Sunday morning began with my 10 mile half marathon training run. With record high temperatures in Maui, I knew this one was going to be a struggle. I scouted out a nice hilly route ahead of time-3 miles out from my hotel until the sidewalk ends, then back, and then I would play it by ear. I was prepared to jump on the treadmill for the last part if it got too hot.

It rained early that morning, so the air was SO thick. I got out the door by 6:30am, and it was nasty out. 1 mile in, I was drenched and felt kind of terrible. It must have been about 90% humidity. I wasn’t even sure I’d make it through half the run out there without dying. Luckily, the weather improved a bit. I ended up turning around at 3.5 miles, then running a mile in the other direction before realizing there was no shade and I was dying. At that point, when I reached the hotel I was at 9 miles so I did the last one in the comfort of the hotel gym.

I was really vigilant about hydration. I officially swear by SmartWater-I filled my bottle with it for the run and didn’t have the problems I’ve had in the past in the heat. I also drank some vitamin water before my final water. I did a really good job with fluids the rest of the day, and it really paid off!

Nothing like wear compression socks while on vacation…

For lunch that day, we stopped by a “healthy fast food” restaurant that we had passed previously. It’s called D’Lish, and it had all kinds of healthy sandwiches and bowls. We shared a beet salad with goat cheese.

And a mix of purple sweet potato and taro chips.

For my main meal, I got a veggie bowl, which was quinoa topped with broccoli, mushroom bisque, tomato, and feta. Yum! Love the idea of making a bowl using soup.

Our next stop was to the movies-we saw the Perfect Guy, which was pretty intense. Then, we stopped by Maui Tropical plantation, which is a nice little place with a gift shop, pineapples growing, and now a zipline that we tried 2 years ago when we went. It’s in a beautiful location.

That night, I made reservations for the Molokai Bistro at the Grand Wailea hotel. We put on our fancy clothes (although the restaurant was fairly casual) and headed out!

We ordered a bottle of rose for the table, and my parents still insist on taking pictures of me any time we drink wine in public. #21

To start, we shared Maui Onion rings (Maui onions are sweeter than regular onions) and sweet potato fries, with lilikoi BBQ sauce.

I got the catch of the day-mahi mahi served over purple mashed sweet potatoes and garlic broccolini.

It was delicious, and it was nice that the portions weren’t giant!

Dessert was also amazing. Butterscotch creme brûlée topped with banana mousse and shaved chocolate. YUM. What a nice dinner!

We saw 2 stray kitties and some frogs on the walk back!

I’ll spare you of Monday’s food pictures because I posted all that for WIAW, but here’s the day!

I was hoping to got to Lahaina Crossfit, but my shoulder wasn’t anywhere near ready. Instead, I took it to the hotel gym for a shoulder friendly strength workout. I started with 100 lunges, 100 squats, and some RDLs with lighter weights than I would normally use to accommodate my shoulder. I then did a 15 minute ab circuit that I am still sore from because I never do abs, and finished with some light shoulder exercises on my bad shoulder and dumbbell snatches/push presses on my good shoulder. It felt good to get some strength work in despite my injury!

I went straight from there to the beach with my family. I lost the gamble of whether or not I would burn without sunscreen in an hour or so. Oops. Later that day a former fireman came up to me and recommended I put aloe on my burn!

It was a beautiful day, but hot. We went to the gluten free bakery again in Lahaina, but decided to keep it indoors with another movie.

This time it was the Transporter-Reloaded. It was pretty good-I don’t watch too many action movies but it was a pleasant experience. We came out to find a rainbow!

We stopped by Barnes and Noble for some reading material, and then Whole Foods for dinner since my stomach was flaring. The rest of the night involved Netflix-does anyone else watch The Good Wife?

Tuesday was our last partial day in Maui. I started off with a treadmill 4 mile interval/speed run and then went out with my family for one last beach trip. I enjoyed yogurt, passionfruit, and papaya beachside and got my fill of tropical fruit!

