Xanthum Gum: Is It Healthy?

Now that I'm getting into uncommon, healthy ingredients, I keep seeing Xanthum gum. I don't know about you, but that just sounds so chemical to me. Alas, it just keeps popping up! In recipes, in food labels - I even saw it for sale in bulk at my local health food store! That, people, was the last straw. I had to do a little research on this mystery subject. I was really surprised by what I found.

Xanthum gum is actually....... SUGAR made from CORN! This is no natural substance my friend. You can't go out and pick a pack of xanthum gum or tap xanthum gum from a maple tree. First, you have to start out with glucose or sucrose and ferment it by using the Xanthomonas campestris bacterium. The result is, you guessed it: xanthum gum.

If you'd like to read up some more on xanthum gum and it's properties, check out this post I found at The Fit Shack here or you could always go to the good old trusty wikipedia and check it out here.

All in all, I've decided that personally I do not consider this a healthy eating alternative, health food store or not.

You know what? It feels good to be making educated decisions involving what I choose to put or not put into my body. Empowerment is pretty sweet. Ahhhh the internet! Making my life easier one click at a time. (:

UPDATE ON THE NEW CAMERA: Should be coming soooon! I absolutely cannot wait! I think I've decided to go with a cannon rebel instead of a nikon. I just really like them more now that I've tried them both out in the store. Seriously excited.

Stay tuned for a blog on snacking! (Since obviously, I'm the queen)

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Since my first dietary challenge was to cut out white flour, I decided to try a recipe using my new whole wheat flour and fell upon this: Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins.

I don't know why, but I've had this need to bake lately! So I headed to my kitchen Saturday morning and created these scrumptious little servings of whole wheat goodness. I liked this recipe because it didn't call for any sugar! I also tweaked the recipe a bit to get rid of the all-purpose flour.

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

3/4 cup vanilla soymilk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup blueberries
2 TBSP brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees
2. Beat milk, oil, honey and egg together till blended. Stir in
flour, baking powder and salt until just moistened
3. Fold in blueberries
4. Spray muffin cups with cooking spray and divide batter
5. Sprinkle each muffin with mixed brown sugar and cinnamon
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

Cannot WAIT for my new camera. Anyway, these turned out to be sooo goodddd! I also worked out the nutritional information and at 165 calories, they came pretty close to the given caloric value of 170. I was impressed. My grandmother liked these so much, she asked me for a copy of the recipe. Now that's when you know something is good!

I've been on the search for a new race (to prove to myself that I can do better than the last) and I think I've found one next weekend in Pittsburgh that I might sign up for. The only thing is, I'm going to Pittsburgh that weekend for my birthday bonanza! So we'll have to see how this one turns out. Trust me, I'll let you know.

Sweet dreams!

Race Recap

So today was the day: my first 5k race. It went a lot better than I thought it would, however I was also slightly disappointed in myself. I ended up having to walk a bit. Sad face. To top that off, Sarah, the girl I was supposed to go with, ended up going out last night and didn't make it to the race today (please see Responsibility posted earlier). Although I was a little ticked, it showed again that I made the right choice to stay in last night. Yay me!

I'm going to break it down like this:

THINGS I DID RIGHT.
1. I pinned my hair up completely out of my face. I was very very very thankful that I did this, even though I'm sure I looked like a retard.
2. I wore leggings without shorts over them. Again, another retard move, but way more comfortable.

THINGS I DID WRONG.
umm wow, where to begin?
1. I checked the weather the night before and dressed accordingly for 55 degrees and rain in leggings, a tank top, an underamour and a long sleeve t-shirt. Unfortunately, it ended up being way nicer than that and I'm pretty sure I was seconds away from a heat stroke. Oops.
2. Instead of eating what I normally eat for break - fruit - I thought I'd make a power breakfast and had some yummy pumpkin oatmeal (recipe to follow). Next time, however, I'm sticking with fruit. The oatmeal was way to dense and even though I ate it two hours before the run, I ended up with terrible stomach cramps which lead to my decision to walk about half of the last mile.
3. I ran just a little too fast at the beginning. I think I just got overzealous. There were a lot of older people and I thought I could easily outrun them. Bigggg mistake.

