Broad Street Run 10-miler

I said I’d have a Broad Street Run recap, but now it’s 3 weeks later and I’m going to be honest and say I’ve forgotten some of it. Whoops! Let’s just say I had a great time and it was quite an experience. It was the longest I had ever run, I was running in downtown Philly (I had only been to Philly once when I was 10 years old), and the race had more than 26,000 runners. One word: awesome. And I really have to thank my college friend from Bucknell who let me stay at her house that weekend and took me around Philly the day before the race. She REALLY made the race day stress-free for me in terms of transportation, baggage check, etc.

Day before the race, exploring Philly:

Race expo, which was not impressive!

City Hall. I ran down this street and right past it during the race. How cool is that?

Chinatown!

Awesome indoor market. It was HUGE and had everything you could ever think of, EXCEPT frozen yogurt!

So we went to Phileo Yogurt on South Street to satisfy my craving! I only have it a couple of times a year, so when I get it, it makes me very happy.

I loaded up with all of the froyo flavors that sounded good: NY Cheesecake, Red Velvet, Cookies and Cream, and Peanut Butter! Topped with mochi, strawberries, bloobs, kiwi, and a little bit of cookie dough. Quite expensive, but devoured within 5 minutes while walking. YUM.

Oh, and the official pictures from the race sucked, as they were huge group shots at the finish line, so here are the pictures my friend took on race day:

Waiting for the train into Philly at 6am.

My totally awesome friend Meghana! Too bad we’re a bit blurry.

My corral!

Lots and lots of people!

In all of my post-race glory. Satisfied. Killed the 10-miler. Hells yeah.

Oh My Gahhh-min

I’ve had my Polar F6 HRM for a year now, and I’ve always had to use various online route mapping tools to figure out the distance of my runs. And if I’m trying to hit a certain mileage on a run, I have to map it out beforehand and remember the route. Not anymore!!

I got a Garmin Forerunner 305 as a graduation present to myself. Yes I did. And his name is Chuck, named after Chuck Bass and Chuck Bartowski.

I love love love Chuck!! And I really like that I can get the stats on my computer through an actual USB connection because my Polar F6 does it by some sort of weird sound link (no physical connection to the computer) and it DOESN’T WORK. So frustrating. I also love that I can see my pace in real-time. Such a fun little toy.

Graduation

Oh yes, and I GRADUATED!

I hate that the gown is kind of like a garbage bag and makes me look so short. But hey, I now have a Master’s in Communication and Information Studies, so I’m not complaining haha.

Vacaaaation!!

Not gonna lie. Ever since I submitted my last paper on May 6, I’ve been doing very little. I did help my mom A LOT on her garden for multiple hours over multiple days, and I vacuumed the whole house one day, but other than that, I’ve been sitting on my ass. =X

I spent many hours and days on the computer researching our annual family vacation. We decided on Miami for 2 days and then a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas in June, and I’m super excited for it! The last time we were on a cruise was in 1999 in Hawaii, and although I was going through my ‘angry years’ and pouted in all the pictures, I think I still had fun haha.

[source]

I’m looking forward to clear blue water! The Atlantic Ocean is pretty darn yucky compared to that! I can’t wait to go kayaking in it.

Workouts

I was in an exercise funk for the past few weeks, and I honestly didn’t visit the gym very often. I just wasn’t feeling it. Gardening was really exhausting on the days that had good weather and we worked on the land, and I did lots of BodyRock.tv workouts. I LOVE those workouts because they are short and sweet and totally kill you. I can feel myself getting stronger already, even though I only use my bodyweight! I updated my exercise page, so go check it out and try the workouts!

Now that I have a vacation planned to Miami and the Bahamas, I need to get my butt bikini-ready! Thank goodness The Fitnessista started her Summer Shape Up 2010 today just in time! I think this is just what I need to get out of my exercise funk! I love having new routines and a whole training plan, so this should do it for me. I did the lower body strength training and cardio workout today instead of the prescribed upper body routine because… well… you’ll see…

Emergency

I couldn’t do the upper body workout today because I couldn’t grip the weights very tightly. Why? Well take a look at what happened on Saturday:

Here’s the long story:

While doing yardwork, my dad and I came across a H-U-G-E boulder underground that we needed to remove. After digging and digging and digging, I went to grab the rock to try to pull it out, but my dad didn’t realize it and pushed the rock with the shovel towards my thumb. And unfortunately, my thumb was crushed between the rock and the cement. Thank goodness I had a glove on, but it still did a lot of damage.

I screamed and cried like I have never cried before. Luckily my dad doesn’t panic in these kinds of situations, immediately grabbed my finger to stop the bleeding, and guided me inside to clean off the wound. I was sobbing and sobbing and when he ran water over it, I screamed some more. I felt my body tingling from my hyperventilating and I was afraid I was going to pass out. My dad put Neosporin on the wound and wrapped 2 band-aids tightly over it to stop the bleeding. I eventually stopped crying and just succumbed to the intense throbbing. I wrapped my thumb up in an icepack and my mom took me to a local clinic to take x-rays and make sure nothing was broken.

Gosh. Clinics are so SLOW. First they put me in a room and I waited 30 minutes for the Radiologist to come and take my x-rays. He unwrapped the band-aids and blood started coming out again. It was actually dripping while he was taking the x-rays. Gross.

Then I went back to the examining room and waited 30 minutes for a nurse to come in and take my BP and temperature. I was pleased to learn that my resting HR was 55 bpm. When I was at my unhealthiest in 2005, it was about 70 bpm. By this time, I was really really hungry and had to pee really badly. But my would was still open and I only had a paper towel to control the bleeding. I couldn’t go to the bathroom and pee, and I had no food on me.

Another 30 minutes pass and the doctor comes in to look at my finger. He tells me the x-rays showed nothing was broken, and I didn’t need stitches. Good news! However, I would need a tetanus shot. No big, right? He says the nurse will be right in.

20 minutes later, the nurse comes in with the shot and injects it into my left arm (right thumb is crushed) so “both sides will be even”. Thanks, nurse. As soon as he injected the shot, he left. Not 10 seconds later, I felt myself losing consciousness and then I went into some sort of dream state. It felt like a pretty long time, and I had no idea what was going on, so I was really confused when the next thing I heard was “Doctor, doctor! She fainted!” It was my mom. Thank GOODNESS my mom came with me into the examining room.

Apparently I had passed out for 30 seconds from the shot. The nurse comes back in and props my feet up so the blood flows the other way. He keeps saying that it’s normal for people to faint from being nervous about shots, but I was not nervous at all. In fact, I was surprised how calm I was about it, and how painless it all was. I suspect it was probably the lack of food in me, but hey, it’s not my fault that I had been at the clinic for 2 hours by then!

The nurse then dressed my wound and put that huge cloth on top of it. I finally got to go home after that. I got up and felt something wet in my shorts. Odd. Also, I didn’t have the intense urge to pee anymore. Whoops. Apparently when I passed out, I also wet my pants. Who knew?

Oh gosh was my arm sore from the tetanus shot. Felt like someone punched me there! I could barely lift my arm, and I still can’t! Two days later (today), I had a follow-up to check for an infection, and I was nervous to see what my thumb looked like, after not seeing it for almost 48 hours.

Sorry. I hope that didn’t gross you out. It’s really not as bad as it looks. But now I just have to wait for it to heal and it’ll be all good. I’m glad to have that big cotton thumb off and I can just use band-aids and Neosporin now. I have full use of my thumb again! I didn’t realize how useful my thumb was until I couldn’t use it this weekend haha.

