coffee, yogurt and running

Yesterday Andy and I spotted this sign while out doing errands. I had to stop and get some pumpkin pie frozen yogurt. It's my favorite!



I got a taste of pumpkin pie and cheesecake yogurt with some captain crunch on top. You can't tell but this is only 1/4 of the HUGE self-serve cup they give you.



Andy got blood orange. It was so delicious. Next time, I'm getting that flavor. Yogurtland gets two thumbs up. I love how creamy it is.



I was still craving yogurt this morning so I had some blueberry chobani with my morning coffee.



I found this coffee at Whole Foods. I was inspired by a post I saw on Heather's blog. It's great! I'm pretty happy. Thanks Heather!



Blueberry chobani is my second favorite greek yogurt flavor. I think my favorite is pineapple chobani. I'm addicted.

Andy went on a run last night (his first since his surgery) and it inspired me. I seriously cannot wait to start training again. My plan is to take it slow and easy. I was considering doing the Couch to 5k plan again since I know I'm not slow enough to just go out and run 3 miles.

Have any of you started running again after an injury? How did you get back out there?

I have physical therapy tomorrow, I have a list of questions for him.



This is how I've been spending my time in therapy. Hooked up to electrodes and ice.

Spinning

Life has been so crazy lately! Between finals, training for my next 5k, work and studying I've had no time to just relax!

I dream when I'm stressed out and last night was no different. My dream had me tossing and turning. I woke up with that "falling feeling." In my dream, I was thrown off a tall building. As soon as my body hit the pavement with a loud THUD I woke up.

Nothing like being jolted out of bed!

The 5k is on Sunday bright and early. I'm pretty stoked to be running in Santa Monica this time! It's not the prettiest beach town (I prefer Northern California) but it'll do. I'm hoping to give myself enough of a pep talk to run most of it. I want to limit my walking breaks to 30 seconds and only 1 walking break per mile.

I'm going to have my last run today. I'm planning on getting 3 more miles under my belt but I'm gonna go easy. (Meaning a slooooow comfortable pace of 12-14 minutes per mile. I don't need to aggravate my knee right before the race!)

I'm going to run in the evening, so I started my morning with Jillian. (No More Trouble Zones.) I was pretty pumped because I could use 8lb dumbbells for most of the moves.



Afterwards I made overnight yoats. Well, not overnight. I put 1/4 cup of dry oats in a bowl with 1/4 cup Wheaties Fuel and 1 container of plain greek yogurt for 5 minutes while I chopped up some fruit.



I mixed in some pineapple and raspberries to make it super delicious. It was! I'm starting to really enjoy plain greek yogurt. Having less sugar means I get to eat more real fruit. Can't hate that.

Time to finish my LAST take home final and prepare for an awesome weekend. I'm thrilled with life right now!

Wake up in the morning feeling like...

I am feeling extremely stressed out today. I know exactly why! Spring Break ended today and I have to go back to work and school. I work as a substitute (instructional aide, preschool teacher or behaviorist) so now I'm back to waiting by the phone for a job offer. I get 2-3 a week which is perfect for my busy schedule. I'm currently enrolled in 5 classes. I had six classes but one of them was only an 8 week course. Thank goodness.

Routines work for me. No doubt about it. Of course I miss working full-time and taking four classes in the evenings because my life was on a perfect schedule. I woke up in the morning, ate breakfast, worked, ate lunch in my car, went to school, ate dinner on campus and came home at the same time every night. It was hard for me to break out of the cycle.

Now my schedule is thrown off because I never know when or where I'm going to work. I have to fit my workouts in whenever I can. I prefer to work out in the mornings around 8-9am. If I'm being honest, I know that I can work out every morning at 5:30am-6:30am and take a quick shower and be ready to work at 7:30am. But I am not used to getting up at 5:30am. My mindset is..."if I have to work today, I'll just work out before I go to school." Half of the time that doesn't happen. If I work from 8am-2:30pm, I get home just in time to grab my books and drive to school for my class at 4pm. Then I'm in school till 10pm! I'm not working out at 11pm at night. No way.

So what I'm trying to say is...I need to wake up earlier. I convince myself not to because "what if I don't have to work?" but it's ridiculous. Waking earlier would be beneficial for working out, tidying up the apartment, getting homework and lesson plans done and reading blogs!

