Fun Friday - Things I'm Loving This Week

Hey everyone! Happy Friday! Another week in the books. I still have work tomorrow but I'll be by myself, it's only a few hours and it'll be mellow. Today was business as usual for the most part. I didn't sleep well last night so I was a bit tired and holy crap was I SORE!! That workout really did the trick!! I definitely need to add more weights into my routine...on my own time though. I'm definitely not switching up the kind of training I do in my sessions.

So for today's post I thought I'd do something different and a little fun! My food is pretty much the same so I thought it would be more interesting to share a few things that I've been really into this week! Some is food related, and some not. Let's take a look!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned Hurraw! lip balm here before but this week it has been particularly important. The weather here in NY has been back and forth and up and down and it is wreaking havoc on my skin and lips. My lips get particularly bad, which is strange because I'm well hydrated. Like splitting bad. Hurraw! lip balm is by far the best lip balm I've ever used. It is vegan (duh) and raw (duh again), has a great texture and leaves my lips feeling soft. I'm totally addicted to my lime one.

Apple cinnamon Pure bars! Never in a million years did I think I'd like a fruit flavor over chocolate but omg this flavor is PHENOMENAL. It blows the Chocolate Brownie flavor out of the water. Sweet and nutty, raw, vegan, gluten free. Perfect snack!

Yeah yeah yeah I know it is the "hip" thing to do right now, but I'm loving the song "We Are Young" by Fun ft. Janelle Monae. I've heard that album has a cool retro feel to it so I'll have to check it out.

Gluten free Multigrain Puffins!! Cold cereal has made a return to my breakfast! It has been a very happy week indeed.

I've been making my own trail mix this week as a quick snack as well. The mixture I've been enjoying is raw almonds and cashews with dried apples and apricots. Great mix! Try making your own trail mix for a fun, quick, healthy snack!

Beach cruisers!! I have wanted to get a bike for a while now and I've had my eye on beach cruisers the whole time. I love the style and since my rides would be predominantly on concrete it would make sense to get a cruiser over a mountain bike. These babies are EXPENSIVE so I'm hunting around for used but I probably won't be able to get one for a while. Doesn't mean I can't look though! They are so adorable, I love the really vintage looking ones.

So that's just a few things that I've been into this week :) Did you guys like this post? Is it something you'd like to see every week or should I just stick to food? I had fun writing it, I hope you enjoy reading it!

I'm in for the night since I can barely move or keep my eyes open. Bellator fights are on then The Ultimate Fighter Live so I'll be happy curled up in bed. 

Have a great night!

Almost There!

Hey everyone! Hope you have all been doing well! I've been super busy working a whole lot so things have been pretty much the same. I went in for my training session after work and found out I'd be training with someone else today. We did mostly weights which isn't really the kind of workout I like to do. I definitely got a good workout, but it just isn't the kind of workout I enjoy so I was a little bummed. My shoulder was really fatigued as well so that was a little rough.

Anyway, now that I got through the longest days of my week, I just have tomorrow and Saturday and I'll be free on Sunday. I really should try and get a massage then. I'm looking forward to relaxing for sure!

I was running low on groceries so luckily I got to Whole Foods tonight. I am a little confused on the whole acai situation. Am I supposed to get juice? Is that the most popular way to get it. I am trying to figure out the smoothie and that is the only element I need to get.

Cherry Chocolate Smoothie

Another AMAZING sandwich. Same as last time except this one has spinach instead of salad greens.

Dinner was a Whole Foods salad. Check out that moody lighting, ha!

Hope you are all well! Sorry I'm really tired so I'm gonna cut it short but I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with something interesting ;)

Busy Tuesday!

Hey everyone! I'm going to have to try and make this quick because I have a long day ahead of me. I didn't want to wait until later because there is a possibility I may actually have to work later than 9 because we have a late shoot so the likelihood of me wanting to post then will be slim to none :)

Just got all my meals together for this long day so check em out!

I mentioned a week or two ago that I've been craving cold cereal like crazy because it has been so long since I've had it. I've had a hard time finding an interesting gluten free cereal that isn't horrible for you so you can image my surprise and delight to be scanning the cereal shelf at Trader Joe's and finding this big gluten free stamp on a box of Puffins!! I love Puffins!