This was my first real emergency so I had no idea what to expect or how bad my finger would be. Thank goodness nothing was broken and it all turned out well. Whew. Ok. That was LONG.

Here’s the short version: My thumb got crushed on Saturday, I sobbed and sobbed like a hyperventilating baby, my mom rushed me to the clinic, I waited a long time for different people to see me, got x-rays, nothing broken, got a tetanus shot, promptly passed out, wet my pants, got my thumb wrapped up, went back for a follow-up and everything’s all good.

Well, that’s just some of the things that I’ve been up to these past few weeks, but this is a monster post already so I’ll stop. I’ve been reading posts, but not posting my own, and only occasionally commenting. I’ll try to comment more often, though. I love you all! I hope you still come around and read my blog too, even though I seem to be super sporadic in posting. Sorry!

I hope your weeks have gotten off to a good start, and didn’t start like mine did with sitting in a clinic for hours!

Also… I completed the Broad Street Run 10-Miler in Philadelphia this past Sunday in 1:34:31!! The longest I had ever run before that was 8 miles, so this was both a PR and a PDR hehe. I loved that the race was so HUGE (26,000+ runners) and riding the subway with all of those runners to the starting line gave me a feeling of camaraderie, as odd as that may sound. Even though it was SUPER hot (90*), the crowds were great and very supportive, and the fire hydrants were opened up into sprinklers (LOVED running through them!!). I’ll have a full recap later when official pictures are posted, so stay tuned for that.

Anyway, let’s get to the product reviews! These reviews have been a LONG time coming, but now that I have a bit more time to post about them, here they are!

[disclaimer: I was sent all of these products for free to review]

NUNATURALS

Ron from NuNaturals was too kind and sent me a whole bunch of stevia products since I wasn’t too satisfied with my experience with PureVia.

Pure Liquid Alcohol Free Stevia

Oh gosh, I use the liquid stevia in EVERYTHING!! I lovelovelove it. It’s probably my favorite product that they sent me. I put it in my oatmeal, tea, greek yogurt chocolate pudding, everything else! It’s so convenient to use and mixes right into cold or hot foods, whereas a powder would really only work in hot foods. I also love that it comes in a dropper bottle, which reminds me of my chemistry classes. Definitely a 10/10.

NuStevia White Stevia packets

I used these mostly in my coffee at work because I didn’t want to bring my bottle of liquid stevia with me. Super convenient and I thought it tasted great. I also put some in my dad’s coffee a few times on the weekends, and while he didn’t mind, my mom took a few sips and tasted bitterness. I secretly put sugar in the coffee one morning to test whether it was because she knew there was stevia in it, but she tasted it and immediately said “you put regular sugar in it this time, didn’t you?” I don’t taste any odd flavors in it, but because my mom did, it gets an 8/10.

NuStevia Quick Dissolve Tabs

I used this in my hot tea, but I don’t know how the powder and tablets have different uses. Also, one tablet is a bit too much sweetener for a 16 oz mug of tea, but you can break them up yourself. Overall, it was convenient, but again, not as convenient as the packets which I can take to work with me. 8/10

NuStevia Sweetener Stevia Baking Blend

[source]

This was the last product that I tried. I just didn’t have any time during the semester to sit down and bake something, but once I handed in my thesis paper and gave my presentation, I only had one small paper to finish and a bit more free time on my hands.

I searched my Google Reader for a fun recipe to try, and found Mama Pea’s Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins. They were so simple to make, and I just needed to go buy a zucchini! I used half granulated sugar and half NuStevia Baking Blend for the whole amount of sugar, as Mama Pea did as well, but I only used half of the amount of chocolate chips (and it was still VERY chocolatey).

And oh gosh were they delicious!! My whole family loved them and the zucchini really made them moist! They were veryyy sweet, but I couldn’t tell the difference between the stevia and white sugar, so I would probably just omit the white sugar next time and use the stevia, but also bring down the total amount of sugar.

This was a great substitute for sugar in baking! Couldn’t taste the difference, but was still quite sweet! 10/10

Thank you SO much for sending me these products, Ron!! I will definitely be purchasing the liquid stevia after mine runs out!

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KARDEA NUTRITION

The nice people at Kardea Nutrition  also kindly sent me a sample box of their bar flavors:

From their website:

These bars have 50% Recommended Cholesterol-lowering Plant Sterols; 30% Recommended Heart Healthy Soluble Fiber + Low in Saturated Fat + Low in Salt + Vegetarian Protein.

The bars are good for managing your cholesterol, but I don’t have any cholesterol problems (in fact, my doctor was amazed as my cholesterol numbers), so these turned into straight pre-workout bars for me.

Cranberry Almond

Cranberry Almond was a very tasty bar that actually had REAL cranberry pieces in it! I absolutely loved finding those pieces! It was sooooo good! 9/10

Banana Nut

Banana Nut was probably my favorite flavor of the bunch. Tasted like BANANA BREAD! I closed my eyes while eating it and actually fooled myself into thinking it was real banana bread for a few moments. 9/10

Chai Spice

Oddly, Chai Spice was the least flavorful, and probably my least favorite because of that. It had a very subtle flavor, but would probably have been good with a fruit flavor in it as well. Tasted kind of like a chai tea I guess? 7/10

Lemon Ginger

The Lemon Ginger was great and had a great balance between the lemon and ginger flavors. One was not overpowering the other, and I was appreciative of that. For those who are not used to ginger outside of traditional cooking, this might be a little weird, but I even eat ginger candy, so this was a very pleasant bar for me. However, I’m more of an apple/banana/strawberry/cranberry/blueberry/etc-flavored bar person, so this was not as impressive as the first two flavors I tried. 8/10

Overall, the Kardea nutrition bars were great pre-workout fuel and I would probably purchase the Cranberry Almond and Banana Nut flavors if I were in need of bars.

Thanks Kardea Nutrition for sending me your products!

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Alright, it’s time for me to get off to work now, but it feels SO good to be done with school!! Be back later for my Broad Street Run recap as soon as I have pictures!

Bye!!! and TGIF!

How is everyone??? I’m still hangin in there! I’ve taken a few days to decompress at night, so last night I watched Food Inc. with my parents (lovelovelove it, and my mom wants to go local now! Woohoo!), and I watched The Biggest Loser on Tuesday night. That was a very inspirational episode for me, personally. The temptation and their willpower not to eat all the crap in front of them was EXACTLY what I needed to see after I’ve been struggling with the same thing lately. It was wonderful and totally gave me the kick in the butt that I needed.

11 days until my thesis paper and presentation are due, so it’s cruuuunch timeeee! That also means 10 days until my 10-mile race! I got an 8-mile training run in last week, which is a PDR, and I surprisingly ran it faster than I ran my previous long run of 7 miles. I felt awesome afterwards and not one bit sore the next day. Howeverrrr… I suffer from allergies and it totally did a number on me. My nose was out of control later that day and my eyes were horrid:

I’m not sure if you can see, but they were so red and itchy and painful. But nothing a little Visine-A couldn’t help!

I wanted to do 9 miles this past weekend, but the weather just plain sucked. And with the potential aftermath of allergies, I don’t think I’ll be making that run up this weekend either. I’m already suffering a bit from walking to and from my car each day! Oh, and my Exercise page is all up to date now!

Alright… let’s see what else I’ve got for you! It’s been a while, guys!

