End of Freshman Year

Finals are over and graded, beach week is complete, and now I am home to work for the summer. Looking back at the purpose of this blog and where I started at the beginning of my first year of college, I have made progress. I accomplished my goal to reverse the “freshman 15” losing around 12 lbs and I managed to find healthy options at college while remaining active to manage stress. I notice a difference in the way some of my old clothes fit and I can run faster more easily. Yet, I still would like to move forward. I still have issues with overeating and eating too many sweets.

My next goal is to be at 120 lbs. by my 20th birthday in July, and part of that accomplishment will hopefully come with my new half marathon training. I really can’t believe that I will no longer be a teenager in a couple months. I feel even more pressure as I grow older to have a boyfriend, and I think it would help if I lost about 10 more pounds. Now I know that that sounds pretty bad and shallow and some may say “but its not all about looks or how skinny a girl is that gets boy’s attention!” and I get that, but at the same time I have to be realistic. Guys do notice a girl based on looks at first glance, and I would have more confidence in myself if I get to what I feel is a more healthy weight for my body type. Its not a bad thing to want to eat healthy and exercise is it!?

Half Marathon Training Plan Link

Today was Tuesday of week 1, so I went on a 3.22 mile run this afternoon. It felt good, but I am definitely out of shape. I am pretty happy with my time, averaging about 9.5 minutes a mile. I’m not really going for speed, more the endurance and distance.

Mother’s Day

I am home from college for the summer and yesterday we had a wonderful Mother’s Day. We went to church and then to a Mother’s Day brunch. It was so delicious and I wish I had taken pictures. The tables were all decorated with pink and flowers. I had salad and vegetables from a salad bar, an omelet with everything in it, sausage, fruit, chicken with a mushroom sauce, and just a taste of a rich chocolate cake that my brother got. Yum! The rest of the afternoon I was lazy and tried to catch up on 10+ episodes of Revenge since the season finale was last night. I didn’t catch up in time, so I will be watching the recorded finale today or tomorrow. Here is a pic of my set up: iced coffee, bracelet making, and a book if I decided to do some reading.

such a good show!

My sister and I made lemon cupcakes filled with lemon curd and iced with buttercream frosting for Mother’s Day. Here is the process of making them:

I haven’t been running much this past week or so because I decided to give myself a mini vacation as the start to summer and it was a way to make myself stop feeling guilty if I don’t exercise every single day. Instead I focused on eating healthy and being happy and thankful for my body. Now I am ready to get back into running and today I am starting a generic training plan for a half marathon. I haven’t actually signed up for a half marathon race, I am really just doing this because I want an exercise goal and I really want to be able to say that I can run at least 10 miles straight by the end of the summer. Maybe in the end I will find a race to complete and a friend to run it with! Running a half marathon is on my bucket list.

This is the link to the plan that I am following is from Fitness Magazine online and you can download it here:

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/workout/running/training-schedules/5k-10k-half-marathon-training-plans/

Spring Break Pics

 

Sorry for the long break from posting! I’m back and have just a few pictures to share from spring break. We stayed in a beautiful house right on the beach. The view was gorgeous, though the weather was just a tad still too cold for my taste. I never went in the ocean further than sticking my feet in (and even after that I felt like they had frostbite!), but it was warm enough that I could go for a run to the pier and back in shorts and a t-shirt. I absolutely loved running on the beach! It was exactly 2 miles out to the pier and 2 miles back, so I got a good 4 mile run or walk in every day. It made me feel very accomplished and peaceful.

We did community service at local places throughout the week. I helped at a zoo one day, which is why I have a picture of a goat. It reminded us of the Taylor Swift screaming goat video. There were actually some really cool animals there and it was a fun day!

I hope everyone had a good Easter! I am already getting summer fever with just about a month left until finals!

WIAW + Whole Foods Discovery

I will start off with some WIAWs from the past week:

Egg white omelet with chicken, olives, spinach, and cheese with side of fruit

First time I have had the banana flavored Chobani. Sooo good for an afternoon snack.

Casual breakfast between classes this morning. I brought what looks like mush to go from the cafeteria along with some fruit and bought a hot french vanilla coffee while I did some work on the computer. The mush is actually yogurt mixed with granola, raisins, and chopped walnuts. It turned out to be what I would think overnight oats are like (though, I haven’t ever made those) because the granola absorbed the yogurt and became soft.

