Simple Eats plus a Morning Workout Challenge

My meals have been pretty straightforward lately.  Here are some of my recent eats:

1/2 cup 1-minute oatmeal mixed with 1 cup boiling water, 1 T chia seeds, 1 banana, strawberries, blueberries, cottage cheese, and a spoonful of sunflower seed butter.  This was packed full of nutrients and kept me full until lunch!

I've been getting kind of tired of hot oatmeal, though (and have been too lazy to put together overnight oats or breakfast cookies before I go to bed at night... need to work on that) so I decided to make a yogurt bowl instead.  I combined plain nonfat yogurt with a banana, strawberries, blueberries, and homemade granola.

I went home for lunch one day this week and made myself some scrambled eggs topped with Trader Joe's salsa (SO good!), and ate them with an apple, sugar snap peas, baby carrots, white bean and basil hummus (also from Trader Joe's and ridiculously tasty - I highly recommend it!).  Medjool date for dessert!

It's been awhile since I had a salad beast, so last night I made myself one for dinner.  I threw together spinach, some iceberg lettuce, grape tomatoes, sugar snap peas, carrots, chopped walnuts, white bean and basil hummus, oregano-infused balsamic vinegar, and lentils (which I got already-steamed and ready-to-eat from Trader Joe's).  I ate this with a baked sweet potato with a little butter and cinnamon.  Plus a bowl of yummy Greek yogurt and homemade granola for dessert.

Today I finally took the time to make myself something a little more substantial for lunch to take with me to work.  

My salad last night tasted really good, so I pretty much made a repeat, but I also added some leftover cooked asparagus this time, and brought regular balsamic vinegar to add.

Another medjool date for dessert!  Tasty wasty.

Angela at Oh She Glows started a "Salad A Day" goal for June, which I think is a great idea.  One day down, 29 to go :)

I've posted some of Amanda Russell's workouts before - I love them because they're short but intense, and require little or no equipment.  She just uploaded a new video with a "challenge" - it's a 4-minute morning workout, and she challenges us to do it every morning for 3 weeks.  I mean 4 minutes isn't too much, right?  I'm going to try to do it!  Anyone with me?

The routine is:  30 seconds of push-ups, 30 seconds of leg lifts (on hands and knees, lift alternating leg with bent knee and flexed foot to ceiling), 60 seconds plank (see this Fitnessista post for lots of plank variations to keep it interesting and challenging), 30 seconds Spidermans (in plank position on hands, bring knees to elbows), 30 seconds bridge-ups, and 60 seconds headstand.  The headstand is the only one I'm worried about - I'll probably have to use the wall.  I do want to get better at doing a headstand, though, so this will be the perfect way to improve.

Hope your weekend is off to a great start!

Song of the day:

"Something to Talk About" by Bonnie Raitt.  Such a classic - I love her.  I listened to her a lot growing up (because my dad's a big fan).  She was in town the other day and I caught part of a radio interview with her, and it reminded me of how great her music really is.

Up and At 'Em

Hey everyone!  How's your day going?  I keep thinking today is Wednesday... not good!  I lose track of my days when I don't have classes or a set schedule.

I had an all-day study session planned with a couple of my friends, so I wanted to squeeze in a quick workout before I went to school.  I did the following 20-minute routine, which really got my heart rate up and left me sweaty:

I loved that it was short but intense, it didn't require any equipment, and I didn't need much space at all.  Plus I could do it barefoot!  I don't know why, but I just love that.  (Sidenote - to me, one of the signs of a great vacation is rarely having to wear shoes!)

I followed my workout with a protein smoothie for breakfast.

It had 1 cup almond milk (I replenished my supply yesterday, yay!), 1 T ground flax seed, 1 T natural peanut butter, 1 scoop vanilla Sun Warrior protein powder, lots of spinach, 1/2 frozen banana, 4 frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup frozen pineapple, and 2 ice cubes.

It tasted great and filled me up until lunch!  (I also had a small handful of mixed raw nuts before working out.)

Today I wanted to talk a little about eating healthy while juggling a busy schedule.  There are many reasons why it's tempting for me to let my eating habits slip when I'm stressed and busy - lack of time to go grocery shopping and prepare meals, stress, anxiety, etc.  I find that keeping quick and healthy food around (and not keeping junk food around) helps, as well as planning ahead.  Even though planning does take some extra time, it's really worth it to me.

When I get hungry and need a snack, it's so tempting to grab a box or bag of something and munch - but that inevitably leads to mindless eating and overeating for me.  So I try to portion out some healthy foods that don't take much time to prepare, and really enjoy them.

For example, I recently had an iced tea, grape tomatoes with hummus, an apple with almond butter, and a bowl of plain yogurt with a spoonful of cherry jam, walnuts, and old-fashioned oats mixed in.  (This was kind of a late lunch/ tide-me-over-until-dinner snack.)

Another healthy snack that I've been loving is air-popped popcorn.

My grandma got me this popcorn popper for Christmas, and I love that you don't need to use any oil to pop the kernels.  I've also heard that you can pop dry kernels in a paper bag in the microwave, but I've never tried this because I'm afraid of the bag catching on fire...  Yikes.

Action shot!  I have to face the machine towards the wall because kernels tend to fly everywhere!

