WIAW #24: An Unhealthy Week

Hi loves! It's another week of everybody's favorite, WIAW! 

This week was a bit of an unhealthy week for me. And also a lack of exercise week. 

I went home this weekend, where I had some baking I needed to do. I had food I needed to use before it spoiled, extra cookies, I wasn't sure what to do with, Daring Baker's recipes to make, and more. So, of course, there were a lot of sweets around. 

With leftover cookies, I made a gingersnap crust for my Blueberry Key Lime Pie (recipe posted eventually!). For DB, I made Dutch Crunch Brown Rice Bread. I also made apple caramel cake (a box mix from Duncan Hines), and some other things I can't really remember. 

Then, I went to see The Hunger Games with my parents. Fabulous movie. Right next door there is pizza and frozen yogurt, so....that's what we had for dinner and dessert! A mixed mushroom pizza with roasted garlic cloves and red peppers & greek salad with roasted red pepper dressing from Dewey's Pizza, and a mix of flavors from Orange Leaf fro-yo! It was de-lish. 

As you'll see from the picture, I had Stonyfield's key lime yogurt. I had high expectations, and this yogurt missed the mark completely. I only ate half because the lime flavor was not as strong as it should have been. Still looking for that perfect key lime yogurt! Any suggestions? 

Also pictured: Love Grown granola with kiwi and blueberries, GNU Blueberry Cobbler Bar, Cookiehead's sprouted grain mini brownies (my new favorite brownie - review coming soon!) & cranberry orange mini muffins. 

I'm also kicking myself in the butt this week about my workout routine. I didn't run on Friday because I went home for the weekend around 10:30AM, which is when I usually run. I didn't get a chance to run over the weekend, either. Then Monday rolls around, and I'm up until 4AM the night before working on a class presentation, so I take a nap instead of running. 

All in all, a rough week for me. Not to mention the homework load I have approaching me. Just staying on top of it all is a bit daunting. Hopefully, I'll be back on track tomorrow - although behind in my schedule. Yet again. Oh well. My first 5k is not scheduled until April 28, so I should be okay. I do notice that whenever I miss a week of exercising, I'm a lot more self-conscious about my weight. Even though I haven't been losing weight from running, and in fact may have gained a couple pounds from eating more than normal, I feel fine as long as I workout. But since I've been doing literally nothing - I feel more self-conscious, which really stinks! Ah, well. I just need to get comfortable with my weight again. The funny thing is, a few years ago when I weighed my heaviest, my self-esteem was much higher and I cared a lot less about how I looked. Weird how that works out, isn't it? 

Okay, guys - I want to encourage to everyone to please sign up to participate in my new program - The Recipe Project! I am really excited about it and am trying to get together some participants for this month! Please click here to learn more about it! I would really appreciate it!

Finally, I once again apologize for my lack of blogging recently. I'm going to try to get back to blogging more frequently - make sure to keep checkin' back, because I have a lot of giveaways coming up soon from some great companies!

One more week of school, and then it's Easter break! I'm so excited for Easter! YAY!!!

Much love, 

Happy Easter!

here comes the Easter bunny!

Hooray for Easter break!!! I have the next five days free from school. it's wonderful!
I'm currently sitting in my boyfriend's bed while he is on his school's campus reffing a soccer game. So...what else to do but decide what sweets I want to try out this week?!

 I am currently reading "The Vegan Scoop" by Wheeler Del Torro, trying to decide what ice cream I want to make in my new ice cream machine. I bought this machine a day or two after Christmas with some money I got for the holidays, but I have not yet had the chance to use it. It's a green Cuisinart...so pretty!! Anyways, this book has TONS of great recipes, especially a lot of exotic/unique flavors... which is something I love. Who wants to see recipes for the same old boring flavors..or anything, really?   Butter Pecan, Banana, Orange, Pomegranate, Vanilla Chile Pepper, Thai Chile Chocolate, Green Tea, Cappuccino, Peanut Butter Banana, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Carrot Cake, Rose Water....what do I want to make? Any suggestions? 

The other thing I'm trying to do is figure out what raw foods I want to experiment with other break. I'm reading Ani Phyo's book Ani's Raw Food Essentials, which looks pretty good! I really want to experiment with my mom's dehydrator this week - I've always wondered exactly how a dehydrator works. Specifically, I'd like to play around with raw desserts (dehydrating!), but I also want to make a couple different recipes that are main courses. They look super delicious.  Right now though, I'm tired, so I think I might take a nap...I'm spending the night at Stuart's house, then while he is in class tomorrow, I'm gonna walk around the city, probably grabbing a coffee from the cute little coffee shop down here (Roh's Cafe) and doing some shopping!!

. 

Dreary Cincinnati Weather

It's been really really rainy all day today.
I woke up to the crashing of thunder and a torrential downpour outside my window. Fabulous.
Thunderstorms and enjoyable to listen to, and I really don't mind rain that much - it just was not a fun experience walking to the gym today. on the way there, mud from the sidewalk splashed all over my legs, and on the way back, my shoes were soaked from the giant puddle that was almost flooding the side of the street! Oh well. it's okay. Like I said, I really don't mind the rain, and I got to use my pretty new orange and pink umbrella :)

Today was the first time I've worked out to this extent in a LONG time. I spent an hour on the cross-trainer, which is what I try to do whenever I go - it torches calories and gets your muscles working.

yay me! By the end of my workout, the calories burned ended being around 664 or something like that. Awesome!!! After the cross-trainer, I worked my abs and arms for a few minutes - and I was done! I headed back outside to brave the rain.

After I got back to my apartment, I took a nice long shower, shaved my legs, and moisturized. Wonderful :) Then I whipped up some lunch...

Grapes, an apple, raisins, broccoli, and a spinach salad with pecans and balsamic vinegar. It's a lot of food! I still have the apple, 1/4 of the grapes, and half the salad left on my plate. I don't think I'll be able to finish it all at the moment....but delicious none-the-less.

I also discovered this awesome new site, Vegan Cuts - check it out! They send you weekly coupons for vegan items. Awesome! 

What is everyone doing for Easter? Anything exciting? Instead of coloring eggs this year, I'm having an Easter egg hunt and shirt tie dying party! That way, I still get to dye something...just not eggs :) How about you?

Going Raw!

After a weekend full of delicious food and sweets, it's time to jump back on the raw bandwagon for a while.

Ideally, I'd like to go raw today and stay that way until Easter, which will be almost a week. I'm hoping this is will make me feel lighter, healthier, and help me to shed a few pounds. :)

Because raw foods are still a new thing to me, I don't know much about them, and I'm a poor college student, I will be relying mostly on fresh fruits and minimal fresh vegetables, hopefully being able to experiment with some recipes a little bit over easter break.

I would love to experiment with dehydrating soon... and also with raw food "cooking" in general. So exciting!

So. Ready, set,......go raw!