A couple runs outside on my Nike app. Today I ran three miles in under 29 minutes (the pic on the right). I think that is my record 3-mile time so far!

I also ordered a new water bottle because my old one kept getting mold in the nozzle and it was getting gross and annoying to clean, so I splurged and went for this purple filtered water bottle. Fancy huh? I find that I drink a lot more water when I have a fun new cup or bottle, which is what I did all day today. So. Much. Water. But, it is so good for you! Yay for being hydrated!

Finally, I am going to talk about Whole Foods. I know that in the food blogging world this store/healthy food heaven is mentioned a lot, but sadly I had never actually eaten from their cafe until tonight. I have to say, I now understand the excitement over this place. I ate roasted squash, steamed carrots, Brunswick stew, and mac & cheese. We have a Whole Foods literally right off of campus, so now that I have discovered the hot food and salad bars, it is going to take some self control not to blow all of my money there. It is so sad that Whole Foods doesn’t accept college food points. Oh the struggles of living in the real world and having to use real money.

Missing the Bachelor

I am currently sitting outside on a patio couch, next to a gas fire, drinking my favorite french vanilla coffee with the temperature around 60 degrees. This is the most relaxed and calm moment that I have had probably all semester.

 

 

It is Friday afternoon, I just finished an Econ midterm, I already ran 2.5 miles this morning and I feel like I can take a moment to breathe. These past few weeks have been so crammed with basketball games, sorority events, parties, church, bible study, group project meetings, midterms, labs, and not to mention catching up on work in other classes or even exercise! Today I just have big/little reveal tonight and most of my friends are out of town on different retreats for the weekend, so it will be less active in the dorm. Since my first round of midterms is over, I am hoping to have more free time and take some time for myself (especially in the form of a good workout) these next couple of days. A top priority on my list is actually to clean my room because it is getting to the point where I am bothered by the clutter and disorganization.

 

I don’t even want to think about it, but I am so disappointed that I have not been able to see any of this season of the Bachelor. At this point I think it is a lost cause and I really can’t justify spending the time to catch up on all the episodes, but just look at Sean:

 

 

Could he be more perfect? Ha ha I know I am ridiculous. Why can’t the guys at college be more like him?

Happy Mardi Gras

Spring is definitely close! The trees around campus are already blooming and I am wearing a dress today with just a jean jacket because it is so nice out. I cannot wait for spring to be in full bloom!

 

In other news, I got my first gift from my Big yesterday and as you may be able to tell, it is a basket FULL of chocolate goodies. There are cookies, freshly baked brownies, a huge bag of candy, a box of chocolates, and zebra cakes. I’m telling you, this is my ultimate test of will power. I did have one of the brownies last night after dinner, but I just counted it as a replacement for my daily dark chocolate piece and I still remained in control. I am still trying to eliminate all sweets from my diet until spring break and I have been really good except for that one brownie yesterday. I think it is okay as long as I stay in moderation. Now, I am going to be giving away some of this food because I don’t need tempting me in my room late at night.

 

 

 

This morning I went to the gym (for the first time in a while, whoops) and pushed myself to run three miles straight. I did it in a reasonable time, finishing in 31:15. Considering I have really been lacking on exercise lately, I think this was a good run to get back into it!

 

I am not really celebrating Mardi Gras because I am not French and don’t live in New Orleans and for lent I will just be continuing to give up sweets (no need for Fat Tuesday), but the cafeteria is having a Mardi Gras celebration with decorations and themed food and stuff. What about you? Do you or your family do anything for Mardi Gras?

Rough Week

I can’t tell you guys how excited I am to start off a new week tomorrow. I have been so scatterbrained this past week and the most random unlucky things have been happening to me. My car broke down last weekend, the heater in our room was spraying steam for three days so that we couldn’t sleep in our own room, my first midterm of the semester I am pretty sure I bombed, I lost by student ID at least three times, and dropped my homework in a large puddle of spilled coffee right before it was due. It might be from lack of sleep and having absolutely no down time, but I have not felt my normal calm and collected self lately. I almost lost it today when I couldn’t find my student ID (again) and I was already late for a group project meeting. To top it all off, I have not gotten adequate exercise in the last three days, which just adds to the stress. I need a good workout daily to keep me sane!

This week is also big/little week for my sorority, so I am very excited for that! We get daily gifts delivered to our room from an older sister in the sorority, but it is a secret of who it is until Friday. I just hope that tomorrow goes well and that I can stay ahead of the game this week! Now time to catch up on reading some blogs and then sleep!

