Nothing New, Yet Still Delicious

Hey everyone! Posting before work since I'll be there til 9. I was planning on making a few dishes to change things up but obviously I forgot to get a few key ingredients at the store so that'll have to wait until I can get back to the store. So unfortunately my food is pretty typical today but still delicious :)

Check it!

For breakfast I had another green smoothie. I can't believe that I actually WANT to drink these most days now! I remember not too long ago struggling with the idea of it but I'm loving them now! I think that my compromises with the recipe (using different fruits and adding a little protein powder) has made all the difference. Today's recipe was Gena's Peaches 'n Green Smoothie with a few changes. I used a cup of frozen peaches, one whole banana, 3/4 cup of almond milk, 2 ice cubes, half of a serving of vanilla protein powder and 2.5 packed cups of spinach. Very delicious!

For a late morning snack I had a cup of sliced strawberries. They were on sale still at Whole Foods so I picked them up and they are such a lovely snack!

For lunch I had the same yummy snacky type plate that I had the other day. Stuffed grape leaves, hummus, Mary's Gone Crackers, sun dried tomatoes and a big ol' carrot. Yum!

For an afternoon snack I'm bringing some raw almonds and raisins.

Dinner will be a huge chopped salad. It is so much extra effort to chop but it just tastes so much better :) Very worth it!

Hope you all have a great day! It is so gorgeous here, just like spring. I'm loving this mild winter so far, I'm hoping it stays like this!

I'm A Believer :)

Good evening friends :) I hope you all got through you Monday relatively unscathed. I've had a very strange day but I think it has led me to officially truly believe in the benefits of a high raw, veggie packed diet. Basically I didn't fall asleep until about 4:30 am and woke up around 7. I have no idea why but I just could not fall asleep last night. I've been sleeping much better since I changed my eating habits but last night was a fluke. I was pretty panicked because I knew that I would have to get through work and an hour and a half training session on two and a half hours of sleep. So I decided that the only thing I really had control over was what I ate, so I tried to make the most energy packed meals I could. And not only did I get through my day, I was efficient at work and I kicked ass in my training session :) I really attribute it to what I ate and it is great motivation to keep up what I've been doing even though sometimes it is a lot of work.

Since you have been interested in my workouts, my double session was amazing. I'll put it this way...we started off with 3 - 5 minute circuits. The first two minutes were freestyle kickboxing on the heavy bag, the third minute was ground and pound, the fourth minute was crunches on the stability ball and the last was back extensions with arm raises (also on the stability ball). This circuit was repeated three times. The rope made an appearance, lots of kicks on the heavy bag, squats, and a few rounds (I think we did five rounds? Four or five for sure) of attack and defend drills for 3 to 5 minutes. That is where I basically only use boxing and "attack" my trainer throwing punches at him while he defends. This helps my stamina as well as my accuracy and timing. It's also a lot of fun :) I made sure to drink tons of water (with Vega hydrating powder mixed in) and got through it and felt great after!

So lets check out what fueled this craziness :)

For breakfast I had a green smoothie.  This is Gena's Cherry Vanilla Smoothie and I actually used vanilla this time. It was delicious! I cut down to half a serving of protein powder for breakfast shakes because I'm going through it like crazy and this stuff is expensive! 

Late morning I had a pear.

For lunch I had some avocado toast and salad. I made a huge salad this morning to have enough for lunch and dinner because I was concerned I wouldn't have the energy to make it later!

Before my workout I knew I needed a little carb boost so I had a third of a cup of granola with a quarter cup of almond milk.

After my workout I had this protein shake. I made it ahead of time so I could drink it as soon as I got home so it thickened a bit in the fridge but it was fine. This one has almond milk, chocolate protein powder, banana and almond butter.

Dinner is more salad with three stuffed grape leaves and about a tablespoon of hummus. 

Another really great day of food! After all of the craziness I still feel good, even though I'm sure I'll sleep well tonight! I think that the small meals more often really is the best way to go as well, and it helps me make sure that I get all of my calories for the day.