I went to the UNITE Half Marathon expo at my university but it was a big disappointment. I’m not running the race, but I wanted to see what they had at the expo, and I was already on campus, so why not? A running store had brought in bags and bags of ‘once worn’ shoes from all over the country, as their policy is that if you’re not satisfied with your purchase from them, you can return it within 60 days. That’s a lot of days. So all of these shoes were purchased and returned, and there were some that were in pretty bad shape (muddy, sole is worn down already, etc.), but some were pretty darn like-new. And only $50! For shoes that cost between $100 and $150, that’s a steal. Think Mizuno, Brooks, Asics, Nike, and the like. They weren’t sorted by size or gender, so I spent 45 minutes rummaging through all of the bags and boxes to find all womens shoes that were my size. I tried them all on and really liked a few, but apparently they weren’t the right type of shoe for my feet. Gahh that was really frustrating after spending all of that time looking. I probably tried on every womens size 7 sneakers they brought. Oh well…

Looks new, right??? These were probably worn maybe only once or twice!

My internship celebrated National Student Workers Week by throwing me and 4 other student interns a little luncheon with subs, cookies, and cake, and they gave us each a cute bag of goodies!

Beach towel, water bottle, luggage tag, and Dunkin Donuts gift card! How sweet of them!

I don’t have time to go shopping anymore, but I decided to join my parents in an impromptu trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to look for this breadmaker. Too bad none of the Bed Bath and Beyonds near us have it in stock!! However, I did find these:

A bamboo chopping board – LOVE IT!!

Clif C bars (mini bars) that were discounted because their expiration date is coming up. These are great for a pre-workout mini snack, but they are definitely small in size. Very cute though, if you’ve ever seen the individual packages.

And what have I been enjoying on the food front, you ask??

I’ve been totally loving my baked beans:

In a Flatout wrap with eggbeaters – perhaps a bit unconventional, but so warm and soft!

And on top of huge freakin salads, of course:

Salad base, mushrooms, cuke, carrots, stir fried snap peas + more carrots, Morningstar Grillers Vegan, baked beans, brussel sprouts, and bbq sauce! Whew!

I love a smoothie in a cup…

AND a smoothie in a bowl!

With Kashi 7 Grain Puffs on top – totally key for the bowl smoothies, love the crunch!  

Here are the ingredients in most of my smoothies:

Almond milk, frozen banana, frozen strawberries (when I have them), AmazingGrass green superfood, ice, and organic baby spinach.

I finally used my coupon that I won from Julie’s giveaway a while ago to purchase the Asia flavor of Crofter’s Superfruit Spread:

I wanted Europe, but the store didn’t have that flavor.

I’ve been eating it on bread and in PB&J sammies – it’s really, really good, but I wish it were chunkier, as in more chunks of fruit.

And… Dark Chocolate Dreams PB!! My bro wanted it, so it ended up in the house… 

Tastes JUST like a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Amazing.

I’ve been putting it in my morning CHOCOLATE oats to add an extra chocolate kick to it hehe.

And I’ve also been loving greek yogurt in my oats too! I don’t know why I didn’t put it in there before!! I was always wary of mixing something hot and creamy with the cold yogurt, but it TOTALLY goes.

Dessert!

Here’s the chocolate pudding I had one night…

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt, 1-2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and a few drops of NuNaturals liquid stevia = amazing. Even better than real chocolate pudding, perhaps!

And on top of a deep chocolate vitatop with frozen strawberries:

Gosh this was heavenly.

I also got a package this past weekend!

I won Flatout’s first twitter contest and they sent me all of the flavors of their new edgeOn flatbread crisps!

They are ridiculously good and addictive. And they have such a cute shape!

Thanks Flatout! (and Jenn!) 

And finally… last night I made KALE CHIPS. I have never had kale before, and I’ve been wanting to try the infamous kale chips, but I was honestly scared! I sucked it up and bought a small bundle yesterday after work and immediately made it when I got home. I first saw it on Kath’s blog and roughly followed her directions.

The scary kale!

Just the green leaves dried in the salad spinner:

Torn into bite size pieces, massaged with 2 tsp olive oil and a little salt, and lined on two trays:

Baked at 350* for 10 minutes:

Some were burnt because my mom was roasting a chicken in the large oven, and I had to use a small convection oven that doesn’t heat evenly. I was really impressed with the taste, though! It’s definitely different from what I’m used to, and I can’t really say what it tasted like, but I liked it. And I ate it all. I ate a whole head of kale. Yep!

Alright friends, that’s all I have for you now. Gotta get back to the grind! It’s gonna be a loooong two weeks because I have to finish my thesis BEFORE my race, as it literally sucks up the whole weekend before it’s due! Check it out:

• Race expo May 1 – stay overnight
• 10-mile race May 2
• Thesis presentation and paper due May 3
• Consumer Behavior final exam due May 6

YIKES! *no stress, no stress* *breathe* yep… and then I’m DONE with school and my degree!!!! But… I’ll be full-time jobless. I’ll have 1.5 part-time jobs (yes, 1.5 haha), but I want a ‘real’ job now. It’s time. Gotta grow up some time!

Keep an eye out for a Kardea nutrition bar review, as well as a full NuNaturals stevia review – they’re coming, I promise! See ya lata! I hope you all have a great week!!!

Giveaways:

Janetha’s blog’s first birthday giveaway!

Green Giant giveaway at Lucky Taste Buds!

Bobbi is holding an Aurorae mat giveaway!

Update on Life:

Let’s see… I did the usual work, school, schoolwork, and commuting this week… nothing special, really. Just a lot of time suck, especially in the car.

I’m not sure what happened here, but I went straight to the library after work on Wednesday (skipping a workout) for 5 hours and worked on my thesis. I was understandably feeling a bit worn out mentally after that, and left the library at 9pm. When I woke up the next morning, I felt like DEATH. Why?? This happened to me about a month ago and I was miserable, but I was really pushing myself hard then. Well, add to this some major allergies, and I was not a happy camper on Thursday.

Update on Exercise:

Unfortunately, I only managed a few mini workouts this week. I’m starting to realize the order of things in my life. When things get busy, blogging is the first to go, then exercise (my exercise page is now updated).

Post-run on Tuesday.

Even though I was feeling horrible on Thursday, I still made the decision (perhaps stupidly) to get in a workout. In my head, I couldn’t not workout for multiple days in row, after skipping Wednesday to study. I was supposed to do HIIT and strength training, but decided on a less intense workout. I tried the 500 rep workout from BodyRock.tv, which I first saw on Jessica’s blog. It took me 30 minutes exactly and boy oh boy am I SO SORE from it! 100 of those 500 reps were straight push ups and my back and shoulders are feelin it!! But it feels so good afterwards, even if I was cursing during the workout.

Even though I loved the workout, I was so mentally and physically exhausted with a horrible case of allergies that I even had to leave class early that night. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I was so uncomfortable in the classroom. It was hot, my nose was going crazy, my head was dizzy, and I couldn’t pay attention, so I just left during break at the halfway point. I got home, ate dinner, and promptly slept soundly for 8 solid hours.

Oh yeah, and that 10-mile race coming up in 3 weeks? Yikes. My PDR so far is 7 miles and I plan to do 8 miles sometime this weekend or the next, depending on soreness (I’m still sore!), weather, and time constraints, but 10 seems much farther than 8. Perhaps the farthest I will run before the race will be 8 or 9 miles… but probably not 10. Wish me luck…

Update on Bingeing:

Unfortunately, I’ve been having trouble with bingeing at night again (this, mixed with minimal workouts = no bueno!). I’ve stopped buying my trigger foods (cereal, granola, chips, crackers) in an attempt to curb this behavior, so hopefully out of sight, out of mind works for me. It’s working so far (day 2), but I can only hope it lasts.

Update on my Bowl:

Bad news… I accidentally knocked my special oatmeal bowl off of the counter on Tuesday morning as I was making breakfast. RIP bowl.