So for breakfast I had a bowl of Puffins gluten free Multigrain cereal with banana and unsweetened almond milk.

For lunch I made this gorgeous sandwich on a gluten free tortilla! It has hummus, greens, carrot, cucumber and sun dried tomatoes.

My intention for dinner is to eat this salad with stuffed grape leaves. However, I realized that we have appointments booked from 5pm until we close so that may not be a possibility. If I don't get to it today I'll eat it for one of my meals tomorrow. I also made the following...

An awesome homemade trail mix! This will be easy to snack on between clients, is nutritious and energizing. This one has raw almonds, raw cashews, dried apple rings and a few dried apricots. Yum!

I hope you all have a great day! Time for me to finish getting ready :) Hopefully I'll be home before 10 and I'll be looking forward to unwinding by catching up on your blogs!

Some Food and Some Shoulder Troubles

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a good Monday and are easing back into the work week. Well except for you lucky ones on spring break (yeah I'm talking to you Ingrid! ;]). Today was business as usual, work then my double training session. I've been experiencing some shoulder troubles recently and my shoulders have been fatiguing really really quickly. It is incredibly frustrating because I know my stamina is way better than I've been showing lately, I just get fatigued so quickly in those muscles. I'm really contemplating trying out a chiropractor to see if adjustments will help straighten everything out and alleviate some pressure on the nerves. Right now I'm really exhausted because the workout was great anyway, just wish my shoulders didn't tire out as quickly as they do. The other thing that is actually really gross is the amount of popping and cracking that has been going on in my back, neck and shoulders. Sometimes I'm just laying in bed and I breathe in deep and hear/feel a pop pop pop going down my back. So gross!

Anyway, enough of the wah wahing :) Lets check out half of my meals from today :)

For breakfast, the return of the Cherry Chocolate Smoothie!

An amazing orange for snack.

Lunch was this beautiful snacky hummus plate with carrots, grape tomatoes, sugar snap peas, hummus and stuffed grape leaves. So perfect.

After my workout I pounded down a protein shake and tons of water.

When I can get out of bed I'll make a chopped salad :)

Going to relax and watch The Voice tonight. Going to rest up as much as I can because I have a long few days ahead of me. 

Have a great night!

Weekend Wrap Up

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great weekend! It's been all kinds of crazy over here but I finally had a chance to relax today. Yesterday was busy but a great day!

I started the day off at the gym bright and early. I got there by 8am and decided to do 45 minutes of cardio. It felt great! I went home and showered and had some avocado toast for breakfast. I ran a few errands and then decided to take the trip out to the raw restaurant I found a week or two ago. It takes me about 30 minutes to get there from my house but the drive is really nice and scenic and actually not stressful. The weather was beautiful and I had the windows down and I enjoyed that 30 minutes to myself.

Now, I hate what I'm about to say but it would be unfair for me to not tell the truth... I was a little disappointed with the cafe. I love the fact that it exists and the girl that helped me was super sweet but it just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. I had checked out the menu before and picked out a few items that I was really interested in trying. When I got there, none of those items were available. I ordered a drink, which she prepared while I decided what to get from the available options.

I decided on the "Morning Glory" drink. It has oranges, strawberries and acai. I loved the flavor combination but the texture was a bit odd to me. It was very very pulpy and I guess bits of maybe orange seeds that didn't pulverize completely in the vitamix? I found myself chewing quite a bit. I'm used to and prefer a thick, creamy, icy smoothie and this was chunky and pulpy and not super cold. I love the flavor combo but I'm going to try and recreate it with a texture that is more to my liking.

A lot of the choices they had were fake meat products like burgers and sausages and meatloaf...all raw obviously. It just wasn't as beautiful and vibrant as I expected I guess? I decided to go with the pad thai. It was ok, it has a curry sauce which I didn't realize until I got it home because I didn't check the description when I chose it. I'm not a huge fan of curry sauces and was expecting a nutty sauce so it was just ok.

I feel so bad giving a lukewarm review but I was a little bummed out when I got there. I have to say that I at least enjoyed the ride out there and the ride home. It is a bit out of the way so I probably won't head back out there soon but maybe one day I'll try calling ahead to see what they have and maybe if they have a dish that I wanted to try I'd give it another shot.