I hope you all had a great day!

Some Clean Eats!

Hey everyone! Today was a great day here :) I woke up and had a delicious, filling breakfast. Digested a bit then did 45 minutes of intense cardio at the gym. I am so excited because my next three training sessions are going to be doubles! An hour and a half of butt kicking, I'm so stoked. I probably wouldn't do three doubles in a row if I wasn't going to miss a few training sessions the week after next. I'm going to visit my best friend in Florida from February 9 - 13! I can't wait, but I won't be training for a while because of it so I'm getting some hardcore sessions in first.

After the gym I did some laundry and then relaxed for the rest of the day. It was the perfect way to spend a Sunday :)

Here's the grub I ate today!

For breakfast I had a bowl of oats with raisins, coconut, walnuts and cinnamon. Super delicious.

Post workout protein shake! I decided to listen to the suggestions offered by all of you and made a delicious shake out of almond milk, a small banana, a tbsp of almond butter and some Vega chocolate protein powder. It was delicious!

For lunch I had this yummy plate of carrots, stuffed grape leaves, sun dried tomatoes, hummus and some Mary's Gone Crackers in the caraway flavor.

For an afternoon snack I had an orange and the very last of the strawberry scraps from the sandwich cake. So yummy.

Dinner was this gorgeous chopped salad. Mesclun greens, sun dried tomato, carrot and a half of a perfectly ripe, creamy avocado. Super simple but super delicious.

It is really amazing how much good clean food you can actually eat. I feel like I've been eating all day and I'm still a bit short on calories. I'll take care of that when I make some air popped popcorn with sea salt later to snack on while I watch some crappy Sunday night TV :)

I know sometimes it looks like I don't consume enough calories in a day. However, I'll use today as an example. Overall I consumed 1,700 calories today within 6 meals/snacks. That is a lot of food for not a lot of calories. My exercise made my net calorie intake a bit lower than that but still leaves me within a healthy amount for my daily calories. Tomorrow will be a challenge with my double training session but I'll figure it out!

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday evening and that Monday treats you well!

Saturday Eats and Treats!

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday :) I had a crazy morning and afternoon and now I'm just relaxing in my warm pjs under my covers watching fights ALL EVENING leading up to the free fights on Fox tonight. I'm very excited! It is rare that I get to see a main event because I refuse to pay $50 for PPV every few weeks so I always make sure I get to check them out when they do the free events.

I woke up early today and was at the gym by 7:45 am. I got in 45 minutes of cardio then came home, took a quick shower, made my breakfast and finished up my boss' birthday cake.  Today was his birthday and I always make the cake for an office birthday (except mine ha!) and I had such a cute idea for his!  Check it out!

It's a sandwich birthday cake! I made the cake and frosting last night and cut up the strawberries. All I had to do this morning was put it altogether. Prepping everything ahead made all the difference because I knew I would be tight on time.

I decorated it to look like a cream cheese and strawberry sandwich. The cake is Isa's vanilla cake recipe from VCTOTW in the sandwich bread mold and baked for about 55 minutes. The frosting is the basic vanilla frosting from VCTOTW and the fresh strawberries were gorgeous and super sweet. I didn't partake in the cake because it obviously wasn't gluten free but it was definitely a big hit!

So now that you saw what I didn't get to eat, let's check out what I did eat :)

Breakfast was another sludgy looking green smoothie. This one had a small frozen banana, the rest of the strawberries from the cake (about 7?), some Vega chocolate protein powder, a cup of almond milk and a big ol' handful of fresh spinach. It was really good but I almost regret using the strawberries in there because they were so sweet and delicious and fresh but they got lost in the smoothie. Oh well, you live and learn.

I was starving when I got home from work so I made some avocado toast and cut up a HUGE carrot. It was so good.

After lunch I snacked on two stuffed grape leaves and a tbsp of hummus. Sorry no pic!