Update on Dinners:

This was a super tasty dinner last night!

Brown rice, watercress, tilapia, and egg+shrimp. All made by my mom, and all yummy!

Brussels were brought back for Thursday’s dinner:

Salad bowl topped with carrots, cuke, mushroom, tomatoes, brussels, Gardein Tuscan chick’n, black beans, and hummussssss. Totally awesome.

Update on Snacks:

Fage, pumpkin, 1/2 Kashi Honey Almond Flax bar. I’m starting to like bars better crumbled over yogurt than eaten on their own!

Update on Bread?:

Guess what I found on sale at my local grocery store! Rudi’s Organic whole wheat bread! For $2!! What a steal! I had seen it on a few blogs before but had never tried it, so this was my chance. I had a slice on its own and it was light, yet so tasty! I don’t like super dense bread because it sits like a rock in my stomach. So go find this bread if you can because it’s awesome!

Update on NuNaturals:

So… I have some NuNaturals reviews for you! I was sent a bunch of their products and I’m slowly trying them in different things.

1. Stevia packets

I added two of these to my cup of coffee instead of PureVia or Splenda, and I was so glad there was no aftertaste or bitterness, and I think I could even drop it down to one packet since stevia is so much sweeter than sugar!

2. NuNaturals NuStevia Quick Dissolve Tabs

I used 2 of these tablets in my Honey Vanilla Chamomile tea last night when I was stuffed up with allergies and trying to feel better. I also added a splash of almond milk, and this was possibly the yummiest tea I’ve had in a while! It did help calm me down, too. I’m not sure what the difference is between the powder stevia packets and the stevia tablets are, but both get my approval!

3. NuNaturals Liquid Vanilla Stevia drops

[this photo is from the NuNaturals website because my camera ate my photo… sorry!]

Last night’s dessert was chocolate avocado pudding from Evan at FoodMakesFunFuel, except I only used 1 Tbsp of cocoa powder instead of 2. I decided this would be the perfect time to try the vanilla stevia drops, and I had a ripe avocado that was begging to be used.

Here’s what I mixed together:

• 3 oz avocado
• 1T unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3T almond milk
• 20 drops of NuNaturals Vanilla Stevia drops

Mash and mix it all up, and voila!! SO amazingly delicious and chocolatey!

I made it before dinner, (taste tested it of course, hehe), and popped it in the fridge to chill, and ate it during Food Revolution. I love Jamie Oliver. Go sign his petition!

The NuNaturals liquid vanilla stevia drops made this dish very, VERY yummy! I love that the vanilla is in it already, so I don’t have to add vanilla extract. This is probably my favorite NuNaturals product so far! Next up to try from NuNaturals is the stevia baking blend – perhaps sometime this weekend if I have time?? So far I’ve been very impressed with their stevia products!

I was also sent some Kardea Nutrition bars to review, so after I try those I will let you know what I think!

And that’s all I have for you today! Have a great rest of your weekend! I’ve got to finish up this paper for class that I’m writing, as well as hunker down for some more thesis reading and writing. Aiyooo it never ends!!

Now I need life updates from all of YOU! What have you been up to, or what are your upcoming plans? I can probably live vicariously through you haha.

And here are a ton of giveaways for you to enter!

LuckyTasteBuds – outsmarting temptation giveaway

JocelynEatsFresh – crock pot giveaway

AnAppleADay – YogaDownload giveaway

AnAppleADay – Peet’s coffee giveaway

AnAppleADay – VITATOPS!

I worked on my thesis ALL day yesterday for 12+ hours and had no exercise whatsoever. I sat on my butt for a loooong time but got a lot of work done! And after pestering my adviser for some answers, he finally wrote back and I could move forward with my work! Yay! I also have to give major thanks to my family for making an effort to stay quiet and not turn on the TV so I could work at home. It was much appreciated!

I did some more work today for a few hours, but decided to go out and run some errands with my dad since I hadn’t left the house for 48 hours. o.O I’m happy with the amount of progress I made this weekend, so I’m taking a break to update you all now.

Ok, let’s roll with the updates list-style today, shall we?

1. I don’t always have big salads for dinner. In fact, I don’t always have veggies for dinner. Enter a tasty dinner:

1 pineapple chobani, Kashi Autumn Harvest cereal, Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal, and frozen bloobs. TOTALLY awesome and dinner tasted like a treat.

2. Sometimes I did have big salads for dinner and this one was phenom in particular:

romaine, spinach, cuke mushroom, carrots, tomato, LENTILS!, baby broccoli, fresh roasted chicken breast, and a dollop of roasted red pepper hummus. Oh gosh… I love it!

3. I had a spectacular dessert one night too:

Chocolate OIKOS topped with Naturally More pb. Chocolate + yogurt + pb = amazing. Try it. Now.

4. I was so stoked to come home from work on Friday with two packages waiting for me!!

Stevia samples that Ron from NuNaturals was kind enough to send me for review:

I can’t wait to try these in so many recipes (there’s stevia drops, capsules, powder packets, and baking blend), and they even sent me a whole packet of recipes that incorporate their products, some of which were developed by bloggies! Than you Ron! Look out for my reviews of these products as I use them!

And Amazing Grass Green SuperFood chocolate powder and bars that I won in Lara’s giveaway:

I actually only won the chocolate superfood, but Amazing Grass was awesome enough to throw in a few bars as well! I used to have a jar of chocolate superfood, and I loved mixing it into smoothies, but I have never tried the bars! I’ve heard good things about them, though. Thanks Amazing Grass and Lara!

These totally made my Friday after a long week that much better!

5. I immediately tore into the Amazing Grass Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bar:

I love that it was covered in chocolate, tasted like yummy peanut butter and most of all… was GREEN! LOVE IT! haha! I can’t wait to break into the other flavors, but I think this one will be my favorite already.

6. My first try with NuNaturals stevia was in my morning oats:

I put a stevia packet in with my unsweetened cocoa powder to make chocolate oats and it was great! I think a big test for the stevia packets will be on Tuesday when I have my morning coffee at work.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

7. As expected, I used my Amazing Grass chocolate superfood in my next Green Monster:

You can definitely tell that there’s grass in it, but I actually love tasting the grittiness of it and knowing that it’s super healthy for me.

8. Since the weather got ridiculously nice, I have been trying to get outside as often as I can (which isn’t very often when I have to be tethered to my computer to do thesis work!). I actually did my Tabata intervals in my backyard on Friday!

I loved it, but the only downside is that the ground is lumpy and it throws off my balance sometimes when I’m doing jump moves. For this Tabata, I did a version loosely based on this workout at BodyRock.tv, but replaced jumprope and jumping lunges with other exercises. I’ve updated all of my workouts on my Exercise page!

9. Pre-workout one day was a Raspberry Chobani with 1/2 of a crumbled Berry SOYJOY bar from *ahem* early 2009. haha. oops.  I had put off eating this bar because it was like an overbaked cookie-thing, but crumbled over a Chobani, it was perfect.

10. I made Angela’s version of Chickpeas and Spinach for dinner last night:

As she promised, it was on the table in 15 minutes, but I put too many spices in it… both the cumin and red pepper flakes were overkill and my mouth was on fiyahhh! I did like the addition of the toasted sandwich thin!

11. For lunch today, I made Kath’s black bean burgers. Seriously amazing. I have made them once before, but I had forgotten how quick and easy they were to make! Just mash some black beans with flour and a dash of water, form into patties, grill for a few minutes on each side, and EAT!

I loved it. And I’m so glad I have the other “patty” in the fridge so I can experience the tastiness again.

