I decided to try a different pre-run breakfast-a Thinkthin bar and fruit, plus a small cup of kefir. 

I’m not sure this is going to necessarily be enough to fuel for for 13.1 miles, but I think I’d rather hit a wall than have stomach issues. This breakfast ended up working out quite nicely for me. 

After packing up the car and herding everyone out of the house, we drove up to the park. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were greeted by this scene:

Now, while fog stinks and would obscure the amazing views, that wasn’t the main problem. The main problem was the 1000 mph winds. I have never seen fog and clouds move that fast before! It was absolutely crazy! Despite the long drive up, it was determined that it was not worth it to run and picnic there. My parents suggested another trail by the reservoir. This is one of my absolute favorite places-it is so pretty! I’ve always wanted to run there, but I had no idea there was a trail!


Sadly, we couldn’t find the trail because there was construction on one of the roads. However, I remembered that there was a road nearby that is closed off on Sundays for bikers (I’ve been wanting to bike there since I ran into the road closure last summer attempting to get someone nearby!). A closed off road right along the reservoir? Perfect!


The scenery was so beautiful! The run was hard. I was with my sister, and she started off much faster than I was comfortable giving I had to run 6 miles. It was also hilly, and I was well aware that the hills and wind were in our favor on the first half of the run (it was an out and back). 


I was definitely playing mental games with myself during this run. I kept up with my sister for the first half, which was my goal because I’m the one with the GPS watch, and I wanted to make sure she turned in the right place. I sent her off pretty soon into the second half (right around where the hills started) because I could tell I was only holding her back. While running with someone faster is good to push yourself, when it is kind of demoralizing when you get to the point where you can’t keep up (hence, some of the mental games). And then I spent a good couple of miles reflecting on WHY I wasn’t faster. Finally I convinced myself that HEY, I was still running 6 miles, and in a still pretty decent time. Hills can really humble you! 

Around miles 3-4, my feet started bothering me, like they usually do at that point. My index toe on my left foot was in a lot of pain…any idea why that would be? It kind of goes numb, but really hurts when I step on it…I think I’m going to try a new brand of running shoes. Towards the end, I also started to get a really painful blister. I pretty quickly realized it was from the slant of the road (the road was crowned) causing my foot to rub, so I took advantage of the fact that the road was closed. 

Hey, why NOT run directly in the middle of the road?? It definitely helped!

The final stats?

Not too bad! I was happy with the run. And tired. 8 miles next week is getting out of my comfort zone. Specifically, I’m not sure how my feet will hold up. If I got a pretty bad blister doing 6 miles, how will 13.1 be? My feet will toughen up, right??

We decided to take our picnic home at that point since there was no where there to set up.  It was the perfect day to eat on the patio though. 


What’s sad is that you guys may not even know that I have a dog. This is Billy. The cats kind of take precedence in our household….

I wanted to try this new chai tea that we got at Whole Foods the other day, and after the run, it sounded absolutely fantastic. 

I added a touch of honey, almond milk, and ice. So refreshing! 

Our picnic lunch was a make-you-own Cobb salad. Mine included chicken, hard boiled egg, artichoke hearts, soy beans, onions, olives, and tomato, all tossed in garlic ranch. 

For dessert, we had frozen eclairs, which thawed perfectly during our run. <a

So delicious! Everything was cool and refreshing-can you tell I was a tad thirsty? For my next long run, I need to take water, and start practicing with gu. Any recommendations?
The rest of the afternoon/evening was spent as a family watching Suits.

I swear, this is the only way she’ll actually sit on my lap! Silly cat. My family may or may not have watched the whole season of Suits in less than the past week…
Dinner was picked up from Fish Market, one of my Dad’s favorite restaurants. I had the mahi mahi with an artichoke, basil tomatoes, and mixed veggies. Plus some sourdough on the side!

Plus this guy-I got this at Whole Foods the other day and these are seriously the best things ever. I’ve gotten it twice before, but never really seen it at Whole Foods since. BUY THIS. Peanut butter+oatmeal. You can’t go wrong. This might be good for pre-race fuel too…<a

I hope everyone was able to spent time with their fathers on Father’s Day! This was the first year in 9 years that I wasn’t at a softball field on Father’s Day!
What did you do for Father’s Day?

That is the Paleo diet as I am choosing to interpret it. Some are stricter, some less strict. When I tried it before, I did it hardcore, which also meant no salt, i.e. no flavor. So yeah. Not doing that. Before I get into this, let me just say I hate the word “diet.” I am not dieting. I am seeking a healthy lifestyle. And for the record, I don’t exactly buy the argument that we should eat this way because this is how cavemen eat. I think we have definitely made some improvements. However, I view this as a really healthy, whole food, nutrient dense way of living. My original plan was to try this for a week. So how was day 1?