I went for close ups of my dinner :)

Small chopped salad.

Some veggie soup...from a can unfortunately but sometimes convenience wins. It was still good though!

Hope you had a great Saturday! I'm so tired from the craziness from this morning, I'm definitely looking forward to having tomorrow off! Enjoy your night!

Workout Glossary Part 1

Hey everyone! My meals are boring today (nothing new and exciting, sorry!) so I figured I'd try some new out. Miss Rachel's comment on yesterday's post actually inspired this because I realize I talk about my training a lot but a lot of the things I do may not be known since I do a lot of specific training. I thought maybe I'd take a little time to illustrate some of the workouts I do. If you like this I was thinking maybe I'd make it a series and post some workouts you can do at home or on the road and other things like that :)

So, this is how I work out. This is only a very broad view of my training.

When I say I do a round of "ground and pound," this is what I mean. I basically go to town on a 90 lb heavy bag on the floor with punches, hammer fists, elbows and knees. You can go from either side or sit on it with one leg on each side.

This is what I mean when I say I'm "hitting pads." My trainer will physically hold pads for me and call out offensive and defensive combos. Combos include punches, kicks, knees and occasionally elbows. The pads you see in the picture above are Thai pads, which we use but we also use punch mitts. Those are smaller and require more accuracy.

In my last post when I said "the rope," which I'm sure isn't even close to the proper name, this is what I meant. Your goal is to keep the rope moving using your arms. She is lucky that a lot of the rope is coiled around the pole. I usually have to go the full length. I am not going to lie, if I had to choose my least favorite workout this would be it. It hurts!!

Since I showed my least fav, I figured it is only fair to show one of my favorite workouts (if we aren't including actual striking in that). This is a sledgehammer strike. We used to have one of those ginormous 600ish pound tires in our back parking lot which was left behind by the MMA gym that used to be next door to my gym. They switched locations and left the tire. Unfortunately they came back for it a few weeks ago so my sledgehammer days are over for now. Basically you raise the sledgehammer above your head and strike with full power alternating sides. I felt extremely powerful when I did this exercise and I think I was the only girl that did it :)

This is a diagram of a burpee. This is a very common drill. I included it because a sprawl is very similar to this and I know I mentioned sprawls yesterday. The only difference between a sprawl and a burpee is that the hips go down a little closer to the ground (it is used as a takedown defense in fighting) and instead of a jump at the end you just stand up and start over. Imagine doing that for your minute "rest" between 3 minute rounds!

That's a very quick overview of the very basics of my training. I do a lot of striking, switching between the pads (thai pads and punch mitts), the hanging heavy bag and ground and pound. The others I included mainly because there have been questions about them. There's a lot of other stuff (I can do another full post on abs alone if you want) I do but I figured I'd clarify the basics first :)

Hope this didn't totally bore you! I hope you all have a lovely Friday and a great weekend! I'll hopefully be back with some yummy food tomorrow!

PS. Ingrid, I thought of you when I saw this pic! I can't even deal, it is so cute and funny!

Feeling Good :)

Hey everyone! Hope you've all been well :) Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I got home from my ten hour day at work and just felt like relaxing for the night. I am pretty stoked though, someone I know decided to do a pH test because I've been talking to her about CSD and she was curious. I had told her what happened with my pH strips and she was nice enough to share with me. I did the pH test and I was indeed alkaline :) That was really great to see because I really makes the changes worth it! She was actually very acidic though but she expected it.

I had another training session today and I felt much stronger. We did seven rounds on the heavy bag with a minute of "active rest" between each round followed by a bunch of core. Active rest is no joke with him though, he had be doing sprawls, mountain climbers, the rope and other fun things like that as my rest. It was tough but I got through it :)

Here are my meals! Nothing spectacular but something to show nonetheless. They are all Instagram shots today since I was in a rush this morning so I had to shoot my breakfast and lunch at work.