A little while after that I went over to my brother's house for a BBQ he was having. A close family friend was visiting from North Carolina (she's from here and just moved there in November) with her baby so my whole family was there along with other family friends. It was a nice big group with 3 babies so it was a bit chaotic but it was so fun and the babies are adorable. And since Shen requested it...

Here's Delilah! Didn't she get so big?! She's growing up so fast. She's a funny kid, she makes me laugh a lot :) I tried to get more photos but she is always on the run so her being in the wagon was my chance to get a shot! Love this girl!

I woke up early today and hit up Trader Joe's for a few things. Nothing crazy. After I went back to my bro's house to help him watch the babies (Delilah and our friend's son, Vinny). I got home around 2:30 and have been relaxing ever since. I'm exhausted but I've had a great weekend!

Here she is this morning. She's a little bit of a mess :)

The only meal worth photographing today. For dinner I had a delicious quesadilla with fat free spicy refried beans, spinach and avocado. So good!

I hope that you've all had a great weekend! This week is going to be a long one. I have to cover for my coworker on Tuesday so I'll be working 11-9 Tuesday and Wednesday plus my regular hours the rest of the week and a few hours on Saturday.  I'm going to get a lot of quality rest time in tonight :)

Have a great night!

A Beautiful Day and Some Raw Food

Hey everyone! Happy weekend! Can you tell I'm happy about it? The weather has been so beautiful this week and I'm glad I've finally had a chance to enjoy it. I was in the kitchen prepping a new (for me) raw dish and had the windows open and enjoyed the fresh air and perfect temperature. I'm definitely a 75 degree girl.

I started off my day by going to work then after I got home I prepped my raw lasagna! You'll see what that looks like in a minute. After I finished that (and it took a while) I relaxed for a bit, charged up my phone (which doubles as my iPod at the gym) and headed over to get a workout in. I have been trying to psyche myself up to start running again over the past few weeks and I decided today was finally the day. I am easing my way back into it by jogging as a warm up then finishing my cardio on the arc trainer. My goal was to start at a mile and take it from there. I did my mile warm up and it pretty much sucked. I don't know why running is so hard for me but it is. I'm just going to have to try and stick with it I guess.

Anyway, here is what I ate today!

For breakfast I had a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie. So good every time!

Late morning snack was an orange.

For lunch I made an S&M salad. This one is completely raw because I used the dulse granules like the menu calls for (instead of the toasted nori I had been using until I got the dulse).

Before my workout I had a banana.

Post workout I had a quick protein shake.

For dinner I had some raw lasagna! I decided to give it a go this afternoon. I used zucchini as my "noodles" which I soaked in a mixture of purified water, sea salt and a little olive oil. I made the "cheese" recipe from Ani Phyo's Kitchen Essentials and the Prana Marinara sauce from Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet. I used cashews as my nut of choice for the cheese. I liked the way it came out except I found that 1/4 cup of lemon juice was A LOT. I found there to be almost a sweetness to the cheese which was a little strange. Next time I make it I'll cut the lemon juice down and add more garlic to make it more savory. The sauce was really lovely. I got rid of the bell pepper because we all know how I feel about them and added extra tomato and sun dried tomato. When combined all together I enjoyed the dish but the flavor was really strong. I can definitely only eat a little at a time. I had tons of cheese and sauce left over so I combined them together in the food processor and the result was a thick dip that smells EXACTLY like pizza!!! I'm going to have to figure out what to do with that!

Not too bad for my first shot but definitely room for improvement. I'm going to try my best to get to that raw restaurant tomorrow. It is about 30 minutes from my house so I'll have to see how the day goes and if I'll have time. I hope so!

Today happened to be a 100% raw day. It wasn't my intention but I'm proud of it. I'm definitely not going to be all raw all the time but I'm finding the 80% a lot easier to hit.

Hope you all have a great Friday night and a wonderful weekend!!

Busy Day!

