Working for the Weekend

It's barely 10am and I'm already having a frustrating morning! Do you ever feel like you're drowning? Like you're just barely scraping by? That's how I'm feeling this week. Every time I cross something off my To Do List, 3 more things get added in it's place! I feel like there are just not enough hours in the day! I managed to do my laundry, but then realized my apartment is a huge mess. I get all my reading done for one class, and then get an e-mail from another professor asking us to read 40 pages for the next day!

Which is why I cannot wait for this weekend! I'm making a giant To-Do List and actually getting it ALL DONE. Cleaning, errands, school work, blogging, working out, and FUN! Gotta schedule in some relaxing time to keep my sanity! Perhaps a little time with Molly will help!

She certainly knows how to relax. I should take some tips from her. 

For dinner last night I had another veggie scramble. I'm trying to use everything in my fridge before I head back to the grocery store! I'm sorry it's not exciting, but I'm hoping to try some new recipes next week, this week is just too crazy! 

In the scramble: broccoli, shredded carrots, mushrooms, 1/2 cup black beans, and a bit of canned salmon. Mixed with cumin, garlic powder and Dijon mustard! Totally hit the spot! Had a few figs with peanut butter (made from PB2 powder) for dessert! 

This morning I had half a banana and some coffee, and then headed off to the gym! I hadn't been there in ages since I've been out of town so much! I started with 10 min on the elliptical and then did some interval running:
0-1 min at 6.0
1-2 min at 6.5
2-3 min at 9.0
3-4 min at 7.0
4-5 min at 9.0
5-6 min at 7.0
6-7 min at 9.0
then from 7 - 21 min I switched back and forth between 9.5 and 7.0 for one minute each
then I ran at 7.0 until I hit 3 miles at 23.46 and then I walked until 25 min.

After running, I hit the weights:
3 sets of each, switching between arms and legs
15 reps of bicep curls (30lb barbell)
12 reps of shoulder lifts (30lb barbell)
15 reps chin lifts (30lb barbell)
15 reps of angled-up leg extensions (160lbs) don't know how to explain this machine... haha

Then I did 3 sets of these, switching back and forth between them:
15 reps of tricep pull downs (10lbs)
15 reps of calf lifts (115lbs)

After that I hit the elliptical for 5 min to loosen up my legs and then I stretched and rolled out!

When I got home I was crazy hungry, so I made myself an egg sandwich and a smoothie!

On the sandwich I made my own spread: greek yogurt with garlic powder and oregano mixed in. It was really good! 

The smoothie contained 3/4 cup frozen strawberries, 1/2 banana, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder and 1/2 cup of almond milk. Tasted like a strawberry milkshake! 

and a cup of green tea!

One thing that I learned about myself this morning, and that added to my frustration, is that I am definitely NOT a chef! Getting all the parts of my breakfast together to eat at once was very difficult for me! I felt like I was rushing all over the place, and I definitely caught something on fire when I was scrambling my egg whites! I was literally shaking when I actually sat down! Cooking is a struggle for me, hopefully I'll get better at it! I just can't do all the different components at once, I don't know how real chefs do this! 

Anything that you struggle with? I also can't clean... Haha. So many things to work on now that I'm living alone! What are you working on? 

Intervals and More Yogurtini!

Today I had 3 miles on my training schedule, so I headed to the gym and warmed up with 10 min on the elliptical. For my 3 miles I decided to do intervals and made it up as I went, here's what I did:

Time Speed

0-1 min 6.0

1-4 min 6.5

4-5 min 7.0

5-6 min 8.0

6-7 min 7.0

7-8 min 8.0

8-9 min 7.0

9-10 min 8.0

10-11 min 7.5

11-12 min 9.0

*I then switched back and forth between 7.5 and 9.0, one min on each until...

20-22 6.0 (hit 3 miles around 22-24 min... I'm having a hard time recalling this)

22-28 7.0 (hit 3.5 miles at 28 minutes)

28-30 4.0

30-32 3.8 Total: 3.75 miles

I ended up deciding to run 3.5 miles instead of 3 because once I hit 3 I was feeling fine and only wanted to stop because my mind was getting bored. Does anyone else have this problem? My biggest issue with running long distances is that I get bored!

Afterwards I stretched out and then decided to do a little bit of weights since I was in the mood:

I did the following reps going from one to the next and did the whole round 3 times through:

10 bicep curls (15lbs in each hand)

15 shoulder presses (10lbs in each hand)

10 high dumbbell rows (15lbs in each hand)

10 tricep extensions (held a 15lb dumbbell with both hands)

In between each of the three rounds I did 50 crunches, but different types. Gotta mix it up!

When I was done working out, I headed home and showered. I put on this dress for meeting my friend later and then dinner with my grandparents:

However, I then covered it up so I could be comfy! If only I could dress like this all the time...

I also found these AWESOME socks in my drawer! Don't you love going home and finding weird clothes you forgot you had? I do...

For lunch I had the same salad I've been having everyday, spinach with mushrooms, red onions and kidney beans with Balsamic Vinegar for dressing. I also had half a piece of rye bread aaaaand munched on a small bowl of dry Captain Crunch. Can't get enough.