For breakfast I had some oats to go with walnuts, raisins and coconut. I cooked my oats and put them in a container. It cooled into a brick which made me nervous but it actually reheated really well.

I ate an unpictured banana as a late morning snack.

A HUGE chopped salad for lunch. I've been trying to eat at least one salad a day. Most days I get it :) 

Post workout protein shake. I tried Vega Vanilla for the first time. Just blended it with almond milk. Wasn't bad!

Getting ready to eat dinner. Not super hungry so I'm thinking I may just have some veggies, stuffed grape leaves and hummus.

Hope you all have a great night! It is yucky and rainy here, a perfect night to curl up under the covers and watch crappy tv :)

Back with a Vengeance!

Hey everyone! I'm totally committed to using my meals to help me feel better from this yucky illness I've been dealing with for over a week now. I woke up early and spent 2 and a half hours in the kitchen prepping and getting meals and snacks ready to bring to work. I've been trying to remain high raw and I think that I did a pretty good job. I'm posting my meals for the day that I've consumed and that I plan on bringing to work for snack and dinner tonight.

Check it!

I went for the green smoothie again except I was ok with using fruit with a slightly higher glycemic index. Ever since I saw the recipe for the Cherry Vanilla Smoothie by Gena of Choosing Raw I knew I had to try it! You'll notice mine looked sludgy while hers is a gorgeous purple color, but I added a ton of fresh spinach to mine to up the green factor. I also used a scant cup of frozen cherries. I also decided to make it a cherry chocolate smoothie by using Chocolate Vega Protein Powder and for the record, it is the BEST vegan protein powder I've ever tried....and I've tried a lot! I'll definitely make this again! I also feel great now, I have a lot of energy and I love the green power from the spinach and those cherries add an antioxidant punch! 

I wasn't super hungry by late morning but I could tell by the Lose It! app that I needed more calories for the day so I toasted up a slice of GF Millet toast and added some almond butter and cinnamon to it. So delicious.

Not the prettiest picture but lunch was some brown rice pasta with lots of lightly steamed zucchini and broccoli. I topped it with a little sauce and some nooch. Very delicious!

For an afternoon snack I decided to go for an orange to keep the vitamin C flowing. Ideally this would have been my morning snack and the toast would be my afternoon snack but I'm eating this one at work so the toast wouldn't be doable then. Small concession but I think the vitamin C kick will help me get some energy to keep me going til dinner.

For dinner I made this gorgeous chopped salad. Half spring mix and half spinach, mung bean sprouts, cucumber, carrot, and sun dried tomato. I added my chopper to the pic because there has been some curiosity about what I use to chop my salads (that's for you Ingrid!). Very simple but it gets the job done! I'm also going to bring some Mary's Gone Crackers GF crackers to eat on the side. Another Lose It! inspired addition :) I'm hoping if I can make sure I stop coming in under calories that my energy will come back quicker too.

Hope you all have a great day! I'll be home after 9 tonight. Working until 9 a few days a week bums me out but I guess you have to do what you have to do. 

Back from Hibernation

Hey everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Been a little bit of a busy, rough weekend. I worked Friday and Saturday and then spent the day with my niece yesterday. Still low on energy as I realized in my first training session since I got sick. I felt like I was moving at half speed and I was really disappointed in my performance today. I felt very out of it. I think I'm going to rest until my next session on Thursday and hopefully I'll be back to my old butt kicking self. My main goal over the next few days is to eat the most nutrient dense food I can possibly eat and hopefully I'll get some natural energy as the antibiotics work out of my system.

I have a few pics for you from today.

For breakfast I had this bowl of oats. I added raisins, walnuts and shredded coconut. About 1 tbsp of each.

My "first lunch" was a slice of millet toast with mashed avocado and a small orange that my great aunt sent from Florida! It was so delicious and juicy.

For "second lunch" I ate half of this gorgeous salad. 

