Going the Distance

Not only did I just run 3.5 miles, which is the farthest distance I have ever run without stopping, but I did it in 34:44. That's faster than my best non-treadmill 5K time! I felt so amazing after I finished that I wanted to cry. While I didn't actually shed any tears, I was definately on some kind of natural high from the rush of endorphins surging through me. I felt like I was walking on air as I left the gym ;)


Came home, showered, and then I drank this strawberry protein shake.

Lately I've been trying to up my protein intake after my workouts. Gotta feed them muscles! Unfortunately, I'm out of my favorite protein powder (BSN's Lean Dessert) and I had to use this tonight:

It tastes ok if you mix in berries and yogurt and all that jazz to your shake, but drinking it plain with just water (or in my case half water & half milk) is kind of nasty. I pretty much had to chug the entire shake. 

In addition to my workout, I've also had a fairly productive day in the school department. While I may not exactly have been paying attention in pharmacoeconomics, I did spend my entire 3 hour lunch break studying and catching up on things. Lunch was eaten while learning about upper respiratory tract infections:

I had a spinach sald with the usual toppings: dried cherries, avocado, feta, walnuts and sunflower seeds topped with Newman's Own Light Raspberry and Walnut dressing.

And a couple hours later, I had this bar:

Dinner was leftover pasta, an orange, and a VitaTop with peanut butter:

I bought these for the first time this weekend because so many food bloggers just rave about them, but honestly I think they're over-rated. They tasted okay, but they were definatley not as amazing as everyone says they are. Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't think I'll be buying them again.

Well I'm off to watch the Bachelor and work on some more school stuff. Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Do you drink protein shakes? What's your favorite kind of protein powder?

Pasta Sunday

I am pretty much in love with How Sweet It Is. Every time Jessica posts a new recipe, I wish I could dive face first into my computer screen and start gobbling up whatever she made. All of the recipes that I have stolen from her have turned out fabulous (although they are usually not as pretty) and tonight's dinner was no exception.

I made her 20 minute roasted tomato pasta, but it took me longer than 20 minutes because I decided to add some chicken to it and I had to wait for that to cook. Plus I'm kind of cooking-challenged.


Ingredients:

In addition to chicken, I also added black olives because black olives = awesome. To make up for my added stuff, I only used one pint of tomatoes instead of two.

Ok, that's a lie. I only used one pint of tomatoes because I don't really like tomatoes that much.

There is also a high likelihood that I used way more asiago cheese than the recipe called for.

What can I say? It's cheese!

I LOVED this recipe and I'm not at all bummed about the fact that I'll be eating pasta every night for the next week.

So. good.

After dinner I worked on a school assignment, and then I was re-united with my old friends, Ben and Jerry. However, this time they came in a perfectly potioned container so I didn't even feel guilty about polishing off the whole darn thing.

Oh how I wish that a serving of ice cream was more than half a cup. Who ever came up with that rule anyway?



Off to hit the books. Have a great night everyone!

Are you skilled in the kitchen or do you need recipes for everything like I do? What are your favorite recipe sources?

Sushi Wimp

This afternoon I decided enough was enough and it was time to do something about my out-of-control eyebrows.

I should get them waxed once a month, but because I'm so lazy I only end up going every few months. You can imagine what my eyebrows looked like before I walked into HairMasters. They're all better now though!



It was fast, easy, and I got free leopard print tweezers!

Free is my favorite price.

Hit up the grocery store afterwards. Does it make me weird that I absolutely love grocery shopping? I could spend hours there. It's like a huge, giant land of food. Life really doesn't get much better than that.

As exciting as waxing and grocery shopping are, those actually were not the most exciting parts of my day. My sister, Courtney, was in town visiting a friend at Grand Valley so we met up at my favorite place, XO Asian Cuisine, for some dinner.



Started off with some wonton soup and veggie spring rolls, as usual. 



And for our main course, sushi of course!

I call myself a "sushi wimp" because I never order actual sushi, or sashimi I guess it's called. I always get the rolls that almost always come with cooked fish, if they come with fish at all. I just can't stomach eating big old pieces of raw fish; the texture and thought of it just freaks me out as I'm chewing it.

Tonight, I ordered a Green Dragon roll (eel, cucumer, avocado, and I added cream cheese) and Courtney ordered a Philadelphia roll (smoked salmon, cucumber and cream cheese) and an Alaska roll (white tuna, avocado, cucumber, and cream cheese added).

