Second-so what’s going on with me? Well, I seem to be feeling better. So far today, I haven’t really been nauseous, and I only really had one instance yesterday.

First off-I figured out exercise helps. A lot. Yesterday morning, I did my 6×600 track workout, and surprised myself by killing my paces! Uhm, what??

I rewarded myself with the best pancakes on campus.

Lunch after class:

Salad, flatbread rice.

Lemon coconut macaroon bars.

Not sure what was going on but I felt like death after lunch. Which was probably an appropriate time to go see the doctor right? One of the weird things about when I feel sick is that my heart rate is elevated-I think it measured a 100 bpm at the appointment, which isn’t super high in the scheme of things, but it’s normally much lower! The other thing? When I feel sick I can get kind of dizzy and shaky. I was really nervous because I had to get blood drawn, and I was by myself. Which was an issue because I’ve had some traumatic blood drawing experiences (not finding veins plus taking 16 vials instead of 3, getting blood dripped everywhere and a massive bruise from the ER when I had mono, getting stabbed in one arm, the other, and back to the first because they couldn’t find the vein), and I’ve developed a bit of a physical reaction to start shaking. For better or for worse, I was a little out of it. The guy drawing my blood was fantastic. One prick in, and I didn’t even feel it. I felt kind of weird when the blood was coming out just because I was light headed to start with, but then it was over and I was fine, and after sitting in the car for a bit I felt fine again.

The verdict? Blood tests were normal so the doctor thinks it is likely not an ulcer but the acid condition that causes an ulcer, I just don’t have a hole in the lining of my stomach. I have something to take that will hopefully help this. In the meantime, I have to avoid acidic foods and foods that tend to produce acid. I don’t know-maybe I can see a pattern with acid causing foods and the times I felt sick-maybe?

Looking back on it-I can see why this may have happened. Remember the first time I felt sick-from my coffee overdose? Up until that point, I had been drinking coffee almost everyday for 3 weeks, which is extremely high for me. On top of that, for a long time I was taking a lot of Advil to try to aggressively heal my foot. Guess what 2 common causes are of this? Yeah…I stopped both because I was worried I might be doing damage but I guess it was a little bit too late! Also, the irony that we are learning about the gastrointestinal system and ulcers in my physiology class right now is not lost on me…

So other food?

Dinner last night. I was worried I would feel sick after feeling bad that afternoon, but I actually spent the evening very hungry. Weird.

Curry chicken and naan, salad, barley.

This morning, I went to Crossfit. I waited until this morning to make the call because I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, but I woke up feeling ok and went for it. It was tough.

First: 10-1 deadlifts and pushups with a 10 minute cutoff. At 10 minutes: start Helen. Which is 3 rounds of 400m run, 21 kb swings, and 12 pull ups. The push ups were killer. This was a little rough for me because I was feeling a little light headed, so I took it a little slow and rested as necessary. I felt kind of gross afterwards, but by the time I got back, I was starving and craving eggs, which I took as a good sign given I’ve been doing a lot of bland carbs in the mornings for a while now!

This hit the spot, but I was basically hungry again before my first (and only) class. I made it through class before eating lunch at 11am. Judge me.

I played it safe with a frozen meal because I have a sorority thing tonight I need to be functional for. I also had a homemade granola bar. I recently found out that these deliciously amazing bars I’ve found at whole foods have essentially 3 ingredients: Earth Balance, brown rice syrup, and oats. Guess what 3 ingredients I happen to have on hand? So yeah, that definitely happened. Yum.

Also I had a piece of dark chocolate which is currently making my heart race a little. I guess I’ve gotten really sensitive to it since giving up caffeine-which is just as well sine chocolate isn’t supposed to be good for my stomach anyways! (According to the oh-so-credible Dr. Google.)

What is your favorite homemade granola or protein bar?

