Ahh Changes!

A few new changes to this blog yayyy! I know they're not perfect yet, but I'll have to work out the kinks later because it's pretty close to my bedtime!

Here's a quick list of what I've eaten today since I'm determined to keep my food journal going:

        Breakfast
           - banana
           - pink lady apple
           - orange
        Lunch
           - goat cheese and turkey on sprouted grain bread
           - strawberries
           - a couple chocolate covered nuts
           - a mini cowtale

        Snack
           - a peanut butter banana smoothie (which I crushed at work)
        Dinner
           - chicken and mushrooms
           - steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots
           - lime tootsie roll
           - mini hershey bar
       Snack
           - pink lady apple

I also finished today with a little love on the treadmill. I was reading about intervals earlier so I decided to do an interval run. It felt good! I felt really good afterwards too. It's nice to mix things up sometimes, I think I'm going to continue to throw in interval sessions at least twice a week.

Tomorrow - strength training here I come!

The Mega Post

Okay, I have a TON to write about! So get ready and buckle in.

My trip home was totally amazing, but I was a little too busy running around and visiting my family to post anything so here is a little recap. Saturday I woke up and went straight to the gym for a little sweat session and mmm it felt so good!

It doesn't look like much from the outside, but trust me the inside is beautifullll! It really makes me wish I lived back home again, the gyms around here are just so small. Sigh.

After that, I ran to my favorite hometown store:

ROSS! So many cute cute cute pairs of shoes! Here are just a few of my favorites.

These Steve Maddens were marked down to $20.00 - sadly 

though, they were just a little bit too tight in the front for my liking

These were some Carlos Santana's. I've actually been surprised 

by his collection, there are quite a few pieces I like from it.

I absolutely loved these heels by Joey! They were on 

clearance for $16.00 and it was hard to chose between these

and the pair I ended up purchasing:

These BCBGeneration heels for - oh yes - $19.99. Thankkk 

youuu Ross. These are almost identical to the Jessica Simpson

Kurt heels I was thinking about dropping $60 on!

As if that wasn't enough to completely make my trip, I also stopped at ULTA later that night to find that all of their Warren Tricomi products were on sale - 85% off! I picked up a ton of shampoo and conditioner as well as a hair masque and some strength renewal that normally would have cost me well over $100 for around 23 bucks. I was in heaven. I've also decided to go home wayyyy more often!

Earlier today, I made a stop at TJ Maxx and saw they also had Warren Tricomi haircare for slightly more than I paid at ULTA, but still a good deal!

Since I'm already talking about TJ Maxx, I'd like to point out that you can find wayyy more than just awesome shoes, clothes and beauty products there - it's ideal for workout equipment, activewear and even healthfood sometimes! Every TJ Maxx has an activewear section where you can find cheap pants and sports bras. I found my favorite pair of Nike Fit capris at the Maxx! And somewhere near the clothing should be a section for equipment.

They almost always have stability balls, 2 - 8 lb weights, resistance bands and cords and fitness DVDs. Half of the stuff in my little home gym came from here. You can also find really good deals on sneakers, like these Under Armours on display for thirty bucks.

I've also found Saucony, Nike and Asics here before. And since I'm addicted to running shoes (weird I know), it's totally awesome to be able to find GOOD shoes at CHEAP prices.

Now when healthy food is concerned, TJ Maxx is a little hit and miss - you'd be surprised what you could find there however! Just today, I found a random assortment of natural and organic foods including: olive oils, pasta sauces, teas, coffees, drinks, and cookies!

There was even a small display of eco-cleaners, can you believe it?

So! I hope this makes you all appreciate your local TJ Maxx just a little bit more! And if I could find all of these things in Smalltown, USA, just imagine what you could find. (:

Bad Decisions

So tired! I'm just about to go to bed, but I thought I would recap my day first. I'll start by admitting to a hugeee mistake last night: Drunken Taco Bell. Ahhhh Taco Bell always gets me with their amazingly delicious grade D beef! In my alcoholic stupor, I wound up in car bound for the drive through and ordered a tortada for me and a 7 layer burrito for the boyfriend. Turns out tortadas suck, so I devoured only half of that followed by ALL of boyfriend's burrito. Oops.

Now here are my feelings on this. First of all, I don't feel too badly about it considering I didn't eat much during the day - not intentionally, I just wasn't that hungry. However, I am in total agreement that fast food is just plain unhealthy for you and should be avoided at all costs. I don't eat out that much, but when I do it's usually during a similar drunk moment. One of those things you wake up and remember the next day with a resounding "ewwwww". I definitely need to stop doing this. Therefore, I am making it official.

ALYCIA'S HEALTFUL EATING RULE NUMBER ONE:

Never, under any circumstances, go to Taco Bell drunk

 

I'm going to keep a running list of all these rules and try resiliently to follow them. I need to think of other, healthy things to replace them with. For instance, instead of going to devour some TB like it's my job, I can go home and make a yummy, healthy quesadilla! Yeahhhh I'm totally going to try that next time. I just hate feeling like I've ruined all the good I've done, but I promised to be completely honest in this little endeavour and I plan to divulge every horrible decision I make (as embarassing as it may become). Does anyone else have a terrible food weakness like mine? I sure would like to hope so!

In other news, one of my personal favorite blogs, The Fitnessista, is collecting smoothie recipes!!! Yay!! I love smoothies! All entries have to be emailed to her by Monday and although I've been trying to get creative, I think I'm just going to submit my all-time favorite fallback - the Almond Butter Banana Smoothie.

You take some of this:

And you get this!

