Breakfast this morning was leftover lemon poppyseed oatmeal with sunflower seed butter. It was definitely better yesterday-I think the poppyseed started to disintegrate a bit so it was a tad bitter! Also, one note I should have made yesterday: if you make lemon oatmeal, you should probably use non-dairy milk or water. It definitely curdled a bit-I was expecting this but I didn’t have anything else to use so I just lived with it.

Lunch after Bio was enjoyed in the sunlight. More frozen meatballs, half an avocado with lemon sea salt, and some roasted veggies.

Today was actually really hot, which I totally wasn’t expecting. I didn’t even think to check the weather! However, I was smart and brought a warm jacket to Bio because that lecture hall is always FREEZING!

After finishing eating, I was still a bit hungry and realized I didn’t have many carbs with the meal, and I was craving lemon. As a result, I picked up a bar at a local cafe.

And since I’m on this lemon kick, I have an idea of something to make! Hopefully this weekend I can make it happen-and hopefully it turns out! Any guesses?

As a snack before Crossfit, I ended up having some carrots with avocado, and a banana with sun butter. Which was large enough to eliminate my run. On the plus side, all my Advil, ice, and elevation seems to have paid off-my Achilles was much better this morning, and nearly perfect by the afternoon! It’s so bizarre how it flares up-but it’s good that I can treat it fairly well. To be perfectly honest, 50% of the time that it gets bad, it’s totally my fault. If I’m really with with ice after runs and Advil, I can usually manage it much better than I do. One problem with running in the morning before class is I sometimes run out of time to ice.

Crossfit today was some work on cleans, and then am AMRAP of push ups, double unders (I did singles-didn’t want to push my Achilles too much!), and single arm dumb bell snatches. I must say, the single arm snatches brought me back to my high school weight lifting days-I used to do them all the time, although I landed in a split stance!

In terms of fitness, I’m kind of on the fence on…well, everything. I really miss the weight lifting workouts I used to do with my trainer in high school. And I’m pretty sure if I did some of them on my own (I wrote a lot of them down), and made some of my own lifting workouts with a specific schedule/program, I could get a lot stronger, faster. But I really do enjoy Crossfit-it’s something I do for fun! And I guess I don’t see an immediate need for getting super fit. So it’s something to think about I guess! And it’s not like I’m going to do 2-a-days with weight lifting just to fit them both in!

After Crossfit, I was hungry enough to decide to forgo the run, but full enough from my big snack earlier that I wanted something on the lighter side. I made a giant salad with lemon dressing, and had a few pieces of pesto on the side. Hit the spot!

Today, I got my housing assigned for next year! Junior year has the worst housing, but I got exactly what I wanted-a 2 room double on the quiet side of campus (and next to the shiny new gym), right next to the best dining hall on campus! Win!

Before I get into some eats, I want to talk about my nutrition and exercise as of late. I recently posted about some weight gain that I wasn’t happy with. As a result, I’ve been taking a closer look at my eating habits and I’ve been working on my nutrition. I read a few chapters from one of my favorite sports nutrition books-Nancy Clark’s Guide for Athletes-and formulated a plan that is reasonable and long term. I’m not looking for a quick fix because I have habits I developed in college that need to change. One thing I did decide to do was to build in a small amount of sweets each day. While I usually feel best when I completely eliminate sugar, I tend to also feel deprived. And this way, I’m not tempted by every sweet that comes my way because I know I’ll have a little something later.

Now let’s talk about today’s workouts! My Achilles was understandably inflamed after Bay to Breakers. It was feeling surprisingly good on Monday evening until I ran the bases during softball. Now, it’s flared up pretty badly. As in, I couldn’t really walk this morning. It’s always worse in the morning before I loosen it up, so I hobbled to the gym in hopes of loosening it up gently. I took a spin class, which helps because it’s not directly using the part that hurts, but it moves it enough to break through some of the stiffness. Then, I went to yoga because I think tightness throughout my legs is a big part of the problem. Just to clarify-neither of these activities were a major problem for it, and I was walking a bit better afterwards. In yoga, we sat with our feet up against the wall to begin class. Given my Achilles is inflamed, elevation definitely helps! After class, I was still in quite a bit of pain so I triple multi tasked by icing, elevating with my legs up the wall, and practicing my oral presentation (and I looked ridiculous).

It felt SO much better after that-though definitely still painful. I’m hoping I can reduce the inflammation through lots of ice and Advil in the next few days! I wanted to run this afternoon, but I decided that would be stupid. I went to Crossfit, which had no running, and nothing that would bother it.

The workout started out with 10 minutes of 3 reps of push press on the minute, with strict pull ups for the rest of the minute.

Then, we did 3 sets of 500m rows, with negative splits on each. I actually felt like the rows were getting easier-I felt stronger on the later sets! However, my legs were majorly jello. We followed this with abs, so I was pretty much just jello.

