Hiiiiiii!!!!!

How was your Thanksgiving?!

Mine was absolutely wonderful. I was definitely not excited to get back to the reality of school and work and responsibilities (finals are in 2 weeks…yikes!!)

I arrived in Chicago last Monday night and was met at the airport by my handsome, handsome boyfriend.

he's special

And after spending two nights in the city, we were off to Tennessee to spend Thanksgiving with his beautiful sister and her hubby.

I absolutely love Ryan’s family and could not be more comfortable with them. Even the 9 hour car ride to Tennessee didn’t seem too bad Of course, travel Scrabble definitely helped!

The week was filled with lots of fun, laughing, a couple of good workouts, and of course a TON of good food!

The day before Thanksgiving, Ryan and I used a guest pass to his sister’s gym and did a lower body lift. I did all of the same lifts as Ryan but with modified weights, and I have never been so sore in my life!!  We were registered for a 5k Turkey Trot for the next morning, and we definitely kept the pace a little bit slower because of our sore legs. His awesome dad ran it with us! (Sorry about the blurry phone pic!)

After the Turkey Trot, we came back and enjoyed some wonderful food.

Thanksgiving!!!

It was all absolutely to die for!!

The menu included turkey, chestnut stuffing (OMGosh so good), broccoli, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli rice casserole and crescent rolls.

Above is a picture of my first plate, and I definitely had seconds of turkey and cranberry sauce. Sooo good. Dessert was an unpictured pumpkin chiffon pie and an apple crumble pie.

Needless to say, I have never been so full in my life.

But it was definitely worth it

me, Ryan's mom Laura and his sister Sammy

I miss him already!!

Ryan’s sister is a photographer, and she did a little photoshoot of Ryan and I while we were there. I absolutely can’t wait to see the pictures, and I’ll be sure to share them as soon as she sends them to me!

 The week went way too fast, and before I knew it I was already in the airport Sunday morning waiting for my flight to leave.

Starbucks oatmeal was the perfect Sunday morning breakfast to ease my uneasy stomach. Although all of the food was delicious, I definitely was ready to get back into a normal, healthy eating schedule again! I am once again in need of a good detox!

So this morning after a much needed workout (elliptical followed by total body weights), I made myself a nutrient packed smoothie.

like my robe?

The good news is that there is only another 18 days until Ryan gets here for Christmas break. He’s spending 2 weeks here and we will be together for Christmas day and New Years Eve. I absolutely cannot wait!

Anyways…tell me about YOUR Thanksgiving!!

Favorite Thanksgiving food?

Are you in need of a little detoxing too? We have to get ready for Christmas!!

 I will be back soon with an AWESOME new workout for you! Love you guys!! xoxo

Hi!!

Thanks for all of the congratulations and sweet comments on my blogiversary post! You guys are so great.

Well I just wanted to let you know that I am heading out to Chicago today to spend Thanksgiving with this guy…

I will still be keeping up on reading all of your blogs, but I most likely won’t be posting until I get back.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, and lots of this…

(source)

Oh, and some of this:

(source)

Love you friends!!!

Guess what happened yesterday?!

My little blog turned one!

On November 17th, 2010 I decided to stop just stalking  reading my favorite health and fitness blogs, but to start one of my own in hopes that somewhere a few other healthy college girls, fellow runners or passionate foodies may benefit along the way.

I am so happy to have found such a great community of bloggers! I love catching up with you guys every day through your blogs and comments, and hope you know what your virtual friendship means to me

A lot has changed in a year! Since the start of my blog, I have…

Moved home to Colorado!

(source)

Completed my first half-marathon

Declared my major!

(source)

Received my first F on a test :-/

Started a long-distance relationship

Taken a lot of pictures of my food

Discovered and tried tons of great new recipes, like these awesome no bake granola bars I made today.

Courtesy of Food Doodles

Conquered lots of new and awesome workouts, like this one I stole from Tessa the other day

It was awesome!! Definitely had me sweating and out of breath.

