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Sweet Day

Date: February 1, 2013
Author: astottler
Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I thought that my no sugar recap had some ideas that should be shared, so I left it up an extra day in the hopes that more people would see it. Well, this leads ironically to my next topic…I ended my no sugar challenge. I had some cake yesterday, and more stuff today. I want to get back to eating healthy, but no challenge. Just to clarify my comments on not wanting sugary foods yesterday, I want to be clear that I like sugar. I have a huge sweet tooth, so I’m inevitably going to eat sweets. What I don’t like is all the hidden sugar. If I’m going to eat something bad for me, I want to at least enjoy it!

Ok, back to more normal posting. Today started out well. Why? 2 words: PR and gear. We had our tough erg this morning. It has 4 different pieces, each different distances, and each all out. I went slower on the first 2 (slower than last time), and PRed on the second 2, including a 5k, for an overall PR. It felt really good! I was a little discouraged by the first 2 pieces, but during the 3rd, I decided I was GOING to PR. To be fair, this is only the second time I’ve done it. But still.

And second: GEAR! It’s a really big deal for athletes to have gear. Today I got a t-shirt for the Director’s Cup, and Nike running shorts with my school’s name! SO EXCITED. Plus, the weather was absolutely beautiful! Onto my eats! I’ll just post a few shots from yesterday to catch up.ImageImageImageImageImageImage

Just a few comments: my smoothie definitely didn’t hold me over like my French Toast Microwave Bakes normally do, so I was starving after class and ended up having a huge snack. Plus, have I mentioned that whenever I nap, I wake up with a huge urge to eat? And then I start shoving food i my mouth in a half asleep, dazed state. So yeahh. I’m pretty sure that huge snack set me up for worse eating later, and ultimately the cake that broke the camel’s back. If you haven’t noticed, I have a weakness for chocolate cake…Another note: those banana chews are so weird! I don’t know what to think of them. They only have 1 ingredient, bananas. I ate them with that super smooth almond butter. Maybe I’ve been eating them because I ran out of bananas…the dining halls haven’t had bananas lately, which is actually pretty frustrating….

Ok, on to today! 2 granola balls before my workout. After:Image

Protein smoothie! This wasn’t a great one. No bananas 🙁 I made my typical berry smoothie with blackberries and watermelon, which would have been good until I added vanilla protein powder, which was just weird. So to fix that I added cocoa powder. Not bad, but not great. And then, since I deserved it, this:Image

3/4 of a whole wheat waffle (I tried to make half. Ehh go figure). Plus thawed frozen blueberries, peanut butter, and butter on top. Yum! Although I must admit, the whole wheat batter isn’t as good as the regular. It occurred to me the other day that I could whip up my own batter and bring it to the dining hall. But that might be a little odd, even for me. That brings me to the next point: BIG NEWS! The dining hall may be getting more natural peanut butter! I saw them scooping it into the container today, and it was a different type! It was even the kind that had to be stirred! I tried to read the label, but the lady was looking at me strangely. But it only had 1g of sugar, so it’s likely that there is no added sugar. 

Class and then lunch. Yeahh lunch was where my sugar challenge really went downhill…Image

But first! Salad with a black bean burger, carrots, and brown rice pilaf. Nothing wrong with that. Buttt then I had some other things. Unpictured. Cinnamon raisin toast with smart balance to start. That was delicious but the dining halls have started stocking a different brand of cinnamon raisin bread, which I don’t like as much. Then a scone…and some small cookie bars. 

After class, my sweet tooth was still raging so I ate a Chocolate Mint Thinkthin bar, and brought back the good ol’ mug brownie.ImageImage

Practice today I was on land because we had an odd number of people. I actually don’t mint being on land. It gives me some freedom in my workout. And let’s be honest, rowing at steady state for over an hour on the water can get a bit…repetitive. Instead, I Spun, did some abs, and worked on some erging technique, which was much needed. I did a lot of legs only work because I know I’ll gain a lot of speed when I start using my legs again. I think I made some good progress!

