Crazy Talk

Date: May 3, 2013

Author: astottler

Happy Thursday! I’m going to be in Yosemite this weekend with my dorm, so look for a guest post! There is no Wifi there so…

Guess what? Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m gonna be 19! I like that age. It sounds like a good number. I don’t know, I guess some ages sound weird to me. For example, 12 and 13. Everyone knows it is that horrible pre-teen phase…And 18 sounds…well barely legal. Yeah, 19 is a good number. Since tomorrow begins a new year in my life, I’ve been doing some thinking…But let’s get through my day first. Morning spin…nothing new but still kick butt. Since I had one of these babies last night, I wasn’t terribly hungry.

This is possibly my favorite cupcake…ever. It was coconut with raspberry frosting. YUM. But it was late at night….and here’s the bad part. I had to stay up late (for me) to finish a paper, and I knew I needed energy…so I turned to food. Yogurt bowl anyone? I would have drunk coffee but I waned to be able to sleep as soon as I was done…but eating at night means stomachache for Aurora. So I went with a light breakfast.

Hey, it got the job done! At my 9 am class, we learned how to handle lab mice, which was awesome. And got me thinking about possibly having mice as pets in my dorm next year. Or a guinea pig. Thoughts? To be clear, they’re strictly prohibited. But they have to actually catch you. I’m such a rebel, I know.

Lunch was a veggie scramble with garlic hummus, asparagus, onion, mushrooms, and nutrition yeast, which I topped with pesto after the fact.

Plus a million carrots with sunflower seed butter. I’m actually trying to wean myself off of it, given I eat so much of it….

After lunch, I met up with my family for a birthday celebration picnic.

Devil’s food cake with vanilla buttercream. The best.

It was really nice to enjoy the weather and chat.

The only other really notable thing from my day was a power yoga class which was really awesome. It was probably my best day at doing the crow pose. Funny story…I’ve had a yoga teacher laugh at me before…by doing a faceplant while doing the crow. Here’s the crow:

As you can see, if you shift too far forward, you’re in trouble. Because your hands are occupied. And the only thing to break your fall is your face…

But on to the meat of this post….I’ve been doing some thinking. Remember that sugar challenge I talked about about a week ago? Notice how I haven’t mentioned it lately? That’s because I broke it. On like the second day…I am in the habit of not posting snacks and sweets that I eat on the blog, not because I’m trying to deceive you but because I don’t think to take pictures. And let’s just say that my daily sugar intake hasn’t been too great lately…

Yesterday, I went to quidditch conditioning. It felt…kind of awful. I felt heavy. My legs felt heavy. We did a lot of the agility drills I used to do for softball…except last time I did them I was in great shape, and now…it was a bit of a wake up call. And on top of that…

My half marathon training starts at the end of this month! I seriously need to start treating myself better and be more careful about what I put into my body if I want to stick to a fairly intense running schedule. Especially since I want to keep up some of my other workouts.

Here’s what July looks like:

The mileage adds up pretty quickly. And I have hardly been running at all lately…

So it’s time for a change. I’ve been really trying to work on intuitive eating lately, but sugar completely throws me off. I cannot feel my body’s signals with sugar. And I’m drawn to more sugar. So. I’m going to attempt something a bit drastic. The daily maximum added sugar intake is recommended to be no more than 25 grams. I’m going to attempt to stick to this. And more drastic and scary…I want to give up sweets for the rest of the school year. This isn’t a permanent situation, I just want to reset my body so that I can actually listen to its cues. And I realize that I have failed on my last sugar challenges, but this time will be different…because I’m going to tell people. That way I won’t be the only one holding me accountable. I truly believe this is something I need to do for my healthy. I’m worried that if my body isn’t prepared for my training, I’m going to get injured. Plus I KNOW I’ll feel better. So that’s what is going on with me. In 1 hour, I will be 19! And I’m pumped for my weekend in Yosemite with some of my awesome friends! And since I had my birthday cake today…I’m good to go to start my sugar challenge as I start my 19th year on this planet!

Have you ever run a half marathon? How was the training?

Surprise, Surprise

Date: February 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So, yeahh I didn’t exactly post yesterday. I was SUPER busy. Workout starting at 6:30, then straight to class until 3, yoga at 5, meeting up with a friend at 7, dorm community building activity 8-10, math problem set, preparing a presentation…yeah that was my day yesterday! But first let us go through the eats.