I ate a banana before weights. Afterwards, I made a smoothie, and had a side of eggs and potatoes.

I went for half egg whites, and half whole eggs. My smoothie included banana, strawberry, watermelon (I don’t know what it is about these 3 fruits together that reminds me of cotton candy…), soymilk, blackberries, and some of my weird veggie mix chocolate protein powder. 

(This is an old picture ignore the cocoa powder and peanut butter.)

This meal was….great. This is the first time in who know when that I didn’t finish my smoothie when I got full. I always seem to get super full and power through it, but today I just stopped and was done. No struggle. 

Another note on the Paleo way of eating: in the book I read (2 years ago), it was The Paleo Diet for Athletes, and didn’t allow potatoes except for right after exercise. And since breakfast usually has potatoes, and I always have morning workouts, I’m good!

So here’s the big question. How did I feel? To be honest, after my first class this morning, I had completely changed my view on life and everything I’ve ever put into my mouth. I have never been so awake and alert in a 10am class in my life. For as long as I can remember, I always struggle to stay awake around this time. This year, I always attributed this to sleep deprivation. But here’s the thing. I didn’t get any more sleep last night. I got just over 6 hours. But I felt AMAZING. I could tell I was still tired, but I was clear-headed, as opposed to my usual foggy-head, struggling to keep my eyes open. I’ve always suspected that something was going on with my crash, because even on days (like Wednesday) where I got plenty of sleep, I still felt this way. 

This means one of two things (or a number of others that I’m totally unaware of.)

1. I’ve been majorly spiking and then crashing my blood sugar. 

2. Possible gluten intolerance? My roommate is gluten intolerant and talks about when she ate gluten she would be foggy-headed. Check. 

Honestly, I have no idea why this worked. But I definitely want to stick with it. This seriously changed my life. I don’t want this to be a week long thing to clean up my diet. I want this to be a lifestyle. Also, think about how many more nutrients come from these Paleo-friendly foods? Let’s be honest; bread doesn’t do a ton for you, and it digests fairly quickly, especially in comparison to beans. I’ll be honest. These changes are not easy, and I’m definitely not perfect (more on that in a bit…) This is going to be one of the hardest things mentally that I will ever do, maybe in my life. Yes, harder mentally than a 6k test. But I truly believe that this will make a huge difference in my life and my body. To be honest, I have some pressure to clean myself up. I have another 6k in a month, and I need to get myself together and PR. And fun fact, I find it easier to push myself on the erg when I’m used to eating well and resisting junk. 

By the way, I’m not sure I’m exactly buying theory 1, because by the time i got out of class at lunchtime, I was hungry enough to eat a buffalo, but I didn’t feel tired or groggy. So here’s Paleo meal #2!

Before lunch, I found myself craving real food. Vegetables, beans, meat. And I had an odd craving for watermelon. Who knew? 

After lunch was when things started to get difficult. Of course I wanted a sweet treat, so I grabbed a banana with peanut and almond butter, which did the trick. Yes, I know that peanuts aren’t actually Paleo-friendly, but it’s a transition period! And yes, I definitely shouldn’t be eating them….

After browsing some Paleo blogs (gotta love the Internet), I realized there was a softball game going on, and one of the visiting teams had a girl who I played with on it, so I rushed to the field to catch the end of the game. I honestly was not prepared for the realization of how much I missed it. It was a little hard to watch, and I couldn’t help but wish I was out there. Softball is so much more my sport than rowing will ever be (sorry crew).

Unfortunately, I came back to my dorm craving sweet carbs (this seems to be a thing with me…) Enter banana number 4. To be fair, they were very small bananas! Well, actually I made some guacamole and ate that with celery first, then moved to the banana, which I heated up with cocoa powder, and ate with almond butter (Paleo friendly!). I guess it wasn’t exactly sweets I was craving as much as the texture of bread, This was a major issue for me the first time I tried Paleo as well. I then mixed up some cocoa powder, coconut oil, a little honey, and coconut for a delicious treat. My skin is going to hate me. It’s actually bad, I’ve made several banana mixtures that I’ve eaten with nut butter and coconut, and thought “How many things that Aurora is allergic to can I fit into this tiny cup?” I later had a giant Fugi apple with peanut butter (gosh this stuff is so good) and whipped up a little more coconut mix. Unfortunately, this was right before Spin, but it didn’t haunt me too much. One thing I did notice though. I hate snacks, because they usually give me a stomach ache (but I eat them anyways). No stomach ache this time, just fullness. Awesome!

After Spin, I headed out to dinner, even though I wasn’t terribly. hungry. I figured some veggies could do me good!