Dinner was rushed, but it was what is currently my favorite meal!Image

Liquid egg whites with spinach, cheese (cheddar this time), pesto, and avocado. Bonus: I learned I can microwave egg on a plate! Anything to save dishes. After a rushed dinner, I headed out to my mom’s nutrition class. My mom is taking a couple of adult classes on campus, and she has the same professor I had last quarter for my nutrition class. I thought a brush up on my nutrition wouldn’t hurt. It was fun, but I liked how he taught my class better. 

When I returned to my dorm, I decided to make brownies. Why? I decided I was better off making brownies with my open bag of mix and sharing them with my dorm (and eating some of course) than if I had an open bag, and therefore unlimited access to mug brownies. While the brownies were in the oven, my dorm decided to have a s’mores night. Soo needless to say I’m a little sugared out! I really should go to sleep soon because I have a morning workout, but I don’t want to be farther behind on this blog, plus I need to burn off a little of this sugar first. Image

Needless to say they were well enjoyed! I don’t care what anyone says. being popular in college is easy. Just bake something! As you can see above, some people obviously like the middle! I personally like a little of both the middle and the edge. Most things I don’t like the edge of though. 

Ok, I really need to rest up for tomorrow. I’ve been having some nutrition thoughts lately though, so I think tomorrow might be a good time to talk about that!

Aside

Happy Friday!

What was my first thing on the agenda after classes today? A 2 hour nap! It was glorious.

I was up bright (well no, it wasn’t actually light out yet) and early for weights. Beforehand, I had some Sweet Potato bread that I pulled out of the freezer the night before to thaw. I think I made this sometime in the fall. Ohh modern conveniences. You can find the recipe I used here. I stumbled across it on Healthy Food For Living a while ago, and I’ve made it a couple of times. This time, I reduced the white sugar to 1/4 c honey instead and it turned out great! I love low sugar recipes!Image

I drank some milk to go with this. 

I enjoyed weights this morning a little more than last time. I think the workout was shorter, so I actually had time to finish without being super rushed through. We did power cleans today, which I was excited about. The trainer instantly knew I had done them before. 🙂 However, I had a minor embarrassment when I went to add more weight to the bar. I’m used to adding 25 lbs to each side and easily be able to do the exercise, but here, the plates are in kilograms. Which I forgot. And I added 25 kilograms to each side. I realized as soon as I picked the bar up, so it’s not like I actually tried to clean it, but still embarrassing. Other than that, the workout went well. After weights, we do a timed run of a loop of the campus. I finished in 36:16, slower than last time. My legs were more burned out last time, but I think I had more difficulty today because it was about 34 degrees out (according to weather.com) and I had a lot of trouble loosening up my muscles. Plus, I ran the loop the other direction than I normally do. It shouldn’t really make a difference, but who knows. 

I didn’t get any pictures of breakfast because I went straight from my run, but I had a smoothie with banana, blueberries, peaches, mango, and strawberries. Plus milk and plain yogurt. One thing I love about smoothies is that I can make a different kind each day, and it almost always turns out well. My smoothies entirely depend on the fruit available at the dining hall, so that is kind of important. I topped it with a bit of peanut butter. On the side, I enjoyed half a whole wheat english muffin topped with cream cheese and scrambled eggs. Also, the dining hall had interesting fruit today. Kumquats and fresh blueberries. I had to get a few kumquats because, well, it’s KUMQUATS in the DINING HALL. I made the mistake again (I did this on Monday too) of sitting down to eat immediately after my run. The problem? My knees tightened up and I couldn’t walk very well for a minute after standing up. This is probably bad for me. I definitely don’t want any knee problems when I’m older. After breakfast I rolled out the muscles around my knees my a PVC pipe. It felt amazing. Lately, I’ve only rolled out with foam rollers because they are what is available at the gym/practice, but they don’t do a lot for me in comparison to the pipe. 

Today was sooo cold. I wore 2 jackets, plus gloves. As it turns out, my hands get so cold when I bike, so gloves are a must. I was really tired today. I could barely keep my eyes open for half of my Chem class, but halfway through I got my second wind and powered through that plus Math. Then, lunchtime!Image

Mixed greens salad with tomato and mozzarella, apricot glazed chicken, brown rice pilaf, and a stuffed portabella mushroom. I love that the rice pilaf is made with brown rice. Everything was delicious. The chicken was the best I’ve had in a while. It was moist and flavorful. The mushroom was awesome as well. I’m not exactly sure what it was stuffed with.

