double unders are coming along-they’re still a little hit or miss for me for the WODs and I had so much trouble getting my last rep of the drill! The WOD was a long one. A 17 minute AMRAP of 10 kettle bell swings, 10 burpees, and 100m sprint. I got through 7 rounds + 16 reps. That’s 76 burpees. Yuck.

Post-workout, I had a carton of chocolate soy milk to refuel, while driving to take my car in to get the brakes fixed. Again. From there, I hit up a yoga class with one of my favorite teachers. I’ve started making it to more classes this past month and it’s already making a difference in my creakiness. My foot pain was significantly reduced afterwards too (I think because I stretched out my tight calves). This yoga class is also strangely comforting. I’ve been going to the same class (off and on) for 6 years now, and it hasn’t changed a bit, in the best way! In a time when so much is changing and has changed, it’s nice to have a constant.

After yoga, my mom and I stopped by Whole Foods to get some basic ingredients for dinners and I was starving so I grabbed a few bites of french toast casserole from the hot bar. SO GOOD. It’s made with cinnamon challah, and it’s super custardy.

It’s up for debate whether or not I should be eating wheat/gluten right now (because of the whole damaged stomach lining thing) and while this was delicious, I definitely felt sick afterwards. Darn.

Lunch was leftovers of the quinoa, roasted carrot, and grape bowl the other night. Plus a piece of my mom’s cornmeal crust pizza.

Plus a side of carrots and guacamole.

For dessert I had a big spoonful of vanilla fudge ripple frozen yogurt. I’m really liking Stoneyfield’s frozen yogurt. At 120 calories per serving, it’s a healthier option without all the artificial sweeteners.

Speaking of which…snack #1 was a small bowl of mint chocolate Arctic Zero.

I think this flavor has better texture than the vanilla maple. I sort of like Arctic Zero, but it’s definitely not ice cream. It’s essentially flavored water that is frozen. The first ingredient is actually water!

Plus a oat bite. I love Bobo’s oat bars. I highly recommend the peanut butter flavor (which I am allergic to…)!

I spent the afternoon looking up spin music and making a playlist for the class I taught that night.

Snack #2 was a small piece of pumpkin bread. I’m not normally one to snack all day, but it was a pretty active day and dinner wouldn’t be until 8!

I got to spin early (to somewhat beat traffic) so I took my puppy for a short walk. I can’t believe how long her tongue is!

Class went well! I actually found out that afternoon that I will be teaching at my school today (Wednesday) and tomorrow. I was recently hired to teach there, so I’m ecstatic to get started! I was told the students in the classes would be RAs at school for training, so maybe I’ll see some people I know!

Dinner post-spin was basic. There’s really something to be said for basic, simple dinners. A baked potato with Earth Balance (simply because I like the flavor more than butter), broccoli with cheddar, and a scoop of cottage cheese. Plus ketchup for the potato!

Dessert was an actual bowl of the fudge ripple froyo.

That was my day of food! It’s good to be back doing WIAW!

What is the best thing you ate this week?

I started work at 7am today, so a quick breakfast was in order. Cherries+polenta+Luna bar. I probably eat too many bars, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I currently have a healthy alternative baking in the oven which is a total experiment so we’ll see how that turns out!

I didn’t get to have lunch until 1:30, so I was pretty ravenous and tired by then! Lunch was a salad with dates, nectarines, chicken, and feta (recipe at the bottom).

Plus Mary’s crackers.

I’m trying not to get froyo at work more than once a week, but since I was so hungry, I had a small cup with blueberries.

After working the rest of the afternoon, I had a quick snack before Crossfit. A random bar I found that didn’t haven anything I’m allergic to (i.e. nuts-which nearly every bar has), a banana, and a couple of pieces of these freeze dried apple/raspberry balls.

Crossfit was good, but my hip has been bothering me lately when I squat for some reason, so I’m trying to be gentle to it. I worked on power snatches (not landing in a full squat), and did very shallow overhead squats in the WOD which was 12 minutes of overhead squats, push press, and push ups on the minute with an increasing rep scheme. Not a crazy intense one, but I got a good shoulder burn!

Dinner was a few Cooking Light recipes from the Cooking Light app. The app is so convenient-they even make meal pairings with main dishes and sides, and it’s easy to scroll through different recipes based on their principle component (like poultry). Today, we had BBQ chicken which I ate over a piece of gluten free bread, coleslaw, and mashed sweet potatoes with sage and browned butter.

For a little something sweet after dinner, I had a little sunflower seed butter and raspberry jam on gluten free bread.

Now-recipe time!

Date Nectarine Salad

Ingredients:

For the salad:

8-10 oz grilled chicken breast, chopped

1/2 c feta

2-3 nectarines, chopped

about 15 pitted dates, chopped

3 large handfuls of lettuce

For the dressing (adapted from Cooking Light)
3 T white wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 T minced shallots
1 T fresh chopped parsley
1 t Dijon mustard
1/8 t salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 garlic clove, crushed

Mix up the dressing, and then toss it all together!

Serves 3

How about a little weekend recap?

My Friday started off with a track workout and a free cappuccino.

Not a bad start!

After a full day of classes, I packed up and headed home for the week. From there, I threw on my school colors and headed to our rival school for the night. I have a ton of friends that go to Cal, and this was Big Game week-our rival football game! As you can imagine, I was pretty popular rocking my red on the streets of Berkeley the night before Big Game.

