WIAW (lately); with some confessions(:

I gotta make this one quick because I had planned on getting a swim workout in to recover from yesterday's intense circuit workout; man my booty is killing me! Note; I definitely did not use the set weights haha, I'm not there yet, but it was still heavy lifting for me.

So for today's WIAW I thought since I have a new blog that I would add some random facts/confessions about myself(: So this should be fun; Thanks Jenn for hosting, I love doing these WIAW posts!

Confession number one: I am orange; okay so maybe just my palms and the bottom of my feet. Yeah I read about it online, looked it up, saw on people's blogs, in their fears of turning orange from one too many pumpkin dishes or sweet potatoes, but I am actually orange. Like noticeably. eek! My mom I think is more embarrassed haha. She is like just cut back! But when I looked up Carotenosis [yes it is an official condition(;] it says it may take up to three months to go away, uh-oh, and plus the list of foods includes way more than orange foods; I mean look at it! Hopefully when I get tan it will be less noticeable?

Foods associated with high levels of carotenoids^[6] include:

Alfalfa Apples Apricots Asparagus Beans Beet greens Broccoli Brussels sprouts Butter Cabbage Cantaloupes Carrots Cheese

Collard greens Cucumbers Eggs Figs Kale Kiwi Lettuce Mangoes Milk Mustard Oranges Palm oil Papaya

• Parsley
• Peaches
• Pineapples
• Plums
• Pumpkins
• Seaweed
• Spinach
• Squash
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Yams
• Yellow corn

Source: Wikipedia

So here's some orange eats that haven't been helping the cause...

I'm obsessed with sweet potato fries lately(: For dinner I had roasted broccoli, seared tuna (sooo good!) roasted asapargus, and spaghetti squash a la hungry hippie

Confession numero dos: I'm addicted to grocery shopping; I think every foodie is. I probably spent half an hour in whole foods trying to decide what to have for dinner; but hey, there isn't a whole foods in a 50 mile radius of me so when we were in Greenville I may have been overjoyed(:

Vegan Chocolate Coconut Cookie #holyyum

Collard Salad with Mango and Oranges (pre-made) with Peanutbutter Tofu (I want to try to recreate that recipe!) with a Vegan tamale (it had some sort of nutty filling, weird but good)

 Confession tres: I have a horse. Well it's my sister and I's but this past year she has been the only one riding her. I wish I had more time, but this past year I have been way too busy. I miss riding and I really hope that I can pick it back up over the summer and possibly join the Equestrian Club Team at Tualne.

There is my sister riding her the other day when I went out to the barn; gasp, Carly at the barn?! The guy that feeds the horses took a minute to even realize who I was, haha that should tell you something..

Some random eats; savory oats topped with a runny egg #needtomakemoreoften and a one too many times pictured frozen dessert mess(:

And I'll leave you with confession number four: My favorite store is American Eagle #obsessed I love everything there. They have amazing jeans, jewelry, scarfs, purses and I especially love their aerie line.

One the left I have on an AE shirt, plaid shorts from Belk and my grey tom's
Then on the right I have on an AE tank, Forever 21 shorts and Sam Edelman's shoes he designed for AE

Is anyone else orange? Please don't let me be the only one
What is your favorite clothing store? I also like Forever 21, but it is really hard to find the right size in the cute stuff because it's so disorganized. I like Target and Urban Outfitters too 

Have you ever been horseback-riding? I think a lot of people are actually scared of horses, although they are big, they are sweet and so hardworking(:

Highlights from (Memorial Day) Weekend

So this weekend I went with the family to Greenville, SC for the National Biking Championship; my dad is a HUGE biker. But to back it up, on Saturday morning I had a graduation party with my two best friends and it was a success(: It was a cute little brunch with flowers, friends and tons of food!

The flowers

 Drinks; they had cute little labels(:

 The food spread; We had fruit, quiche, salad, cheese/meat platter with bagels and a granola bar with yougrt and berries, mmmm

 The set-up; do you like the baby to grad pics?

The desserts; chocolate tofu mousse with mint oreo crumbles (we tied on the cute little spoons, ftw) 

how many guests knew that there was tofu in their dessert? none(:

 Man these tables and funky chairs took forever to set-up!

The hostesses!

Okay so now that the party pics are up, yeah I know theres like a millon, I can talk about the Greenville Bike Race. Or my eats, you know, the part that I can actually elaborate on(: I'll post some cool pics of the pro bikers on a later post though because I definitely actually got some decent pictures of the race!

 The car ride there included a veg burger (Dr. Praegger's) and carrot&sp fries. Plus Graffito's new song!