I was super tempted to grab dessert, but luckily I got distracted by a text from my friend. When I finished texting, my craving was gone. 

After lunch, I went back to my room for and amazing and much needed nap. For some reason, whenever I wake up, either in the morning or from a nap, my first instinct is to eat. Interesting. I had a granola bar.Image

As well as frozen cherries, and the tail end of my oatmeal and crackers with peanut butter. Today, again, I dressed for practice with the mission of not getting cold. Well, once again, I succeeded, because I wasn’t on the water. We were missing a few people today because they had dorm ski trips, so there weren’t enough people to make up my boat. Instead, I got to row on a rowing machine inside. My workout was 2×20 minutes on the rowing machine, and then 30 minutes on a spin bike. I was actually happy to be on the rowing machine. I had a couple of technique things I wanted to work on, and I wanted to work on putting more power in my legs, so this was the perfect opportunity to do just that. I was satisfied with my workout. Unfortunately, I was not prepared to work out inside. I didn’t have my iPod, but luckily I did have my phone which I was able to blast (well, as loud as an iPhone can blast). I’ve learned that I can’t listen to music on long rows. I just get too bored. Instead, I listen to health podcasts. Lately, I’ve been on a series called Nutrition Diva’s Quick and Dirty Tips. I really like it because it consists of 5-8 minute long segments, each about a different nutrition topic. The variety keeps it interesting.

The only thing about my workout was, well, remember how I dressed to survive a blizzard? That was what I got to work out in. I had my warm spandex pants, plus 2 long sleeves. I ditched one of the long sleeves, but still, I couldn’t exactly work out in my underwear. The experience kind of reminded me about a part in Seabiscuit (my team read this over break) that describes what the jockeys have to go through to make weight. They used to pile on warm clothes and run around a track to sweat the weight off. Yep, that was me right there. I didn’t feel super heated, but I was sweating buckets. 

Tonight, I started my initiative of making more dinners in my room. Almost all the ingredients I had on hand, and the rest I took back from the dining hall yesterday. Image

I had an egg scramble with egg beaters that I had on hand, spinach and mozzarella from the dining hall, avocado which I had on hand (I get my hands on it anytime I have an opportunity), and pesto, which my roommate got from Costco a little while ago. On the side was a sweet potato.Image

Pesto is awesome! You can add it to almost anything and it will make it better!

This meal was entirely made in the microwave. Most of the ingredients are staples. There is no reason not to make a healthy meal when it is this easy! I challenge you to come up with one thing you can’t cook in the microwave! Well, I don’t know about meat, but hey, it might work!

Speaking of things made in the microwave, I believe I’ve mentioned before that you can make brownies in the microwave with brownie mix plus the add ins (eggs, canola oil, water). This was a very dangerous discovery, considering I have a Costco pack of Ghiradelli brownie mix in my dorm room (it was left over from a class project). I was craving something warm, chocolatey, and cakey after dinner. However, I usually feel pretty gross after eating a whole mug brownie. I thought to myself, there has to be a way of making this healthier. I may have mentioned this before, but one time I tried to make a freeform healthy chocolate brownie by throwing ingredients in a mug and microwaving them. Healthy, it was. And it certainly tasted healthy….to say the least. Well, this time I decided to use the brownie mix as a base. I started by mashing up half a banana and microwaving it until it was nice and soft. I stirred that up with some plain greek yogurt, cocoa powder, egg whites, and some of the brownie mix. Not a ton of the brownie mix though. Then, I stirred in some pieces of my 99% chocolate (because I may have picked out some of the chocolate chips from the mix a while back…), and popped it in the microwave with my fingers crossed. 

The result?ImageImage

It was good but not spectacular. It was more of a protein-y souffle, and it wasn’t that sweet (which was probably good). It had a very strong dark chocolate flavor, which was amplified by the addition of greek yogurt. I ended up eating it with some peanut butter, and it was tasty. The good news? I didn’t feel super sugared out or gross after! So I guess it truly was healthy!

Ok, that’s enough from me tonight. Time to go be social like all the other college students without a blog to maintain!