Hey everyone! I can't believe tomorrow is Friday! I'm kind of happy it is :X I can definitely get behind a day off right about now. Today was such a gorgeous day, it was 75 and sunny here in NY. Such a shame to be inside and you can imagine my delight when my trainer suggested we train outside! It was so nice to soak up some sunshine, even if it was just for 45 minutes.

I had some pretty good food today considering the lack of food in my fridge. I fixed that with a trip to WFs after the gym. More on that in a sec!

For breakfast I had some avocado toast, a banana and some cantaloupe. Perfect breakfast :)

For lunch I had some rice and beans and stewed zucchini and tomato.

For an afternoon/pre-workout snack I had a honeycrisp apple with some raw almond butter.

After my workout I had a protein shake which held me over while I was doing my grocery shopping! I finally had $ and time to get my groceries so I made a quick(ish) trip to WFs. Got lots of good stuff! But first, look what I found...

They added A LOT to the bulk section by moving the fresh peanut/almond butter display and adding more bulk bins. Look what I found! Bulk organic hemp seeds! I thought that this would be perfect because I can get as much or as little as I want and I always feel like bulk items end up being less expensive (although I may just be imagining that). It was an exciting find though!

Here is my haul though. Most of it is ingredients for a raw dish I'm planning on making to shake things up a bit. I have basil, carrots, zucchini, two containers grape tomatoes, baby spinach, frozen blueberries, dulse, one avocado, some raw cashews, a gf raw blueberry nut granola bar, a container of hemp seeds for $4.50(!!!), 2 apple cinnamon Pure Bars (which are by far the most amazing flavor, so good!) and a Chocolate Brownie Pure Bar. I also got my dinner...

Brown rice veggie rolls! I normally wouldn't spend that much $$ on sushi but the salad bar was looking pretty sad and I just wanted something quick for dinner so I splurged.

So that was my day. I was running around from 8:30 am until 7 pm so I'm glad to finally be home and relaxing! 

On tap for tomorrow: Work, cardio and an attempt at raw "cooking."

Have a great night!

Wednesday Noms

Hey everyone! Sorry about not posting yesterday, things got a bit crazy. Today is my long day at work so I wanted to post this before I went in so I can get the post in today. I don't have my dinner to show you because I will probably end up getting it some rice and beans and veggies next door. I have pretty much nothing left so I need to go grocery shopping tomorrow after the gym because it is pretty sparse in my fridge. Unfortunately my need of a paycheck and some time to actually go will leave me piecing a few meals together but I'll survive :)

So here's what I've got for today!

For breakfast I had this delicious green smoothie! I'm totally into the frozen blueberries lately! This smoothie has a cup of frozen blueberries, a small banana, a cup of almond milk, Vega Shake & Go Vanilla and lots of spinach. I'm sipping it now and it's very delicious!

For a late morning, pre-yoga snack I'm going to have this yummy bowl of cantaloupe and pineapple. It's kind of big so I'll probably have some left over to snack on later as well.

Lunch is another salad.

Like I said I'll have to grab dinner from next door because I really need to go to the grocery store. I'm glad I am posting this now because I really want to go through my raw food "cook"books to try and find a few new recipes to make. I need to change up my meals a bit.

Hope you all have a great Wednesday! Once I get through today the rest of the week is easy :) I took this Saturday off as well because I'll be working Saturdays for 3-4 weeks after and we are having a big BBQ at my bro's house that evening for our friend's birthday so I'm looking forward to another whole weekend off!!

Exhausted in the Best Possible Way

Hey everyone! I'm posting this on my laptop in my bed where I probably will stay for a long time. I jut got home and cleaned up from my double training session and let me tell you, I'm so exhausted! We did A LOT of kicks today. Lots of rounds on the pads and heavy bag as well as a round of attack and defend. Lots of kicks, punches, knees, drills, and core today. Needless to say I walked out of that gym red faced, drenched in sweat, already sore and exhausted. So tonight will be a quiet night spent in my bed enjoying the breeze coming into my window. I can't think of a better way to recover from a hard workout :)

Some pretty basic food today. Haven't had dinner yet but I'm sure it won't be exciting. I'll show you what I've had so far though.

Breakfast was the other half of my baked oatmeal with some cantaloupe. 

For snack I had a delicious honeycrisp apple.

