Let’s catch up! I’m back in California. But let’s take it back a little bit for some food+fitness+life, shall we?

Tennessee Food

I finally improved the appearance of my new favorite breakfast a little bit. It’s just a sunbutter+blueberry sandwich, soaked in 1 egg white and then baked in tinfoil! Super easy and delicious, and the egg adds a little kick of protein. I ate theses with copious amounts of watermelon.

There was a Wednesday night Farmer’s Market with tamales. I had a delicious sweet potato tamale the week prior and was hoping for another one, but I was on the later so so cheese was my only option. Still delicious! On the side was one of the weirder things I’ve eaten. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic on lettuce leaves and then dipped them in guacamole. It was just too much lettuce…

I’m a pretty big fan of Publix now. It was the closest grocery, and had lots of great healthy+GF options. And gourmet yogurt. This and the bananas foster yogurt was delicious!

I had one last honey lavender iced latte at K Brew while finished up the first draft of my essay!

Tennessee Life

On my last day, I got off pretty early. It didn’t take me long to decide what I wanted to do. I went to Ijams one last time for a little hike by the river. I took a slightly different trail than the previous time and explored some different areas.

And then Saturday I was homeward bound. What is crazy? There was literally no line going through security in Knoxville. As in, I was literally the only person.

California

My favorite cookies ever happen to be at one of the places in the SFO terminal. I was hoping the entire 5 hour flight that 1. I would happen to pass it and 2. they would still be open! It turns out, the place was right by where I exited security, so I picked up a spicy cinnamon GF cookie. I think I preferred the non-spicy version I tried previously, but this was the only option.

To be honest, it feels weird being home, especially the first day or two. I feel like I was worlds away, and came back a different person. I had so many new experiences in Tennessee, and I did so much in a short time. To be honest, I’m glad I’ve moved on to new things instead of moped around about how I was going to miss my undergrad. At first, I didn’t feel ready to go to TN so soon after graduating, but I think it was for the better.

Sunday, I dove right back into things. First, I went to a spin class at the local studio. Then, I made amazing banana bread. I used my tried and true recipe, and separated it into two halves: one plain, one with raspberries and chocolate chips.

For dinner that night, I was back to the soup+avocado toast grind. Butternut squash chicken soup.

That evening, I met up with my college roommate for the Panic at the Disco+Weezer concert. I’ve grown particularly obsessed with Panic over the course of the last year, so when I was able to make the concert work given my travel dates, I was excited! Honestly, I could care less about Weezer. I probably haven’t listened to them since middle school, but liked them well enough then.

It was a great show, but we had seats on the lawn so unfortunately we were pretty far back. I haven’t been to many concerts lately, but the concerts I’ve been to I’ve always been able to be closer to the action. Maybe next time!

I enjoyed Weezer as well, and found I knew more songs than I realized.

In terms of workouts, I’ve been going back to my home Crossfit. We tend to do more barbell movements there, and I’m already feeling this morning’s workout! For strength, we did back squats. It was supposed to be 5 sets of 3 at 90%, but since I lost a ton of strength with my foot injury, I did 5×5 at 70%. I’ve squatted some since my injury at the TN Crossfit, but it was pretty low volume. So I’m going to be feeling this. The WOD was also a heavy one: 15 Min AMRAP of 10 hand release push ups and 5 deadlifts, which I did at 155#. While my squats may have gotten weak, my deadlifts have progressed because it was one of the few movements I could do for a while! I made it through almost 12 rounds.

I also went back to teach spin on Tuesday! I’m subbing as much as I can in the few weeks I’m home. I saw a ton of regulars, which was just so fantastic.

And finally, wrapping up some food for the week.

When my roommate came, she brought a ton of AMAZING peaches! They don’t last a long time because they’re perfectly ripe, so we’ve been eating them like crazy. No problem for me! I had a peach+nectarine for breakfast the other day, with a side of banana bread.

Yesterday I had a cappuccino with a really delicious cranberry oat bar to fuel an essay brainstorming session.