Truth be told, I feel like so much about me has changed in the past year. And a huge part of it is because of this blog and the community I have found because of it. I love my growing passion for fitness and food and being able to share that with others. I am so thrilled to have had the opportunity to “meet” all of you, and can’t wait for more years to come

Although, there may be a blog name change coming your way soon…stay tuned!

What’s your favorite thing about blogging/blog reading?

What’s the biggest thing about you that has changed in the past year?

Favorite workout/new recipe as of late?

Love you friends!

While I was stalking browsing Pinterest the other day [yup, I'm obsessed, too], I came across this photo:

I have to admit…I feel like I eat every meal like a king.

Now that the weather has gotten colder, my appetite has definitely increased and I just feel hungry all.the.time.

But it definitely got me thinking. I always hear about the wonderful benefits of eating a big breakfast (which I nearly ALWAYS do).

For example:

Old fashioned oats, greek yogurt, and bloobs.

(Bowl courtesy of Quaker )

But typically, I don’t pay much attention to the size of my lunches or dinner. I would consider both to be fairly moderate.

The “eat dinner like a pauper” part also made me think about the common “diet” rule of no eating after 8PM…which I rarely follow either.

Definitely just something to think about!

Happy Monday, my friends!

Thoughts?

What’s your largest meal of the day? Your smallest?

Do you think it matters?

Hi there!

Have you had a good Saturday?

I hope so. Mine has been awesome!

Good news: I feel like my motivation is back with a bang on the working out front. I’m back to looking forward to my workouts and thoroughly enjoying them! I love that feeling.

This morning I went for a quick 3 mile run to warm up my legs (Colorado decided to be sunny and gorgeous today) and then I returned home to complete a 45 minute session of total body weights and abs.

On a not so happy note, I noticed during my workout that I am an absolute baby when it comes to push ups. I do the girly kind every time.

I’m gonna make a conscious effort to change that.

After my super sweaty and awesome workout, I made something that I have been thinking about and craving all. week. long.

I made these pancakes.

And they were just as good the second time!

I don’t think I shared the recipe with you before, so here it is:

Blueberry Ricotta Pancakes (courtesy of EatingWell)

• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 3/4 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg white
• 1/2 cup nonfat buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons canola oil, divided
• 3/4 cup fresh or frozen (not thawed) blueberries

I ended up using nearly all whole wheat flour, and I replaced the buttermilk with skim milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice. I liked the extra lemony flavor!

Alongside a big, foamy almond milk latte, this breakfast was the jam.

My last post generated a lot of talk about two things: how I get my lattes so foamy and where I got my tie-dyed purple running leggings

I actually got both my espresso machine and my running leggings for Christmas last year much to my delight.

The leggings are Nike, and I believe my parents got them at Dick’s. They’re a little crazy, but I definitely won’t ever get hit by a car!

The secret to my ridiculously foamy lattes is this bad boy:

This milk frother is seriously one of my favorite possessions. [don't judge. I like lattes]

My parents got it for me last Christmas along with my Nespresso machine.

This machine is definitely a little pricey for a college student, so I feel totally spoiled to have gotten it as a gift. My parents obviously know how dedicated I am to coffee. And really, I save money in the long run since I used to spend $3.50 on Starbucks lattes all too often!

Before I had this great machine, I used a little Mr. Coffee cappuccino maker that I loved too!

This guy is only around $30 at Target and works great! Ryan has it at his apartment now. So he’s still getting some lovin!

Do you have an espresso machine?

Do you do girly style push-ups or are you a beastly manly man?

Favorite kind of pancakes??

One of the things that I love most about blogging is the opportunity to meet new friends.

Do you guys know Katie?

I’ve been following her blog for quite some time and love her creative ways to make delicious recipes a little healthier.

This week, I made friends with her Mini Pumpkin Pies.

I actually adapted her recipe a bit, because I was making these for a group of people and didn’t want them to be too freaked out by a super healthified recipe

I used wonton wrappers like she did, but my filling was a little more like traditional pumpkin pie. Note: if you do a more traditional pumpkin pie filling like I did, I recommend baking them for about 10 minutes and then covering them with aluminum foil and baking for another 5.