Baked tilapia, whipped sweet potatoes (SO GOOD), and roasted veggies. 

I’m not going to lie, I had a major Paleo hiccup post dinner. But I’m not going to go into that, so I can move on and focus on tomorrow! 

Overall, I’m viewing today as a transition day. I ended up eating quite a bit overall, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get used to something new. I need my crutches! My goal for tomorrow is to offer my skin some mercy and avoid coconut and other nuts. I think it’s doable; I’ve got some awesome meals to look forward to, which always helps! And guess what else I get to do?

I get to visit this guy! That’s right, I’m going home over the long weekend! I have a feeling that more appetizing foods/more fruits than just bananas will make my whole Paleo transition a little easier. Have a great weekend everyone! Happy eating!

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?

Guys, I am SO SORRY I haven’t posted in such a long time! I was pretty busy this weekend! Juggling rowing and school is…difficult. But I think I’m getting better at managing everything. How have you all been? Any good eats? I guess today will just be another flood of pictures. I definitely haven’t documented everything I’ve eaten. Especially not the sweet things…He he…

Ok, here it goes!

Veggie chili! Plus I love that the dining hall has had soybeans lately!

Mushroom barley soup from Whole Foods

Banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter

Brunch= best meal of the week. Gotta love that avocado! Plus now they have crepes…those seem to have gone unpictured…both days.

One of my first times getting pasta (it’s not whole wheat so it usually isn’t a priority for me). I mostly picked the chicken out and ate it with my salad though!

I have to add, this day also included some very delicious pumpkin cake made by my roommate.

I LOVE BISCUITS. It’s dangerous. And they’re so cute, right? By the way, peanut butter update! The dining hall now has natural peanut butter! So I don’t have to carry my own around!

Super Bowl food! But not really…GAH such a frustrating game though!

And that brings us back to today! I have to be honest…I’ve been indulging quite a bit since I stopped my no sugar challenge. Cereal with chocolate milk and peanut butter is a big one for me…plus some cookies, some frozen yogurt…and of course my roommate’s cake! But hey, it was hot out of the oven! Before I recap on today, I’ll go through a few non-food things from the last few days. 

Friday morning was weights. We did single leg RDLs as well as regular RDLs, but we actually did the regular ones at a decent weight. Here’s the thing about RDLs. My hamstrings are ALWAYS sore after doing them, no matter how many or few reps, or how much or little weight is on the bar. It’s Monday. I’m still fairly sore. And here’s the thing. My bed is at a kind of awkward height, because my dresser is under my bed. So normally to get in bed I have to get a nice little running start and jump in. Sooo with tight hamstrings? Let’s just say I haven’t always been clearing it lately! 

Saturday morning practice was actually really fun. I got to row with some of the other walk-ons who went to the lightweight rowing team. I also had my other coach from fall coach us. I think I would be happier on the lightweight team, just because I like their workouts better and I wouldn’t be the shortest one…Oh well. Maybe next year. 

Later Saturday afternoon, I lifted weights on my own, and did one of my no-fail workouts from the fall. This workout I did a couple of times with my trainer before I left for college, but last fall I did it like…every other week. At the beginning, I would be sooo sore, but I did it enough that by the end of fall I wasn’t sore at all. Here it is:

I always write my workouts on whiteboards, and then take a picture and set it as my phone background. What’s nice about doing this workout a lot, is that it is already on my phone, and I have already made adjustments to it to accommodate the weight room at the gym here better. 

I was expecting to be fairly weak on the squats, and therefore be super sore from them. But this workout surprised me! My legs weren’t too bad. I’m sore, but not terribly so. What shocked me most though was that the pushups destroyed my arms! These aren’t ordinary pushups. You keep your elbows at your sides and slowly lower your chest to the ground, and then back up. I usually have to come back up on my knees after a few reps. My arms were dead! And now, so sore! That was a surprise! 

So how many of you watched the Super Bowl? I sure did! After a bit of stress over how to turn the TV on downstairs, I got it going just in time for kickoff! I must say, I wasn’t impressed by the commercials. I liked the Oreo one, and the one with all the adorable baby animals. Some of them were just plain weird though. 

Ok, now that I’m caught up, on to today! 

Weights this morning, so Blueberry Apple Cinnamon bread beforehand!

I still haven’t come close to my maximum weight for squats, but I’m always scared to go too heavy in new situations. I’m still up there with most of the girls though. I don’t know why, but I haven’t squatted the same weights as the strongest girls on the team, even though I know I could handle it. 

I went for a quick jog afterwards. As in maybe 1.5 miles. I had wanted to do more, but I had some last minute work to do. Breakfast was a new one for me.