And finally, the best thing.

We made Brazilian Cheese Bread! I got the idea from Alison. It’s made with tapioca flour and cheese, and is naturally gluten free. I used this recipe. They came out beautifully, and it was a super fast recipe!

We served them alongside Grilled Peach and Goat cheese salad, which was amazing with the fresh summer peaches.

What have you been up to??

workouts to discuss.

Workouts:

Saturday: Crossfit-the WOD was killer: 20 minute AMRAP starting with a 1 mile run and then as many rounds of possible of the remaining

time of 1 rope climb, 5 push presses, and 10 over the bar burpees. I hate burpees. The run part felt great though. I came in around 8:20

and it wasn’t a push effort so that’s good.

Sunday: My last “long” run. I did 6 miles by the bay. I got really frustrated by the gusting winds, but got it done.

Monday: Crossfit Labor Day workout. It was “bring your friends and family” day so I brought my sister and her boyfriend.

She had shoulder surgery at the beginning of the summer and hasn’t exercised much since then, and I feel bad because she couldn’t

walk the rest of the day…The workout was a partner workout of the following:

100 squats

10 pull ups

75 squats

20 pull ups

50 squats

30 pull ups

25 squats

40 pull ups

My sister and her boyfriend were a team, and since she has a bad shoulder, he had to do all the pull ups. I ended up helping out with a few

because that was brutal!

Now, onto the food! I love having access to a full kitchen and CA produce. My gosh.

Another wrap with humus and veggies:

A quesadilla/wrap with cheddar and mozzarella, half an avocado, tomato, and baby kale sautéed in garlic. Plus a side of broccoli.

A delicious heirloom tomato, basil, fresh mozzarella, and avocado salad, topped with olive oil and sea salt.

A simple breakfast of eggs with seasoning and a farmer’s market peach. DC peaches are laughable in comparison to CA peaches.

A salad with chicken, goat cheese, peaches, basil, and balsamic.

And then, Greek food. Every year a Greek church in my hometown hosts a Greek festival over Labor Day Weekend.

We always go for the delicious food.

For my main meal, I had a greek salad, delicious rice pilaf made with chicken broth, lemon, and butter, and chicken that was insanely hard to cut

with plasticware. On the side, I had Spanikopita, a Greek pastry made with phyllo dough, spinach, and cheese.

And of course there was dessert. They have these delicious doughnut-like balls. Loukamades? I think I totally butchered that spelling. They’re

basically doughnut holes covered in honey (But much lighter and fluffier than doughnut holes) and served hot. Normally they are covered with nuts,

but I was able to get them without! So delicious.

That’s all I have today-I hope everyone else ate well this past weekend!

Since today (Tuesday) was the MLB all-star game, I planned by workouts for the week around having a window open to watch. (It was a disappointing game for the NL, and only 1 Giant even got to play. Boo.) As a result, I went to morning instead of evening Crossfit.

Before 7am Crossfit, so I had a Thinkthin bar. Crossfit was a good one- 10,9,8…1 of pull ups and kettle bell swings, with 100m sprint in between. 

And guess what? I may have sort have gotten myself a job for the summer. The manager of my Crossfit box was talking about how he needed someone to sweep/clean the box for free membership, so I volunteered! I don’t have unlimited class access for this month, so that would be awesome! Plus, I would love knowing everything is clean and sanitary. 

After Crossfit, I drove out to the bay to get in a training run. 

I had 4 miles on the schedule for today, but since I ran about a mile in Crossfit (between the warm up and the WOD), I stuck to 3. 

And guess what? I somehow managed to get an appointment with the foot doctor on Thursday. Hopefully he can help me figure out a way to run pain-free, which would be amazing. 

After my run, I got a quick rowing workout in. I’ve lost a lot of upper body strength, and rowing is a great way to build that up. Of course the millions of pull-ups (banded) I do at Crossfit help with that too….But yeahh my rowing shape? Not so great today. I probably spent a total of 30 minutes on the erg today.

