Goal Keeping

So you know those naps that you take and you feel even more tired and crummy afterwards? Yeah, this nap wasn’t one of those. I bounded out of bed and felt fantastic. It also helped that this nap was on this bed with the sun hitting me.

I decided to go with the “au natural” look of my bed

I felt absolutely amazing and even more driven to pursue my goals.

Goals

I have my weekly goal of drinking 3 Green Monsters and drinking 60 oz of water a day (I’m currently at 50 oz fyi )

I keep track of it using a whiteboard sitting on my desk. I just love filling in the squares

But I also set my goals for the term 5 weeks ago and posted them up on my corkboard squares by my desk (can you tell I’m at my desk the most?!)

I love keeping my goals list short and sweet.

I’m proud to say that I’m well on my way to making Dean’s List! I found out I got a 100% on my psychology midterm!

I’m also very close to getting an internship and once we hammer out the details I’m considering getting a job at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s if I will have time.

I love having my goals constantly in front of me and keeping me driven.

Dinner

I was super excited to go to my sorority for dinner tonight since I dreamt about food the entire time during my nap!

They offered the healthiest meal I have seen in a very long time

Chicken Marsala, green beans, roasted red potatoes, garlic bread with salsa on top and a little salad with feta, carrots, cucumbers and Italian dressing.

It was soooo good! I also ate dessert this time around. An (unpictured) chocolate pudding pie. I resisted just a bit and only had half a slice but it was absolutely delectable. I was definitely scraping the bowl and getting everything I could

Question of the Day: How do you make sure you follow through with your goals?

Late-Night Banana Bread Making

Good Evening bloggies! I hope everyone’s Monday went well

Dinner

I had a quick, early dinner at my sorority tonight.

In the bowl, a whole-grain and white mixed penne with white sauce over it. Corn, broccoli and mushrooms was added over top of the pasta.

Mixed salad greens with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls (my absolute weakness) and kidney beans with Italian dressing.

Some cottage cheese with a pineapple ring on top is hiding in the top left corner, too.

One of my sisters told me that when she saw the whole-grain pasta she thought of me Too bad it was mixed in with the white! Grawr.

Baking

I had a baking date planned with a good friend, but her computer was giving her troubles for an assignment due tomorrow, so she couldn’t make it. I had three perfectly overripe bananas sitting on top of the fridge though… so I went ahead and made some Mama Peas’ Toasted Almond Flax Banana Bread. Mama Pea is a genius and her daughters will be baking masters by the time they’re eight!

I only changed the recipe a bit by using Canola Oil Margarine instead of vegan margarine and regular brown sugar instead of organic, just because that is what I had on hand.

Mixing all the ingredients together:

Pop it in the oven looking like this:

Clean up this mess and do a quickie ab workout

45 minutes later you get this

and this

and naturally have to test for quality-control purposes

this. times two.

Thank you Mama Pea for a fool-proof recipe for the worst baker in America

Sneak Peak

Here’s a sneak peak of tomorrow’s breakfast

I wonder what it could be? It is not like I didn’t have it this morning

Are you a good baker? My mom is absolutely fabulous at it, but usually my baked goods always come out a bit funky.

Some Crabby French Toast

Wow, today has been quite the day!

Breakfast

The day started off with another fruit salad with the coconut banana cream spread over the top.

This time it was enjoyed in a Maragarita glass

Poor margarita glass has never seen alcohol, but I swear having fruit or oats in a margarita class makes the food sooo much better!

Next on the list was French Toast

There may have been some serious frying pan issues. The bread completely stuck to the pan and I had to scrape it off. ugh. Pam, why weren’t you working?!?!

It kinda looked like a crab.

Anyone else see this correlation?

Almond Butter French Toast

• 1 egg white
• 1/3 c. almond milk
• dash of lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• lots of cinnamon

Mix together. Spread almond butter between two slices of bread and dunk into mixture.

There most definitely wasn’t enough almond butter in there, but it was heavenly despite the crab-like appearance

Hike

For a sisterhood my sorority had, we went on a hike. It was a super short hike at only a mile one way, but it was steep!