In the end, even with my little walking stint, I ended up finishing in 29:33. I'm actually really impressed with that and it shows how must faster than normal I must have been going in the beginning to be able to walk and still finish in under 30 minutes.

All in all, I had a good time and I'm definitely going to make the next race better! Though I read a lot of tips and such on the internet, I think maybe it's something you have to do firsthand before you can really learn from it.

Before I go, I'm gonna leave you with delicious pumpkin oatmeal recipe I totally stole from Eat Spin Run Repeat! The original is right here.

Pumpkin Oatmeal

1/3 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup water

1/3 cup pumpkin

1/2 scoop protein (I used chocolate)

1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

squeeze of agave nectar

Mix oats and water and heat in the microwave for 

2 mins. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well.

Heat until you reach desired consistency. I like mine

thick so I had to throw it in a few times. Then top with

nuts of your choice! I used chopped walnuts. Mmm!

So good, it tasted like warm pumpkin pie filling which means this gets two thumbs up by me! It's totally going into my breakfast cookbook - no doubt. I think I might try a few variations on it as well. Maybe a little brown sugar topping? Cinnamon? Ohhh yeahhhh!

Okay lovies, I'm off to eat lunch with the boy and then study before work. I've got an exam on Tuesday that I really don't feel like taking. I just keep telling myself "One week till summer!"

Responsibility

I've never been one for responsibility. I wouldn't say I'm irresponsible exactly. I've never missed paying on my loan or credit card and if you asked me to hold your purse for you, I definitely wouldn't lose it. But sometimes, I'd really rather do what I want than what I should. Take tonight, for example. Tomorrow I will be running in my very first 5k. I'm wicked excited for it, but at the same time I'm a little bummed  that it's so early in the morning. All of my friends are partying it up at Springfest or Collegefest or this one kid's house whose parents went out of town this weekend.

On the one hand, I know that I should stay in, definitely not drink and probably go to bed early. But on the other hand, I totally want to go out and have some fun - it's Saturday night, people! I know it's not really a big deal, but as I was debating on where I wanted to go out tonight, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'm not all that responsible.

It made me think back to the quote I posted earlier today. If you don't make any changes in your life today, how will you expect anything to be different tomorrow?

Taking this into consideration, I've decided to stay in tonight, throw on a movie and pass out by ten. Hey, it may be Saturday night, but it will be Saturday night next Saturday too! And when that day comes, it will DEFINTELY be time for me to get my dance on. A well deserved dance on for that!

Challenge Me Baby

While I was randomly traversing the world wide web yesterday, I glanced over a quote that in retrospect I probably should have written down because it definitely struck a chord with me. It went something like

"You can't expect to see any changes in yourself if you never change what you're doing now"

I really liked this thought and it made me think about my own health and fitness regime. Everyone wants to see changes, but you can't expect them to happen when you continue to do everything as you always have. So I'm going to start implementing biweekly Change Challenges! I know it's not the beginning of the week yet, but I'm gonna give myself a head start on the first one.

Change Challenge:

Make the switch from white flour to whole wheat flour

This is one I've been meaning to do for a while, but just haven't yet. Today I'm gonna march my little tush down to the store and grab the biggest bag of whole wheat flour I can find! Hurray for healthy changes!!

Since I didn't have time to finish posting yesterday, here are some snapshots of the foods I completelyyy enjoyed.

A yummy grilled chicken salad

I cannot get enough of these protein cookies!

Today's gameplan is actually surprisingly not packed. After getting some much needed basics at the store, all I really have planned is dinner with my grandparents and studying for my chem exam. My first race is tomorrow (eek!) so I won't be running or working out at all. I'm really super nervous, but I know I'll do well. I've been reading a bunch of tips online so I'm off to down as much water as possible. 

Catch ya on the flipside!

Spring a Ding Ding

Good Morningggg! It is absolutely gorge outside! I think I'm gonna try to squeeze in a run before work today (:

When I woke up, I was really hankering for some pancakes again so I decided to make a few tweaks to the Monster Pumpkin Pancake I made earlier and here is what I came up with!