It was nice out but definitely starting to heat up! We weren’t at the beach for long because packing still needed to happen.

We said goodbye to our hotel and stopped for lunch at a health store near the airport. I had delicious avocado salad and some really interesting soup that had gluten free oats, zucchini, and cauliflower all blended up.

I also enjoyed a couple of bites of chocolate avocado mousse! So delicious, but so chocolatey-unfortunately these days I can’t handle more than a little chocolate.

Then we were homeward bound-overall it was a great trip!

So guys…will you excuse the photo dump if I include lots of delicious food photos, and promise a real post tomorrow?

Ok. Let’s roll with it.

Post-speed work breakfast.

My favorite ever quick bread. Long referred to as “mystery bread” on my blog, its true identity is morning glory bread. SO amazing. Fun fact: the green is from a chemical reaction between the sunflower seeds and baking soda.

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Saturday morning we had brunch with the resident fellows at my dorm. (The RFs are a family that lives in a house connected to the dorm and they are sort of in charge of us.) They made crepes that I filled with lemon juice, whipped cream, and berries, plus a slice of pumpkin bread.

I finally, FINALLY made it out to my favorite ice cream place this quarter. It was amazing, as was expected.

Today (Sunday) I went home. My family went out to lunch at Whole Foods to sample their Thanksgiving fare. We don’t normally make Thanksgiving dinner ourselves, but this year we are. While I definitely want to make our own sides, I don’t think we have any need to roast our own turkey.

Another part of going home is working on CS homework. If Charlie is on top of my homework, that means I don’t have to do it-right?

My little doggy-so tired!

For dinner, we tried a couple of new recipes. The first was roasted cauliflower from Ina Garten’s cookbook. It had panko and parmesan-It was delicious!

We also made goat cheese and broccoli soufflés. Seriously-souffles aren’t too hard to make! And so beautiful too.

Sadly, the soufflé didn’t have quite as much flavor as I would have liked.

And that’s all I have for today! Have a great week-we’re almost to Thanksgiving!

Monday’s flight went without a hitch, thankfully!

Anyways, despite that whole debacle, let’s celebrate Wednesday! Thanks to Jenn for hosting the fun!

When I got to the airport Monday, I thought I deserved a cappuccino. Decaf though! 

I also picked up a whole wheat chicken wrap with balsamic. So good!

I actually made it back in time for Crossfit that night, and worked on back squats with a pause at the bottom (it’s way harder-believe me!) and handstands. I actually held a handstand! Briefly, but still! I had a spotter, and then suddenly I wasn’t waving around anymore-and it surprised me so much I hopped down pretty much right away! I’ll expect it next time!

Afterwards, I went to Whole Foods for some things for the week and dinner. I had Minestrone with cheddar, and a whole wheat roll. Plus an unpictured kombucha.

Since this is totally relevant to food (not), I’m still going to include it. My new room is really cute!

This morning, I woke up super early to run 4 miles. It was very dark out. And humid. But I felt good and maintained a decent pace-and more importantly didn’t trip and fall on the brick paths!

Since I don’t have run pictures, I’ll show you a few of my new commute…over the Potomac and into a different state…

Breakfast was some amazingly large blueberries and an abnormally large banana topped with sun butter.

Lunch was too ugly to merit a picture, but snack was blueberries and plain yogurt in a sunflower seed jar. Thank goodness too, as I didn’t have any of the right sized tupperware!

After work, I headed to Crossfit. We worked on split jerks, and then the WOD was the following:

10 minute AMRAP partner workout:

Partner 1: 3 curtis P’s (dumbell hang snatch, lunge left, lunge right, push press) and then bear crawl WITH dumbbells the length of the gym and back

Partner 2: hold hollow rock position

Switch after each round.

It was a fun one…not as annoying as I was expecting-I normally hate dumbbell cleans.