OKAY. Now, I promise we’ll get on to the food! One thing to note-I only have 3 weeks left of school, and I seem to have build up quite the supply of frozen meat (what? right??). So that will be featured quite a bit in lunches for a while!

Monday morning I had a strange but energizing breakfast of a much needed cappuccino (yayy 2:30am bedtimes!) and roasted carrots with an orange.

Lunch was courtesy of the freezer-frozen turkey/chicken meatballs from a Blogilates recipe, topped with Garlic and Herb Laughing Cow. Served alongside more roasted carrots. Notice all the roasted carrots? I finally decided to stop being lazy, and I made some in the dorm oven. The verdict? Definitely not the best I’ve made-they needed to be cooked longer!

Monday was spent frantically cramming for a midterm, so dinner was eaten with a side of Photosynthesis. I had a turkey burger with cheese (no bun), a salad, and originally rice, but I wasn’t a fan so I went back and got sweet potatoes. Also, there was a warm, buttered roll. It’s amazing how good warm bread with butter is!

Tuesday morning after my workout, I refueled with some oatmeal I had made in the microwave the previous day-Lemon Poppyseed Oatmeal! I loved the freshness of the lemon, although I did add some honey because the oatmeal was pretty sour-but this could be partly because my banana wasn’t super ripe! I topped it with sunflower seed butter, because everything is better with nut/seed butter of some kind, right?

I really want to try this recipe, but with key lime instead of lemon! (And omitting poppy seeds-maybe some graham crackers crumbs though?) This is so perfect for summer! (I actually ate this cold because I made it the day before.)

Lunch was more frozen meat-but clearly not in the frozen form! Plus more roasted carrots, and an avocado I picked up the other day.

Since my lunch was packed and I brought my avocado unopened, I wanted to salt my avocado, but I knew my salt shaker would spill salt everywhere if I brought it. Instead, I decided to try a new salt seasoning from Trader Joe’s, which has a grind dispenser. I really, really liked it! It tasted very summery as well-this summer may just be the year of the lemon for me!

Snacks through out the day included half a banana with sun butter, snap peas (such a good impulse buy the previous night), and a much, much needed cappuccino that tasted like milk of the gods. Let’s just say that I haven’t slept anywhere near enough lately and didn’t have time for one before my first class, so it was actually the best thing ever.

After Crossfit, dinner was at the dining hall.They had barbecue chicken today, which was a change, so I centered my meal around that. I put my chicken atop a salad with lemon vinaigrette-and I just realized that lemon really does seem to be the theme today! I also grabbed a mystery tamale which turned out to be chicken and cheese, and a few bites of polenta.

And for my daily dose of dessert?

Yummm.

That’s all I have for today. I’ve dead tired and my room currently looks like sorority exploded on it, as if it wasn’t messy enough already! It’s Big-Little week for my sorority so I’m breaking out the arts and crafts.

What’s one of your favorite summer flavors?

Post run breakfast was the same old-plain greek yogurt with berries and sunflower seed butter. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to switch it up, partly because it’s delicious and refreshing, but partly because I’m scared my berries will turn alcoholic before I can eat them, because the last batch did! So far so good though!

I didn’t pack a lunch today because I wasn’t sure if I’d have time to eat it between classes. In the end, I did get a chance to stop by a cafe on campus for a chicken and pesto sandwich on whole wheat.

My second morning class has air conditioning, but it’s always on SO high that even though I brought a sweater specifically for that class, I was still freezing my booty off! I have never been so happy to walk outside in nearly 100 degree heat-to thaw!

However, my afternoon class is most definitely not air conditioned. I spent 2 hours staring at a computer screen and melting my brain. Not fun. I then picked up LITERALLY the best, most amazing, refreshing, and cool thing in the world. An iced latte! (decaf)

Crossfit today was pretty empty. I guess everyone got fed up with the what yesterday and decided not to show today! For the strength, we worked on power snatches and I FINALLY PRed by 5 pounds! The WOD was a tabata of pull ups, push press, sit ups, and dumb bell cleans. The push presses were probably the most difficult for me!

After my workout, I headed to dinner at the dining hall. I’ve actually been digging the dining hall lately-today they had HUMMUS, which is rare and exciting. I filled up a bowl with salad, chicken, and plenty of hummus!

For dessert, I had a cool cup of plain Greek yogurt with cereal and strawberries, as well as a small slice of lemon cake. I’ve been really into lemon lately, ever since I came across this recipe that I’m dying to make! I had a lemon luna bar earlier as well-so perfect for summer!

And now, I’m sitting in my room sweating. Gotta love lack of air conditioning! Also-I only have 4 weeks until summer…what??

Do you have any exciting plans for the summer?