After the gym I had a protein shake and I'll probably finish the salad for dinner. I may add something to it but I'm not sure since my appetite is really low after this session. My throat is also on fire so I'm going to drink some herbal tea and hopefully that'll soothe it.

I hope you are all doing well. I should be around more with some hopefully very colorful and nutritious meals! I am really going to try and fight my laziness and prepare some beautiful meals that will help me get my energy back.

A Few Meals

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't post yesterday. It was my first day back at work, it was a ten hour day and I came home with a headache. No bueno. Today was much better, I'm feeling a lot better now and no headache! Yay!

Check out a few of the meals I've consumed over the past few days.

Swiss chard wrap! This one has hummus, sun dried tomatoes, carrots and mung bean sprouts. I read in CSD that these sprouts are SUPER good for you so I snatched them up from the store and have been adding them to everything.

Trader Joe's minestrone and an apple makes a quick lunch.

Now THIS is a smoothie I can get behind! This is the Carrot Cake Smoothie by Angela at Oh She Glows. It was SO delicious! It is a veggie smoothie I can get behind. I made a few adjustments. I used 2 carrots instead of one, used the flax seeds instead of chia, didn't use protein powder because I don't have vanilla and I blended a tablespoon of shredded coconut right into the smoothie. It was amazing and I was able to enjoy a veggie smoothie :)

Chopped salad. This one has greens, mung bean sprouts, carrots, cucumbers and sun dried tomatoes. Very delicious.

I'm not gonna lie, I was quite sad when I was supposed to be at my training session today. Even just taking a week off is a major bummer for me, but I know it is really important for me to rest until I'm all better, then I can hit the gym hard again. Can't wait :)

Hope you all had a good couple of days!

This Is What I Eat: The Bronchitis Edition

Hey everyone. I'm still stuck at home in bed, wah. I'm dragging my butt to work tomorrow though so hopefully getting back in the routine will help to snap me out of it instead of draining my energy.  I only took photos of my food I've been eating while I was sick when I remembered or wasn't too lazy, which wasn't often. Luckily, I've been craving super clean, healthy and nutritious foods. I'm sure it is my body's way of trying to combat the sickness as well as the antibiotics I'm on. Yuck.

I grazed on these veggie rolls throughout the day yesterday.

"Hearty Minestrone Soup" from Trader Joe's. I love that they use brown rice instead of pasta making it gluten free. I'm going to get three servings out of this one, I'll probably eat the last of it tomorrow at work.

Lots of fresh fruit including this bowl of orange segments and some grapes.  

Some unpictured food includes veggies and hummus and some gluten free crackers, lots of herbal tea and some green tea. I've been grazing mostly since my appetite is lower but I've been making sure to eat some nutritious foods so I can get my energy back.

I've been trying to figure out how to deal with the cleanse that got interrupted by getting sick. I kind of feel like it is silly to just pick up again after a brief hiatus and I don't want to start over again. I think for now what I'm going to do is basically adopt a lot of the lifestyle and then make some adjustments to a few aspects of it. Then, in the spring, I'll do the full cleanse again, by the book.  

This is my round up of my week on the Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse:

Caffeine - This was undoubtedly going to be the hardest thing for me to give up. I was clearly addicted and suffered the withdrawals but I am so proud to say I got through it and I'm still planning on maintaining a caffeine free lifestyle. I can't promise that I won't have a cup of coffee from time to time, but it certainly won't be often, and it will ALWAYS be decaf. I'm totally hooked on herbal and green tea!

Green Smoothies - This was another difficult one for me, especially in the winter. I had a hard time coming up with a good combination because I tend to like sweeter smoothies so what I decided to do was to start making drinking smoothies a habit and then work on the fruit:veggie ratio. I'll start by adding a handful of spinach to smoothies and then work on adding more and more greens and less fruit. I think that easing into it will make me more likely to maintain it for the long run. I won't drink smoothies EVERY day, but I definitely understand the idea of easing into your day by drinking your first meal so I'll do my best to work them in often.

