Vegan Fro Yo

I used to eat fro yo every single day, so obviously i crave it once in awhile.  I've made banana soft serve (blended frozen banana) before but was never obsessed with it because i'm not a huge fan of banana-flavored things, so i jazzed it up a bit:

-frozen banana
-unsweetened vanilla almond milk
-amazing grass chocolate protein powder

all thrown into my pseudo magic bullet to create this delicious cup of vegan frozen  yogurt:

topped with raw cacao nibs! it was soooo delicious!

For dinner, i made the portobello mushroom burger from the vegan cookbook: The Urban Vegan.  Since i didn't have any whole wheat buns on hand, i had some whole wheat pasta and a chick pea salad, the chick pea salad went like this:

-chick peas

-red bell peppers (cut into tiny pieces)

-fresh salsa

With the portobello mushroom burgers:

This morning i did day 1, week 1 of The Fitnessista's Summer Shape Up Plan, i really enjoyed it! I needed to switch up my work outs a bit so i'm going to try and follow this plan as best i can for a bit!

Also, i forgot to add Alright by Pitbull to the spin work out playlist, that's a really really good one too! 

PEACE OUT

Would I be out of line, if I said........I miss you

Wow haven't written in this thing in FOREVER.  The end of college hit me hard, with finals/senior week/doing everything "one last time" kept me really busy and, of course, sad.  I really missed writing this blog even though only like 3 people read it lol. So i'm back, as a college graduate! And guess what, i'm walking again! i'm almost completely healed and should be cleared to start running again in about a week or 2.  In the meantime i've re-acquainted myself with the elliptical and SPIN BIKE...seriously i cannot believe i survived 3 months without sweaty cardio.  I'm actually going to be biking 20 miles for the burn unit for a hospital nearby on Sunday with my Dad and have already registered for a 5k race in July.  I'm tellin' ya being crippled for 3 months really makes me motivated to take advantage of the ability to be active! So today i want to show some pictures of my latest creations and talk about an awesome spin work out that i completely made up.

So far i have successfully made: vegan overnight oats, raw vegan macaroons (without a dehydrator!), black bean burger, and vegan chocolate mousse.  there are so many more recipes that i can't wait to try! click the links to try them out for yourself (i think i've made about 4 black bean burgers in the past 2 weeks)

foodography:

vegan overnight oats w/nature's path gluten-free rice crisps and raw cacao nibs:

black bean burger:

raw vegan macaroon (this picture came out kinda weird but i swear it's delicious:

More to come!! one of my best friend's mom bought me a vegan cookbook called "The Urban Vegan" so i'm gonna try out some of those recipes ASAP, and post about it, of course.

OK so for the SPIN WORK OUT, pick a song and every time the chorus hits, up the resistance to support your body weight and do 8 seconds of jumps (8 seconds up in position 3, and 8 seconds sitting in position 1 or 2 but WITH THE RESISTANCE KEPT UP) i do about 3 sets of 8 second jumps then do about 2 sets of 4 second jumps, some GREAT songs for this are:

More - Usher
Somebody to Love - Justin Beiber
OMG - Usher
Pass Out - Chris Brown

You really can improvise, but the schedule of doing jumps for the chorus, fast medium resistance for the verses, and doing something crazy for the bridge (high resistance sitting, or position 3 the whole time) is really fun and INTENSE!

That's all for now, time to go buy some biking gear for the 20 miler on Sunday :)

-Jocey

Need Caffeine in your Bloodstream?

Today I'm going to talk about how to successfully ween (spelling?) yourself off coffee.  But before i do that i NEED to discuss TWO AMAZING INGREDIENTS:

1) GROUND FLAX SEED!!!! Lately, for breakfast i've been having a bowl of frozen strawberries, nonfat plain greek yogurt and GROUND FLAX SEED, you buy flax seed already ground and it LEGIT tastes like bread crumbs.  I just put it on my oatmeal this morning too.  So you're basically eating bread crumbs but getting in omega-3s while you're at it! Seeds are really healthy so go buy some.

2) organic mustard (not yellow mustard though just regular) I put it on my grilled vegetables the other night and now put it in my salads! It adds so much flavor

Anyway, a few months ago i decided to stop drinking coffee.  I always had 1 cup every single morning since high school and didn't like being so physically dependent on something anymore.  Also, it kinda screwed with my digestion.  I was obviously petrified of withdrawal symptoms so i did some research (aka googled it) and found a method that was pretty painless.  I was only slightly fatigued towards the very end of the process but not for more than a few days.  Click here for specific directions on how to do it, but here's the basic idea:

• cut your daily intake in half every 5 days for two weeks
• i wrote out days 1 - 14 on a notecard and circled the days i'd be cutting it down
• i drew lines on my mug (lol) 

I have recently been drinking decaf green tea on occasion for a little boost, but other than that i am no longer dependent on caffeine what-so-ever and i'm really enjoying it! So give it a try if you want!

good song: Sam Adams - Driving Me Crazy

Healthy Cookie for Brekky

- the aussies call breakfast "brekky"

The Fitnessista's breakfast cookie is such a good reason to get out of bed:

(instructions for how to make this - click the breakfast cookie link i just posted)

the ingredients i used:

-steel but oats

-apple sauce 

-unsweetened almond milk

-raw almond butter

-vanilla hemp protein powder

-sea salt

-cacao nibs!

The best part about making a brekky cookie is that you prepare it the night before, so it's waiting for you the next morning!  After eating this i crutched to the gym for a ballin' legless swim workout.  Swimming without legs really works my arms and back (still sore from the first swim), but my senior ball dress was enough motivation to keep me going for 50 minutes. 