After Crossfit dinner was something super easy-balck bean soup topped with cheddar, and a side of corn bread from Whole Foods. The corn bread at WF is way better here than in CA…

And now I’m off to make sure my carrots aren’t burning!

Have a great Wednesday!

Yesterday I woke up at 5am (that’s 2am CA time for those keeping track) to run over to the Lincoln Memorial for November Project.

I was shocked by how light-and hot and humid-it was at 5:30am. Since where I’m from it’s always freezing at night, I couldn’t quite believe it!

We all gathered on the steps. Today was “PR day,” which meant running the stairs for time.

Well, for some reason I thought we were doing that once, so I sprinted up the stairs. And then no one was stopping. Turns out we had to do it 17 (or 13) times…I scaled and did 13, partly because I had to leave a bit early. Guys. The Lincoln Memorial has SO MANY STAIRS. Like, you have no idea. THE BURN! Somehow magically I’m not insanely sore today-maybe because I spent the rest of the morning hydrating like a mad woman, but it was definitely a good one, and so peaceful to be running the city so early!

I went to Crossfit that evening because apparently I’m crazy, and everyone seems to think it’s PR week. Well, I did get a PR! I PRed my deadlifts by 10lbs for a total of 245! And my form was way better than my previous PR so that’s good!

And since we’re on the topic of workouts, I went to a run club today that’s through my gym (which I get a membership to as part of Crossfit). I should also mention that it was 90 and humid today. And that I never have to run in heat because I’m from San Francisco and such a thing does not exist…

There were only 3 of us plus an instructor, and the other women looked pretty fast. On the schedule was about a 35 minute tempo run-10 easy, 10 min tempo, 5 min easy, rest of the run tempo. In theory tempo was a faster pace, or 10k pace. In reality, it was me trying not to die. I was doing ok keeping up with the easy pace-it didn’t feel too bad but it was about a 9:00 which is on the fast side for a longish run for me (My latest 10k pace was 8:45). But I was doing fine. I fell behind pretty quickly when the tempo part started but I did what I could. Coming back though, my legs were absolute bricks. During the “tempo” part, I was just trying to keep them moving. So fast runs in hot and humid weather build character, right? I’ll probably go back even though I probably slowed the others down, because it’s good for me and I’m sort of learning the area through a guided run. That was a little extra incentive-better keep up if I don’t want to get hopelessly lost! And hey-official half training starts next week! Although I’m going to keep up my weekend 6 milers until I get to that point.

Foodwise?

I wasn’t sure if I’d have time for breakfast post-November project, but it was a non-issue and I had woken up HUNGRY. So this protein was much needed after 10245412342 stairs.

And I finally worked out my coffee situation. After waking up at 5am, this was a lifesaver.

As a side note, this is a 12oz coffee, which is the smallest size they serve. I had one again this morning and it was WAY too much caffeine, even though I was drowsy all morning. WHEW. Guess who usually drinks baby espresso drinks? THIS GIRL.

Lunch today was kind of awful. I made some cauliflower in the microwave and topped it with hummus leftover from the previous night’s dinner (picture will follow) and it was just a mushy mess. Ick. I also had scrambled eggs with manchego and spinach, which were ok but it was kind of a mess.

Here’s the aforementioned dinner. The craziest thing happened. I heated soup up on the stove. Not the microwave, the STOVE. Am I officially a real person? I took tomato soup and mixed in some fresh spinach, then topped it with cheddar. On the side was some hummus and pretzels, plus my new favorite thing-FROZEN GRAPES! I had some on the softer side which I hate, so I just stuck them in the freezer. SO good!

The tomato soup was Trader Joe’s, and I was really disappointed. I forgot to check added sugar, and this had a fair amount-it tasted sweet. Ugh.

Speaking of which, on my way out of work today, I was hungry and wanted some quickly digesting carbs to fuel my run, so I picked this guy up from the restaurant.

It was pretty tasty, but SO sweet and oily. But my run went well (as well as it could have) so who am I to complain. I just don’t want to make it a habit!