So, my nutrition professor from last quarter (whose class I sat in last Thursday) told us that this was the healthiest breakfast ever. Although the walnuts are my touch. So what the heck is that?? Raw instant steel cut oats, nonfat plain greek yogurt, and semi-thawed blueberries. My evaluation? I could have done without the oats. I really don’t like textures in my yogurt (flaxseed in yogurt is the worst), so this wasn’t great for me. I’ve learned to like granola in yogurt though, so maybe I could try baking up the steel cut oats with brown rice syrup or something and making it into granola. The idea behind raw steel cut oats is that they digest more slowly. 

Ok guys, I have some big(ish) news. I had a great/horrible revelation after breakfast. I think I may have a nut allergy. What?? Let me explain. My friend has a nut allergy that causes her face to break out when she eats too many nuts. She was texting me today saying that her face was breaking out because she ate too many nuts. So here’s the thing. I’ve never had skin problems hardly at all before, and then in the middle of the summer, my face started breaking out like crazy. I really thought it was an allergic reaction, and I had a feeling it was to nuts, but I couldn’t figure out what nut, because I wasn’t eating any new type of nut. It finally occurred to me today that where I went wrong was in looking at the type of nut, not the quantity! Whenever I would cut a certain nut out of my diet, I would simply replace it with another type of nut. And the timing makes sense. I started eating more nuts than ever before this summer, and let’s be honest, I eat a crazy amount of peanut butter. Sooo I need to severely reduce my nut intake. So for the next couple of weeks, I can’t have more than a serving of nuts per day, because I need to test this out. So why is this partially good? Because it means there is hope for my skin to be normal again! Which is super exciting! I was telling this story to my friend, and she told me, “Aww you won’t be peanut butter girl anymore (referring to my habit of bringing peanut butter to the dining hall).” I told her, “No, I’ll just be less peanut butter girl!”

So that is where I stand. I need to monitor my nut intake carefully. 

Guess what everyone? I have to learn several dances for crew. Which would not be a big deal if I had any coordination or ability to dance at all. However, I have no coordination or ability to dance at all. And here’s the thing. I actually have to be good because I have to preform this in front of tons of people, including basically every athlete at my school. Awesome. And I have a week….Wish me luck!

Oh, I have one more picture for today!

Hiding under all that lettuce is a piece of potato and collard greens. On top of that mess of lettuce is brown rice, Thai barbecue chicken, and yellow curry sauce. This dish is something that the dining hall has almost every night. It was every night at the beginning of the year. The first week, I loved it and had it multiple times. And then….it was still there. Every. Single. Night. I think I’ve had it all of once since the first week. But today I was just not up for waiting in the grilled chicken line, so I went with this! I also had a slice of buttered cinnamon raisin toast.

Well, that’s my day! I have to go study for a math midterm that I have tomorrow! You know what is bad? In the time since I last posted, WordPress changed its whole look. I swear I haven’t been gone that long! I promise to be better!

Do you have any food allergies? How did you find out?

Preworkout was 2 granola balls.

Breakfast:

Smoothie, half a whole wheat bagel with blueberry cream cheese, scrambled eggs.

Close up on that smoothie! This smoothie was…interesting. I had a plan…my dark chocolate blueberry smoothie. First of all, there were no clean blenders, I had to clean one out myself, which is a little gross given I’m not sure how clean I could have gotten it…plus there were no bananas…which is the base of my smoothie. I threw in blackberries, peaches, plain yogurt milk, spinach, cocoa powder, vanilla protein powder, and a little apple juice (because nothing in here was sweet). Plus a spoonful of peanut butter. It ended up turning out ok…

Lunch:

Caesar salad, sweet potatoes, egg foo young (not really sure what this is), carrots and cabbage, plus something that I really don’t know what it is. The other thing was kind of like tofu…but it wasn’t tofu. Something with an “m” maybe? This meal seemed a little greasy, to be honest. I felt kind of gross after, and this is before I started overeating!

Plus a cute little bowl of fruit! I couldn’t figure out for the life of my what station this was, then I realized it was a fancy salad station, where you pick the toppings and they toss it up for you. I’ll have to try that if I see it again! Salads are way better when you don’t toss them yourself…

Ok, now let’s get into the trainwreck…I won’t go into detail…but hey, at least I didn’t break my challenge!

Pb&j crackers…ugh too sweet!

Have I mentioned I’m obsessed with cocoa powder? I was out of bananas (but I stole 3 today, mwahahaha) so I addded thawed blueberries to cocoa powder and mixed it up with pb…it’s not as good as you might think…

Plus half a granola bar. That made up my snack! Ugh. Stomachache for practice!

Dinner:

Don’t let the green on that plate fool you…there was a lot of salty greasiness… 

Plus yogurt with raisin bran, mandarin oranges, pb, and cantaloupe. 

