Never Have I Ever: Healthy Food Edition

Hi!

Have any of you played (or still play) the game “never have I ever”? Well in case you haven’t, let me describe it to you :).

“Never have I ever” (also known as “Ten Fingers”) is a often popular party game that involves drinking. The verbal game is started with the players getting into a circle. Then, the first player says a simple statement starting with “Never have I ever”. Anyone who has done what the first player has not must drink and put down a finger. It continues around the circle, and the next person makes a statement. There is also a non-drinking version that is basically just used to get to know one another and you put your fingers down instead of taking a drink. Once a player runs out of “fingers” the game is over.

Back in middle school and high school I always played the non-drinking version at things like cheerleading camp, sleepovers, and parties. It’s always a good time. And generally, when you’re a bit older, it often turns naughty.

Well today, I thought I would do my own little blog version of the game. Except not really because no one is putting their fingers down, but you get the idea. I’m going to tell you 10 things I’ve never done that relate to healthy food! Ready? Here we go:

1. Never have I ever: eaten kale. I’m not a veggie lover. I have to generally “gently” remind myself to eat them. And kale sounds a bit too strong in taste for me. How would I know? I don’t haha.

2. Never have I ever: made my own peanut butter. I should really try this!

3. Never have I ever: tried cashew butter. I think this is a blogging sin. I’m pretty sure the only reason I’ve never tried it is because I didn’t want to shell out the cash to pay for it.

4. Never have I ever: liked raw broccoli and cauliflower. The texture of both of them when they are raw gives me the willies hehe.

5. Never have I ever: mixed avocado into something sweet (like a smoothie or dessert of some sort). The idea freaks me out. I know I need to get over it haha.

6. Never have I ever: like chia seeds. I’ve tried them several times. Um no. No no no. They gross my taste buds and sensory receptors out!

7. Never have I ever: made one of the oh so popular microwave muffins. Why? I never have all of the ingredients on hand. I should just suck it up and go by some because they always look so tasty :).

8. Never have I ever: followed a fad diet.

9. Never have I ever: tried to make a protein pudding.

10. Never have I ever: completely given up refined sugar. Sometimes I just want a real dessert that has the white table sugar in it. If I completely give up eating real desserts, I’ll go crazy!

Your turn! Tell me something that you’ve never done that’s food related!

New Workout Schedule

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Thank you for your support on my new blogging policy! I’m so glad you guys understand where I’m coming from.

So not only is my blogging “schedule” changing with my internship but my workout schedule has had to change as well. I used to be able to exercise 6 days a week but that can’t really happen anymore. I just don’t have the time or energy to workout two days of the week, and I’m trying not to worry about it.

Chris was amazing and yesterday he wrote up a 12-week workout plan for me :D. He gave me guidelines for what to do for every workout, but the only ones he really wrote out were the resistance ones. Which is perfect and exactly what I asked him to do. I’ve been kind of in a rut with lifting and it will be really nice to be able to go to the gym and not have to come up with exercises on my own!

My new workout schedule will look something like this:

• Monday: interval workout
• Tuesday: resistance and abs/low-back workout
• Thursday: interval workout
• Saturday: resistance workout
• Sunday: cardio and abs/low-back workout

I started this plan this morning! And I’ll probably be making up a new interval workout for you guys with the workout guidelines he gave me :D.

The other thing I wanted to discuss was how I prepared myself for workouts at 5am in the morning. I never used to workout that early in the morning….much less feel like I was awake enough to ever feel like I could MOVE that early in the morning haha. So starting the week before my internship I slowly adjusted my sleep schedule.

I progressively started getting up earlier and earlier and tried to go to bed at earlier times as well. This way I wouldn’t feel like I was hit like a ton of bricks on the first morning of my internship. I started with waking up at 7:30am. The following days I would wake up either 15 minutes or a half hour earlier. And let me tell you- it worked!

Sure, my first workout after getting up at 5am may not have been stellar, but I was able to wake up fairly easily and felt awake enough to push myself! So, it totally is possible to get your body adjusted to working out early in the morning. I would just advise you not to go into head on. Ease yourself and your body into it and I think it will be much easier!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great Monday!

Do You Want to Look Like a Little Girl?

Happy Friday everyone!!

Thank you so much for your wonderful comments about my veil :D. All of your giddiness rubs off on me and makes me even more happy!

Today I wanted to write about something that my mom said to me and and something she asked me the other day that got me to thinking. But first, let me give you a bit of background on how I’ve been feeling with regard to my body image lately.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve decreased the intensity of my workouts this past month. To some people it may still seem like I’m pushing myself hard, and that’s because I am! I am still challenging myself, but I’m no longer overdoing it like I was before. I’m no longer pushing myself to the extreme anymore.

Instead of dreading going to the gym like I was, I now look forward to it again. Instead of feeling lethargic and like my body is struggling to get through a workout, I now feel energized and strong. All of this is great and I definitely think my hip bursitis is thanking me. I still have hip pain sometimes if I don’t stretch it out enough, but it’s nothing near where it was before.

The one bad thing that has come with this is that I’ve been struggling with my body image more than I would like to admit. On top of doing less intense exercise, decreasing the length of some of my workouts, and celebrations around graduation and Memorial Day – I feel sort of blahh. Also, I tried on some jean shorts from last summer and they no longer fit around my thighs. I went to American Eagle and had to go up a size which was really frustrating for me and honestly gives me some anxiety.

Logically I know that I look fine, but that warped mental aspect from my disordered eating days has been rearing its ugly head. I also know that my thighs are probably not bigger than they were last summer, but they are stronger since I’ve been doing different types of workouts. In fact, if I flex my thighs I can see all of the muscle. I’ve also pretty much stayed the same weight, give or take a few pounds.

So back to my mom’s comment and question. I was talking about this stuff with her the other day and complaining and telling her that while I was basically the same weight as I was in high school, my body looks different, feels different, and clothes fit me differently. I was telling her that it’s annoying because that disordered part of me wants to fit into the same jean size as I did then.

The first thing she said was around the lines of “Lindsay, as you get older your body is going to change. Yes, you may weigh the same but your body shape has been changing to basically prepare you to be able to give birth some day.”

And then the question that I can’t stop thinking about: “Lindsay, do you want to look like a little girl? Because in high school your body was still more like that of a little girl than it is now.”

Um wow….when I think about it, NO, I do not want to look like a little girl. I want to look like the young woman that I am….and that’s exactly how I do look right now. I need to stop dwelling on how I looked in the past. I also need to recognize that how my body looks right now is pretty damn good. For the most part I eat really well, and yes I splurge on occasion but I would hate it if I didn’t. I also work hard in the gym.

If this is what my body looks like when doing the things I’m doing, then I should be happy! Sure, I could eat clean all the effing time and workout much harder than I do…but frankly I think I’d be miserable and I know that my body wouldn’t be able to handle it because well duh, I’ve already figured that one out the hard way.

So no, I don’t want to look like a little girl. I don’t want to be miserable trying to obtain that “little girl” body. I need to focus on being happy with the healthy body I have and I need to focus on treating it well. 

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Anyway, I hope you all have an awesome Friday! Today I’m driving with my mom, her bf, my brother, and my mom’s friend down to Florida. We’re going to Rosemary Beach for vacation! I’ll have wifi down there though, so I’ll be checking in throughout the week :D.