After the afternoon’s run, I stopped at Whole Foods to be lazy as well as to make use of my gift card. I picked up some fruit, carrots, super dark chocolate, and sun butter, plus dinner and lunch for tomorrow. Not having to pack lunch tonight is sort of fantastic.

My dinner was Mexican tilapia over beans, roasted potatoes, and garlicy cabbage and green beans. Plus lots of grapes with sun butter when I got back, and a bit of dark chocolate.

And now I’m at that point where I could go to bed nice and early, or watch another Scandal…decisions….

For the main course, my mom and I split a gouda arepa (corn based) and a salad with chicken, avocado, and gouda.   And as my last dinner at home, I had one of my favorites-grilled chicken and peach salad with goat cheese. On the side was some whole grain bread rolled in sunflower seeds.   And then lunch this morning pre-airport was simple-2 eggs, half an avocado, cheese and crackers, and some English peas (unpictured).   Today, I went to my last home Crossfit, got a couple of episodes of Scandal loaded up on my computer to get in the mood, and said goodbye to my kitty.   I’m going to miss him! Catch you all from the other side of the country!

Let’s start from the top. I’m being a good person and going to yoga again! I went again this morning after spin (spin is necessary prior to morning yoga or else I’m insanely stiff). I can already feel myself loosening up, thank goodness! My hips were super tight, so we focused on those today. I was the only one in the class-surprise, surprise, 8am fitness classes aren’t super popular with college students. It is really nice to have the personal attention! I want to go to that class as much as possible-I think it’s really going to help my tendonitis.

I was glad I snacked on a granola bar (KIND great grains) before my workout because I was pretty hungry by the end!

For breakfast, I finished up the last of my berries with plain greek yogurt and sunflower seed butter, plus a mango and another granola bar on the side.

I only had one class today, but I had a busy afternoon! Lunch was a quick one-scrambled eggs with manchego and a sour grapefruit!

After lunch, I ran out to embark on the first of many errands. Stop 1-a party store for a tutu for Bay to Breakers on Sunday! I also got some fun socks and face paint! I’m ready! (minus the whole distance running thing. Ehh race clothing is clearly more important.)

From there, I went straight to the allergist. At my last appointment, they tested for food allergies. This time, they tested environmental allergies. The verdict? Welp, I’m allergic to basically everything. Severe to pretty much all the trees and pollen they tested for, as well as pretty severe for dogs, somewhat for cats, and super strong for dust mites. Sooo there’s that. There’s not a lot I can do about it for now, but most of the time I don’t have terrible reactions to things and it’s ok. But let’s just say they had to give me allergy medication after doing the dest because my skin was reacting so severely!

After the appointment, I raced back to school for softball practice. There wasn’t a huge turnout, but I got to play catch and shake out my arm, which was nice. We ended in time for me to rush to the earlier Crossfit for a strength day (no WOD). One of the movements we did was weighted planks-doing a plank with a weight plate on your back. I absolutely love this. I used to do them with my trainer way back then, and I loved them so much I did them on my own a lot. Well, my core strength is about half of what it once was! Hah!

I ended up missing dining because there was a special dinner thing going on that ended earlier, so I went to Whole Foods. I’m trying to be more frugal, and I walked out of Whole Foods carrying all my groceries in one hand!

Somewhere between finishing Crossfit and eating dinner, I got pretty dehydrated. I didn’t go back to my room at all in the 8 hours or so I was gone, so I ran out of water at the end of my workout. I figured it wasn’t a huge deal, but by the time I was walking around Whole Foods, I was deliriously thirsty so I grabbed everything as fast as possible! I got a green smoothie-technically. They were out of mango, so I substituted blueberries, turning my smoothie a lovely shade of brown. I seriously could not have cared less how it looked. Or how it tasted for that matter-as long as it was cold and liquid, it was the best thing in the world. I CHUGGED that smoothie!

