WIAW: Goals

happy wednesday y'all! hope you're having a good week. i've had another busy one around here, stay tuned for a post going up tomorrow about something crazy exciting that i signed up for & the huge progress i've made in crossfit recently!

but for now, here's what i've been eating lately + a little tangent at the end about my current goals.

pizza night out with the fam! 

i've been adding this to my coffee lately and absolutely loving it. it's delicious and pretty 'clean' for a coffee creamer, in my book. 

a warrior bowl from vitality bowls, a local place that makes acai bowls & smoothies. this one was an acai, bananas, blueberries, raspberries, flaxseed, broccoli, soy milk, & apple juice, topped with sliced banana, strawberries, granola, almonds, goji berries, and honey. sooo good!

homemade mushroom pizza by the madre. 

oats with defrosted berries and peanut butter

TJ's mexican salad at work for dinner

one of my go-to breakfasts: coconut flour pancakes with sunbutter and raw honey

a smoothie from vitality bowls after crossfit. this was acai, blueberry pomegranate juice, soy milk, blueberries, bananas, raspberries and whey protein

aaand another smoothie! this was called 'the hulk' and the girl that rung me up said that she was the one that came up with it. it was really good! i can't remember exactly what was in it (and it's not on the menu online) but i know there was spinach, spirulina, almond milk, whey protein, and a few different fruits. 

a new-to-me bar that i got at whole foods. i was starving on the way home from the PT office, and this did the trick of tiding me over til dinner. i wish i'd picked a different flavor though because i liked everything about this bar, except that the flavor wasn't super strong (which i should have expected since sunflower butter doesn't have a really strong taste). 

grilled cheeses on black california bread have been my thing lately! this one was spinach, bacon, havarti, and cheddar. i've been eating these so often the past few days (i had two today, haha) - all different variations every time. i think my favorite was chicken, cheddar, pepperjack, and avocado. SOOO good. 

yet another smoothie... now you guys know where all of the money from my tips goes, haha! this was the same smoothie as the pink one above, except i asked them to add spirulina. just as delicious with more nutrients!

one of my favorite dinners: burger and sweet potato fries. this burger was a mushroom & mozzarella turkey burger from whole foods. it was really good! 

my momma brought me whole foods salad bar for dinner at work when i didn't have time to make myself one before dashing out the door. she's the best mom in the world! & that vitaminwater zero is my all time favorite drink. 

lots of my peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough bites! i love having them on top of plain greek yogurt with honey for breakfast and dessert. 

i haven't taken too many photos of my food lately (this was a collection of the past week) mostly because i've become a creature of habit, and when i find something i like, i eat it a ton for about a week and then get tired of it. the past week i basically ate grilled cheese, smoothies, egg scrambles, grapes, protein bars, and frozen yogurt.

i am trying to work on squeezing in more fruits & vegetables since i haven't been eating a lot of those lately. i've probably eaten 4 salads since coming home from school (2 of them are in this post, haha) because i ate salads at school so often for so long that i am totally sick of them. i also hate prepping fruit! i've been getting my fruits and veggies in mostly in smoothie form because it's an easy way to get a lot of servings in and it isn't too hard to make. i also almost always have some form of green juice in the fridge (i like odwalla, naked juice, and trader joe's green juice - i just buy whatever is on sale because it's expensive). 

i know that food has a lot to do with performance and with the rate that i'm improving in crossfit i can't help but think that if i cleaned up my eats a little bit more, i could perform even better and improve even more. i'm setting small little goals for myself to help with this, one of which is to eat MORE veggies and the other is to get bowls of berries at work instead of bowls of froyo (i get a free one every shift i work, which means a lot of free yogurt). i like setting goals of adding healthy things in, or making healthy swaps, instead of just cutting things out, because that doesn't work for me. to each his/her own! 

what's the best thing you ate this week? 

current favorite healthy swap?

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

I originally had another post going up today... but then I made these, dropped everything, and ran to my computer. They're just. that. good.

Cookie dough is probably one of my all-time favorite foods. I mean, let's be real here: no one ever makes cookies for the actual baked cookies, do they?

So I finally got around to making a little recipe for cookie dough. And it's perfectly acceptable to eat it for breakfast. My guess is you're probably already drooling on your keyboard. Which is also perfectly acceptable.

Oh, and did I mention? No fancy equipment is required, just a bowl and a good ol fashioned spoon for eating.  You can thank me in approximately 3.5 minutes when you've made and devoured these.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites

by Julianna Foster

Prep Time: 5 min

Cook Time: 0 min

Keywords: raw breakfast dessert snack gluten-free vegan peanut butter

6051119

Ingredients (1 serving)

• 1 tablespoon almond meal
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 tablespoon creamy natural peanut butter (without added sugar)
• 2 teaspoons raw honey
• 1 tablespoon mini dark chocolate chips
• unsweetened vanilla almond milk, if necessary

Instructions

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl, except vanilla almond milk.

If necessary, add a little almond milk to get the dough to stick together.

Roll dough into small bites and enjoy!