Our night began with a pizza dinner from Sliver, one of the many gourmet pizza places in the area. We then went and saw Mockingjay. I actually liked it a lot more than I was expecting. I don’t remember liking the book much but the movie was good! And I thought they split it off at a good point.

After the movie, we chatted and then watched Pitch Perfect, which I had never seen.

Luckily, we managed to sleep through all the rain expected and wake up the next morning to a partly sunny day. First stop was brunch, where I got a chicken and avocado omelet.

From there, we went to a restaurant to watch the football game from. Let’s just say I was definitely the happiest person there. WE WON!

At halftime, we stepped out to grab froyo from my friend’s favorite place. It was super thick and delicious. I got pumpkin and chocolate, with cookie dough!

After the game, I headed home to hang out with these guys:

Sunday morning began with a 6 miler along one of my favorite trails.

(Recycled pic)

Followed by lunch at the Whole Foods hot bar.

My lunch of choice was macaroni and cheese with butternut squash, plus some assorted salads.

For dinner, I shockingly met up with my sister. This is shocking because she is so busy and I never see her! We went to a Russian restaurant, and I got some delicious mushroom dumplings. They were served with onions and a sour cream type of sauce! So good!

This weekend was such a fun way to kick off Thanksgiving break! There was one casualty though.

My shoes had a small rip in them before I left for Berkeley, and I figured it wouldn’t be an issue. It quickly became worse  (than the picture) and let’s just say I was lucky my toes weren’t sticking out, given about half the shoe is disconnected to the soul. Oops…

What did you do this weekend?

From the few times I’ve cooked chicken, I’ve learned that the key is to season the #$%# out of it. I have a few spices, and I basically go after it with all I’ve got. Seems to work!

Also on the food front, I have something to share with you guys. I’ve made the coconut flour quesadilla from Blogilates a few times now. Recently, I started making just a plain quesadilla, with the coconut flour tortilla base, and then cheese in the middle. It whips up in minutes, and all the ingredients are staples. In the past couple of days, (especially as my fridge grew sparse) whenever I was hungry I’d whip up one of these guys.

I turned it into a pancake version this afternoon by adding mashed banana and some white chocolate chips.

Those came out as kind of a fail (I burned them a bit) but it is versatile.

Now, onto the run. I had planned to do 6 but ended up deciding on 5. I’m really hoping it’s the heat and humidity getting to me, and I’m not just super out of shape, but every time I run it’s so HARD. Which is concerning given I was running fast(ish) 6 milers at the end of school.

At least the scenery was nice. I headed out along the waterfront. I had originally planned to go North to the Georgetown area, but it was easier to go south. 

I ended up turning around at the Arlington Cemetery-not that I was trying to go there in the first place! My parents lived in DC and would talk about how they would always accidentally wind up there, so I guess it runs in the family!

With a mile left, I decided to run to Georgetown Cupcakes, a super popular place I had yet to try, instead of heading back. Sadly, when I got there the line was insane (to be expected).

Georgetown^

Instead, I stopped at the Pinkberry across the street. SO good.

Another thing I learned today? I’m not in California anymore. I sunburned the heck out of my shoulders today.

This picture doesn’t come close to doing it justice, but you can see my nice burn lines from Friday as well.

Other than that, it was a very low key day. Nothing crazy!

What did you do this weekend? Can you cook?

So…I ran on Monday and was kinda sore from that. But on TUESDAY, I did a stupid little 10 minute abs video (find it here). It was THAT bad at the time…but oomph. The next morning? All through my sides, from my shoulders down to my hips-PAIN. I’m STILL suffering considerably! My hips especially when I lift my legs-biking around campus has not been fun. Rarely do I regret a workout-only when I’m stupid sore. This may be one of those times. I love being sore, but it can definitely get annoying! 

This morning, the workout we did at Crossfit was killer, and my legs are still aching a little bit. It was 500m ALL OUT row followed by 30 wall balls, then rest, then 500m row and 30 pull ups, rest, and 500m row and 30 burpees. 

And then proceeded to spend the day studying for Chem. Merp.

Here are some photo highlights:

Yesterday’s lunch-I took this back from the dining hall the night before. Eating fish out of a ziplock bag is kind of weird…also, when I eat healthier, I tend to crave meat a lot. Is that weird?

Testing out the new kicks-I’m finally coming around! I will probably wear my old shoes for my half, and then retire them at the Tough Mudder. 

I have awesome friends-these are 100% homemade, from scratch croissants. They were SO amazing!

I really do appreciate that our dining hall sometimes has Brussels sprouts. Really, I do. But it would be fabulous if there were actually chewable. Or cut-able. They were like rocks!

Breakfast after Crossfit-finals means chocolate chip pancakes.

Lunch while studying.

Starbucks salad. I’m actually really impressed by their salads!

Post finals celebration. 100% necessary. There are brownie chunks and blueberries hiding under there!

And a red velvet cupcake my roomie brought me! She took an English final on Moby Dick, and they gave them cupcakes but she can’t eat gluten! It was SO good

I wish I had more enlightening things to say today, but I just really need a nap. I’m SO excited to to 14.4 at my home Crossfit tomorrow though!