And for good measure, back at my room, a granola ball and a banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter….

So I basically don’t feel so hot…My taste buds have been, shall we say, “overstimulated” the past few days. I think I need to just go a while with low salt/low sugar (low cocoa powder…) foods. I’m a little terrified about the foods over ski trip though. I’m not sure what my teammates meant when they said all they ate was cookie dough and cheese…I get the cookie dough, but I don’t know many college students that eat straight cheese…so we shall see…

Speaking of low sugar, I decided this Tuesday will be my day when I eat no added sugar! It would be impossible over ski trip…I’m doing this to raise awareness for all the added sugar in foods people wouldn’t even think of, in honor of Dr. Robert Lustig’s new book, Fat Chance. I’ll be documenting not only what I eat, but also what I don’t eat! It should be fun, so make sure to check it out! If anyone wants to join me, that would be awesome! It’s a great learning experience.

Ok, so back to my day besides food…

This morning was a 2x6k, which is the workout I’ve been dreading most of all. Well, I survived. It wasn’t that bad. I was able to get in the zone and kind of zone out. Unfortunately, my times were not where they should have been. On the positive or negative side, I’m not sure which, I finally realized that in the last 1-2 months I’ve been erging wrong. Or, in better words, I’ve developed a bad habit. Basically, I’ve been pulling only with my arms and not using my legs. So my legs won’t be tired after a workout. The biggest problem with rowing with mostly my arms is if you think about it, arms and much smaller than legs. And therefore aren’t as strong, and tire more easily. Which explains why I’ve gotten slower. So basically I have to really work on using my legs in the next few weeks, because this really needs to be fixed in time for a big erg test.

Yesterday, I talked about how pressed for time I am. In my math section today, I made a list of the things I have to do, and made a schedule for myself to do them by. Lists always make me feel better! Plus, one problem with my workload is I’ll often have a lot of big things lurking in the distance, so I won’t stay up late(ish) to work on them, because I’ll figure I can do that later. With my schedule, I’ll accomplish what I need to do each night. I must admit, I feel better already! (And I have yet to work on any items on my list…)

I don’t have much else to say today. My row on the water felt really good. I haven’t been in a bigger boat in a while, and they’re much more stable! And after practice, I ate dinner with some of the other walk-ons I trained with this fall who either quit or went light-weight, so that was a ton of fun! Here’s to a healthy tomorrow, and have a great weekend everyone!

No clue what happened to this…

Do you ever have train wreck days?

Yoga was awesome! I haven’t been to a yoga class since before Christmas, and I definitely missed it! This was a power yoga class. I generally like Power yoga best, although one of the only other types of yoga I do is Vinyasa yoga. For those that don’t know, Power yoga focuses more on strength, while Vinyasa focuses on moving with your breath. I personally find that Power yoga helps me more with flexibility, and today’s class was no exception. My muscles were killing me but I definitely loosened up. 

After yoga, it was dinnertime! I had big plans for dinner; an avocado stashed in my fridge! At the dining hall, I whipped up this plate:

Greens and tomatoes with grilled chicken, and avocado of course! I also had a little of the prepared salad, which was some kind of ranch mixture that wasn’t very exciting. I do wish the dining hall had more interesting things to put in salads though. That little red chunk on their is tofu with tomato sauce, which I was curious to try. I didn’t have any carbs on my plate, so I decided I should probably grab some. I ate a banana with peanut butter, plus a half a whole wheat english muffin with butter. Overall, not a bad dinner.

One thing I want to talk about is the timing of my posts. Normally, I write up my posts at the end of the day, after my last meal. While I really like this timing, it allows me to reflect on the whole day, it doesn’t make the most sense in terms of my work. Evenings/nights are my best time to get my work done. I have several awkward roughly hour long breaks during many of the days, and this isn’t really enough time for me to be productive anyways. So I’m considering trying to post then. Thoughts?

Ok, now on to today! I was up early for a team erg. Thursdays are our hardest workouts. Beforehand, I had a few bites of my Vanilla Peanut Butter Protein bars. Love them! My workout was tough, but at least it was shorter intervals, rather than longer ones like 6ks. However, it was a little frustrating for me. Although I beat my goal times significantly, I still had trouble getting my times as low as my teammates. I was feeling pretty down about this, but since then I’ve thought of a few things I can try to work on the close the gap. Besides rowing technique, I think I really need to strengthen my core. I usually have a pretty strong core but I haven’t done too many abs exercises lately. During the workout, I was slowing down, not because I wasn’t pushing myself mentally (I tend to have trouble pushing myself through the longer pieces), but because I simply wasn’t going fast. Core may have something to do with this. At the same time, this reminded me that I definitely have room for improvement on the longer workouts, because for those, the barrier is mental, so I know I am at least capable of doing better. So in summary, the workout was hard. One thing that made my day a little bit better was a t-shirt! My first piece of varsity athletic gear! The shirt was for my school winning some type of championship…no one was exactly sure what it meant, but still awesome! I wore it today with pride. Plus, it’s a really nice shirt. Normally I feel like feminine fitting t-shirts can be kind of strange shaped, but this was really nice!