She begged me to put this picture on the blog:



Whatever, it's on honest blog and that's pretty much what I do 85% of the time. Stuff food in my face.

Do you like sushi? If so, are you sushi wimp like me or are you a fan of the raw fish?

Crudités

You know your day is going to be great when it starts off with these:

I still had two leftover pancakes in the freezer from when I made the best pancakes ever so I threw them in the microwave this morning and topped them off with this:

And one of these:

Popped them in the microwave for another 30 seconds so the chocolate would be all melty and delicious and BAM. Easy peasy chocolate peanut butter pancakes.

After breakfast we had two hours of class and then we rushed home on account of the fact that we had BIG plans. Can you guess what they were?

I'll give you a hint:

:)

I wolfed down a huge spinach salad full of dried cherries, lots of avocado, walnuts, sunflower seeds and feta and then we hit the road for Caberfae Peaks. It was a long drive (about 2 hours) and I munched on a Clif bar and some raisons on the way.

It was a great day for skiing and the slopes were packed. Must be that whole college day thing; our lift tickets were over 50% off! I heart student discounts. Also, I was stoked to try out my new goose down mittens that I bought yesterday:

My hands still got a little cold, but they weren't nearly as bad as they were with my old gloves. Plus I love the fact that they are down. LOVE. The inside is just so soft and...down-like.

Some shots from the slopes:

I was too lazy to pack my dinner this time, so we hit up the pub inside the lodge when we were ready for a ski break. I started off with one or two of these:

Rum and diet

Eric ordered the same thing, only with whiskey instead of rum and regular pop instead of diet. Which I guess is actually something entirely different when I put it that way.

Aimee stuck with root beer tonight, which she said wasn't very good but she still slurped down two of them in a hurry!

I was stoked to see an appetizer that included hummus when I opened the menu! It was called the Meze Platter and it came with hummus, roasted eggplant, feta, greek olives, and crudités.

Me (to waiter): This is a dumb question, but what are 'crudités?'

Waiter: Huh?

Me: In the description of this 'Meze Platter' it says it comes with crudités *points to menu*. I don't know what those are.

Waiter: *reads menu description* Um, I have no idea. Some healthy crap. I don't eat that stuff.

Me: ......

Needless to say, I ordered the dish anyway and I was glad I did because it was pretty tasty! Minus the eggplant..that I could have done without.

FYI: Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that crudités are appetizers consisting of raw vegetables that are dipped into some kind of dressing. I kind of figured that out after the plate came out.

Of course the sweet potato fries were just begging me to be ordered, and I didn't want them to feel left out.



After we finished eating, we headed back out and Aimee and I found this awesome jump that we went over about a billion times. Eric got a video of us! It's a little hard to see, but I go off it first and then there's a long pause where Aimee didn't know that Eric was ready for her and then she goes :) Check it out:

Well I'm off to hit the sack, I'm exhausted! See ya tomorow!

Uneventful Thursdays

Weigh-in:

Last week,  I weighed 168.4. My meeting with the scale this morning went pretty much as predicted:

I guess when you stress eat, enjoy a huge plate of fried food with a margarita, and gobble down massive amounts of Mexican food, you gain a couple pounds. My bad.

..............................................

Thursday's are pretty uneventful for me, I feel like I never have anything to blog about. I wake up and eat a giant bowl of oatmeal, go to work from 8 to 4, then come home and either study all night or go to the gym and chill at my apartment. With no exam tomorrow, tonight is definately a gym and chill night.


My lunch that I packed today was totally random, but it worked.

You can add ham and cheese rolls to the list of foods that I am obsessed with. I spread about half a tablespoon of chive and onion cream cheese onto 1/3 slice of swiss cheese (I just use the Kraft sliced swiss cheese) and roll it up in a slice or two of deli ham. I usually buy Oscar Meyer deli ham, but I hate all the preservatives that are in deli meat so last week at the store I found this and decided to try it:

I am not lying when I say that I could actually taste a difference. This was SO much better. I never realized how salty the other ham was until I tried this! Definately going to buy it again.

Came home from work and made this taco with ground turkey, spinach, avocado and cheddar:

And now I'm off to hit up the gym; it's leg day today!

For those of you who pack lunches, what kinds of things do you bring? Are they totally random like mine?