Quick Pumpkin Pancake

1/4 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup milk (i used very vanilla soy)

1/4 cup pancake mix

1/3 tbsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tsp agave nectar

Mix all the ingredients together and cook over low/medium heat! Makes six small pancakes

I kinda got excited and devoured them all without taking a picture first soooo

Mmm yummy! I promise to snag a picture next time! I was thinking about baking another batch of those vegan protein cookies since I only have a few left, but instead I'm gonna mix it up a little. I've been realizing lately how often I eat the same things over and over again so I'm going to use this blog to shake myself out of that habit.

I saw Cookie Friday on Carrots n Cake and those oatmeal raisin bars are looking prettyyyy goooddd too right about now. We'll see what I end up making later. 

Well I'm off to shower, hit up work for a few hours, run and bake! I should also probably try to study in there lol does anyone else find it just super hard to study when it's so nice out? Walking to class in itself was distracting!

Before I go, here a just a few pictures of the random things I ate yesterday. Have fun in the sun chickies!

New Pages

In an effort to organize things a bit here around Fit n Fresh, I've decided to make a page for my food journal instead of listing what I eat throughout my blog. I think this will work out nicely and help me out as well since I will be able to see what I've eaten day by day at a glance without having to sift through each post. I'm pretty excited about this new development! So excited, in fact, that I'm going to go see what I can whip up in the kitchen for breakfast/lunch (most people would normally call this brunch but it's actually just my breakfast at lunchtime lol).

You can also see I added an About Me page and a Cookbook page. The first I will get started on later today, the Cookbook isn't really going to by my own recipes - yet - more like recipes that I've enjoyed and want to continue to use on a frequent basis.

I hope you guys enjoy all the new changes and that they make it easier for you to navigate around the site!

Peaceee

Fooooood

This is gonna be another long post, let's start off with all the yummy food I completely destroyed today! I love my days off for the sole fact that I can cook dinner lol is that sad?

My cookies turned out scrumptiously! In fact, I ate three today haha I just couldn't help myself. So here's the recipe I used in case you want to enjoy these awesome vegan power protein cookies!

Peanut Butter Oat Protein Cookies

2 mashed bananas

2 tbsp natural peanut butter

2 tbsp almond butter

2 scoops protein powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

First mash up your bananas in a bowl

Then add in your oats

Then the rest of the ingredients!

Mix it all together, mine looked little thinner than Ali's at VeganBooty, but it still tasted great! (Uh yeah of course I tried it!)

The recipe said to form it into four cookies, but I ended up with ten! I was fine with that though, it goes well with my addiction to child-sized food. I like thinking I'm eating more than I really am when I have seconds! So I put them all on parchment paper and popped them in my oven preheated to 350 for only 16 minutes (again the recipe called for 20 mins). I think next time I make these, I'm going to put them in for somewhere between 12-14 minutes. They weren't burnt, but I like a softer cookie.

Mmmmmmm so good! I ate two directly out of the oven and one right before my run, gotta love cookie fuel lol. After my baking fit, I ran over to Best Buy to check out cameras - if you couldn't tell, I definitely need a new one - and then I stopped by my cousins for a few where I snacked on a couple small dark chocolate easter eggs without hesitation. Thankfully, I threw a few Clif bars into my purse so I ate the Honey Graham one on the way home. Seriously, if all the Clif bars taste this good, I'm gonna have to look into ordering them at wholesale!

For dinner, I was originally supposed to grab something and eat with my boyfriend at his work, but we ended up just eating separately and watching a movie later in the night. I was more than okay with that since I really wanted to try Girl Meets Health's Cheesy Shrimp and Broccoli Casserole and the boy hates shrimp for some crazy reason my brain just simply can't process.

I took a little of this

and a little of that

mixed it all together

and got this!

You know, I think I'm gonna give today an A+ in the Great Eats compartment. This was pretty darn good! I liked it even more because it was quick and easy to make. There are a few tweaks I'll probably make to it next time which will more than likely be next week! Fingers crossed (:

After dinner, I ran over and watched Horton Hears a Who with the baby boo! Horton = Awesome. Love that freaking movie. I actually beg my little siblings to watch it with me lol! Once I got home, I was still a bit hungry so I whipped up a cookie in a bowl and topped it with sliced strawberries and whipped cream mmm!

Pretty good if I do say so myself. It was nice to try out a bunch of new things today! I'm so bored with eating the same things over and over and over again. I think blogging will really help me break out of that rut. If I can ever come up with a recipe from right out of my head, I will be so totally impressed with myself! It has to taste good though. Well, actually I'd settle for it just tasting decent.