The view from the top was most definitely worth it though

My big, Katie, and I

All the girls

I ate this little guy that I got as a sample from the 5K a couple weekends ago at the top

Lunch

I was ravenous for some lunch. I heated up some leftover Annie’s Mac and Cheese as well as I made a salad with arugula from yesterday’s Saturday Market

In the Salad:

• arugula
• 1/3 of an apple
• peas
• avocado

Topped with:

• TJ’s Champagne Pear dressing
• nooch! (aka Nutritional Yeast)

It was fantastic as always.

Later

I have to catch up on lots of homework today so I made some notecards while laying on my sorority’s sun porch (with SPF of course!). I will be doing some more stuff inside on my computer though after this

What is your favorite hike? What do you like about them?

A Splurge Night

Morning bloggies!

I woke up at 6:15 AM this morning…for a 10 o’clock class? Yeah, my alarm was set for 8:30 but I woke up WAYYYY earlier.

I filled my morning with catching up on reading some blogs, zumba and working on my grocery list. I swear grocery shopping is the highlight of my week. I mean new, fresh foods and fun recipes come out of it! What’s not to love?

Breakfast was a mix of cereals: about 1/4 c. Special K Fruits & Yogurt, 1/4 c. Life cereal, 1 1/2 cups puffed millet splashed with 1% milk. I had to borrow my roomie’s milk, since I’m completely out of almond milk.

It was still fairly good, but it definitely made me realize how much the almond milk compliments the rest of the cereal.

A few minutes later I followed it with a semi-dry orange

For some reason this picture reminds me of a pile of bones. No wonder my mom was so shocked over spring break how I would devour a cut up orange, look at what the final product is!

Anyways, what was this splurge night?!

Well we had formal dinner, aka we have our super nice house boys bring out our food to our tables that is filled with our nice dish ware. Kinda like a restaurant.

Tonight was Mexican night filled with a romaine salad with a light coating of a vinaigrette with enchiladas, rice with some kind of tomato mixed in, refried beans and corn with red bell pepper and other sorts of veggies mixed in.

I first filled myself up on about 2 cups of salad.

Enchiladas are my absolute weakness. They were served in portions about the size of a typical cell phone. I only got one portion and by the time I had seconds, they were all gone. Oh, darn

The rice was just alright so I had about 1/4 c. of that, about 1/2 c. of refried beans which were fantastic, and about another 1/2 c. of corn. The corn wasn’t particularly good, but I mixed the beans, rice and corn up so it tasted alright.

Afterwards dessert was grasshopper pie! It has oreo cookie crumbs for the crust, mint ice cream for the filling and topped with hot fudge and whipped cream. There was a TON of whipped cream on top so I scooped off half, but I devoured the rest and savored every bite!

It was definitely a splurge night, but I don’t feel too guilty about it. The only thing I felt really sorry for was my stomach last night that was a little bit angry with me. Oh well.

Despite these clouds, today will hopefully be a good day. I have a ton of homework to do that’s stressing me out a bit, but I’ve made a plan how I will tackle it and I should be fine.

My question of the day: How often do you have a splurge meal? Usually Monday nights are the biggest splurge meals, and I’ll usually have another meal at my sorority during the week, but I eat a little bit healthier at that one. I usually always pass up dessert, but you can’t really pass up grasshopper pie

No Such Thing as Too Much Indian

‘sup bloggies?

After feeling like the past couple of days I have been eating a lot of grains and carbs and not enough veggies, I woke up and made a smoothie.

Despite the purple-ish look to it, it was awful! I’m not even going to post exactly what was in it, cause you don’t want to try it. It also desperately needed to be blended more, but my blender was throwing a temper tantrum this morning and I already feel guilty for making lots of noise while my roomies are asleep, so essentially this whole thing was a distaster.

To make up for the lackluster breakfast this morning I had, you guessed it, more Indian food! This is despite the fact that I had some last night and the night before that.

Nobody ever said there’s such a thing as too much Indian food

I went to the organic and vegetarian cafe on campus, Holy Cow, and got the Mini Vegetarian Curry with steamed veggies with some kind of sauce on the side. It was super loud in the place, so I couldn’t really understand my options as far as sauces go, so I just went with the first one

I tried a sneaky blogger pic, but I’m pretty sure the girl beside me noticed. Haha, whoops!