Lunch was a big ol' chopped salad. All of the usual suspects plus some hemp seeds. I'm loving the hemp seeds!

After my workout I had a protein shake and tons of water so I'm not hungry for dinner right now. I'll have something small in a little bit.

I just saw that Ewan McGregor is going to be on Conan tonight. That's pretty awesome!

Hope you all have a great night! I'll be in my bed. Because I can't move. And I love it. :)

A Productive Sunday

Hey everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I had an amazing weekend and soaked up the warmth and sunshine. Today I was actually really productive. I had decided that I need to go through all of my stuff and just stop hoarding and throw crap out. I have gotten rid of a lot of stuff and have been doing a thorough cleaning while I de-clutter and it feels really good. I basically just opened up my windows, put the tv on (and luckily they were playing some fun movies back to back) and just dove in. I love the feeling of accomplishment :) I still have a lot to go through but it feels good to finally get started.

I ate some pretty great stuff today. Check it!

For breakfast I made this beautiful ramekin of baked oatmeal with some blueberries baked right in. It was so delicious! I ate half of it. This was really filling so I decided to just save the other half and enjoy it another day (well tomorrow ha!).

For snack I had some cantaloupe. It was pretty good! I can't wait until it is super sweet and juicy.

For lunch I had some stuffed grape leaves, grape tomatoes, carrot and hummus. Delicious as always.

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of dinner. We had a big family dinner and it was a little chaotic so I decided to not deal with taking a pic. Luckily there is a close frame of reference since I had the same exact quesadilla from yesterday with some salad. It was really yummy.

Back to the grind tomorrow. Looking forward to a relaxing night tonight. Hope you all enjoy your Sunday evening :)

Green Everywhere!

Hey everyone! Hope that you all had a great Saturday/St. Patrick's Day! It was such a lovely day today it totally lifted my spirits :) I started off my day with an hour of cardio at the crack of dawn. It felt good and I was glad that I got out of bed and did it. My intention was to go to work but I decided that it was too nice to spend the day inside when I didn't really have to.

My friend asked me to do a quick maternity portrait session for her today so I went over there and took some pictures of her and her husband. After that I decided to take a ride out to Whole Foods and enjoy the weather for a bit. There is nothing like driving around with the windows down on a beautiful spring day. It even made the horrific traffic a little more bearable :)

So as I mentioned yesterday, my plan was to eat all green food today. I think I was pretty successful! Check it out!

Green smoothie after my workout for breakfast. This one is a Banana Berry Smoothie! Frozen strawberries and blueberries, a small banana, almond milk, Vanilla Almondilla Shake and Go Powder, lots of spinach. Delicious!

S&M salad for lunch! Greens, nori, hemp seeds, and avocado dressed with some lemon juice. Very delicious.

A green snack was difficult but I ended up eating some Veggie Booty. A little processed food once in a while is totally ok in my book :)

Dinner was a spinach and Daiya quesadilla. I was going to put more avocado on top to make it even more green but decided against it because the cheese would make it rich enough and I wasn't super hungry.

I mentioned my backpacking adventure yesterday and FF asked if I had any photos. Unfortunately I have no idea where they are, this is the only file I could find! It is one of my favorite photos I've ever taken. It is out of the window of the Louvre in Paris and it is blurry but I feel like that makes it look like a painting :) I love this shot.

I'd say mission accomplished! This was fun :) I'm not going to lie I'm still feeling a bit lethargic so I'm looking forward to a relaxing evening at home. I'm glad I went to Whole Foods today because now I can just relax tomorrow morning and not rush out of bed.

Hope you all had a Happy St. Patrick's Day! Can't wait to see what you all ate :)

Just Another Day

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been a bit quiet, things have just been chugging along here. Nothing new, nothing exciting. This post will be quick because the food is the same, the workout yesterday was the same. Great but nothing new... lots of boxing/kickboxing, some rowing, lunges and other fun things.

The food has been... uninspired. More of the same. I wasn't going to post today but I decided that the same boring meals were better than nothing. I guess. I'm feeling a bit lethargic, probably because the cool weather, rain and clouds returned after two gorgeous days. I'm not bummed or depressed or anything, just tired. I've already resolved to make tomorrow more fun. More on that later.