Mmmmm so good! I know it's not very originial, but it's just so freaking delicious! Here's the actual recipe.

Almond Butter Banana Smoothie

1 medium sized banana

1/2 cup milk of choice

1/2 scoop chocolate protein

1 spoonful of almond butter

Blend all the above ingredients together and drink in the satisfaction. Yum!

The only thing left for me to do is list what I've eaten today! I haven't really been sitting down for a meal since I've been traveling to get home most of the day so there aren't any pictures (my visual log is falling apart already!). It looks like a simple bulleted list is in order!

• 3 pink lady apples
• 1 banana
• Almond Butter Banana Smoothie
• Small bowl of Zuppa
• Salad with Italian Dressing
• 2 Breadsticks (bread is my kryptonite!)
• 2 decent sized brownies
• a few spoonfuls of cool whip
• 2 pretzel candies that my mom makes because they're delicious and I can never turn them down
• 1 Doo-see-doo girl scout cookie

Hmm... I think that's everything! I was doing good until I got home, but trust me I feel no guilt since I only come home like once a year and my mother's cooking is to DIE for. Mmmmmm!

Well, that's all I've got for now. Tomorrow = shopping and a run! I can't wait to scope out the Ross! Totally excited. Catch ya on the flipsideee and good night!

iMap My Fun

Dinner was amazingggggg! Just look at the SIZE of this chicken breast!

That's no small bowl people! This bad boy was probably a good eight ounces! And mmmm was it good! I also had a handful of candy while I was chilling at the gym waiting for my little soccer kids to show up. This handful included:

• 1 hershey kiss
• 3 starbursts
• 1 bite-sized dark chocolate milky way
• 1 bite-sized 3 musketeer

I do so love candy, plus I'm a firm believer in letting yourself have little treats. I think if you don't, you end up binge eating an entire BAG of candy! Not saying I have or anything... ish....

Anyway! I feel as though I didn't eat as much as I normally do. I'm going to correct this byyyyy going out tonight! It's thirsty thursday baby! So I'm going to go upstairs and get prettified (I'll start by washing my face since I just finished my run). 

Speaking of my run! I used this sweet website/iphone app called iMap My Run. I totally love it! I just go to the website, put in where I want to start running which is normally my house and then I can map out a route anywhere in the world. It tells you how long it is and if you put in your time, it will tell you other useful tidbits. Like for instance, tonight I ran 3.35 miles in 32:11.9 burning 353 calories and averaging about 9:34 a mile. 

This may very well be my new favorite toy. Check it out for sure! I now have to go get ready, look forward to tomorrow - I've got some super smoothie news (:

I love fruit

As promised, I'm going to start posting the things I eat as a kind of visual food diary (is it sad that I'm so lazy I don't feel like writing everything down?). For breakfast this morning, I had a delicious bowl of fruit!

An orange and a pink lady apple mmm! I love sweet apples, but I'm not a big fan of the tart ones like granny smith - yuck. Then for lunch, I had some almond butter and organic blueberry preserves on sprouted grain bread:

So good I almost forget to stop and take a picture before devouring it! I also threw in an enormous bowl of air popped organic popcorn, but in the end I only had a few handfuls before realizing that bread really fills me up! I'm off now to lay out a bit (maybe if this weather would decide what it wants to do) before soccer!

BONUS TIME!

I just happened to stumble upon this little black lace dress on Forever 21's website - $15.80! Click on the picture if you want the link. This totally would have been a buy for me, but sadly they don't have any smalls left. You better believe I'm heading to F21 after soccer to see if they have it in my store! Wish me luckkk!

Online Steals

Let's start today with a list of online buys of the day! Hurray!

PICKS OF THE DAY

Eva Franco Serenity Floral Skirt

This skirt is simple, but still has a unique flair. It would a make 

a white tee and pumps look way classy! A little pricey at $79, 

but you'd definitely get some wear out of it.

Liv Dress

Hilda Dress

These two Hype Dresses at $59 are wayyy cute for summer! The

first I would wear out to clubs and bars at night and the second is 

the perfect summer day dress - love them both!

Lucca Couture Military Jacket

I have something exactly like this in gray and I adore it! Very 

in right now and a steal at just $45.

Lucca Couture Sweater Vest

This is a MUST HAVE! For $15? Are you kidding me? I have

a thing for cardigans and vests and you better believe this is coming

home to mama.

Also ideeli is having a killer sale on yoga pants and gilt is rocking the rock n republic shoes! I love the Athena pumps, but a benjamin on shoes is just not in the stars for me today unfortunately. No worries though! I just picked up an AWESOME pair of Chinese Laundry shoes which I will have to show you later. Alright, well it's about time for lab! Afterwards, I plan on  laying out for a bit (with some SPF protection of course), coaching my little tykes in soccer and then going for a run! Hopefully I'll have time for a stop to the Maxx with some pictures later too - fingers crossed!

Remember me

It's been a while! Between school and work, I've basically fall off the edge of the planet. But the end is finally near! Only three more weeks before finals and I simply cannot WAIT till summer! I've got all sorts of fun plans including but not limited to:


1. Running as much as possible (my first 5k is two weekends from now)
2. Farmers markets every saturday
3. Living by the lake
4. Swimming pool parties and bon fires
5. Multiple, multiple trips to NYC


Recently, I've also become very interested in the raw food lifestyle so look forward to many posts on that subject in the near future. I'm thinking about basically starting a photo food diary to keep on here as well - fun, right? I can't wait!


PS - Did anyone happen to check out the Clinique sale at Gilt.com today? I totally missed it! I bet there were some deals there too. So sad...