On the side, I has cornbread and tortilla soup.

Other eats from the evening: a date with unsweetened chocolate, and some of my beloved goat Brie.

I’m still feeling sort of tired/thirsty/out of it-it’s so hard to cool down! I’ve been chugging water all evening, so hopefully I’ll perk up!

What’s your favorite cheese?

Sunday morning, I went to Crossfit. The WOD was rough-it took me 46 minutes and involved lots of push ups, pull ups, and double unders. I actually did all 100 double unders! It was hard. And I have a bruised pinkie to show for it!

Immediately after Crossfit, I headed out to Big Game-the football game against our rivals. 

It must have been my lucky day-I caught a free water bottle AND a free t-shirt!

Things started well when we scored a touchdown in the first 30 seconds or so. 

I ended up leaving at halftime-we won 63-13! It was great. I actually ran into some of my high school friends who now go to my rival school while I was biking around after the game-how crazy is that? It was great to catch up-it had been way too long!

Then, it was time for a mass packing and room cleaning. I had to take home an insane amount of stuff, especially given I’ll only be back for a week! Since finals are coming up, I had to take every single textbook. The number of shoes I brought back is embarassing as well-like 7 or 8 pairs, and I am almost positive I’ll wear them all. When you have Spin shoes, Crossfit shoes, workout shoes, running shoes, old running shoes for if it rains…etc. It adds up quickly. Getting everything to my car was an adventure to say the least. 

For my first meal home, we brought back food from a local restaurant, and I had huevos rancheros and a salad.

As well as a delicious pumpkin cookie with sticky toffee icing from my grandma.

The best part? I was reunited with this guy:

He sheds like crazy. I’m pretty much a ball of fur at this point. My dad picked up my turkey trot shirt from the expo, and it got all furry just from ME. Well worth it though. Want to know a lesser known about Aurora fact? I’m actually allergic to cats. I just put up with it because they are 100% worth it-but it’s amazing how fast allergies come back-it’s not something that ever even crosses my mind at school!

This morning I went to my home gym to go to one of my favorite spin classes. I did a bit of erging and ab work beforehand. The class was amazing. It’s so nice to have good bikes-it’s a completely different experience. I left the class feeling exhilarated. I have a new appreciation for spin classes now that I’ve been making my own!

After spin I spent way too long in Whole Foods, mostly buying granola bars and THIS. I could not resist.

Almond milk eggnog. Guys, this was seriously amazing. And so much less sugar than regular egg nog, but the flavor was still spot on. 

I also picked up lunch-an Asian chicken salad wrap and Thai carrot ginger soup for my mom and me.

Then, we did a little shopping-some Christmas decorations, some workout clothes, and some real people clothes-so basically it was great. 

This is going on my dorm door. My roommate and I may or may not be going crazy with the Christmas decorating this year. 

The mall was so festive! Santa is ALREADY doing pictures with kids. It seems ridiculous that this all is happening before Christmas, but I guess Thanksgiving is really late this year. 

For dinner, I had a teriyaki chicken bowl. I can’t remember the last time I had one of these!

We also may a trip to Starbucks for some berry coffeecake and a peppermint brownie cake pop. They’re good. Get one. They are more or less moist brownies with peppermint bark on the outside. Yum. And so pretty!

The rest of the evening has been spent planning 12 Days of Christmas. And cranberry bread is currently in the oven-we’re going to Napa tomorrow per our usual Thanksgiving tradition, so we’re baking it to take along. 

Throwback to Napa trip 4 years ago!

And here’s a question: What do I wear for a rainy race??

Yesterday morning was another early wake up call-I had the morning shift at the kitten nursery at the animal shelter. Before running out the door, I had a quick breakfast of yogurt with banana and sunflower seed butter. 