Alright, it’s time to get ready for the week… usual Sunday night activities. I am almost a certified brain trainer at my job #2 – I took the written exam last Wednesday and I have my practical this Friday. So I’ve got lots of practicing to do! And I have my thesis class tomorrow night, including a presentation of the progress I’ve made so far. Ah yes, and two papers for my Consumer Behavior class due soon. And my other jobs everyday. Aaaaand of course my ongoing pain in my butt aka my thesis. Oh and a 10 mile race to train for in less than a month. haha this is getting out of hand.

April will be the busiest month of my liiiiife! WoooooO! It’ll be weird for it to be GOGOGO for a month and then pretty much entirely stop after May 3. My thesis will be done, my class will be done, and I will have run my 10 mile race. And I might even be done with one of my jobs then too. Wow. I can’t wait. hahaha…

Goodnight bloggie friends! Keep rockin’ on, and I’ll see you when I get another break!

***EDITED to add a couple of awesome giveaways I forgot to link to! Oops!***

P.S. 2 giveaways at An Apple A Day:

ICUeyewear sunglasses!

Gluten Free CheeCha potato puffs!

Coco is having a Namaste Foods giveaway!

Katie is having a raw chocolate giveaway!

Thanks for your suggestions on my last post about overeating. I’m working on it and yesterday was a successful day in terms of eating intuitively and not binging. However, my head hasn’t been in the right place recently, and I am entirely overwhelmed with how much I have to get done for my thesis and my class, in addition to working my 3 jobs. This is also the reason why I initially dropped down from daily posts to every other day posts once the semester started. Right now I feel like it will take every spare moment of my life to finish all of my work that I am responsible for (don’t worry, I make sure to take small mental breaks as well).

So something has to go.

Thus, I feel I have to say that I will be posting whenever I can, and probably only when I have something interesting or tasty to share, or a product review, not simply my daily meals and workouts anymore. I hope you all understand, and I really appreciate you reading what I write. I love all the support you give me, whether it be on my thesis or overcoming binging – you’re all wonderful! And I still think it’s amazing that I have “readers” out there. You guys rock.

So here are the highlights from the past few days when I went MIA on you guys:

On Saturday I spent 7 hours in the library doing work on my thesis [HELL] and packed a bunch of snacks to eat:

• clementine
• apple
• Banana Bread Larabar [so good!]
• salad
• cashews, craisins, Kashi H2H
• sliced veggies
• hummus for dipping

And then I added a cheese stick after the fact:

This was taken in the library, and eaten in front of the “no eating or drinking” sign. I had to duck my head into the cubicle and unwrap the cheese veeeeery slowly and quietly and then shove it into my mouth before someone saw me. 

Dinner was a highlight because I normally don’t have waffles for dinner!

Van’s waffles topped with jam and Fage, with turkey breast and baby bok choy on the side.

mmmm I love waffles.

Sunday’s pre-workout snack was also a bit different than normal:

There was about 1/3c of cottage cheese left in the container, so I just added a chopped up apple and jam (hiding under the apples). It was reaaaally good.

Sunday’s workout: HIIT and strength training. The usual suspects. And totally awesome.

Sunday night’s dessert was rocking:

I finally got around to trying the new Chocolate Oikos and it is aaaaamazing. I don’t know what the caramel flavor tastes like, but I think I made the right choice.

I had a meeting with my thesis adviser yesterday (Monday) afternoon and it’s really hard to get a clear answer out of him, so it was very frustrating when I had so many questions. I ask him a question and he goes off on a tangent for 10 minutes, never really providing any sort of answer. And we only had 30 minutes to meet! So needless to say, that just added to my stress level.

Welcome back into my life, pumpkin:

My staple pre-workout snack of 2009 and early 2010. This was from yesterday after my meeting. Plain greek yogurt, pumpkin, and Kashi H2H. Never fails me.

Monday’s workout: 18 minutes of tabata. Holy hell, I love tabata. I’ve done it a couple of times in the past on my own, but reading April’s post on the Tabata Protocol recently sparked my interest in it again. Basically a round is 20 seconds of HARD work and 10 seconds of rest repeated 8 times. You do 4 or 5 rounds back to back with different exercises in each round and it is really intense, but I LOVE it. You really have to push yourself to the edge during the 20 seconds of work. I wanted something quick and effective, and it fit the bill. The lower half of my body is SO sore right now from all of the plyo I did!

Here’s what I did:

• Round 1: high knees; speed skater
• Round 2: jump rope; standing mountain climbers
• Round 3: power jumping jacks; mountain climbers
• Round 4: star jumps; burpees

I used this online tabata clock, and usually have the big timer running, but this time I tried out one of their mp3 song mixes farther down the page. I loved it more than just a simple timer because the music really helps push me mentally through the intervals. Try it!  

I also got to use the jumprope that Progresso sent me:

I love that it counts how many jumps you do!

Dinner last night featured something new:

TJ’s baked beans! YUMMM! Even though I rinsed them of the salt, they were still sweet!

Salad with a LOT of things in it:

• spinach and romaine
• mushrooms
• cuke
• carrots
• tomato
• almond slivers
• shredded mozz cheese
• TJ’s baked beans
• Tribe roasted red pepper hummus
• hot salsa
• a few blue corn chips

I was successful in just eating a few chips! WOOHOO! Oh, and this salad totally blew me away. I loved every last bite!

Dessert last night was also unusual for me!

Normally I would stick my hand in the chip bag or cereal box, but instead I had a chocolate Oikos and half a sandwich thin with Naturally Nutty Cinnamon Vanilla Sunflower Butter. LOVE.

And breakfast this morning was totally yummy:

Chocolate cottage cheese banana oats with Naturally More pb and Kashi puffed cereal!

Those were just some of the food I’ve been eating, but to be honest, all other meals were same old same old. I don’t have time or energy to cook (did you notice that 99% of what I posted was uncooked?) or be creative with my foods.

Ok I’m off get some work done (surprise, surprise) and I will post when I can! If you ever wonder where I am, just assume I’m in the library working on my thesis or at one of my jobs, because 99% of the time you’ll be right! I hope everyone’s doing a bit better than I am in terms of stress and life, and I thank you all for reading from the bottom of my heart!!

<3

Giveaways:

Burp and Slurp is having a Celestial Seasonings “Wellness Kit” giveaway!

An Apple A Day is hosting TWO giveaways:

• RAW Natural Beauty makeup
• JK Gourmet Gluten-Free granola

The past couple of days I’ve had my fair share of ups and and downs, so let’s see what happened…

GOOD:

This was Thursday’s lunch at work!

Turkey+LC sammie, colorful salad with cherry toms stolen from the work fridge, and a clementine.

I love when there’s leftover salad stuff in the fridge at work from various events that are held there because it really dresses up my salads!

BAD:

What I don’t love are all of the baked goods that also get put out in the kitchen for people to eat… because I can’t stay away!! After St. Patrick’s Day, there was Irish Soda Bread and Shamrock cookies in the kitchen, and everytime I went there to refill my mug of water, I had to grab some of each. And yesterday there were multiple HUGE cheese danishes, and a cheesecake-flavored yellow cake. Don’t know why it wasn’t just a straight cheesecake, but I killed the danishes. OHMYGOSH cheese danishes are sooooo good. Entirely too good, and totally dangerous to me.

GOOD:

Anyway, I had 1/2 of this Cherry Pie Larabar on the way to the gym after work:

I think I’ve only ever had one other Larabar before, but this was pretty good! And of course, I love that it’s real food.

