Spirited Day Six

All vegan all day long today (so far)! We have a basketball game at six that I'm pumped up for. 

GO RAMS!

Friendly Day Five

Starry Night in Fort Collins, CO. My favorite coffee shop! 

Today I ordered a chai latte. Forgot to mention soy. Threw up a ton. Did I build up an intolerance? Or did my body hate lactose all along? I don't know. But I do know how to test myself for intolerance. Trust me, I was a biology major. That was one lab I actually understood.

But that was my third strike. 


Which means every day for this next week I will be going to the gym twice a day as per punishment & tomorrow: 10am soothing yoga class.

Well, it's just me, my cupcake pajamas, and a movie tonight.

Good luck, if you're doing this challenge with me.

Day Four: meh.

Starting Weight: 162
Today's Weight: 155

In three weeks that seems like nothing.

Only a centimeter on the scale.

With this whole vegan kick, I have definitely noticed a change in my brainpower. I notice more. When I'm watching tv...i'll notice a cute bookshelf in the background. I'll be able to recall the actors/actresses' wardrobe a few days later. Amazing what a change of diet can do.

I have a confession: I stopped eating honey, because I felt bad. But without even thinking today I had parmesan cheese. Oopsies! That's strike one. Three strikes and I am making myself do two-a-days for a week.

I have to be honest. I also had ranch *giggles*.

Two strikes :D No more! I promise...

I can't expend any more energy. I have a shin splint and a pulled arm and buttock. Owch.

Goodnight y'all.

Day Three (Yesterday)

In the morning, I am so sluggish that I only wake up last minute. It feels like I literally cannot force myself out of bed and I sit there, staring at my phone praying it won't turn the time that I have to get out of bed in order to make it on time. 

Please, just five more minutes. 

I finally get to class or work at the early hours of the morning and think to myself, Now that wasn't so bad. 

I smile and get on with my day. I get a $1 small soy chai latte at the book store and all of the day's impending worries fade away. 

Then comes lunch time. Facing the not-so-vegan-friendly dining halls is a class of its own. For lunch I chose the dining hall with the mongolian grill and had a delicious broccoli and mushroom stir-fry. Afterwards I was done with my classes and trekked back to my dorm room only to find myself close to comatose post-meal. 

I decided I needed to be proactive and got up and went off to the gym for a good ol' workout:

20 minutes run/walk intervals on an incline at speeds of 8.0 and 4.0 (I switched off every two minutes)

10 minutes on the bikes with 10 resistance

100 outward push for my legs

100 inward push for my legs

20 minutes of power sculpt yoga on hulu when I got back to the dorm

 

Phew. Just thinking about that this morning makes me tired. Afterwards I ran home (literally) and jumped into my warm and cozy bed for an episode of New Girl and then a 4 hour nap. Upon waking up, I was faced with a dining dilemma: Yesterday the only "vegan friendly" items that the dining hall closest to my dorm had were located on the fruit and salad bar. When I went to drizzle dressing on top, I realized that none of their dressings were vegan. That was when I decided to just a get my usual "express" meal of a vegan burrito and hummus. 

Ho-hum. I'm going to make an exciting post this weekend. Sorry for these chronological posts I've been having. 

Day Two

Wooo-wee! I'm exhausted. I was only home for an hour in between work, school, and the gym and I delighted myself with half of a drama inclusive episode of teen mom.

Today wasn't a bad day for a vegan! It's getting easier. I saw fried rice on one of my favorite blogs, and decided to grab some veggies and tofu from the dining hall (my lucky day...they had tofu at the salad bar!). I sautéed mushrooms, tofu, broccoli, one slice of a lemon, spinach, red kidney beans, and black beans. I drizzled olive oil on them (also from the salad bar) as well as Mrs. Dash (our seasoning station). I added a tiny bit of flour so that the tofu would get crispier (it worked!). Add soy sauce and Siracha and voila!

It was 3:00p.m. and I had only had a few bites of a clif bar this morning and a 200 calorie soy latte so I thought I was due for anything that I could whip up (and fast!). This was a whopping 659 calories, but worth every bite. 

Post work out tonight I ate vegan bread (from the dining hall...I was surprised they had it) with walnuts and fruit leather on top. My new favorite post-workout food, but next time I'll have the fruit leather on the side.  

Time for yoga and studying for calc! 

Also time for a confession.

I hate to burst your bubble but I had some honey today. 