As soon as I got there, we went right to work. We had to clean out the kittens cages, weigh them, feed them, play with them, and then set up their cages again. When we took them out of the cages, we kept them in cardboard boxes, and then carried the boxes to a table and took them out there to play and eat. They were pretty mischievous- the boxes were so hard to close because little paws and heads kept popping out!To put it in perspective, most of them weighed about .5 lbs. The next pictures are the group of kittens we took care of last. Since we were basically done after them, we had them out for longer to play and socialize with them. This group was fast asleep when we took them from their cage. Anyone who has had kittens knows this is a recipe for disaster! Kittens have this instant on switch that brings them instantly from 0 to 60! These guys were rambunctious! So much so that the little stripy kittens wouldn’t even eat at first, they were so busy playing! On top of that, they kept trying to wander around. When there are 4 kittens on the table and one of me, there are going to be problems! They kept trying to climb onto the windowsill. The white and striped one was quite the adventurer- somehow he made it off the table without me even seeing him get near the edge! By the time we were all done though, all the kittens were snoozing. We then went back to the other kitten nursery where the even younger kittens are. These kittens can’t really eat on their own, so we learned to feed them with a syringe. It was pretty difficult-the kittens were pretty fussy! I ended up finally being able to get some food in by wrapping the little guy up in a kitten burrito. I managed to feed him enough-he even went for the food bowl a little himself! Soon though, he stopped opening his mouth, and a minute later, he was fast asleep! Having a tiny kitten fall asleep in your arms is the best thing ever. I can’t wait to go back!

When I got home, I wanted a snack, which turned into a snacky early lunch. 

EdamameLeftover sweet potato fried from dinner the previous night. Turkey roll ups-big leaf lettuce with deli turkey, onions, avocado, and ketchup.I also wanted to try and recreate the delicious iced tea from the previous day. I brewed Earl Grey tea with mint leaves, and then added ice, almond milk, and a touch of honey. I loved how refreshing the mint made it, so I concentrated on that aspect. Overall, it was good but nothing really like what I had had the previous day. I think it would have been better with coconut milk, or something slightly thicker than almond milk. And the Earl Grey tea flavor kind of overwhelmed the mint. But it was quite thirst quenching all the same!I then spent some time on the old blog, attempting to figure out Twitter. I sent this to my friend asking her what it meant my username was. #clueless

If you follow me on Instagram, you can see tons of cute cat pictures such as this one Before I knew it, it was Crossfit time! It was in a warehouse right next to an indoor batting cage where my high school softball team would occasionally practice. 

First, let me just say- I loved it! Everything about it-I love throwing heavy things around. I really liked the warehouse atmosphere as well-it seemed very hard core (in a good way). If you are thinking about trying Crossfit, do not be intimidated! Everyone is super nice and of different fitness levels! We began with a warm up run and stretching with the regular class, and then another new person and I broke off with a trainer to be assessed and to go through a mini WOD. The WOD we did was actually one I had done on my own before,but a shorter version. I had had to modify it when I did it at the gym at school, and it was much harder yesterday. 

10 AMRAP

100 m run

5 pull-ups (banded for me)

10 push ups (chest all the way to the ground)

15 air squats

I made it through 5+ rounds in the 10 minutes. I really, really loved the atmosphere. The workouts are very similar to what I did with my trainer at the gym in the past, and the atmosphere is more what I liked about softball conditioning with other people, except everyone actually cares about working hard! 

The only thing for me is since I know all the Olympic lifts (there are very few Crossfit moves I don’t know), I would really like to try and skip some of the Intro classes and dive right into the normal WODs. I really don’t want to have to sit through classes learning the lifts I’ve been working on for the past 3 years. Plus, watching everyone throw heavy weights around kind of had me drooling-knowing I can do the lifts at the same weight that they are make same want to join right in! I totally could have done the normal WOD! I need to try and see if I can somehow be fast tracked at least a bit. 

But I really, really loved it. I would say I’ve been bit by the Crossfit bug, but I know I’ve been obsessed for much longer! I’m going back again Saturday, and I seriously cannot wait!