Can't wait to make a healthy dinner with my friend Sumaya tonight, she has an actual kitchen so I'm really excited!

Check out this blogger's post about: 3 aerobic myths...so interesting!

current music: anything Chris Brown

Boyfriend #2

"If you gotta man with a buddy on the side say yeaaaaahhh" (madi- you're definitely the only one who appreciated that)

Well it's true, while me and my boyfriend the treadmill are on a break i'm spending some quality time the bosu:

I would usually do weights today but i swam yesterday!!!!! I used a flotation thing and swam with only my arms for 45 minutes.  It was so amazing, and i plan to swim every other day now because swimming is a great way to train for running.  However, my arms and back are extremelyyyyy sore so today i chilled with my other boyfriend, the bosu. We did abs. 

Here is what my weekly workout schedule looked like pre-crutches:

Day 1: half hour cardio (treadmill), chest/shoulders/triceps weight routine, and an ab routine

Day 2: 1 hour of cardio (40 min treadmill, 10 elliptical, 10 bike- usually)

Day 3: half hour cardio (treadmill), back/biceps weight routine, and an ab routine

Day 4: 1 hour of cardio (usually the same as day 2 but varies)

Day 5: half hour cardio (treadmill), biceps/triceps/legs, and an ab routine 

Day 6: 1 hour of cardio 

Day 7: active recovery- tried not to lay in bed all day 

Obviously some weeks i was more motivated than others, we're all human, but this routine is posted up on my wall and kept me on track for the most part.  With the weight routines i ALWAYS wrote them out on a small notecard the night before (i switched the routines up a lot) but bringing the notecard to the weight room motivated me to complete everything, so if you're weight training i HIGHLY recommend doing this.  Also, on weight days if i had time i'd do a 5-10 minute cool down on the bike or elliptical. 

I honestly believe that this workout schedule put me in the best shape i've ever been in.  My last run (the one i broke my foot during) was the best run i've ever had, and before that i'd barely run outside anyway, so my work out routine was clearly doing something.

For more tips on planning work outs, etc, leave a comment or email me!  Also, i found that listening to music while weight training makes it go by a lot faster.  I'm a huge cardio person so weight training has always been kind of tedious for me, but with music and a schedule written out it always goes much more smoothly.

Well it's basically bikini weather so get out a notecard and do it up.  Peace.

Salad x2

After some pineapple and a bottle of Kombucha for breakfast, I did this tricep/chest/shoulder weight work out: (not listing poundage because it varies for each)

tricep extension - 2 sets, 10 reps
shoulder press - 3 sets, 12 reps
chest press - 3 sets, 12 reps
another shoulder exercise that i don't know the name for/can't find on youtube - 3 sets, 12 reps
chest flies - 3 sets, 12 reps
tricep dips  (with straight legs b/c that's harder) - 3 sets, 12 reps

Needed some legit protein after that so I had a protein berry smoothie, Gena's recipe (made in the psuedo magic bullet, with Vega Whole Food Health Optimizer instead of hemp protein) so filling, so good.

After class, lunch was a quick and simple salad with spring mix, celery, carrots, bell pepper, and STRING BEANS- definitely a new salad ingredient favorite, sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a tablespoon of lite all natural blush wine vinaigrette.  

While crutching home from class a truck driver stuck his head out his window and yelled "I'LL RACE YA!" - reactions to being a cripple just get better and better each day haha.  

I then forced myself to eat dairy strictly for calcium reasons for the healing bone: non-fat plain greek yogurt with frozen raspberries:

Dinner before night class was the same salad as lunch but with GARLIC HUMMUS!!!! 2 tablespoons mixed throughout the entire salad makes for the best salad dressing ever, unless you're weird like my sister and don't like hummus, GO DO THIS TO YOUR SALAD.  Mixing hummus throughout a salad is the only reason I started liking salads in the first place.  It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago I wouldn't even consider a salad as a meal, if you feel that way now, then go buy some hummus right now (no excuses- wegmans, giant and weis are open 24 hours- the only good thing about PA basically) And apparently hummus is supposed to be pronounced "hooo-moooos" i stand corrected.

Dessert after night class was squash w/cinnamon, because for some reason I was in the mood:

My meals from now on won't be as creative since I'm back at school sans juicer with a sorry excuse of a kitchen (hence, 2 very similar salads in one day)  Also, I really wanted/should have added a protein to my dinner salad but I didn't have time to before class.  This is probably why I'm hungry right now, so lesson learned: don't underestimate the importance of protein.

Love,

The Accountant

Throwback joint of the day: Fu-Gee-La by The Fugees

College Kid Meals

Back at school = less creative meals.  Last night, after getting settled back into our apartment (which barely has a kitchen) I had a one of my standard "i don't feel like making a huge salad" dinners when I have hw to do:

Finally tried my very first Sunshine Burger!  These have a lot of fat BUT the ingredients are soooo simple, the taste is insane, annddd they're filling.  I ate it over a salad with nutritional yeast, (i usually always use "nooch" but i forgot to bring it home for break)  It's this cheesy protein stuff which is good for vegetarians because it has a lot of B vitamins.  I really like it, and pretty much sprinkle it on everything but it might be an acquired taste:

Time to study and fit in a weight routine somewhere, I'll definitely post it later, it'll be- triceps, chest and shoulders.

Later

PS- check out one of my favorite blogs today, Gina of The Fitnessista, discusses stress