They were heavenly.

You know how chai lattes kind of taste like Christmas in your mouth?

These, my friends, are Thanksgiving in your mouth.

 I also met a new HUMAN friend this week too!

Adorable blog reader Alex reached out to me a few weeks ago about meeting up sometime and we finally did this past Sunday.

We chatted for over an hour about family, friends, fitness and everything in between.

I love that blogging has given me the opportunity to not only “meet” amazing women around the country who share my interests and beliefs, but also that it allows me to connect with people who live in my own state that I may not have met otherwise.

Alex shot me a text yesterday wishing me good luck on my big Cost Accounting exam today. Remember the last one?

Yikes :-/ I’m nervous!

I started out the morning with a great run…

[in perhaps the most obnoxious running outfit ever]

And am fueling up my body and brain with my favorite simple breakfast as of late.

oatmeal + blueberries and a delicious, foamy almond milk latte

Wish me luck!! Talk to you soon!

What’s your favorite fall recipe?

Have you had any blogger/reader meet ups lately?

Best pre-test breakfast?!

Well hi there!!

I’ve missed you!

(story of my life lately, right?)

I’m so sorry that I have been MIA once again! Thankfully, recruiting for internships is finally over for all of the accounting firms, so that is one less stress in my life! School hasn’t calmed down much, but that is to be expected. They say that junior year is the “weed out” year for accounting majors. It’s tough!

I know that I am a few days late, but I just wanted to update you guys on what I did over Halloween weekend!

I’ll give you a clue…

It involved this guy!!!

I flew out to Chicago last Thursday night to spend the weekend with my adorable boyfriend. It was such an awesome trip! We spent a day at his apartment in Chicago before heading back to his parents house in the suburbs on Friday night.

The weekend was filled with lots of fun and, of course, LOTS of good food!! And of course, the whole weekend basically revolved around pumpkins

We had pumpkin bagels [with pumpkin cream cheese, obvs]

Made a pumpkin chiffon pie

And by we I definitely mean Ryan’s mom. She’s an insanely amazing cook and I always LOVE eating at their house. (This isn’t a picture of the real pie…I was way too busy eating to snap a picture, duh. So this one was found here.)

And we carved pumpkins!!!

My pumpkin was insanely abnormally hard and it took me like 4 times longer to carve than Ryan’s did!!

Seriously! Look at all of the utensils that bad boy broke!! I literally ended up using a steak knife most of the time haha.

They turned out great!! (Sorry for the fuzzy bathroom picture )

It was a blast!

Obviously, lots of candy was also consumed.

Very few things in life are better than frozen mini snickers bars. SO legit.

Very successful Halloween weekend!

Miss him already!!

I was so glad to hear that some of you have been feeling similar to me lately as far as craving comfort food. Obviously, this weekend wasn’t all about eating healthy or getting awesome workouts in. It was about enjoying my boyfriend and his wonderful family.  And I think that’s okay! I have been eating healthy during the week and then if I want to splurge on the weekend (like I did this weekend with Ry) then I can! Especially this time of year, I think it’s silly to try to deprive ourselves of holiday treats. I just end up miserable and bummed out! It’s all about moderation, right?

And the good news is that since my schedule has calmed down a little bit I have had more time and energy to dedicate to great workouts. My parents recently bought a treadmill (!!!) so I have been running more frequently on that since winter has officially started to hit Colorado. I am so stoked to start half-marathon training!

I actually am considering signing up for the Colorado Marathon in May! Any Coloradoans out there that have done it or are doing it in 2012?!

Anyways! Obviously I am VERY far behind on blog reading, so I can’t wait to read about what some of you guys have been up to. Love and miss you LOTS! Happy Wednesday, friends!

Tell me what the best part of your halloween weekend was!!

Did you carve pumpkins this year??

Favorite halloween candy? Anyone else agree with me that frozen candy bars are the jam?!