After lunch, and a little bit of blog work, I met my friend Helen at Yogurtini! If you remember, I went there... oh, when was that? Last night. Haha it was so good I had to go back! Once again, I forgot to snap a pic, but this time I tried their chocolate and it was delicious! I layered it with peanut butter chips and pieces of thin mint cookies. I took my friend Benny's advice and got a bit of ice cream, then layered some topping, then got more ice cream, and then more topping. Definitely made it easier to mix around and way more fun!

Now it's off to dinner with my family and my grandparents!

A Perfectly Lazy Sunday Afternoon

After my morning 5K, I decided a lazy Sunday was exactly what I needed. I grabbed my computer, a book, and some black tea and headed out to our back patio to take in the beautiful weather and get some reading done.

I actually ended up being out here for quite a while. There was one point where I got a little bored and decided to do some strength training. I went downstairs to our garage, where my dad has some free weights, and I did a Carrots N Cake weight training workout, and it was tough!

But then back to my beautiful patio. Too hard to resist.

While sitting out there reading, this little guy kept running around all over the place. I think maybe I was on his turf and he needed to check me out...

Although I did plenty of catching up on blogs, I also started a new book, called One Amazing Thing. It's about a group of people who are trapped together in a room after an earthquake. They are all from very different backgrounds and cultures and eventually get to talking about interesting things in their lives.

So far I'm really enjoying it because the author is switching from one person's point of view to another, which not only keeps things interesting, but allows the reader to understand situations from different cultural points of view. For example, one woman who is wearing a Sari has to give her sari up to bandage another woman's broken arm. Although she's given a sweatshirt to wear, which is more covering than her sari, she feels very embarrassed to be seen in the sweatshirt. Although the American girl doesn't understand this, when the author switches to an Indian boy's point of view, he explains her embarrassment.

I'm hoping to breeze through this book because I'm dying to read about their stories!

By the afternoon I decided to head out on the town and run some errands. I borrowed my mom's car, put the top down, and enjoyed a beautiful drive around the city!

The Country Club Plaza!

At the beginning of my errand run, I went to The Roasterie, which is a local Kansas City coffee place that makes their own coffee. I love their coffee and the atmosphere in the shop, but I had to get my iced cafe au lait to go! I got the cafe au lait with skim milk and just a tiny bit of sugar free caramel syrup. I like just a little because I can't stand coffee that tastes too much like dessert!

Anyone else have a relaxing Sunday afternoon? What did you all do?

In a Funk

Last night’s recap:

Yesterday I had planned on going to Power Sculpt at Core Power Yoga, but I was just not feeling it. I needed a break from the yoga studio so I headed to the gym to do one of my cardio/strength training workouts. What I do is 10 min cardio, 15 min of strength training, 10 min of cardio (to keep my heart rate up), 15 min of strength training, and then end with a final 10 min of cardio. Usually for strength training I'll do all leg or all upper body, but today I decided to mix it up and do both. I also tend to get really into the strength training part, so I usually go over the 15 min... but I try not to! I've got to learn to cut down my workouts for the school year when I don't have enough time!

I finished up my workout with stretching and a couple ab exercises and headed home to have a berry protein smoothie!

1/2 cup almond milk

1/2 frozen banana

1 cup Trader Joe's organic frozen mixed berries

2 cups spinach

1 scoop protein powder

1 tbl flax

and then I topped it off with the last bit of shredded coconut I had and ate it with some Trader Joe's Bran Flake Cereal. Delicious!

So today, according to my schedule from Hal Higdon, I was supposed to run 2.5 miles, however, I decided to just round it out to an even 3 miles. I woke up this morning with ZERO desire to run, but I knew I just had to throw on my shoes and get out there. When I finished my run, I looked at my iPhone app, iMapMyRun, and saw that my pace was 9:12 min/mile and I can’t say I was elated. On Sunday I had run 3 miles at a 8:41 min/mile pace, so today’s run felt like a disappointment. It’s true that I wasn’t feeling it, I took a new route that slowed me down with stop lights and turning a lot of corners, but those all sound like excuses to me.

I should be proud of myself for getting up this morning and running 3 miles in under 28 min when I only started running again ONE WEEK ago! But I’m not! Does anyone else put themselves down like this? I’ve realized it’s definitely a problem that I have. When I do something good, I’m not proud of it, and when I do something not as good, I beat myself up.

I wanted to post about this today because, for one thing, I wanted to show you all that no one is perfect! I may come across as a girl who’s got it all together, but I don’t! We all have things we need to work on in our lives and being proud of myself is something that I need to work on.

I’ve also been in a bit of a funk these past couple days, which isn’t helping. I think it’s the anxiety of everything in my life changing! I ended my internship, I’m going home for a week and then I’m starting a new year of law school. It’s all very overwhelming and leaving me feeling anxious! To turn my morning around, I’ve decided to take a note out of Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project and “Act the way I want to feel”. If I want to feel proud of myself and excited for what’s to come then I need to ACT that way! It’s similar to the mantra we’ve all heard: “fake it ‘till you make it”.

So now I’m going to pack up my stuff and head off to my Hot Power Fusion yoga class. Wish me luck!!!