First things first, after I posted the other day, one of my dorm mates came to my room and gave me this:

It’s called a “slutty brownie.” It is cookie on the bottom, brownie on top, and oreo in the middle. It was super good! He made them the other day and borrowed my tinfoil, so he brought me one the other night. He even warmed it and everything! I may need to start lending out my tinfoil more often!

Ok, Wednesday morning! I believe I ate the other half of my Apple Cinnamon Blueberry bread (last piece!) and milk pre-workout. I am in serious need of making more bread, I only have one piece of zucchini bread left, and that’s it!

After my row+spin, I headed to breakfast with a smoothie and intentions of laying off the nuts.

Fail. (By the way, that is toast with cream cheese and egg white!)

Aaaand double fail. But it was delicious! That right there is my attempt to make half a waffle…never works. Here it is with heated up frozen blueberries!

Yummmm.

And I definitely ended up eating more nuts later that day in the form of a granola bar for snack (and then one after dinner), and I think also a banana with nut butter.

I had zero time for dinner, and ended up eating it at the beginning of my dorm event. I heated up some butternut squash soup that my mom delivered to me earlier this week, along with spinach and mushrooms. Topped with avocado!

Wednesday was not the best night….Let’s just say I had a ton of difficult work.

Thursday morning I was up bright and early (again) for my 2x6k hard erg workout. Before was zucchini bread. I ended up PRing on this workout, which was awesome! And on 5 hours of sleep too! Afterwards, I felt entitled to a treat. this feeling of entitlement is never a good thing. The plan was to add a chocolate muffin to breakfast.

Half a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and egg whites, and half a raisin bagel. Plus fruit. There were not any chocolate muffins, so I went with a cranberry orange.

Plus part of a broken up whole wheat pancake with butter. Do you ever have days when you feel like you are a bottomless pit after a tough workout? Yeah, that was me today. So add another half pancake, half muffin, and half bagel. Plus some much needed coffee.

But gahh talk about carb overload! I definitely wasn’t feeling so hot, and this probably led to worse eating later on in the day. Example A: Lunch. Let’s be honest. This was a tough week. I felt I deserved something. I went to a cafe to study after math and before my next class, and I decided that although I wasn’t super tired (yay coffee), maybe some more caffeine would be a good idea. I decided to treat myself to a chai tea latte. And one other thing. If you are a healthy eater, look away. If you have ever considered thinking about eating healthy, look away.

That’s right, giant apple fritter right there! I figured I should probably get something real as well, so I got some type of dish with lentils and meat substitute.The Med school cafes are so nice! But don’t worry, I was unable to eat the whole fritter. It wasn’t as fatty as some are sometimes. And yes, it was quite tasty. I didn’t feel quite as gross as I was expecting at that point, considering the large amount of sugar and carbs I had consumed already. Somehow, I have yet to experience the caffeine/sugar crash. After class, I went back to my dorm. And stayed there. Why? NO PRACTICE TODAY. Our coach gave us the afternoon off. Why? No clue. But apparently it hasn’t happened in 2 years. So I’m not going to question it. So, so far in this day, you may have noticed something. That’s right, no nuts! HOWEVER. As I’m sure you guys all know, eating lots of sugary carbs leads to more cravings for sugary carbs…ok so maybe that doesn’t relate directly to nuts, but I had a sweet tooth, ok?

Banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter. So naturally I had to have some nut butter and jelly crackers as well…

Let’s just say I am not proud of my eating habits today. But hey, at least I’m honest with you guys, right?

Dinner tonight was actually pretty exciting. Indian food! At my local dining hall! That never happens!

And then OF COURSE it was dessert time (are you seeing a trend here?). I opted for a taste of cheesecake. (In the dining hall? What is this?) And some vanilla frozen yogurt with crushed oreos and corn pops. Ok, here’s the thing. I REALLY like corn pops. I probably haven’t had them in 10 years. But when I used to go on family vacations when I was little, my sister and I would get to pick out “vacation cereal,” which was the one time we could get whatever sugar-laden cereal our hearts desired. I almost always chose corn pops.

Anyways, I was reminded today why I really shouldn’t eat so much sugar. I CAN’T CONCENTRATE. Which is part of why I am posting right now. Whenever I eat a lot of sugar, my ability to focus is basically nonexistent. Which is going to lead me in to No Sugar Challenge #2: The Quest to Manage My Time Better by Not Eating Sugary Foods and Therefore Have Some Capability of Focus. Let’s just say that my time is very constrained right now, so I’ll take anything I can get. But this challenge is a bit harder than last time. Why? Because I can’t eat nuts! Wahhh. :'(

I don’t know if you could tell by this post that I’m completely all over the place right now. That’s what the sweet stuff does to me! I suppose I should set a length of time for my sugar challenge. Any suggestions? Maybe 2 weeks? That’s what I lasted last time. Should I shoot for 3? 3 is my PR. Hee hee. As if this were an exercise…Ok I have obviously had too much sugar, so I am going to calm down now and report back tomorrow after a hopefully low sugar and nut free Friday! Have a great week everybody!