In running news, I ran 4 MILES - straight! I've run that long before, but only ever on the treadmill and while doing HIIT, but never ever straight through. Talk about being impressed with yourself! I couldn't quite power through the end like I normally do, but when I discovered I ran those four miles in 37:11 I just couldn't believe it! That's faster mileage than I normally run my 3 miles in!! I have no idea how I did it, but it makes me even more eager for my first race on Sunday. Ahh I can't wait!

Thanks to my favoriteeee website, Map My Run, here is the course I ran today:






Seriously LOVE this site. I can't even emphasis it enough. I'm not getting paid to advertise for these people or anything (dude I wish I was!), but it will tell you how fast your running per mile, how many calories you burned, the elevation changes throughout your run and you can even go so in depth as to enter how much water you've had that day, what you ate or what the weather was like. Crazyyy? Yep! I'm not sure I'll ever get THAT intense into running, but still you gotta admit the option is sweet.


Alright alright alright, I'm all blogged out. I'm off to sleep and dream about my new camera! YAY! Finally pictures that will actually look decent! Night lovies

Late Start!

Umm wow, so yeah I totally slept in late. As in like noon late. At least I'm well rested today!  I must have totally needed it because though I do love love LOVE sleep, I try to arise much earlier than this on a daily basis lol

Plan for today = busy!

1. Bake these delicious looking cookies on VeganBooty's site! Mmm can't wait to show you these!
2. Map out a 4 mile run and go for it since it's such a beautifuuuul day outside
3. Tennis Wednesday with my favorite Sarah
4. Study chem
5. Dinner and a movie at work with the boy (love)

All I've eaten since I've been up is this yummy pink lady and an entire carton of strawberries.

That's all I have, for now it's Cookie Time!

Volleyballin

Whew! Am I tired! Not only did I have work today, but I also had to coach little kicks soccer AND play my last volleyball game. I so love volleyball, I can't wait till the outdoor summer leagues start!

Now let's get down to business. For lunch, I made my first green monster! It was actually pretty good, I just used the virgin green monster recipe on OhSheGlows's Green Monster Movement site.

I couldn't even finish it! It was way more filling than I thought it'd be. I topped this bad boy off with a slice of sprouted grain bread and agave nectar. Mmm do I love agave nectar! At the grocery store, I picked up a few kid-sized clif bars and munched on one on the way home.

Delicious! I'm thinking about trying to replicate this recipe, the bar was that good. Seriously. While I was at work, I devoured two apples, one with almond butter, some chips and my favorite salsa (Granny Cycle), and more of the chicken with mushrooms that I love! There was also an assortment of candy in there, including but not limited to: 3 starbursts, a mini cookies'n'cream bar, three whoppers and a grape lifesaver. I think I need to cut back on the sweets, no?

Yes! Okay, well it's time for me to get my workout on and then throw myself into bed. Night babes (:

I Can Make Your Bed Rockkk

As I'm sure you can see, I'm still in the process of making a few cosmetic changes to the blog. I'm liking them so far and I'm hoping you do too (:

This morning I actually woke up early which was a treat for me (I'm not exactly a morning person lol) and since I was up, I decided to stray from my usual breakfast of fruit or cereal and make something yummy I saw earlier...

A Monster Pumpkin Pancake! I saw this yesterday on Girl Meets Health and snagged up the recipe. Boy am I glad I did! I loved that it was enough for just one monstrous pancake. I hate having to cook a whole batch when I'm the only one eating so that in itself was already awesome and the fact that it tasted amazingggg was even better! I didn't have a few of the ingredients so I either improvised or skipped them altogether.

This recipe called for stevia though and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I think I might go out and grab some today and see how I feel after using it. There are so many mixed messages when it comes to sweeteners in general that it kind of makes my head spin when I have to choose one. White sugar is bad for you. Artificial sweeteners are bad for you. Splenda is bad for you. Stevia is bad for you. I've even heard agave nectar is bad for you before! It's crazy how much misinformation is out there. How can anyone make good decisions any more? Insane.

Well I'm off to continue on my day, which will hopefully look like this if I'm lucky:

• shower
• lunch
• grocery shop
• strength train
• work

Have a good day everyone!

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!