After taking Wednesday off from exercise, I was more than ready to get my sweat on. I did my standard 35 minutes of HIIT and a little speedwork on the treadmill, then 45 minutes of weights with my current routine a la Gina.

GOOD:

After a quick shower, I made my standard green monster and raced off to school. Thursdays are LONG!

1c almond milk, 2-3c spinach, 1/2 scoop choco protein powder, 1/2 frozen banana, ice. Never fails.

BAD:

Here’s where I went wrong on Thursday night… I only packed snacks for class, instead of a meal:

During the break, I had the other 1/2 of my Larabar, and carrots + Naturally More pb.

UGLY:

I didn’t get home until after 10pm and was starving. But I was thrown off by the fact that it was so late, and I didn’t know what to “make” for dinner. So I had a dirty dinner that I’m not proud of:

Hummus and whole wheat pita…

…and chips and salsa.

…and then some unpictured Chocolate Mini Wheats because I needed something sweet after all of the saltiness.

Yikes. Needless to say, I went to bed bloated.

Friday morning I had my usual oats and went off to work. It went well up until lunch time…

UGLY:

When I went to get my packed lunch from the fridge, I saw the aforementioned cheese danishes and cake. While heating up my lunch in the microwave, I stole a few bites of the danish. That was the start of all of the “nibbling” I did over the 3 hours I had left at work. I just couldn’t stop. I wrote “nibbling”, but really they were huge chunks each time I passed by. And I didn’t even need a reason to go by there sometimes. I just went over to the kitchen SOLELY to eat the danish. What was wrong with me??

GOOD:

But here’s my actual lunch that I ate as well:

Brown rice, TJ’s frozen veggies, and turkey breast, and a simple salad with Annie’s dressing. Clem was not eaten. There were no carrots or tomato on my salad because my mom made my salad and I had no time or energy to Thursday night to chop up veggies.

The layers in my bowl make me happy.

GOOD:

I came home after work and made a pre-workout snack:

Actually, it looks more like a dessert to me. Fage, jam, and Kashi H2H.

Around 3pm, I decided that I would run outside instead of running on the treadmill because although it was windy (20 mph), it was sunny and I saw kids playing outside. I bought a few new songs to run to, and was really excited about that. By the time I actually made it outside an hour later, both the sun and the kids were gone and the wind was still kickin’. But I still went for it.

GOOD and BAD:

My run was both awesome and awful at the same time. Maybe my pre-workout snack wasn’t enough, or maybe all of the danish I ate at work was making me feel bad, but at mile 3, I was fading fast. I was having a great time jamming to my new music before that, but then my stomach suddenly felt off/empty and I was getting lightheaded. You know that feeling. It affected my whole mindset and my legs started to feel heavy too. I had to walk a bunch of times during that mile, and was considering giving up on running altogether and walking home because I couldn’t last more than 60 seconds without having to stop again. But I pushed through it and finished strong in the last two miles, despite running INTO the 20 mph winds. My stomach also settled a bit in that time and I was feeling great as I pulled into my driveway.

• 48 minutes
• 5 miles
• 9:36 pace

GOOD:

Dinnertime came around and it was yummy!

My mom made honey mustard salmon and stir fried broccoli and carrots, so I stole some.

And I made a side salad for myself: spinach, romaine, cuke, mushrooms, tomato, carrots, shredded mozz, and Annie’s dressing. It was awesome as usual.

UGLY:

carrots After dinner, I settled in to catch up on Gossip Girl and brought out that dang bag of chips again… blue this time. =X

Even after my danish and cake at work, I still managed to eat 2 servings of chips.

I normally wouldn’t buy chips because I know it’s a trigger food for me, but this is one example where living at home has its downfalls. Everyone else loves chips, but they can eat it moderately. So as soon as one bag is done, another is opened and yet another is purchased from the store to replenish the stock. So it’s pretty much a continuous flow of chips at all times. Very dangerous for me.

I was on a really good streak of eating moderately, but pretty much blew it in the past two days. This is really a struggle for me, and is something that I need to work on and turn into something I can maintain in the long run.

Hopefully I’ll have more  GOOD  than  BAD  and  UGLY in the future, and I started off my day right with a big bowl of cocoa oatmeal, so we’ll see if I can eat moderately today as a mini goal for myself.

I’m off to the library now to get some thesis work done, and I’m considering hitting the gym later today, but I’m pretty tired already now, so perhaps not.

Sorry for the mostly negative tone in my post today. I know I was feeling great earlier this week, and I thank you all for your support, but I guess I’ve lost that mojo. Gotta go get it back and start feeling positive again.

Question: What were your latest good, bad, and ugly moments?

P.S. An Apple A Day is hosting a granola giveaway!

Tuesday

Lunch at work:

I told ya I loved this so much that I was going to eat it again, right? Well here it is! And it was sooo good! Salad with leftover asparagus, apple, and lentil+spinach+hummus pitas. YUM!

I had an interesting task at work on Tuesday… I had to look through university yearbooks around the year 1919 in search of a specific picture of a “secret” academic society. It was really cool to look through the yearbooks from that time!

I found the picture (on the left) in the 1920 yearbook. Cap and Skull Society!

Pre-workout snack:

The Fage I bought from Costco, mixed with Naturally More pb, jam, and some Craisins. I know some find Fage to be too thick, but I thought it was a good consistency. It’s definitely different from Oikos or Chobani, but I like all of them equally now! Good stuff, kiddos, good stuff.

At the gym, I did a quick HIIT treadmill session in 35 minutes, 15 minutes of abs, and lots of stretching! I was totally kicking ass on the treadmill yesterday and the intervals felt so good!

Post-workout snack:

I was going to make a protein green monster, but instead was feeling a warm drink. So I heated up some almond milk in the microwave, and stirred in the chocolate protein powder! It was a protein-packed hot chocolate!!

Dinner:

The most awesome salad ever:

Spinach, romaine, cuke, mushrooms, tomato, carrots, chopped up mozz cheese stick, and Annie’s dressing. Ohmygosh so good. I normally just have the cuke and mushrooms, but now I’ve started making my salads with other toppings as well! And damn what have I been missing? And I’m loving how colorful it is!

And the last of the Imagine Butternut Squash Soup (3/4 cup) topped with Kashi Asiago TLC crackers:

This was eaten while watching Biggest Loser. Loved last night’s episode. Koli and Sam are my favorites!

Dessert:

Fage mixed with 1/3 tsp cocoa powder, stevia, and naturally more pb. I stirred it up real good and it turned into a MOUSSE! Ahhh totally rocked my tastebuds!

And some unpictured chips and hummus, but only half of a serving of each! Totally would have binged on it had I not been conscious of my eating and actively not binging.

Wednesday

Yesterday morning i was up and at ‘em at 6:30am as usual. Here’s my current bowl of oats that I’ve been having for a few days now:

I’ve changed it up a bit from the topping mix that I ate for a while earlier. New mix:

• 1/3 cup oats
• water
• 1/4 cup almond milk
• 1/4 cup cottage cheese
• 1/3 tsp cocoa powder
• stevia
• toppings: sprinkle of granola, 1/3 banana, 1 Tbsp naturally more pb

Such a good combo!! I think I have a can of pumpkin in my pantry… that might make it into my oats sometime soon in a new mix… hehe.

Lunch at work:

Fresh turkey breast and 1/2 LC wedge on a sandwich thin, plus a romaine (ran out of spinach ), mushroom, cuke, tomato, carrot, annie’s salad. I think this is the way I’ll be making most of my salads now.

I swear it wasn’t grey inside the sandwich. It’s just my camera phone. But it was a dang tasty sammie! I’m bringing it again for lunch today, if that says anything.