And as you may have seen on instagram; on of the fifteen ways to tie a scarf; via pinterest(: #shamelesslyaddicted

My dad did the charity ride that was before the pro race and he got a sign made when he signed up for the race (proceeds went to a charity for cancer research) in memory of his mom, she, my grandma, died three years ago from breast cancer. I love this picture because it's nice to see him smile because I know we all miss her so much :(

On a happier note; I'll leave you to drool over my creation from a coffee shop in Greenville called Spill the Beans. They have this awesome machine that somehow combines your toppings into your ice cream or frozen yogurt. It's like magical. 

And here's the order:

vanilla yogurt + coffee + toffee bits + hazelnuts + waffle cone = bliss

Have you ever been to Greenville (it's such a cool town!) or seen a professional bike race? I've seen quite a few because my dad loves them. Actually when I was younger, we went to France to see some of the stages of the Tour de France..anyways...

What's your favorite froyo creation? Have you ever seen a machine like that?

And finally, are you done with school yet? I know you're jealous if you haven't; sorry(; and keep pushing because I'm sure you're almost there

Warrior Dash Recap (i'll keep it short and sweet)

So last Saturday, (yes sorry it took so long to do the recap...) I did the Warrior Dash. It's a mud run, if you haven't heard of it, I would be surprised. haha just kidding. But this is the second? year in a row I think that they have come to Charlotte, NC. It is a 3.8 mile course with 12 obstacles. The money went to St.Judes, and it was some fun stuff!

source

I barely got to the course on time (wow I know right; I'm just so timely when it comes to races, oops!) There was a ton of traffic, so I literally had to run down the road to the entrance of the race where parking was. Someone even shouted, "Save your energy!" But i didn't want to miss my start time! So I finally got there, received my free shirt and hat; (check it out below), free granola (yay for free food!) and my number (well duh). Thankfully I found someone I knew to hold my stuff because my dad hadn't even reached the course yet, due to traffic. I suited up (well in my case, de-suited haha, because I decided to wear just a sports bra after reading several tips for mud runs online) and headed to the start.

Oh yes; lovely picture I know(:

So I ran the course in about 47 minutes (hey I did beat my XC coach and I came in 12th in my age group), but it was soooo fun. There was one part of the course where you had to swim! I couldn't believe it when I got there. It was extremely cold and filled with grass and muck. Yuck! The other obstacles I can remember (haha, it was last week) were mostly walls that you had to climb over and then use a ladder to get down the other side. This one obstacle included getting on top of cars and walking across the hoods and tops of cars, leading to tires on the ground that you had to jump in an out of (you know like you see for football training on tv?). 

Anywho, for anyone who might do a mud run or the Warrior Dash, I would give you the following advice:

1. Wear knee-high socks or even socks that go over your knees because at the end when you go through the mud pit, it's really rocky and my friend got all scratched up (luckily I had on knee-high socks, because of my prior "research," haha. 

2. Like I read online I would stick with tight clothing and less is more. Seriously, there were tons of guys in speedos! But a lot of people had costumes too, so that's always fun if you want to go that path

3. Make sure you bring something to change into after you get hosed down, because not only are you muddy and gross, but also kinda chilly since you are wet. Oh and bring tons of towels and wet-wipes, and I even brought a gallon of water to pour on myself because it's hard to get clean when tons of people are trying to get hosed down too! 

Oh and the best part about the Warrior Dash? You get to jump over fire!!

Let's Do This; WIAW (My First Day of Summer!)

Yay for summer!!! It's so weird that I will never be going back to my high school again; Okay so maybe that's a bit dramatic, haha but at least not this year, because graduation practice isn't even at school. So heres my eats from today, since it's summer I can actually post them from this wednesday, May 23rd(:

Thanks Jenn for hosting!

9:15 am snack en route to a yoga class at the YMCA. Grapes on a skewer, haha it was cool! dipped in this ah-mazing Peanut, Cashew and Almond Butter I got a target (it's delish and theres not added oils or sweeteners! yay for target and their awesome prices!)

9:30 am I soooo thought that today was Tuesday (I mean really who keeps track of the days of the week in the summer!) So I thought that the yoga class started at 9:25, oops. It started at 9:45, so I decided to get a mini snack from the vending machine, to hold me over since I would be getting home later and bought some animal crackers to dip in my remaining PB

12:00 pm Some unpictured samples from the grocery store; corn nuts (soooo addicting!), watermelon and pineapple (I'm so glad it's melon season! they are so juicy!) Plus my mom treated me to a starbucks drink, see if you can figure out what it is from all the writing, haha, yuup I am complicated(:

So it was a grande blonde roast with one pump mocha and one pump coconut with soymilk (no whip, no foam) yuup I went there(:

2:00pm Mango Coconut Vanilla Protein Overnight Oats
I based it off this recipe, but here's what went in:

1/3 cup oats
1/3 cup Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk (from the can)
1/3 cup plain greek yogurt
1 scoop vanilla protein powder (i use this brand, not my favorite, I actually like Trader Joe's Vanilla Soy Protein Powder better but we were out)
1 large mango, cubed
1 frozen banana
Toppings: grape nuts, freeze dried bananas (I'm obsessed!) and toasted coconut flour (We are out of coconut flakes)

Night before: Make sure you freeze a banana and then combine the rest of the ingredients and place in a refrigerator.
Morning: Process the banana to make banana soft serve and layer the overnight oats from the fridge with grapenuts, banana soft serve and top with the toasted coconut (If you are toasting the coconut make sure you watch it so it doesn't burn because it cooks super quick), more grapenuts and the freeze dried bananas Enjoy!