It was delicious, though a little bit pricey. I loved the mystery sauce that was lightly poured over the steamed veggies. I kinda wish I knew what it was

I’m eating dinner at the sorority tonight. I’m pretty sure its a formal dinner which means absolutely no cell phones, which also means no sneaky blogger pics I’ll make sure to fill you in on my dinner though!

Have a great Monday night!

Understanding My Lifestyle

We’re almost done for the week! I’m so excited

Last night was crazy-filled with sorority events and of course, dinner at the sorority.

It was burger bar.

The bar offered: white buns (no wheat available), beef burgers, garden burgers, sauteed mushrooms & sauteed onions (most likely soaked in a ton of butter), potato salad, a casserole with zuccini and corn and a salad bar. Toppings was swiss or american cheese, lettuce, yellow mustard, dijon mustard, ketchup, bbq sauce and mayo. Dessert was pound cake and blueberry yogurt.

Whew. Here’s my plate:

an open-faced gardenburger with swiss, dijon mustard, ketchup, and as much lettuce as I could get on it (I was at the end of the line…again). A small scoop of the casserole and the potato salad. A romaine salad with olives and pea with ceasar dressing. And the little bowl in the back has a little of blueberry yogurt.

I savored the burger, and didn’t finish either the casserole or the potato salad. They both tasted just a bit funky. I was planning just to get the yogurt instead of the pound cake with the yogurt on top; however the yogurt alone tasted awful but fantastic when I grabbed a very small piece of pound cake. Funny how that happens

I’ve told some of my sisters how worried I am about the food situation next year, as I will be living in the house. They say I’ll be absolutely fine and that the food here isn’t that unhealthy at all. Just slather on some sugary PB on some white bread and I’ll be living healthy! One sister I was talking to in particular later asked me how to lose weight. She wasn’t very happy when I said to stop eating the white bread and eat some whole grains and veggies. She asked if yoga or cardio was better to lose weight. I responded that if you want to lose fat, its most efficient to do cardio. She wasn’t very happy with my answer either

I’m a little too blunt sometimes :/

And I am in NO WAY recommending to these girls to lose weight! They are all relatively thin girls, so it’s annoying that they keep asking that. I wish they would go up to me and ask how to live a healthy lifestyle.

I’m finding it really stressful that no one understands my lifestyle. I feel like in addition to my non-drinking, non-smoking and other drugs lifestyle, the way I eat is isolating me in the house. I’ve tried to explain it to people but they don’t understand the problem with white bread, pasta and rice. They don’t understand my cravings for fresh fruit and veggies. They don’t understand why I have a problem with processed food. Eating like that everyday is really frightening me. I don’t know what to do

Fast forward to this morning. I was planning to make overnight oats, but by the time I got back from sorority things I was way to tired to make them.

Therefore chocolate and coconut oatmeal was made this morning with a side of a sliced orange.

In the mix:

2 packets Instant Oatmeal

2 T of THE MIX

1 tsp dark chocolate chips 70% cocoa

2 T Coconut Milk Creamer

The oatmeal was fabulous, the orange was super dry and gross. A half naner spread with TJ’s sunflower butter was needed to help the situation.

I love you sunflower butter!!!

I’m hoping I’ll start feeling better as the day goes on. I’m going to meet up with my ex-roommate from the dorms for lunch. Hopefully I can sneak a picture!

How do people generally react to your healthy lifestyle? What do you say to them?

Too Much Downward Dog

Whew! I am one sore bloggy! I think there was too much downward dog!

I woke up feeling great, then as the day went on the soreness crept on in. But I had some Zumba to work it all out

Today’s breakfast was inspired by Tyler’s use of Coconut Milk Creamer.

I absolutely couldn’t resist. Only 10 calories per tablespoon and $2.38. Essentially my dream of a product.

My oats started off like this:

2 packets of instant oatmeal

about 3 T of THE MIX

and ended up like this:

topped with about 2 T of Coconut Milk Creamer and 1 T Coconut flakes.