First WIAW!!!

Today is my first official What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW)!

                  

For breakfast I had a bowl of yogurt with lots of fruit on top and an omelet containing mushrooms, green pepper, tomatoes, and ham. I usually ask for egg whites, it cuts out half the calories, but they were out of egg whites today, so I went with regular eggs.

I met a friend and got this kind of Snapple to drink while we talked. I’m not sure how healthy it is for you, but it can’t be worse than soda.

I took a banana nut muffin to go from breakfast which became my afternoon lunch/snack.

  

Dinner consisted of a half of a sweet potato, a chicken breast, and a small salad with honey mustard dressing. Neither of those pictures above are actually from dinner, but the salad gives you a sense of what my salad looked like, just a much smaller size and well, a baked sweet potato is a baked sweet potato, but that isn’t my picture.

And of course, my one sweet allowed per day, a piece of dark chocolate.

This afternoon I went for a run as the sun was going down. I probably shouldn’t have gone out in shorts and a T-shirt because it got cold quickly. This was only my second time this semester running outside, so I was pretty happy with being able to do 2 miles in under 20 minutes (you can see a screenshot of my run tracking below). I have to admit that I have been slacking lately on exercising and I am eager to get back into more vigorous workouts.

 

Photo Round-Up

 

Well, I don’t have much to say tonight, so I am just doing a photo round-up of pictures from my phone from the past couple of days.

These are peanut butter brownies I made Super Bowl night as a late birthday treat for a friend. It is half plain brownies and the other half just has creamy peanut butter spread on top and decorated with M&M’s. I didn’t eat ANY (so proud of myself), but the whole container was devoured by college students watching the game in the common room within fifteen minutes, so  I guess they liked them.  

This was my “breakfast-to-go” this morning. The first picture makes the oatmeal look really bland and disgusting, but I actually have raisins and walnuts mixed in underneath, you just can’t see it. I also added the banana on top, as you can see in the second picture. I do this a lot when I get up late or don’t have much time to make it to class. I just fill a coffee cup with either oatmeal or yogurt and fruit and I sometimes take fruit in a Ziploc bag with me. I don’t like to miss breakfast because our cafeteria has “all you can eat” breakfast, so if you miss that, you have to pay more out of your food plan for lunch. It is kind of complicated, but nonetheless, I like to eat a big healthy breakfast. Breakfast has always been my favorite meal of the day, though half of my family doesn’t like breakfast foods at all, so I grew up used to not eating any breakfast as a way to “save calories”. I have found that actually eating majority of my calories in the morning for breakfast has had positive effects on my health and weight-loss.

Just another picture of part of breakfast. I absolutely love the salad bar full of fruit in the morning!

All Aboard the Struggle Bus

Have you ever heard that phrase before? Well, it basically means that I had a rough day. After getting a late start to the day by sleeping in and then wasting time on a school assignment that I don’t understand and getting nowhere, I went to brunch and then went out to run an errand. I was trying to create a fun birthday surprise for a friend, but my trip to the store for balloons, streamers, and brownie mix turned into an all-day disaster. My car wouldn’t start in the parking lot (it wasn’t the battery) and it had to be towed. The problem was, I waited hours for the tow truck to get there, so what should have been a 30 minute outing turned into an all day event. I got absolutely nothing else done today that I had planned to accomplish until I started studying at 10pm, and now I am just exhausted. Some Saturday, huh? Not to mention, everything that I had planned to celebrate my friend’s birthday just didn’t happen, including the reservations for dinner. So we had to improvise last minute. We did end up having a fun night out though! I tried sushi for the first time and it was great! I had two kinds of vegetarian rolls that I split with a vegetarian friend because I am somewhat allergic to seafood.

They had carrots, cucumber, avocado, and tempura flakes. I was surprised at how filling they were and I felt like it was a very healthy choice for dinner. After dinner the group of 14 of us went to Ben and Jerry’s and ordered the “Vermonster”- 20 scoops of ice cream with several toppings and whipped cream. I didn’t partake (holding strong on my resolution not to eat sweets!), but they had no problem finishing it off within ten minutes! Lots of pictures were taken to document the achievement of course. This picture was not actually ours, but this will give you an idea of what a Vermonster looks like.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive. My goal is to get enough studying and homework done in the morning so that I can go to a Super Bowl party in the evening. Which team are you cheering for? I am not really into football, so I have no favorites.