After my workout, I was excited to try out my new chocolate protein powder!

A chocolate protein shake was in order! Being the cool person that I am, I took basically all the ingredients (except milk and yogurt) to the dining hall just so I could use the blender and avoid cleaning mine…

Into the mix went protein powder, cocoa powder, milk, plain yogurt, a frozen banana, and a spoon of peanut butter. Overall, the protein powder was pretty good. It was a little bit grainy. It’s not Whey, and I think Whey mixes better…But it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners, which was a requirement for me because they usually leave a weird aftertaste that I don’t like.  I also probably put a little too much in….I also have vanilla protein powder that is whey, which I used for my protein bars. They turned out well despite the stevia in the powder, so maybe I should try making a protein smoothie with the vanilla protein powder and cocoa powder to see what happens. I also ate some fruit, as you can see.

After breakfast was class. I was overjoyed to find that the weather is warming up a bit! It was a single jacket day, for the first time in a looong time. After class, I had a sort of awkward amount of time. I thought about blogging, then decided that a quick nap was in order. It was only half an hour, and I’m not sure if I ever fell asleep, but it was rejuvenating all the same. I definitely need to be getting more sleep. Tonight’s goal is in bed by 10! I don’t have any work due tomorrow (although I always have things I should be working on), plus I have a long weekend coming up, so that should be an attainable goal. I woke up in time for lunch at my more local dining hall. I forgot how good lunches are now, way better than dinners!

Salad with sesame dressing, pesto tofu, and a cheese and chicken quesadilla. Plus salsa and some type of salsa mixture that appeared to contain avocado…not sure about that one. The pesto on the tofu was good, but the tofu in general would be so much better if it was cooked differently. It’s always the same, and I’m not sure how it’s made, but it’s always kind of tough. Oh well. Can’t win them all. 

After more class, I ate some pistachios and an orange before practice. I wasn’t hungry but I knew I’d be starving after practice if I didn’t eat anything.

I also had the last bite (literally! It was tiny) of my protein bars. I need to make something else like that to keep on hand for a snack, that I can just grab a few bites of. I’ve seen a ton of recipes for protein balls, so maybe something like that. Any suggestions?

After my snack, I was craving something sweet, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Finally, I realized I really wanted super dark chocolate. I didn’t have any baker’s chocolate on hand, so I ate a small spoonful of peanut butter with unsweetened cocoa powder. Pretty darn good if you ask me!

Practice today actually went pretty well. I wasn’t feeling too great about it at the beginning because my legs were still dead from this morning, but my boat ended up getting into a great rhythm, plus the water was super calm. We got to row out way farther than normal, all the way into the bay! Nothing like watching a sunset from the bay, on a calm day!

After practice, I made myself dinner. Naturally, I snacked on trail mix while I did this. I seriously can’t prepare food without eating. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to grab spinach earlier, but this worked all the same.

This tofu is from Trader Joe’s, and it has a ton of flavor! I highly recommend it.

I hope you had a great Wednesday! Mine was pretty boring. I’m going to just fly through my meals today. 

Breakfast:

Smoothie with 3/4 of a banana, soymilk, plain yogurt, and frozen strawberries and peaches. I topped it with peanut butter. On the side I had some granola, plus half a whole wheat english muffin with strawberry and plain cream cheese. 

I ended up going back for more food.

But halfway through I was full so I stopped. The pancakes are never as good as I expect them to be. Probably because I skipped out on syrup (dining hall syrup=disgusting, plus today was my experimental no sugar, sleep better day).

Lunch:

A turkey sandwich with pesto, plus a salad I made for myself last night. The salad had mixed greens, artichoke hearts, tofu, and olive oil and vinegar. I decided to skip the tofu because it was bland and I already had another protein source. I ended up adding the lettuce from the salad to my sandwich to make it more interesting.

Snack:

Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein bars from yesterday.

Dinner was boring, I just ate some food in my room. Peanut butter sandwich:

x2 plus frozen blueberries. I also snacked on some whole wheat crackers and this trail mix:

This trail mix is really interesting. I failed to read the label the first time I tried it and was definitely surprised by the spiciness! This trail mix would probably make a great salad topper as well.