I need your help! How do I start waking up earlier? Andy gets up around 5:30-6am to go to work (he's a high school teacher) but that never seems to motivate me. I just get excited about having the bed to myself for a couple of hours. I normally wake up around 7-8am.

Moving on...

Yesterday I was still feeling extremely sore from the HIIT workout with the weights. My legs are in so much pain!

My sister Sarah, Andy and I went to the park and walked 6k, did sprints across basketball courts, tricep dips on a bench, crunches, bicycle crunches, lunges across the court and squats. I wanted to run but my legs weren't having it.



Last night I made my sister Sarah, her boyfriend Chris, Andy and myself a buffalo chicken pizza using these buffalo chicken and blue cheese meatballs I found at Trader Joes. It was pretty good but the crust was too doughy. HATE THAT!



Then we went out to frozen yogurt where I managed to eat all of the toppings but barely made a dent in the yogurt. I'm an idiot for overfilling the thing!

So any advice on my waking up earlier thing?

(Also my BFL book has not come yet. I will start BFL once I get it and read through it. I want to do it right!!)

a decent day

Yum! I started today off right with a yummy pluot. I have an addiction to pluots and have been eating one daily. (I bought a 12 pack at Costco!)

Love the "freckles." I wish I could find pluot year round but I only seem to find them during the summer. Bummer dude!


I had an extra foamy nonfat latte. Am I weird for enjoying these without any sweetener? It's a good thing too because I really need to cut back on the sugar.

For lunch I made a yogurt bowl. I bought some yoplait at Costco. I kind of wish I waited for greek yogurt. 14 grams of sugar in 1 container of yoplait!!! I added in granola and blueberries.

I also had half a veggie burrito. This burrito had pinto beans, broccoli, zucchini and carrots. Not my favorite but not the worst either. I was happy with myself for portioning half for dinner last night and half for lunch today.

All together now.

YUM! This truly is the best way to eat yogurt. Even if it's sugary, runny yoplait yogurt :)

I feel decent about today. Hopefully tomorrow goes over well

Tryin' Thai

So I finally tried THAI FOOD! I had to capitalize that because I loved it! It was fantastic!!

I ordered the Chicken Panaag after seeing that they didn't offer a Vegetarian panaag. I asked for suggestions on twitter and panaag seemed to be the way to go.





I dumped mine on top of some rice. It was good! I'm not a big white rice fan usually but it was delicious mixed with the sauce. What do you get when you go out for thai? Any suggestions for next time?



Dessert was frozen yogurt at this amazing little yogurt shop by our apartment. You pick your own toppings and fill yourself. I picked: strawberries, blueberries, dark chocolate chips, waffle cone pieces, dark chocolate covered espresso beans and a few pieces of captain crunch. I thought it would be fantastic but I honestly went a little over the top with this one. I felt a little sick!



Nothing beats bites like these though!

I plan on doing wedding/italian honeymoon recaps ASAP!!!

Tis the season for chocolate

ugh ugh ugh. I got way too tempted by chocolate today. It was pretty insane. To make up for up, I am going to run more tonight. I'm annoyed that I let myself get so carried away! UGH!



I've decided that the only chocolate I should have will be on sugar free frozen yogurt. YUM!



This is a kid's size. It looks huge doesn't it?

What is your favorite dessert?

I want froyo now!

I crave frozen yogurt all the time. Andy and I frequently go to a local frozen yogurt place by our apartment called Heidi O. I had a small caramel latte frozen yogurt with chocolate chips and almonds. It tasted so rich! I couldn't handle it. I prefer fruit flavors so much more.



Andy was smart and got the italian flavored frozen yogurt with kiwi and strawberries.



It was so refreshing compared to mine. Jealous!!! Posting this made me so hungry, I really want to go now. Bye!!!

Nonfat frozen yogurt

I made chocolate peanut butter banana frozen yogurt the other night in my new ice cream maker.

It was simple. I mixed 2 oz melted chocolate, 1 big old scoop of chunky peanut butter, non fat milk, a mashed banana, some low fat evaporated milk and some chopped up reese's pieces. mixed it up with a hand held mixer and threw it in the ice cream maker for 20 minutes. The banana flavor is incredibly strong. I didn't like it at first but it grew on me.

I love knowing what is going into my food. It's fantastic! I could just kiss the ice cream maker.