After all that, it was shopping time! I went to Whole Foods for some Chocolate Almond milk, and picked up some coffee with almond milk to go. 

I really, really didn’t like this. I’m not a big coffee fan, but this just tasted sour to me. Maybe it’s because it was a light roast? I’ve never had light roast before, and I guess I usually just have cappuccinos when I drink coffee (so sophisticated, I know). I wanted to drink as much as I could because I paid for it, but in the end I tossed about half of it. 

Then, it was on to GNC for the much-coveted Quest bars. I’ve only had tried them once a long time ago, but since everyone has been raving about them, it was time to check them out again. Plus, I eat Thinkthin bars as pre-run/pre-workout fuel, and they were getting old. Quest bars seemed to have a similar nutritional profile, so I thought I’d give them a try. 

*Note: Sadly, I was not compensated by Quest to review this product so I had to go out and buy them myself. All opinions are my own.*

They were buy 2 get 1 free, so naturally I had to try ALL the flavors, right??

Soooo if I buy enough protein, will it lift the weights and build the muscles for me?

I immediately broke into the cookie dough. 

It was really good! After a few bites, I heated it up. After having it hot, I don’t think I can go back to having it cold. YUM.

HOWEVER. Here’s my one big thing. I HATE the taste of stevia. This has stevia, which didn’t bother me while I was actually eating it, but left a really weird/gross taste in my mouth for a long time afterwards. I separated the bars into 2 piles-those with stevia, and those without. I’m pretty sure I’m going to like those without way more. I had a bite of the apple pie, which has no stevia and I really liked it. 

Here’s my other issue with these bars-although they don’t have all that many ingredients, they do have a lot of artificial, weird things. I lot of them have quite a bit of sugar alcohols, which are known to upset stomachs. So I may have felt that a little today. 

Overall, I like these bars. I’m a little scared to eat them pre-run though, and I’m almost positive I’ll like the ones without stevia way better. 

Enough of that, onto other food as of late! (Not just today, just haven’t posted it yet!)

Egg scramble with spinach, garlic and herb laughing cow, and cheddar.

Cheesy garlic and herb brussels sprouts and sausage from Carrots n Cake. This was of course delicious, and perfectly satisfying. I used sun-dried tomato chicken sausage, and the flavors worked really well. I would recommend making this! I think we’re going to use the rest of the sausage over spaghetti squash and tomato sauce. 

A healthy protein mug cake: chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, half a banana, baking powder, vanilla, coconut flour, egg whites, and bittersweet chocolate chips. The chocolate chips definitely make mug cakes.

Snap peas and leftover dijon vinaigrette. 

Peaches literally the size of softballs. This picture doesn’t do them justice. Gotta love Costco!

Most of the sweet potatoes we have are orange, but I got some amazing white ones at the farmer’s market the other week. I’ve been trying to find that kind ever since! These ones looked a little different in color on the outside, so I thought maybe they were the white variety. Imagine my surprise when we cut them open! I kind of love purple sweet potatoes, so this was just fine with me!

Complete with rotisserie chicken and mango barbecue sauce, and spinach and mushrooms sauteed with garlic and olive oil. 

Some other random things:

1. I’ve spent some time lately writing blog posts “for a rainy day.” As in, when I’m back in school and life gets just a little too crazy. Don’t want to leave you guys hanging! I want to have a nice little arsenal for before school starts.

2. I ordered some workout tanks! I’m super excited; two of them have already shipped! I made some custom Fitness is Sweet tanks, plus another workout tank not designed by me. I’ll leave you all in suspense until they arrive

3. After a lot of thought and deliberation, I’ve decided not to go to Healthy Living Summit. I really wanted to go, but it doesn’t exactly make sense for me this year. It’s across the country, it’s right before I start school, I don’t know anyone going, it’s pricy, and my blog is not even a year old. I thinking that next year would make a lot more sense. 

And with that, have a great week!

Do you like Quest bars? What is your favorite flavor? Thoughts on Stevia?

I could do a whole post on my personal thoughts on stevia, but that could create a big old controversy!