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Weekly Workouts 7.20.13

last friday i injured my hip - i'm not sure how but i woke up on saturday morning and was hobbling around like an old person. i've always had hip issues (most of the time they never got in the way of anything) but i have a hunch that this was caused by overuse & nowhere near enough stretching and foam rolling. i think i just strained a muscle in my hip joint.

after taking 3 full days off, doing no workouts whatsoever, icing, applying icy hot, and doing light foam rolling, i felt good as new on monday. but i took it as a wakeup call that i NEED to stretch and foam roll every day (and ice if necessary). crossfit and running put a lot of strain on the body and i need to make sure that i take care of myself. my injury could've been a lot worse and i'm really grateful that it wasn't.

with that said, here's this week's workouts! i had almost no hip pain, foam rolled and stretched before/after my workouts, and have been feeling a lot better. i also think that having the proper shoes for CrossFit (finally!) helped a ton.

foam rolling = OW.

Sunday: off
Monday: CrossFit

spend 10 min working on kipping or butterfly pull-ups.
i haven't done kipping pull-ups yet so i worked on those. and DANG they're hard! i have a long ways to go, the technique just hasn't clicked yet.
+
back squat 6x5 at 75%
i hadn't found my 1 rep max for back squat yet so i did that instead, and got to 153 pounds.
+
against 15 min clock:
run 800m
50 pull-ups
60 burpees
70 KB swings (53/35)
max reps toes to bar

i got through 45 kettlebell swings before hitting 15 minutes. that one was tough, the pull-ups definitely got me from the start!

Tuesday: CrossFit

warm-up: 3 rounds of
5-10 ring dips
5-10 strict toes to bar
5-10 L sits

this warmup was freakin' hard. i used a thin blue band on the ring dips and even then my arms were ridiculously sore the next day! and i can barely do strict toes to bar and only lasted like 20 seconds on each L sit. so much room for improvement!
+
3x5 push jerk (on my last set i used 93#!)
+
Metcon
3 power cleans
3 pistols
6 power cleans
6 pistols
9 power cleans
9 pistols
... continue pattern until 7 minutes is up and add up total reps.

i used a 73# bar for the power cleans (RX was 95) and used a pole to help balance on the pistols. i got through 75 total reps (i made it to 15 power cleans).

Wednesday: off

Thursday: 7.1 mile run
this is my longest run so far for my half marathon training and i was really happy with it! kept a solid 8:45 pace, my hip didn't bother me, and the next day i wasn't super sore.

Friday: 2.5 mile run
i just wanted to shake out my legs and see how they were feeling. i actually felt like i could've done more, which was great, but i kept it short because it was really hot outside and didn't want to push my hip too much.

post run smoothie with vanilla greek yogurt, spinach, frozen blueberries & raspberries, and almond milk

Saturday: CrossFit

Bruck
4 rounds for time:
run 400m
24 back squats (RX 115)
24 jerks (RX 95)

i used 83# for the squats and 63# for the jerks, and finished in 36:13. i could've done a bit more, i think, but we didn't use the racks since there weren't enough for everyone in class. that meant that we had to clean the bar for both movements and i don't think i could've gotten more than 90 pounds cleaned and over my head for the back squats. overall this WOD was a rough one, but i got my butt to the box and finished and that's what counts.

all in all, a great week of workouts! i'm feeling much more confident about the half marathon and couldn't be happier with how much progress i've made in crossfit. i'm in the best shape of my life and can't wait to see more progress in the future!

best workout you had this week?

{late} WIAW + New Workout Gear!

hi guys! happy WIAW!

today i have some recent eats (despite being a liiittle late to the party) & some other new (random) exciting things to share with you. first, the food!

coconut flour pancakes with vanilla almond butter

eggs with spinach, goat cheese, and sriracha

greek yogurt with frozen berries, vanilla almond butter, and unsweetened coconut

eggs with goat cheese, bacon, brussels sprouts

new-to-me Larabar that was pretty good! 

coconut flour pancakes with vanilla almond butter and defrosted frozen berries

egg scramble with quinoa, spinach, bacon, & goat cheese with iced coffee

first bowl of oatmeal in months! plain oats cooked in almond milk with chia seeds, topped with vanilla almond butter, unsweetened coconut, and brown sugar. 

basically i've been eating a ton of eggs, bacon, coconut, and vanilla almond butter, haha! there's also been a lot of chipotle (for some reason i've been really lazy about packing dinner for work) & froyo happening around here. i need more green in my life, stat!

and now onto the new stuff happening around here! i ripped two pairs of my nike frees doing rope climbs at crossfit (they are currently taped with duct tape), so i decided to splurge and get myself a pair of Reebok Nano 3.0. they just recently came out and were only $10 more than the 2.0 so i decided to just go for it. 

BEST DECISION EVER. all caps were completely necessary, these shoes are the best! i have done two WODs in them with a variety of different movements including running a mile and all around they were fantastic. i don't have much to compare them to since they're my first pair of shoes designed specifically for this activity but they're freakin' awesome. 