All throughout work, my stomach was feeling a bit off, and I had this feeling of extreme tiredness. I was debating skipping my planned cardio and strength training session after work, and I have to admit that I went back and forth a few times on it, but I decided to go with my body and not push it at the gym when it’s exhausted. I think I was feeling DOT (delayed onset tiredness – I made it up), similar to DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness. It’s odd… for me, if I have a night of poor sleep, I don’t feel it until 2 days later. Monday night I went to sleep late, and I think that’s what was affecting me yesterday.

Snack not too long after lunch:

I love clementines. They’re the only fruit that I’ll peel. Oranges and grapefruit are way too messy for me, and clementines are portable, too!

After work I went to the grocery store and picked up some essentials, plus some goodies:

Naturally More pb (it’s an expensive addiction, but I love it), and my very first Chocolate Oikos!! I had a coupon, so it was slightly more justified than my pb. I’m excited to try it, though! I think I’ll freeze one and see what happens… maybe it’ll make it more decadent haha.

Since I was skipping the gym, I decided that I had to take advantage of the rest of the day and do some hardcore work on my thesis. I had to justify it somehow, right? I couldn’t just sit at home playing on the computer for hours instead of going to the gym!

Every weekday, I’m at work til sometime in the afternoon, commute an hour, go straight to the gym, shower, and make dinner. Then it’s already 8:30 or 9pm and I can’t do thesis work that close to my bedtime because I’m already nodding off around then. So this was some precious time I had!!

I made the standard green monster with 1c almond milk, 2-3c spinach (yay for replenishing my spinach!!), 1/2 frozen banana, ice, and 1/2 scoop protein powder, packed up my computer, and headed to the public library.

I normally try to work on my thesis at home, but since it’s usually nighttime when I get a chance to do it, everyone else is home and talking and watching tv, and I get distracted easily (oh, finally something relevant to the title of this post!). But the library closes at 9pm, so there’s not much point in trying to go there to get work done after work, driving, gym, shower, and dinner.

I plopped myself down at the library and worked for almost 3 hours straight! :O SWEET! I am so pleased with how that went, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten anything done had I stayed home for those 3 hours! I would have worked longer (I was on a roll), but I didn’t bring more than an apple with me:

Yeah, yeah, I know… library… no food or drink… but I ate my apple (quietly) right in front of this sign:

I’m a REBEL!

Not 15 minutes later (I swear apples do NOTHING for hunger), my tummy was eating itself and screaming for dinner, so I headed home and whipped up a quick meal:

Another beautiful salad with spinach, romaine, cuke, mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, annie’s and shredded mozz cheese!

With a 2 egg white puff, 1/2 LC wedge, and spinach sammie, and some Chinese broccoli:

I am in love with the egg white + LC sammie combo. Total love.

Although, what I’m not a fan of is all the sodium in this meal! I could definitely feel myself drying out from the inside out (I’m sort of sensitive to salt I think). Between the LC cheese, shredded cheese, and sandwich thin, I had 750mg of sodium! And I had a sandwich thin and more LC cheese at lunch… whoops. More sodium…

Then I watched the Dancing With the Stars premiere recorded from Monday night with my mom. I love being able to whizz through the commercials haha. Buzz Aldrin is so funny, but he was doing great for an old guy! And my mom and I love Bruno of course. He makes the best comments!

Dessert was unpictured mango ice cream with frozen bloobs, same as Monday night.

Ok well it’s time for me to get on the road to go to work now… Thursdays are the longest. After work I’m going to hit the gym and then I have class until 10pm. Yikes. We’re over hump day already, though! I hope you’re all having a fabulous week so far! Ready… and… GO!

Question: Do you work well at home? Or do you need to go somewhere else to get things done? What types of things distract you from your work, and how do you focus?

Between the kitchen, tv, other people, and computer, I can’t get any work done at home. That’s why I’m going to try to go to either my public library or my school library every chance I get in the next 5 weeks, just to work on my thesis.

P.S. There’s TONS of giveaways going on right now… go enter them now!

Coco is having a Celestial Seasonings tea giveaway!

PB and Jenny is hosting a Silk Almond Milk giveaway!

An Apple A Day is having a Bragg giveaway!

Jasmine is having a Yoplait greek yogurt giveaway!

Miss GC is having a raw cookbook giveaway!

Second, my adviser finally gave me some much-needed and long-awaited advice on my thesis! And now I have a clearer direction for my research!! I’m still stressing over the whole thesis project, but at least now I’m not doing things aimlessly with no guidance and doing research and reading that won’t be useful.

I’m FEELING GREAT and I hope everyone else is feeling JUST as good with life right now!

Now let’s see what else I’ve got for you here…

On Sunday I went to Costco and found a HUGE tub of Fage!

1000 grams of greek yogurt?! Hells yeah! I usually buy Chobani, as it is often $1 for a 6 oz cup, and Fage has always been much more expensive, but I am out of Chobani and it’s not on sale this week anywhere. So I decided to get the Costco container of Fage! I had never had Fage before, so I had to try it when I got home, and it’s THICK! But in a good way. It’s very different in consistency than Chobani, but I think I’m going to like it a lot.

Lunch post-Costco:

A super colorful salad! I topped my usual salad base with leftover chicken marsala…

and TJ’s Harvest Hodgepodge frozen veggies and frozen peas and corn!

My afternoon snack was yummy:

A very briefly nuked TJ’s whole wheat pita dipped in Tribe Forty Spice hummus. I’m loving all of the different flavors of hummus that I try! I tend to binge in the afternoon around this time, so this was amazing for me. Very satiating!

For dinner, I quickly stir fried some baby bok choy and opened a can of organic lentils that my mom bought a while ago, but never used.

Salad beast:

Baby bok choy, lentils, and turkey breast on top of my salad base.

Dessert was a new flavor of Edy’s ice cream… MANGO!

I topped it with some frozen bloobs and ohhh it was so good! It was a nice departure from my normal chocolately flavors. I haven’t had a fruit-flavored ice cream in a looong time and it was yummy!

Nighttime is the second time in the day when I tend to binge, but I made a conscious effort not to. And for the first time in two weeks, I went to bed not feeling bloated, guilty, and uncomfortable.

Monday moooorning came way too fast. My body woke up at 6:20am and I rolled over and went back to sleep. My alarm went off 10 minutes later, and I hit the snooze button. I did the same every 9 minutes until around 7:10am when I finally got my butt out of bed for work.

Work was slow today, so I read some blogs and worked on some thesis research, in addition to doing some “real” work hehe. Lunch was an experiment of sorts. I usually bring a PB&J sammie or some sort of grain+veggie+protein that’s easily reheatable and eaten in one container. But today, I did something a little different…

I wanted to experiment with assembling little pita pockets/sandwiches at work, so I brought all of the ingredients separately. This is something I would make at home, but I thought it would be difficult to do in a work setting.

TJ’s whole wheat pita, lentils, spinach, and a blob of hummus.

I heat up the lentils and pita in the microwave, stuffed some of the lentils in the pita, then topped them with spinach and hummus! SUCCESS!

My whole lunch: the lentil pitas (upper left corner!), basic salad with Annie’s honey mustard, and a cup of fresh strawberries left over from an event at work. I had lots of lentils left over, so I just dumped them on the salad. This lunch was amazing.

I loved this and it was so much fun to assemble at work! I loved it so much that I’m bringing it for lunch again tomorrow.