Dinner was black bean soup from this Whole Foods recipe. We didn’t want to have to wait for the beans to sit, so we got canned, and probably didn’t add enough beans, because it was pretty liquidy (normally it’s pretty thick). Still delicious though! I highly recommend this recipe. HOWEVER. One major modification I made was using vegetable broth instead of water in the soup. It’s super plain without, but has a ton of flavor with!

My bowl was really weird/pathetic looking so I took a picture of my sister’s instead!Plus a side salad.After dinner, my wimpy mouth was burning! What better solution than frozen yogurt (with chocolate sauce)?What a fabulous way to end the day!

Have you ever done Crossfit? WHat did you think?

I began with a quick breakfast before hitting the gym. I decided to do some experimenting, attempting to capture that amazing buttery, cinnamon-y goodness of cinnamon raisin toast with butter, but in a healthier way. I started with my French Toast base. I mashed up a banana, and then mixed in milk, and egg and egg white, cinnamon, and vanilla. I ended up only using half of this mixture because I wanted my bake to be more bread-y. I tore up a slice of whole wheat bread, and placed that in the mixture. And the final touch? A mix of cinnamon and dextrose (this is a glucose heavy sugar, you could use regular cinnamon sugar) to fill in the cracks! After baking this in the microwave for 1.5 minutes, I topped it with a little Smart Balance. Here’s the result:

It was good, but not amazing. I didn’t really capture the buttery factor enough. Oh well. That with a smudge of peanut butter and a cutie, and I had myself a meal!

Not bad at all! 

At the gym, I went to Spin, and then made up yesterday’s missed workout. It was my favorite weights workout, plus a few embellishments. Here’s roughly what I did:

Back lunges from a platform(several inches)- sets of 3 each and decreased reps when weight got really heavy (I started at 135. last set was 175)

Single leg RDLs, 6 each leg, 4 sets. I worked up to 55 pounds. I supersetted this with 25 heel raises

A tiny (just a few minutes) of work on the erg trying to bring up my stroke rate (I have a lot of trouble simply moving fast enough)

1/2 kettle bell swing tabata (I did 2 minutes of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off)

3×1 minute weighted plank (Place plate on your back)

Plus stretching and rolling out! I’m usually really bad about stretching, and I want to try and make a better effort! This workout tends to work muscles that complement each other for maximum exhaustion, and I’m already getting a little sore! I love having go-to workouts that I know will make me sore every time. Single leg RDLs do that for me. No matter how many or what weight, I’m almost always sore from them. Just a disclaimer: I’m not a trainer, and please don’t try this workout if you haven’t worked with weights before!

My gym is right next to Whole Foods. How perfect is that?? I needed to pick up some things, so Whole Foods was my next stop. I had a short list, but natrually I had to explore the whole store!

Free smoothie sample anyone? I was just telling my friend the other day how I haven’t had any free samples in a while! Love them! At whole foods, I got some random healthy ingredients, and some dried fruit and nuts. Nothing too exciting, but always fun! Oh, plus some soups for this week! And after the grocery, guess what time it was?

Ohhh yeah. Not that that cake was mine….but wooo!

I had a great big salad while watching the game!

Rotisserie chicken, apple, walnut, dried cranberries, and of course, avocado! All tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. And on the side? Only the best bread ever!

Cranberry walnut! Plus it’s whole wheat! This is one of my favorite breads! I really wanted to try my hand at baking some myself over the summer, but I never got around too it. Seriously, this stuff is so good! Can’t stop at one piece!

At halftime, it was time for me to get to work. I’ve talked about how great it was to have protein bars in the freezer last week, so this week, I decided to make something as well.

5 Minute Peanut Butter Granola Bars! Recipe courtesy of Anne from fANNEtastic food. The recipe called for Chia seeds, and I knew I’d never be able to use up a whole bag before they went bad. But look what Whole Foods had?