I used Instant Oatmeal this time as apart of my Eat It, Not Buy It goal.

I still have a few packets of Instant left, but after that I will be switching to old fashioned forever

A banana covered in maca, cinnamon and mesquite also joined the party:

Okay, so I went a little overzealous with the mesquite. What can I say, I’m in love with the stuff

I was starving for some lunch, but unfortunately I had to wait for the turkey to de-thaw a little so I had a ridiculously burnt sandwich thin with PB&J on top.

I may have taken a bite to see if the bread was still edible. It most definitely was! I usually am not patient enough to let it toast enough, but I’m glad I got too caught up with my emails this time.

Finally I was able to cut away some turkey from the big block of ice, uh, turkey and made some Chicken Turkey BBQ Salad

Definitely still my favorite home-made salad.

Afterwards it was some time for some Zumba! We learned Jai Ho today! OMG OMG OMG favorite dance ever! I was hoping we would do that song, and the dance our instructor has is just phenomenal. Seriously, she is after my heart <3

I’m doing a bunch of sorority things tonight, including eating dinner there tonight (burger bar, burger bar, burger bar!)

I may not be able to post after it, but I’ll try to get some super sneaky shots of dinner. I feel its important how I eat when presented with mucho options of unhealthy food.

What is your best tip for eating when you have mostly unhealthy options?

Mine is eating in moderation! I usually eat a healthy snack before hand, fill my plate up with at least 1/2 veggies or brown rice if available, and savor each bite of the unhealthy stuff.

Sorority Eats

Good evening bloggies! I hope everyone’s dinners was filled with delicious food.

Mine was for sure. It was filled with Italian!

I’m sooo incredibly sorry for the blurry pic. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to be sneaky and photograph my food in a room full of 70+ girls.

Dinner tonight was Cheesy Ravoli (they didn’t have a non-cheesy option) mixed with buttered noodles (didn’t have a non-buttered option) topped with pesto, a roll and a salad on the side with random toppings (who even knows what they are).

Usually there is a choice of cheesy or spinach ravioli and better options for the salad. I was at the very end of the line so most of the stuff like carrots, celery and basically any other yummy toppings for the salad was gone.

This meal is why I’m nervous for living in the house next year. Every. Single. Meal. will be like this. Lots of butter, cheese and white pasta. The only place we have  to cook for ourselves is our “toast bar.” This just means there’s ample amounts of toast to top with sugary peanut butter, cinnamon and sugar, butter and jelly. You can also cook yourself some top raamen. There are only plastic utensils, so it will be difficult to cut up food. I’m planning on keeping my own mini fridge somewhere in the house, but we will see if I can request some meals made with no butter and whole wheat bread & pasta options.

Another thing I’m kind of weird about is the statistics. Yesterday I had over 100 views of my blog (wahoo!), but today it’s less than half that. Is there just some certain days people check blogs more often than others, or what is going on?

Double trouble

I hope everyone is having a great Sunday evening. My day was spent running errands and studying.

First we have to back track to yesterday.

I snacked on the blueberry goat cheese that I got yesterday at the farmer’s market on top of some Mary’s Crackers.

Dinner was eaten shoveled in my mouth at 4:00 due to having to be at my sorority at 5

A goat-cheese & guava quesadilla (recipe from Barefoot Contessa), with Baja-style corn leftovers and a baby salad beast filled with avocado, red bell pepper and tomato with pear dressing from Trader Joe’s.

The quesadilla was the real star here. It tasted sweet and decedent like a crepe! Absolute LOOOOOOVE.

After the sorority function, we went back to the sorority house and chilled for a while. The sorority house isn’t filled with very healthy eats, lets just say. However apples and oranges are always available so I cut an apple (with a plastic fork), sprinkled some cinnamon and tossed it into the microwave for 45 seconds. I actually had two guys stand behind me and say how hot I was for “cooking” and not just top ramen. Wow. Anyways, everyone wanted a taste of it and loved it! I’m so sad I don’t have a picture of it, but just imagine apple slices with cinnamon on it. If I’m making this again I’m demanding at least a metal butter knife.