In my defense, it was from a local farm that gets their honey naturally and keeps their bees "happy"...so they say. I'm sorry, but after seeing the bee movie I'm convinced that honey is ok as long as it comes from a natural bee keeper. 

You are more than welcome to dispel my belief and convince me otherwise. Until then, I will be having honey, lemon, and ginger green tea.  

Day One: Meal Plan

Howdy y'all...It's 1:18 and I can't sleep. When I groggily roll my fat ass out of bed at 6am I'm going to be mad at myself for staying up so late. I'm really bad about waking up on time. Sometimes I start screaming in my head, "I will do anything for five more hours of sleep God, I'll stub my toe today! I'll gladly gain five pounds. Just please give me five more hours."

Imagine an angry rhino thumping around the room like she just got grounded from her first prom. That's me. But when I was being interviewed, they asked me if I was ok with coming in at 8:00a.m.

My heart started pounding. As much as my body was physically rejecting their offer, my mouth overruled and said, "Of course! The earlier the better."

Each night before I go to bed, I am excited to take a nap the next day. This is why I'm giving up dairy. I have a slight suspicion I'm lactose intolerant and wondering if, by chance, it could be causing my extreme exhaustion and awful sleep habits. Surely coffee could be a strong attribute to my sleeping patterns, but I've gone weeks without coffee before and still been sluggish.

My MONDAY meal plan: 


6:30 AM Breakfast in the dorm room: Half a grapefruit with a small bowl of mashed strawberries, dry oats, a little bit of granola, a little bit of soy milk, and walnuts. 


10:30AM Snack: A 45 calorie pack of apricot fruit leather and a chai soy latte. 


Lunch @ the dining hall: Baby corn, carrots, extra broccoli, snow peas, water chestnuts, spinach and tofu in a stir fry with a spicy vegan sauce (had to look up which sauces were low calorie and safe).  


Snack: One red apple that looks like the apple from Snow White


Dinner (leftovers from this weekend): Vegan evol burrito (they serve these at our express dining hall) with hot sauce and a bowl of vegan carrot ginger soup ($2 for a quart from Whole foods). 


This won't be that hard after all! I'll edit this post with pictures throughout the day. Documenting all of this to a white screen and for everyone to stumble upon helps me maintain a sense of commitment.

What's your schedule like? I would love for you to tell me about what a typical day is like for you in the comment section below :) 

30 Day Mind & Body Challenege

Now that the Super Bowl is out of the way for those fattening appetizers and...hold on let me wipe the crumbs off of my face....all of those saucy wings. I've decided to start a mind and body challenge. Now I know I have a tendency to forget about my new diet/"lifestyle" changes only moments after I sit down and create them, but this time I'm in it for the win. After all, it's only 30 days!

I will begin tomorrow, Monday February 6th, and end on March 8th (which marks the start of my spring break). I would love to see many of you that read this join me. This is what I'm committing to:

Every Day:

• 10-30 minutes of yoga
• 1 hour at the gym
• No animal byproducts
• Eat raw whenever possible 
• Take a multivitamin
• Go to sleep before 12am
• Drink hot water with lemon, ginger, and honey(whoops! my one vegan slip) every morning

That doesn't sound too hard, does it? What will help me is telling you guys about my progress. I wonder how possible this is on a college campus, when they fry everything....even pickles!

I would also like to address that you don't need to spend ungodly amounts of money on this 31 day challenge. Steal a few lemons from your neighbor's tree (don't get caught :p), ginger root (in the produce section) is generally very cheap because one knob will last you a few weeks. I bought my multivitamin at target for $4/100 tablets. You don't need a yoga mat, but TJ Maxx sells them for roughly eight dollars. As far as eating raw goes, that's just "whenever possible" meaning I should abstain from grabbing steamed veggies rather than eating them in their whole state. One advantage of being on a college campus is a nearly unlimited supply of walnuts. These contain essential omega 3 fatty acids that are vital to your brain power. I will get most of my protein from cooked beans and say NO to any type of bread or pasta 9 times out of 10, although I am going to allow my body to have enough carbs so that when I stop the challenge, I won't gain back quite a bit of weight. 

I know I have deferred from my "food blog"-ness, but I promise I'll start blogging my daily meals. I want incoming college freshman to get a feel for what it is like to eat in the dorms...and how the freshman 15 can be avoided. 

Have a great day everyone! Please comment below if you'd like to join me :)