How perfect is that? 3 shots was just about right! To this recipe, I added raisins and skipped the ground flax, because I didn’t want to open a whole new bag (which I ended up opening anyway….) Aaaand the final result?

I ended up deciding to roll these into balls because I liked being able to have a bite sized piece, so that became this:

Perfect! I like how these granola bars aren’t too sweet. What first attracted me to the recipe was that they had brown rice syrup. 

After my granola bars, I did a little experimenting. We had some leftover hazelnuts from a recipe over Christmas, so I tried my hand at hazelnut butter.

Add a few more whirs, salt, dark cocoa powder, and a few squirts of honey…

Not bad! It was a little dry. It probably could have used more blending but it was kind of difficult in my food processor so I left it. I ate a bit of this on bananas. Again for today, good but not great.

After the Niner’s game (!) I pitched for the first time since my last softball tournament 6 months ago. I’m considering trying to play this summer, and I suddenly had an itch to get back at it a little. It went surprisingly well! I was way less rusty than I was expecting! It was nice to be back out there.

Today was certainly the day of making interesting food. I whipped up another recipe from fANNEtatic food, Blueberry Apple Cinnamon Yogurt Bread.

Helper? Not so much….

While the bread baked up (the batter was certainly delicious, and no eggs so no reason not to lick the bowl!), it was dinnertime.

This is my all time favorite dinner. All recipe courtesy of Cooking Light. Cheese Souffles, Thyme Mushrooms, and an herbs and greens salad. The salad always tastes so fresh; half of it is whatever fresh herbs you have on hand or buy! 

Such a great dinner. And the bread was finished just in time for dessert.

Unfortunately, I took it out a little too soon so the middle wasn’t totally done. Instead of put it in longer, I decided it was fine, since I was planning on freezing most of it for later anyway, and when I freeze it, I always microwave it. Still delicious!

Ignore the sloppy spot in the middle…

After all that great food and a few episodes of Castle, I packed up and headed back. Ok, while I absolutely love my cats, I am allergic to them. That’s right. This future crazy cat lady is allergic to cats. I’m not sure what causes my allergies to flare up; the entire time I was home for break it was fine, but today, my allergies are going crazy! I guess that’s a sign it was time to come back! Although I’m sure I have a cat’s worth of fur on my person and on all my clothes…I found cat fur all over a shirt I was wearing the other day. The mystery? I had received the shirt that morning! How does Charlie do it? (Because it always seems to be his fur…)

I have a lot of work to get done tomorrow. I also have team weights, and I’ll probably hit up a Spin class later as well. Plus, I have a new book that I’m absolutely dying to read.

After a yearlong Biology project last year, I discovered a passion for the science of sugar, its metabolism, and its effects on the body. Dr. Lustig has a popular Youtube video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth. After stumbling across this video, I was hooked. I’ve watched it 3 or 4 times, and read several other books. Plus, I downloaded all the Podcasts and interviews I could find with Dr. Lustig, and listened to them while I ran (I know, nerdy, right?). I am beyond exciting. I totally forgot that the book was coming out this soon (January 2013 seemed so far away!), so I am beyond excited for this. I’m a little rusty on sugar metabolism right now, which is why I haven’t posted about it. But this seriously could not have come at a better time, during my 30 day no sugar challenge. After all, it’s a little hard to stomach all this with a belly full of cake. On my challenge, I’m not cutting out all added sugars, just sweets. In honor of the book release, and all the attention surrounding it, I am considering doing and blogging about a few days of absolutely zero added sugars to raise awareness of the sugar lurking in so many foods. I’ve done this for a few days before, and believe me, it is difficult to find foods. Especially bread. Trader Joe’s is one of the only places I’ve been able to find bread without added sugars. And this would be even more difficult at a dining hall, because ingredients aren’t listed on everything. So who would want to try this with me to raise awareness to the something so many food processors pour into our foods? We should be able to have more control over what we eat!

What do you think of a zero sugar day to raise sugar awareness?