How was my day? I managed to read almost an entire book on my phone today. Which, by the way, is a bad idea. I walked around in a strange daze all day and I felt an intense pull to continue reading, so I couldn’t stop! That will probably be my last for pleasure read of the quarter though because I always really involved in books, and can’t put them down. Plus, reading on a tiny screen for however many hours kind of messes with one’s eyes/brain. I also missed a workout which, long story short, is really bad because it was assigned and we had to report times…I’m definitely going to make ti up but it made me realize I have to be better about scheduling my workouts.

Tomorrow is going to be a death workout early in the morning. It’s a series of mini races on the rowing machine, and it has been known to make people sick. I’m not too concerned bout that happening to me, but I’m still going to eat very light beforehand. I’m glad I had a bland dinner as well, and guess what? No desserts! So it will be interesting to see the impact it has on my sleeping. I’ve also been hydrating like crazy in preparation!

What else is new with me? As I try to work out my new schedule, I’m realizing a few things. Since my meal plan allows me 14 meals a week, I get 2 meals in a dining hall per day (on average). Last quarter, I never came close to using all my meals, partly because I didn’t realize that I had enough time between classes to go to a dining hall for lunch. However, with my new schedule, I’ve realized a few things. 1. The dining hall food is probably worst at dinner time. 2. Smoothies are delicious, and I’ve started to crave them for breakfast over oatmeal in my room. 3. By the time I get back from practice in the evening, all my dorm friends have already eaten so it’s not like dinner is a social event. 4. It’s way harder for me to resist sweets in the dining hall at dinner than at lunch.

So, taking all this into consideration, I think I’m going to plan on fending for myself more for dinner. This will take some planning and a lot of creativity, so hopefully I can give you all some delicious recipes that use pantry/fridge staples! I already have a few ideas.

Have a great day everyone!

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I’ve been waiting for an excuse to post the recipe for my favorite banana bread! Here is the recipe, it’s super healthy and low to no sugar, depending on your preferences. I got it from Nancy Clark’s Nutrition book (there’s also an app with all the recipes). So here’s the recipe, which I’ve modified slightly:

Ingredients:

4 well ripened bananas

1 large egg or 2 egg whites

2 tablespoons canola oil

1/3 c milk

1/8 c honey (or more to taste, recipe actually calls for 1/3 to 1/2 c sugar)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1.5 c whole wheat pastry flour

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350

Mash bananas.

Add all ingredients except flour and mix well

Blend in flour, stir until moistened

Pour into 4×8 loaf pan, I recommend lining it in tinfoil

Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center is clean

Let cool for 5 minutes (in theory, i NEVER do)

135 cal, serves 12

For this particular batch that I ate from this morning, I added no sweetener, and added blueberries. Yum!

After enjoying my banana bread, I biked over to weights. In shorts and a sweatshirt. Bad idea. It was probably in the 30s, and I couldn’t feel my hands AT ALL by the time I got there. This is the first time I’ve done weights as part of rowing, and it was interesting. I’m really glad I’ve done a ton of weights already and know how to do all the exercises, because the trainer basically demonstrated what we were doing once, and expected us to do it. He didn’t teach the new people how to do snatches, or anything like that, and I cringed watching them. I just hope no one hurts themselves! The type of weights we did were endurance weights, which was different and kind of strange. Most of the exercises were with an empty bar, but we did a ton of reps of each exercise, without much of a break between sets. For example, we did sets of 40 squats with just the bar. I’m used to ding like 3-5 squats, with a heavy weight on. But it was a good workout. Immediately after weights, we had to do a timed run (it doesn’t have to be right after, but most people do it then because it was convenient). I finished the run in 34:08. The run is a loop of campus, and I think it’s probably around 4 miles, maybe less. It was a comfortable pace to me, and I think it compared decently to other people’s times. The funny thing was that I apparently do the run in the opposite direction as most people, so I passed post of the team at some point going the opposite way, and it was fun to give high fives. Great motivation!

After the run, I rushed to breakfast so I would have time to shower before class. Breakfast was a letdown. I was banking on a smoothie, and all the smoothie ingredients were out, but there were no blenders. And I wanted to grab bread for lunch because I didn’t think I’d have time to go to lunch, but all I could grab was a whole wheat english muffin.

Ok I totally forgot to take a picture of breakfast, but it wasn’t that exciting. I had a bowl of yogurt with frozen fruit (wanna-be smoothie), which was soooo cold, plus half a whole wheat english muffin with regular and strawberry cream cheese, plus some scrambled eggs.

After showering, I was getting my things together, and decided to make a peanut butter sandwich with the english muffin for lunch, when I realized I couldn’t find the english muffin. I searched everywhere! I mean, who the heck loses an english muffin?? My theory is that I left it at the dining hall, which would be preferable to finding it in 2 months.