I hit the gym after work and did 35 minutes on the treadmill (5 min walking warmup, 25 min running @6.8 mph/2% incline, 5 min walking cooldown). I really have no patience for the treadmill when I’m not doing HIIT, or else I would have been able to run for more than 25 minutes, but I wasn’t feeling HIIT today. Then I did Gina’s strength training workout that I’ve been loving lately. I like it that she posts a new full-body routine every so often because it allows me to switch things up after a few weeks of doing the same routine.

I was losing steam towards the end of my strength training, but I kept picturing a green monster in my head as a reward for finishing the weight routine. It got my butt in gear and I finished strong!

Immediately after showering, I made up the green monster!

Typical mix: 1/2 frozen banana, 2-3 cups spinach, 1/2 scoop choco protein powder, TONS of ice – totally the key to a thick smoothie and makes a huge difference!

I enjoyed every last drop of the green goodness! MMMM!

Dinner was simple:

Salad base with baby bok choy, steamed asparagus, turkey breast, and a big blob of MASHED POTATOES! My mom made mash and I just HAD to have some, even if it meant putting it on my salad! It was delish and creamy (and totally made with real butter )!

Dessert will probably be mango ice cream again, it’s just that good!

I also received the Crofter’s coupon that I won from Julie’s giveaway, and I’m excited to go out and pick a flavor/continent to try!

The envelope is also super cute.

Time to wind down for the night and gear up for Tuesday! That means making my lunch, reading a magazine that’s overdue so I can return it tomorrow, and going to bed early. Sounds blissful to me.

Question: Are you FEELING GREAT?? Tell me what in your life makes you happy right now. Let’s keep this positivity flowing! I can’t get enough of it!

I just realized that I have so much thesis stuff to do, since my adviser said I have been focusing on the wrong thing! And since that email, he hasn’t replied to follow-up with more questions… booo. There’s only about 6 weeks left in the semester, and thus only 6 weeks to finish my thesis!! Ahhh! I’ve been too busy for sure…

Ok but first… let’s go back to Thursday…. seems so long ago by now!  The problem with trying to do recaps from 3 days ago is that I forget the interesting little things that happen in between pictures. So… we’ll go with the highlights of what I do remember haha. Please bear with me…

Thursday’s lunch at work was pretty awesome:

Salad and brown rice + leftover roasted veggies + Morningstar burger.

What was awesome was that there was leftover catered salad in the kitchen, so I stole some cucumbers, orange bell peppers, and grape tomatoes to garnish my normally-lacking salad.

The layers of food make me happy haha.

After work I headed into downtown Princeton to hang out and enjoy the weather until my first Lululemon class. I had a clementine and cheese stick in the car while stuck in traffic:

I finally parked and started walking up and down the main street in Princeton. I probably looked like a weirdo carrying a small bag with a huge yoga mat sticking out of it on my back haha. But it worked!

After walking for a while, I plopped myself down outside the Princeton Public Library and people watched and enjoyed the sun.

When the time came, I headed over to Lululemon. I had never been in their store before, but I was excited to take a complementary yoga class.

It was disappointing. It was a vinyasa flow and I was hoping it would be more challenging. Yes, it was relaxing and it cleared my head for a bit, but it was very basic. I guess I was expecting it to be more like the yoga podcasts that I do at home. I’ll stick to non-free classes and my own podcasts from now on.

After the long drive home, I just wanted food when I walked in the door:

Egg white puff topped with (unmelted!) LC and spinach sammie. I tried to melt 1/2 of an LC wedge like Coco did, but I had already plated my egg white on the bread before realizing I should have melted it on the egg white in the microwave before plating. Whoops.

And since I’m entirely addicted, but my mom keeps buying it anyway, I had lots and lots of blue tortilla chips as well:

Looking at this picture reminds me of how full the bag was less than 3 days ago. As of last night I had like 10 chips left in the bag. And it’s a HUGE bag. 16 servings my foot!

Ok… we’ve made it to Friday! No work!!! Woohoo! I enjoyed my day off first with a pre-workout snack:

A plain OIKOS topped with crumbled Quaker Oatmeal Squares. And then I ate some more squares out of the box. =X

I was meeting a friend for lunch, so I had to make my workout quick. I decided to do a speedy outdoor 5k to see where I’m at for a possible 5k race in April, and I totally busted ass on the run. I couldn’t breathe 75% of the time! BUT! I did set a new 5k non-race PR. And the weather was amazing to run in, of course!

• 3.1 miles
• 25:45
• 8:15 pace

Then I drove to the gym and did a quick weight lifting session a la Gina. Basically the same as what I did on Wednesday, but you can check it out on my exercise page!

I met my friend on campus for lunch at a Korean restaurant. I have only had Korean food a handful of times before, but the last time I had it, I was in Taiwan and I got bibimbap, and I loved it. So… I had to get it this time too!

It’s basically a mixed rice bowl. So they brought me all sorts of goodies in the main bowl (tofu, carrots, veggies, mung bean sprouts, mushrooms, cucumber, fried egg), and I just had to mix the rice in with it. It wasn’t so pretty after all the mixing, so I’ll spare you that picture. But it tasted AMAZING. All of the flavors just worked so well! I also had a bowl of miso soup and the little mixed green salad on the side.

I finished it ALL and we helped digestion by walking 1 mile to the library and the parking deck.

Dinner was a big salad mess!

Salad base topped with Gardein Chick’n Scallopini, chinese broc, leftover roasted veggies, homemade pita chips, and bbq sauce. It was quite the hefty salad.

Saturday!! Awesome weather continued and I was excited for a planned long run in preparation for my 10-mile race in May! I went out to brain training first thing in the morning for observation, and then went out to run some errands with my dad.

When we got back, I ate my weight in tortilla chips and convinced my brother to ride his bike along with me while I was running. I’ve never run with anyone before, but it was pretty fun to chat while running. Granted, I was running for distance today, and not speed, or else I wouldn’t have been able to chat at all while gasping for air. But maintaining a 10 min/mile pace allowed me to talk and pace myself for the long distance ahead.

I planned to run 7 miles, which is a PDR for me, and I was really pumped to do it! Especially with my brother alongside!

Unfortunately my brother got a flat tire 3 miles into the run, so I had to complete the last 4 miles on my own. I just turned up some Lady Gaga and Ke$ha and it was all good. The pacing really worked well, and I even had some energy left at the end to pick up the pace a little bit. Normally by 6 miles of my normal pace, my legs are heavy and I can barely make it home. This is actually the first time in almost a year that I’ve run for distance and not speed, so it was a nice change of pace. Literally, haha.

• 7 miles
• 1:09
• 9:51 pace

Check out the guns of victory (bahahaha yeah right):

The weather really cooperated and I even got to wear my running skirt!

Dinner looked like this:

Salad base with fresh mom-roasted turkey breast, mom-cooked broccoli and carrot stir fry, and mom-cooked onions + pepper + mushrooms. Yeah… I just basically threw all of my mom’s food onto my salad. It was awesome

I got some reading done for my thesis this evening after my run, so I’m feeling relatively good about that, but not about my adviser not getting back to me! Tomorrow will bring lots more reading, as I have no time during the weekdays to work on it. It’s supposed to be nice weather tomorrow too, so maybe I’ll sit outside and read.

Ok we’ve finally made it to the end and I can go to bed now. I hope you’re all having a great weekend so far, and will have a relaxing Sunday tomorrow.

Paz.

Question: Have you ever taken a group fitness class and been disappointed by it?

During my trial membership at a local gym, I really loved Body Pump and Body Combat, but I was disappointed with Zumba (surprising, I know!). But Gina wasn’t the instructor, so that may have been why. I was really surprised that I didn’t like the yoga class at Lululemon too…

P.S. Katie is having a POM giveaway!