High Raw Diet - This will be the part of the diet that I can dive into. I think I've been doing a good job with this aspect of it and I think that I just need to carry it forward. This doesn't mean I won't indulge in a cooked comfort meal from time to time, but I'll know to balance it out and you better believe a green smoothie would follow it up ;) I'll be aiming for the 60-80% raw that Carr suggests.

I'm also hoping to keep up the few minutes of yoga per day I've been doing. It helps me to get relaxed ad it just feels really good and peaceful.

I'm not going to lie, it was difficult for me to decide to stop the cleanse instead of start it back up. I'm definitely not someone that gives up on things but I just really don't feel like I'm doing it justice if I just start back up after a few days off. I think that I'd rather work on adopting these things into my every day life as opposed to doing it for 21 days and then going back to drinking coffee and eating fewer veggies and whatnot. It makes sense in my head I guess, but my head is also foggy right now ;) I think this is the right way to go about it and I'm excited about it. I can't wait to share my journey with all of you too. You've all been incredibly supportive and I'm sorry if I've disappointed you by this decision.

OK, I'm going to go relax for a bit. Thank you all so much for your support and kind words. XO

My Fitness Bucket List

Hey everyone. I'm still sick but I'm sure you figured that since bronchitis doesn't magically clear up overnight (although I wish it would!). I'm also incredibly bored and now I have pretty much no voice left. I sound like a cross between a 13 year old boy who's voice is changing and an old man that has smoked a pack a day for 60 years. I called the gym to cancel my training for the rest of the week (you can imagine how bummed out I was about that) and he was like wait the phone is breaking up and I basically had to assure him that it was just my voice. Oy!

I cyber wandered over to Oh She Glows and got sucked into the pages and pages and pages of archives that Angela has accumulated over the years and bookmarked and printed lovely and inspiring recipes that I can't wait to try. Then I came across her Fitness Bucket List post and decided it would be fun to create my own bucket list while I'm collecting enough photos of my sickytime eats to post.

So here we go, my Fitness Bucket List:


1. Take classes in an MMA Gym


I am lucky to have a really great trainer that has taught me A LOT about fighting. I am very confident in the skills that I've acquired over the past few years. However, there are lots of benefits to training with people that will throw punches back ;) I'd like to supplement my personal training with classes at an MMA gym because I think I'd be able to learn a lot sparring with other people (more on this later).

2. Start to train in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 


I've been floating around the idea of trying out Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and learning more about it.

And you better believe I'd rock the pink Gi like these ladies!


3. Spar with a sparring partner - learn more about how to fight against an actual human being instead of a heavy bag or pads


I have wanted to spar for a long time but there are no women at the gym that I go to that are basically at a sparring level. It's not that I'm all that phenomenal because I've got A LOT to learn...it's that my goals in fight training are different than theirs.

4. Participate in a legitmate boxing bout


I really do eventually want to fight in a legit bout. I feel pretty confident that my boxing can get to a place where I am 100% confident getting into a ring. It is a dream of mine to really finish this journey. I don't tell a lot of people about this, but it is at the forefront of my mind every single time I walk into that gym.

This picture motivates me every time I see it :)

5. Run For Your Lives

This just looks like a really fun way to start running races. I would love to participate in this one day!

6. Indoor Rock Climbing

7. Have a membership with a Yoga Studio

8. Run a 5K

9. Learn How To Surf (I know I've mentioned this before!)

10. Get Around By Bike Instead of a Car

I would love to be able to rely on a bicycle more than a car in the future. Great for my health and the environment.

Kind of love this pink Cadillac cruiser ;)

I'm sure there are a ton more but my brain is a little foggy right now. Hopefully I'll be back with some food tomorrow. I figured I'd wait another day so I can supplement today's sad showing because I had pretty much zero appetite. 

Have a good night and thanks for the well wishes. I'm not sure if I'm staying home tomorrow, I'll see how I feel when I wake up.