Do you have weird reactions to sugar? Any ideas on a timeline for my challenge #2? Any tips for replacing my beloved peanut butter?

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.

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:

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:

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…

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.

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!

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.

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!

Challenge Day 2

Date: January 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone’s weekends were fabulous! I personally had a great day. Why? I got see to my kitties again!

That’s Charlie! He’s the biggest sweetie! He purred in my bed all night! For some reason last night I kept thinking about vanilla protein powder…I must have had a strange dream!

A sleepy purring cat led to my 3rd nap in as many days. Because who can stay awake with all that going on?

As I was packing up my stuff to go back to school, he became even purrier. He’s trying to convince me to stay!

And of course the playful kitty, Lilly.

Ok, now on to the good stuff! Last night I had dinner with one of my high school friends. It was really nice to catch up and introduce her to everyone here!

Mixed greens salad, green beans, curry cauliflower, lentils, and a little bit of thai chicken. The cauliflower was actually really good! Normally I find cauliflower too boring or bland! I also had a few pieces of melon and a slice of cinnamon raisin bread with smart balance. That stuff is actually going to save my on my no sugar challenge! The bread is sooo good and definitely not sugary! After dinner and introducing my friend to my dorm, I went home to visit my kitties. At home, I snacked on pita chips with peanut butter and blueberries, as well as artichoke dip. I had really wanted to try eating popcorn with Nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. Why? I had just listened to a Nutrition Diva podcast on nutritional yeast, and it recommended putting it on popcorn as a healthy cheesy alternative. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any popcorn! How is that possible? We even had nutritional yeast! Ah well. You can’t win them all. At home, I caught up on Castle (love that show!).

What shows do you watch? Any suggestions? I love mysteries, but I also love How I Met Your Mother.

After a night of purry cat and protein powder filled dreams, I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Breakfast?

Whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and butter and an egg, which I made in the microwave. If it isn’t obvious enough by its square shape. Plus tons of blueberries and raspberries. Yum! I also had a little bit of shredded wheat cereal to eat with peanut butter and berries. I love the combo of peanut butter and blueberries on bread because it reminds me of healthy pb and j. I used to be completely obsessed with pb and j. I would have it every singe day. Ohh how times have changed. After breakfast, I headed to my home gym for a Spin class with one of my favorite instructors. I did a quick set of abs on a Bosu ball beforehand. The class was awesome, as usual. After class, I rolled my legs out a little with a pipe, and then did a quick 20 minute piece on the rowing machine. (For future reference, I’m going to refer to the rowing machine as an erg, for those of you unfamiliar with the term. I’m getting tired of writing out ‘rowing machine’!) I’ve felt better about my erg pieces lately. For the last month or so I don’t think I’ve been using my legs as much, and instead, I’ve been pulling more with my arms. The last couple of times I’ve really focusing on feeling the burn in my legs though, and my times (pace) are returning more to normal. As it turns out, pulling with your arms creates a lot less power.

For lunch, I snacked on some barbecue baked potato chips from Trader Joe’s.

I haven’t had chips in the longest time, and these were seriously addicting!

For lunch I made myself a smoothie and a salad.

Now it may not be normal to top a smoothie with peanut butter, but it’s seriously delicious, and you should all try it. Like now. My smoothie included frozen cherries, blackberries, mango, and banana, plus greek yogurt and milk. My salad was pretty basic. Lettuce and garlic roasted almond, with Trader Joe’s Spicy Peanut dressing. This salad is 1000x better with avocado (because what really isn’t better with avocado?), but there was no avocado at home because I stole them all for school (all mine! hee hee). At the end of my meal, the peanut butter jar was almost empty, so I naturally had to take care of it. I heated up some frozen blueberries until they were warm, juicy, and delicious, and added them to the jar. Yum! After lunch, I had a minor sugar craving. Not exactly a sugar craving, but more like a feeling that I needed dessert after my meal. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen, seeing as I’m doing a 30 day sugar challenge! Instead, I enjoyed some Ghiradelli baker’s chocolate with nuts and dried fruit. For those of you that are unfamiliar with baker’s chocolate, it is just unsweetened chocolate used for cooking. Warning: this is not for everyone. I happen to love super dark chocolate, so this ends up being delicious to me. Especially with some salted cashews. Which we did not have. Oh well. Still good. After lunch I did some work, then bid goodbye to my cats (wow, I already sound like a crazy cat lady) and headed back to school in time for dinner. The best part about dinner? I managed to snag some bananas on my way out. Score! It’s the little things in life guys. Dinner was predictable for a Sunday night. Meals on weekends are generally pretty predictable.