This morning’s omelette was posted earlier, so it’s time now for some lunch-action!

No, ladies and gentlemen you are not seeing double. I had another guava jelly & goat cheese quesadilla and a baby salad beast. I can’t get over how much the quesadilla tastes like a crepe!!! It’s so fantastic

I ran off to do some errands. Stopped at Target to pick up a few things but at the check-out line realized that I had forgotten my wallet. I had to run back to the apartment then run back again to Target to actually buy them. I swear my shopping trips can’t ever go right.

I also stopped at Trader Joe’s where I kept in mind the two parts of my grocery shopping goals. My first goal discussed earlier today was to Limit the Bill, by only spending $75 a week on groceries. The second part of my goal, Eat It, Not Buy It, is making me eat the food I already have stocked up instead of buying a lot more.

I have a very limited food storage space that includes half a cabinet for foods I use most often and two small boxes in my bookshelf for foods I don’t use as much.

Yeah, that’s all the room I have. Oh, well and some floor space for cereal boxes.

I apologize profusely for the horrendous camera pics, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

Anyways, so in order to make room and not have food shoved in every nook and cranny I’m going to try to eat what I have, and limit what I buy.

In that case, my haul wasn’t very big from Trader Joe’s

Turkey breast, Oatmeal bread, and Indian Fare’s Jaipur Vegetable and a reusable bag.

I’m very, very, very excited to try the Jaipur Vegetables

I had to rush off to a meeting, which wasn’t bad for once. Hoorah! It tends to help when I’m active in the conversation.

But after I was starving for some stir fry.

I grilled a turkey cutlet season with salt and pepper, and put it off to the side. Then sauteed frozen stir fry vegetables while washing the noodles.

And finally I combined the turkey, stir fry, noodles, 1 T of olive oil and 1 1/2 T of Stir fry sauce over low heat to come up with this beautiful sight.

It was all pretty good except for the turkey which was really tasteless.

I used these noodles

I didn’t even realize the calories on this guy until after cooking them! 20 calories per serving, so 40 total. Holy cow!

I just calculated up the calories on my meal and I’m honestly astounded. I’m not a usual calorie counter, but here’s the stats:

Noodles: 40 cals

Veggies: 45 cals

Turkey: 70 cals

Olive Oil: 20 cals

Stir Fry sauce: 30 cals

Total: 205 calories

Holy smokes! That is nothing for how big and satisfying it was! It’s been 3 hours and I’m still full.

Wow. Well it’s off to bed for me soon. I hope you all get some rest for the week ahead

Are you a calorie counter? Do you just watch them a bit, or not at all?

I tend to as what I call it, “know what I’m eating.” I look for what a serving size is and the sodium and sugar levels as well, plus scanning through the ingredients quickly.

I <3 cookies and oats

G’day bloggies! I hope waking up from this fabulous weekend wasn’t too hard.

After a rough night (some sleep walking went down) I was excited to make some oats!

Specifically, I was inspired by Ashlei’s Banana Split Chia Oats

In the mix:

1/2 c. old fashion oatmeal

1/2 c. almond milk

1/2 c. water

1/2 T chia seeds

1/2 a sliced banana

sprinkled with cinnamon

and crumbles my vegan coconut oatmeal cookie from yesterday

Gone in a flash.

Lunch

Lunch was simple. I really enjoyed the tingly-ness I get from my smoothie, so I made a small bright green smoothie and finished off my leftover pasta

1/4 c. almond milk

1/2 c. water

3 huge handfuls spinach

1/2 c. pineapple

sprinkle of ginger

(and I forgot the flax seed)

The ginger added an interesting taste. It was different, not bad at all.

the pasta was perfect on such a cold day.

I’m excited for Zumba later today with one of my good friends

Dinner is going to be at my sorority tonight. For now I’m not going to photograph that, it seems just slightly strange to photograph that in a group of 150+ girls.

Anyone else have sleep walking troubles? Where is the strangest place you’ve ended up?

I was on a cruise ship and I ended up on the other side of the ship with my bed sheets in hand.