To be perfectly honest, I have not been super inspired with my blogging lately. I may be having a mid-life blog crisis. What is the purpose really of my blog? Should I make my writing voice more formal? Is this really a “healthy living blog”? What does that even mean? What valuable content can I contribute to the vastness that is the Internet? I’m also starting to think about myself and how to be a better person. I think that’s something we can all work on! It’s interesting because I have a post from sometime around this time last year talking about a similar thing. Although of course it sounds silly looking back on it now just in the way I worded everything!

I suppose my current contribution to the Internet is my food as a college student. Which means easy and microwave friendly, more often than not! And many times lazy-I am not ashamed of ziplock bag pictures! (Ok, maybe I am.)

This is an easy breakfast that never gets old. An orange and scrambled eggs with interesting cheese. Microwave scrambled eggs are SO easy, and are indistinguishable from stove scrambled eggs. And a quality cheese completely makes the dish.

Brunch of a whole wheat waffle and a little bit of yogurt+fruit. 

Dining hall dinner-Indian food! I admit, I ate virtually zero vegetables this day, and normally I would have a bed of spinach in there, but some days I’m just really not feeling it.

A ziplock bag lunch which is always a winner, and so, so easy. Simply microwave (or bake if you’re fancier than I am and have an oven) a sweet potato, season, and top with salsa! I have little guacamole packets which I put on at lunch time. I also packed some hardboiled eggs for protein. To season, I used this amazing salt blend:

This is SO GOOD. It has a very smoky flavor, and reminds me a bit of barbecue sauce.

This dining hall dinner was a complete WIN. I seriously lucked out. Salsa baked chicken, cilantro brown rice, salad, and the star of the show-roasted cauliflower and carrots! I don’t know why the dining hall always insists on steaming cauliflower, so this was quite the treat! I definitely brought back some to pack in my lunch for the next day.

My yogurt mess really is quite the mess in this picture because it rode around with me all day. It is reduced berries with sunflower seed butter and plain yogurt-my favorite!

If you haven’t tried dried persimmons, this should be a priority in your life. We all know I was a tad obsessed with fresh persimmons this fall, and while these definitely aren’t the same, they seem to disappear quite quickly!

In other things that you should go out and buy: this. Now. Run. It’s delicious! Everything I could have hoped for and more. Creamy goat cheese, sweet and fruity blueberries. Amazing.

An unexpected treat-dinner in the form of a care package from home! Vegetable soup and a corn and cheese cake. There was another cake as well but it seemed to disappear before the picture was taken! Yum!

I guess one contribution I have to the healthy living world right now is my attempt at a microwave St. Patrick’s Day cookie. Which may actually be made in the oven if I can get the microwave version to turn out first (it’s lower commitment!) 

I did make one major mistake though. Check out the results:

Pre-“baking.” (Wouldn’t it be awesome to have an Easy Bake Oven in a dorm room??)

Post-“baking.”

These don’t really look like St. Patrick’s Day cookies, do they? Let me explain. 

We already know about the Mystery Bread I’m obsessed with. (Which is now solved, by the way!)

See the green things? Those are sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds react to turn green under certain baking conditions. I wanted to make green sunflower seed butter cookies. I SWEAR I thought it was baking powder that caused the reaction, but I failed to check before producing marvelously un-green cookies. It’s actually baking soda. So attempt #2 will come soon! The good news is, they tasted great!

On the fitness front, today I did one of the “girls” at Crossfit-Helen. This is 3 rounds of a 400m run, 21 kettle bell swings, and 12 pull ups. This one is harder than it sounds! I’m happy to report that I beat my last time by about 20 seconds, but I used much less assistance (a thinner band) on the pull ups! 

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to run 6 miles but I’m considering cutting it to 5. Today is my heaviest week of running on my training plan (4,6,4,12 miles), and despite following the training plan twice already, I’ve never actually fit in all the runs for the heaviest week! My calves are feeling a bit tight so I might cut it to 5 and then play it by ear. Lots of rolling out will be happening tonight between studying though!

Have a great week!

Any fun St. Patrick’s Day Traditions?