P.S; does anyone have any tips on how they make their banana soft serve? I made mine in a mini processor and it took forever! Plus I'm afraid I'm going to burn up the motor because it was blending for so long...Do you guys use a food processor? Or should I try a blender?

5:00 pm I must have been on the computer for a few hours editing my blog; do you like the new banner and icons? And I sorta forgot to eat, haha oops, then I was faced with a wave of hunger. I went downstairs to the basement and grabbed a burrito from the freezer. Um shah, and it was delish. While it was in the microwave cooking, I snacked on some carrots and my favorite hummus (yes I was that hungry haha). This burrito was actually quite good! It had a great sauce filling and some veg, it was weird though cause I didn't even tast black beans..maybe it was in the sauce?

Before dinner I snacked on some random raw okra. No I am not crazy. Yes it is amazing and I may be currently on a kick of raw okra (oh and goat cheese, i'm loving Trader Joe's creamy goat cheese right now!)

7:30 pm I actually wasn't even really hungry due to my prior burrito, but the fam was ready to eat so I made a salad to go with our grilled pork tenderloin, which I actually didn't honestly finish. It had everything but the kitchen sink; roasted broccoli, toasty kale chips, spring mix (lettuce), cucumber, mushroom, broccoli slaw, wasabi peas, pork,  sprouts, roasted cauliflower (Mama Pea's tasty recipe that I freezed a while ago), all drizzled with tahini dressing, bbq sauce and spicy mustard. Random yes, but also very good.

9:30 pm After I walked Maia with my dad I made up my favorite frozen cottage cheese mess. This time it was a silken tofu, cottage cheese, pumpkin, applesauce, cinnamon/nutmeg/almond extract, frozen raspberry and frozen cherry mess, woah that was a mouthful. Topped with strawberries, blackberries, goji berries, cacao nibs, chocolate square, triple chocolate vitatop; yeah I was craving chocolate I guess(:

So if you made it this far; Thanks for reading haha(:


Have you ever tried freeze-dried bananas? What is your favorite freeze dried fruit? I also love Trader Joe's freeze-dried raspberries(:

Are your Starbucks orders complicated? Baristas are always telling me that they have heard worse but I doubt it :P

Cardio Funk!

 So yesterday I went to a Cardio Funk class at the YMCA. Man it was intense, but soo fun! The instructor was awesome and totally into it, which that's what I always think makes the group classes worthwhile. It was like a mix of Zumba and cardio moves. It was jam packed full and most people already knew all the dances! I was a little lost at first but most of them were easy to pick up. I wore my new nike shoes and rocked it out(: I'm definitely going back next week.

My pre-class fuel; orange energy beans and an orange, yet I'm color coordinated!

And wait for it, yep that's right; my after school snack happened to be orange too; I don't know if you can tell, but that's a Carrot Cake Smoothie, a la Oh She Glows. And yes I did spend the time to make it all pretty(: and then I dug in..

Here's me post workout; yeah for some reason I don't sweat that easily, but the class was still definitely a workout!

From the class, I learned not only some new dance moves, but also, that I shouldn't compare myself so much. Sure most people there could keep up and had some awesome moves, whilst me, with my long awkward legs couldn't have the same skills, haha. But I know that with practice I will get better! I think I just need to focus more on the beat of the music and try to follow someone who knows what they are doing. Also, I need to try not to judge so much! I mean of course it was just in my head, but I want to work on giving people more credit, because you never know their story. Everyone judges, it's just human nature, but like I said, I'm going to try and work on that. I'll leave you with some things I'm loving lately;


My puppy and coconut milk in my coffee!!

she poses like she owns the couch!

I used Donut Shop Decaf Coffee (k-cup) and Trader Joe's Light Coconut Milk

 Do you ever find yourself judging other people? Maybe you just think they have an attitude or think they are better than everyone else, but you never know, they could be nice too! For me it was these two pretty girls in front of me who were probably cheerleaders or dancers at one point because they were really good, but they were also checking themselves out in the mirror the whole class and texting on their phone in between every other song, oh well, I should just focus on me and becoming a better and stronger dancer!