I didn’t think I’d be able to return to my room before practice, so I tried to subtly dress for practice. Scarves hide all!

Like the new scarf?

I had 2 morning classes. I thought I was going to be booked through until practice, but I ended up not having a chem section so I was able to get a real lunch. I’m optimistic about my classes this quarter. I wasn’t a big fan of my classes last quarter. My math class (linear algebra) was the hardest class I’ve ever taken in my life, by far. It was also pretty painful. I’m actually looking forward to my math class this quarter. It is Multivariable Calculus, which I actually took in high school, and the topic just makes so much more sense to me.

Since I was planning on a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, I decided to do that at the dining hall.

Pb on whole wheat bread. I was planning on just having a garden salad with it, but I couldn’t pass up some type of brussels sprout salad either. Plus, I had to have one of the stuffed tomatoes, stuffed with breadcrumbs and cheesy goodness. And of course, I came prepared.

I brought my own peanut butter! I’ve probably consumed a ton of trans fat in the form of peanut butter at the dining halls here and at training camp, so I really want to prevent that.

Are you ever influenced by watching people eat? I have a bad habit of seeing someone eat something, and then deciding I have to have it, like it was somehow justified because someone else was eating it too. I never realized that would happen when I saw a stranger eating something. That led to this

:

It’s some type of raspberry crumble bar. It’s oaty with raspberry filling, and is pretty good, but nothing special, it’s at the dining halls all the time.

After lunch I stopped by my dorm to grab a jacket for practice; BEST DECISION EVER, practice was cold! I had one more class of the day before practice. I was a bit concerned about getting to the pick up location by 3:15 if class ended at 3:05, but there was another girl from my team in my class, and we made it no problem. Before practice, I snacked on this:

It’s by far my favorite NuGo bar. It has way more flavor than the other NuGo Slim bars, and the regular NuGo bars are too sweet for me.

Practice mostly consisted of re-reigging the boats. We had the world’s shortest row afterward. However, something did happen. We got stuck in the sand. I never realized that a) that was possible and b) I should be concerned about it. The tide was super low today, so I guess that was the problem. It was bizarre, we were rowing along, and then all the sudden it got heavy and we weren’t moving. Since I was in the back of the boat (but the front in terms of what hits the sand first), I was about ready to climb out and start pushing. We ended up getting out of it by backing, but in the process we came dangerously close to hitting a channel marker. It definitely didn’t help that it had already gotten dark. There’s something really cool about rowing in the dark, it’s so peaceful, but it can also be difficult when I can’t see the water. I’ve never rowed at night before, but I think I prefer rowing in the early morning.

We made it back in time for dinner (yay), although dinner wasn’t spectacular.

Spinach salad with raspberries, which was good, but eating spinach is difficult to do neatly. I had some steamed cabbage and brown rice, and some random roasted veggies with mushroom gravy, plus a few potatoes. I topped it with a piece of grilled chicken for protein. It was an ok meal, nothing to write home about. Dessert?

It’s definitely a dangerous thing to have unlimited access to frozen yogurt. I had half vanilla half chocolate, with cocoa puffs and peanut butter (yes, the trans fatty kind. ugh.). Some habits die hard, and apparently having chocolate peanut butter and cereal was a habit I developed at camp. I was feeling pretty decent about my day of eating, not too bad for a first day back.

However. Back in my dorm….I chatted with some of my friends, who happened to share my love of food, which naturally ended in snacks. They were reasonably healthy, dried fruit and nuts, plus naturally I had to finally crack open my favorite peanut butter! I also opened my new 99% cocoa dark chocolate. I love super dark chocolate. I will eat straight baker’s chocolate, but 99% is so much better because it was way smoother. But my roommate also brought back a Costco sized pack of Hazelnut chocolates….

I have the tendency to want to eat whenever anyone else eats. Sympathy eating, if you will. If I want to survive college, it’s probably not the best thing. Especially if I’m eating meals with my crew teammates who are a foot taller than me and outweigh me by like 50 lbs. At least if I want them to still outweigh me by 50 lbs! Tomorrow I’m having a Guacamole party with the avocados I brought from home, so I want to try to plan that into my day in terms of meals. What concerns me most is if my food gets in the way of my workout. And as my workout intensity increases, nutrition is key. As I said before, old habits die hard. So basically I just need to get back into better habits. As I think I’ve talked about before in another post, I’m a huge underdog in terms of rowing. I need to take every advantage I can get, and my knowledge of nutrition could be that edge I need. Interestingly enough, I find that when I’m better at resisting sweets, I’m also better at pushing myself through physical pain on while rowing. Go figure. Here’s to a healthy week! The good news? Tomorrow’s workout is on my own, and no class until 12:30 so I get to sleep in !

How was your day?