{side note: weekly workout recap is coming at the end of this week!}

i also got myself some new workout gear since i just got my first paycheck of the summer & am in desperate need of some more workout tanks!

i bought the lululemon power y tank (it is supposed to be for yoga but i fell in love with it at the store & it did great in crossfit), champion c9 seamless cami bra for extra support, and lululemon wunder under crop.  i'm really happy with everything that i got! to me, some things are worth splurging on, and i always end up buying nice workout clothes instead of nice normal clothes (sorrynotsorry). 

other things i've done recently:

started my internship at the physical therapy office! i'm loving it so far.

annoyed the crap out of ginnie. this picture makes me laugh so hard every time i see it. she is such a primadonna and doesn't like being held! 

went to an A's game with my parents & one of my best friends! 

went to the farmer's market with my mom last weekend.

other than that, i've been wasting my life away watching how i met your mother. i just started watching a few days ago and am already on season two! halllp. but not really because i need to make it through like eight more seasons before the summer's over. 

have you gotten and new workout clothes lately?

HIMYM... love it, hate it, or haven't seen it?

CrossFit and Running

I love CrossFit.
I also love running.

I happen to have  a half marathon coming up in less than a month, and the longest run I've been on was a hot six-miler that felt like death (might not have helped that I had been mountain biking the day before and my legs were shot).

(don't be fooled by the smile)

Needless to say, I've been having a bit of a hard time balancing CrossFit and running lately.

I'm paying so much for CrossFit that I feel like I need to go pretty often. I don't want to miss out on anything, either!
Whenever I'm not going to CrossFit, I feel like I should be running.
And I'm 100% guilty for not doing nearly enough stretching (I don't even know where my yoga mat is).

It doesn't exactly help that one of my not-so-great qualities is indecision. I am the world's most indecisive person and can't ever decide what to order at a restaurant. Don't even get me started on everything else in life!

So today I'm trying to take a step back and figure out how I'm going to get my butt across that finish line on August 4th, while still going to CrossFit fairly often. I'm also on the lookout for some relatively short yoga videos to do, because let's be real, an hour of yoga sounds like absolute death to me right now because I know it's going to hurt. A lot.

Right now my general game plan is to go to CrossFit 3-4 times a week (depending on the workout, how I feel, and how sore I am), run twice a week (one shorter and one long), and STRETCH after every workout. I would like to fit in half an hour of yoga in there somehow too.

Who knows if this is going to work! Now I completely understand why people have so much trouble training for endurance events and doing CrossFit. If you want to be good at one of the two, you kind of have to put the other on the back burner.

So here's to praying that I can still keep doing what I love and not overtrain while doing so.

any tips from those of you who love CrossFit and running?
best site to find good yoga videos?

MIA

hey guys! sorry i've been so MIA lately, even though it's summer somehow my life has been surprisingly crazy in a good way (work, CrossFit, fun with friends & family). and i also found out last week that i got an internship at a physical therapy office for 8 hours a week for the rest of the summer, which i am unbelievably excited for. this whole past year i've been stressing far more than i should about not knowing what i want to do in the future or even what major i want to pursue. i am so blessed & lucky to get this opportunity - i know it will help me figure out if physical therapy is something i potentially want to do (and if i hate it, well, at least i crossed it off the list, haha). hopefully i enjoy it, i really think i will!

anyway, i have so much to share with you guys now that i don't know where to begin! i'm hoping to get into more of a routine with blogging so that all my posts aren't like this one in that brain/photo dump  sort of style.

eats of late:

coconut flour pancakes with strawberries, egg whites, and bacon

this tastes like cake batter. i die. 

typical CrossFit. lol! 3 eggs and bacon. 

fourth of july dessert: homemade shortcake with berries 

homemade white cake with lemon curd, cream cheese frosting, and coconut & a scoop of ice cream

best. dinner. EVER. brussel sprouts, alexia sweet potato fries, and a turkey burger with cheese and bacon. 

my lunch today after biking all over the place (see below)! a huge burger, totally hit the spot.

notable CrossFit achievements of late:

• i did a full rope climb! and completely tore my shoes. so i ordered some reebok nano 3.0s. say whaaat? i'm so excited for them to get here. 

• i did 90 handstand push-ups in the WOD yesterday. although they weren't full HSPUs by any means, i'm definitely improving! 
• i did a total of 250 pushups in a WOD last week. it was RJ, which was 5 rounds of run 800m, 5 rope climbs, and 50 pushups. there was a 45 minute time cap but i was on the last round in at the end so i ended up finishing out the workout in 51 minutes. 

other fun/random things:

• i saw 4 movies in the past 3 days! man of steel (can i marry superman?), monsters university, world war z, and despicable me 2. i think man of steel was my favorite!
• i fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 pm on the 4th of july. party animal over hereee! i think i was exhausted from working 5 days in a row, haha. 
• i had the best day today with one of my best friends! we drove to sausalito, biked up to the golden gate, watched a sailboat race in the america's cup, mountain biked in marin headlands (and explored all these old military batteries which was really cool), got lunch at the bottom of the golden gate, walked around sausalito, and then drove over the golden gate and spent the rest of the day biking along the water around crissy field. i had SO much fun! reminded me of how much i love the bay and how much i love the outdoors. i couldn't have asked for a better day! 

how was your fourth of july weekend?