Breakfast was some avocado toast and a banana.

Late morning I ate the rest of the fruit salad I made for work. Mmm.

Lunch was a snacky type plate with the usual suspects.

No clue about dinner. It'll probably be a salad of some sort.

So tomorrow I'm actually inspired to make some nice food. I'm not Irish (though I've been told that with my dark hair and blue eyes I can pass for Irish) but I have experienced the glory of Ireland. I passed through there for a few days while backpacking for three weeks the summer between undergrad and grad school. Ireland was definitely my favorite place that I visited. I have never met such lovely, friendly people in my life. The country is absolutely stunning and in our short time there we met a lot of great people, drank some good drinks ;), shopped in some AMAZING markets, heard lots of bagpipes and shared a room with 12 other backpackers. If you think that's a lot, we shared a room with 14 backpackers in Scotland. It was nuts!

Anyway, the moral of this story is that while I'm not really too into celebrating holidays (especially ones that have nothing to do with me), I will do something to celebrate St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. No, I won't be partaking in potatoes all day or seitan and cabbage or Irish soda bread (damn gluten!). I decided to go for an all green meals day, part 2. I did this a little bit ago and had fun with it so I decided that tomorrow would be a great day to go for another round :) Stay tuned, I actually planned my meals out and it's definitely going to be a good day!

Hope you all had a great week! So happy the weekend is here :) Can't wait to see how you all celebrate St. Patty's Day (if you do that is!). The Ultimate Fighter Live is on tonight so that's what I've got on tap. Have a great night!

Happy Hump Day!

Hey everyone! I can't believe how absolutely gorgeous the weather has been this week and it makes me so happy for the spring to come. I love spring and fall weather where it isn't too hot or too cold. The warmer weather is also making me really excited for the summer because I know I'll really be able to fully embrace the raw lifestyle in the heat of the summer :)

I had a really great day at work yesterday. It flew by so fast, we did 25 minutes of yoga and we had the breeze flowing through the studio through open doors. I may not have been enjoying the weather outside but at least I got to feel the beautiful warm air at work. Hopefully today will be more of the same, it'll make a 10 hour day go much faster!

I have my food all ready to bring with me today. I still have to make my smoothie so I'm going to apologize in advance but I did use a recycled photo. I know it is frowned upon but it will literally be the same thing and I think that a recycled pic is better than no pic! So let's check it out!

For breakfast I will make a Blueberry Muffin Smoothie. One of my new favorites, it's so good but is so good for you too!

For lunch I'm finally going to finish up this Thai food. It is kind of sad looking now but I just can't throw food out, especially when I paid more than I should have for it. 

So something I've started to do is bookmark Raw food restaurant menus with the intention of recreating items that look great to me. I am not a fan of going to to restaurants on a more than occasional basis. It's partially because I don't like spending money on it and partially because I just don't like going out in general, I prefer to be at home. It's just how I've always been. Anyway, I've seen some amazing items on raw menus that look like they can be easily recreated at home so I've started a collection and I'm going to try to mow through them this summer and try as many new things as I possibly can! They will mostly be smoothies and salads but there will be some other things in there too. Anyway, since it is going to be 70 degrees today(!!!) and since I'm bored of my usual chopped salad I decided to tackle my first salad, one I've been wanted to try for a long time.

This is my version of the S&M salad from One Lucky Duck! I have wanted to try it for so long but never had the ingredients. I'm still missing some and had to substitute some but it is close enough now! The menu describes it as "greens, avocado, hemp seeds, dulse, rosemary crackers, pumpkinseed lemon dressing." Mine has greens, avocado, hemp seeds, crumbled nori sheets and balsamic vinaigrette. I don't have dulse (yet) but I did have the nori sheets I got from Trader Joe's so I thought it would be an appropriate substitute! It's not 100% raw because the nori is toasted but I'm ok with that. I don't have rosemary crackers or the fancy vinaigrette but I like balsamic vinaigrette anyway. I'm so excited to eat this! Not bad for my first recreation!

Oh and I will be snacking on some of that awesome fruit salad from yesterday for sure!

OK time to finish getting ready for my long day. I hope you are all enjoying some warm weather and soaking up some Vitamin D today.