You can see one of the rogue kernels in this picture.

The best part is that you can choose whatever toppings you want.  This time I chose to spray the popcorn with olive oil and sprinkle on some nutritional yeast.  Sometimes I also like to sprinkle on some cinnamon and add chocolate chips, or you could also add in some nuts, or if you like spicy things some cayenne pepper would be good.

You can make a ton for very few calories- there are 31 calories in 1 cup of air-popped popcorn!  (Just watch your toppings.)  And popcorn is a whole grain, too.

I've mentioned before that I've been trying to drink more water lately, but plain water can get boring.  I like adding lemon, drinking iced tea, or adding one of these Zoe Life powdered drink mixes to my water bottle.  It's made from 20 fruits and vegetables, is sweetened with stevia, and doesn't have any artificial chemicals.  I don't think I really need this, but my mom has a ton and it tastes good, and it helps me to get in some extra water.

Well after a day spent in the library, I'm ready for dinner and maybe a TV show.  See ya later!

Interesting Articles:

Popcorn Contains High Levels of Antioxidants (See, it's really a healthy snack food!)
5 Tips to Stop Stress Eating
Sugar in Food:  8 Eats with More than a Twinkie (Yikes!)

Song of the day:

"Slow Life" by Grizzly Bear.  This is a soft and slow-paced song which is on one of my studying playlists.

Spring Break or Bust

It's been pretty go-go-go since Friday, but so far my spring break has been awesome.  It was nice to see my family and celebrate my sister's birthday on Friday.  I got her this sweet gift:

She loves her electric blanket and her snuggie, so I couldn't resist getting her a heated snuggie!  I think she was excited about it, and she already tried it out and said it heats up really fast  

I don't need a heated blanket now, though, because I'm in warm and sunny DC!  Might not be a tropical spring break trip, but 70* and a blue sky feels pretty exotic to me right now.  I drove down on Saturday and had breakfast on the road:

Sorry for the blurry picture.

My sister gave up sweets for Lent and didn't even make an exception for her birthday!  So she requested fruit for dessert (and my mom also had angel food cake, so I had some of that as well as fresh fruit).  I packed up some leftover "dessert" to eat during my drive - pears, apples, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, and an unpictured banana.  So good!  

I'm embarrassed to even post this picture because you can see how ridiculously dirty my car is... but I just had to say that I love seeing windmills when I'm driving.  And it was a beautiful day out - the clear blue skies helped me stay awake and alert, which is always good.

So far I've had 2 lunches with really good friends, did some shopping, hung out at a park, and went to a DC staple:  Ben's Chili Bowl.  I hadn't been there in so long; love the vegetarian chili!  Here are some of the highlights:

Maryam and I went to Tysons Corner (my favorite mall ever) and decided to eat lunch at an awesome Japanese restaurant in the middle of the mall.  Everyone sits around this conveyor belt, and the chefs put the food they've prepared on the conveyor belt and you can just take what you want as it comes by you!  The plates are different colors which indicates the price, and there's a menu for you to cross-reference if you don't know what something is, or if you want to order something that you haven't seen go by.  

I tried something new which I was a little nervous about:  seaweed salad.  Verdict:  delicious!!  I really liked it and would definitely get it again.  It had a yummy sesame flavor.  I also had some vegetarian sushi and a funny little dessert called mochi which had a red bean paste filling.  

I did do some shopping while I was at the mall.

The jeans were planned - they're Levi's Curve ID jeans and I had wanted a pair for awhile, but couldn't find them near Cleveland, so I was excited to go to the Levi's store at Tysons.  The sandals were an impulse buy; they were only $10 at one of those cheap-o shoe stores.

After the mall, we went to my favorite park, Meridian Hill.  

They don't have the water in the fountains yet, but I still think it's gorgeous.  It reminds me a lot of European-style parks.  

Maryam and me.

There's always SO much going on at Meridian Hill.  There's a drum circle with people dancing/ hula-hooping, various sports (soccer, football, frisbee, lacrosse, bocce, etc.), juggling, tight-rope walking (!), picnics, people jogging/ bike-riding - pretty much anything you can think of.  

A soccer game.

Jugglers - so impressive!

We've done lots of walking, which has been great, especially with such nice weather.  

This morning I did 3 10-minute workout videos from FitSugar.com:  "Get A Bikini Body in Just 10 Minutes," "Victoria's Secret Model Workout: 10-Minute Fat Blasting Circuit," and "Get Madonna's Arms with this 10-Minute Workout."

I didn't have any free weights with me, so I just used two filled water bottles instead.  I could have used heavier weights for some of the moves, but these did the trick.  I really liked all of the videos, and I love that they're only 10 minutes so you can do them on their own or do a few back-to-back like I did this morning to get in a longer workout.  They got my heart rate up and made me sweat a little, and they were a great start to the day.

I've actually got to work on a writing assignment for school, so I'm off to do that for awhile.  Hope everyone is having a great start to the week!

Reader question:  Do you do any exercise while you're on a trip?  I'm not that concerned about it this week, and I know I'll be doing tons of walking, but since I had some extra time it was good to get a little cardio and toning in there, too.  


Song of the day:

"Islands" by The XX.  A mellow song for a mellow day.