A spring roll, whole wheat mushroom pot stickers, a shrimp dumpling, and brown rice, topped with sweet and sour sauce. For some reason there never is any soy sauce…Plus a baby salad on the side. Dessert? I really should put that in quotes.

Fruit plus half of a buttered english muffin.

So, today I was pondering my nutrition. I know a ton about nutrition, but I haven’t really applied it much lately. For the most part, I am eating fairly healthy foods, but I don’t think I am optimizing the ratios. One fantastic thing about this blog is it makes it insanely easy to reflect on my nutrition. A picture is worth 1000 words, right?

I’ve been thinking about my goals for rowing. Obviously, I want to get faster. And let’s be honest, all those Christmas cookies didn’t help this! Nutrition is such a powerful tool when it comes to improving. So what are my goals for the week? First, of course, is my no sugar challenge. This takes precedence over any thing else. At all. Second, I want to work on optimizing my nutrition for performance. How? Well, I’m going to get into a little bit of what I learned in my nutrition class last quarter. Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician, and I am certainly not telling anyone to cut out carbs!

Carbohydrates are fuel. Glucose, in particular, is used by the muscles in our bodies, as well as by the brain. It’s possible to survive without carbohydrates, such as with the Atkins diet, but it’s not ideal, as it sends a body into a state of ketosis, which I’m not going to get into right now. Anyway, we really need carbs to fuel exercise, but we need them even more to fuel our brains. Muscles can store glucose, but the brain cannot. For this reason, a reasonably frequent supply (as in, roughly every meal) of glucose is beneficial. However, what happens if you ingest a ton of glucose at once? The cells that process glucose and turn it into energy can only process a certain amount per minute. In addition, carbohydrates store 4x their weight in water (ever felt bloated after a huge plate of pasta? this is why). So, if these glucose processing cells were to take in the huge load of carbohydrate that has been ingested, the cell would swell with water and most likely burst. To protect themselves from this, these cells will shut down and not take in sugar to process if the load of sugar coming in is too large. As a result, the glucose cannot be processed and turned into energy, and instead will converted into triglycerides, or fat. In addition, this effect takes some time to go away. After a carb heavy meal, your body may crave more carbs later on, because the carbs you ingested were not used as fuel. Does this sound familiar? After a huge carb heavy meal, you are hungry and crave carbs later in the day? However, depending on the carb load or amount of time since the carb load, the cells may still be in this state and unable to take in glucose. So this really is a lose-lose.

So as a person eats carbohydrates, the said person is fueling her body. As a person continues to eat carbohydrates, at some point, the person will stop fueling the body and in turn, shut down the process of fueling the body. See the problem here? Carbohydrates are important to refuel from exercise, or to eat for energy, but after a point, too many will actually not fuel muscles. So if I am trying to recover from a hard workout, I don’t want to overload on glucose, and therefore not refuel my muscles at all. So what is this magic point? It’s different for everyone. And unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no great way to tell when one is at this point. However, the body can process glucose much faster after exercise, which is why it is important to eat as soon as possible after exercise. After an intense workout, the first 5 minutes are important because that is when the glucose processing is the fastest. See why I love Biochem?

So what is the best thing to do? Eat slow digesting carbs. Or better yet, eat some veggies with your carbs. Raw vegetables significantly slow the digestion of carbs, which will slow the rate of glucose entering the cells. In terms of carbs that digest more slowly on their own, beans digest slowly. Coarse grains digest slowly as well. the course the grain, the slower the digestion rate. For example, steel cut oats digest more slowly than whole wheat bread. European style bread is a great course-grain bread (plus it’s delicious!) However, the raw vegetables digest the most slowly of all, so that is the best option. With slow digesting carbs, you can fuel your brain and body for hours after eating.

Don’t like this idea? Another option is try eating more frequent and smaller portions of carbohydrates. For example, split your sandwich into 2 meals, early and late lunch.

If I sound completely crazy to you, and you don’t buy any of this, I swear it’s straight from my class, so don’t shoot the messenger. Want more? Check out this website. http://www.drclydewilson.com/

I bought the nutrition books, and they are the best and most inclusive of the nutrition books I’ve read. I highly recommend them if you are interested in learning more!

Wow, that was a long tangent! So if you’re still with me after all that Biochem, how does this relate to me and my performance? I’m pretty sure I’ve been overloading on the carbs lately. I believe my professor recommended a serving of carbs the size or your palm for each salad you eat. So my goal for this week is to stick to that and see what happens!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into the world of Biochemistry! I had a ton of fun reviewing what I learned last quarter. That was by far my favorite class I have ever taken. Have you ever loved something so much you have wanted to cry? That was actually me in that class. No joke. That class more than confirmed that I know what the heck I want to do with my life. Especially sugar metabolism, that’s my favorite! 🙂

How much do you want to learn about nutrition? Do you want me to go more into Biochem topics and metabolism?

Feedback would be much appreciated!

Challenge Accepted

Date: January 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! I’m posting a little earlier today because I’m going out to dinner with my friend, then heading home to visit my cats, so I’m not sure how much opportunity I’ll have later to post. I just deleted all the pictures of my meals on my phone so if someone happens to look through my pictures, they won’t know just how food crazy I am.

This morning, I had practice at 7:30. Well, sort of. I wasn’t on the water yet again, because the awkward number of people we had. Instead, I got to have the pleasure of timing all the boats. I got about 4 seconds of action in the more than 3 hours that the boats were on the water and it was FREEZING. Luckily, I had good enough sense to grab my iPod halfway through to listen to nutrition podcasts, but at least I had some time for reflection.

Before practice, here’s what I ate:

A thawed quinoa breakfast bake and an orange. I got the recipe for the bake from Whole Foods. You can find it here. It’s still good 6 months later!

After freezing through practice, I had a cinnamon raisin bagel because my coach brought bagels for the team. It was a really good bagel, nice and chewy! As soon as we got back, I rushed to brunch (it was almost 1 at this point) even though I had just eaten a bagel because Saturday brunches are probably my favorite meal of the week. Why? One reason. AVOCADO. Saturday brunches have Mexican food, and included in that is mashed up avocado. SO GOOD.

I normally make my Mexican food into a salad, as I did today. I figured I probably needed some veggies and protein to round out my meal anyway! At the end of my meal I wanted something sweet so instead of a waffle, I reached for a piece of whole wheat bread with blueberry cream cheese and peanut butter.

After some work on a group project, I was ready for my second nap in 2 days. I may not have gone to bed as early as I should have last night. When I woke up, I had the hugest mug brownie craving. I tried healthy mug brownie take 2, this time with a different proportion of ingredients. I added less yogurt and more brownie mix, and it tasted more like the real thing.

Probably because it was more like the real thing. Ugh. After that, I decided that the best way to use the brownie mix in a healthy way was to get it the heck out of my room. After all, it’s been open in my room for over a month, and I had picked quite a few of the chocolate chips out, and let’s be honest. Way too dangerous. Plus, if I want brownies, I’m better off baking a full batch and sharing them because they’re way better when made for real. However, I decided to get the last few chocolate chips out, and discover that brownie mix+plain greek yogurt+cocoa powder=deliciousness. After that, I had a few frozen cherries to get some decent food in my system. I decided to forgo my workout for today and just do it tomorrow because brownie+rowing machine would not be a good combination. This led my to the main topic of today’s post. I spent some time today exploring other food blogs, and I came across a post on fitcupcaker about a 30 day no sugar challenge. I’ve done a few no-sugar challenges, and my biggest success was 3 weeks. Ever since the holidays, I’ve been indulging in my sweet tooth a little bit too often, so I decided this was a great time to do the challenge. I counted out the days on my calendar, and it ends on my sister’s birthday, which is perfect because I can enjoy cake on her birthday to celebrate my (hopefully) achievement (well, and her birthday). One thing I love about challenges like this is that they inspire creativity. If I have a sweet craving, I have the challenge to find a healthier way to satisfy it. (Hint: 2 great ways: nut butter and baked apples). I’ve never blogged about a no sugar challenge, and I’m super excited to start. Hopefully the encouragement will help me, and hopefully I can inspire you! And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to do some posts on sugar during this time, as it is one of my absolute favorite topics in science. Want some inspiration? One of my favorite videos: Sugar:The Bitter Truth, by Dr. Robert Lustig. Enjoy! My motivation? Dr. Lustig’s new book, “Fat Chance.” I absolutely cannot wait to read it!

Would you ever do a no sugar challenge?