Blog-ger-ri-fic-ness! & My Weekly Race 2 Abs Update

I'm really excited to share with all of you that there are two new wonderful blogger's out here on the internet! Two of my fellow 'noles have decided to record and share their goingons of their personal journeys. (Kaitlin: http://positivelyperplexing.blogspot.com/ and Brandi: http://becauseiwantachange.blogspot.com/ ).

As one has already discussed, first steps are tough and, while many steps after the first step are tough, too, I applaud them both for making a public commitment to their goals. Sometimes it takes all eyes and a bit of shove to get things going.








Speaking of public commitment, it's Thursday! Time for an update on how my Race 2 Abs is going. Last night I had an apple something donut from Dunkin Donuts and I can tell you that I won't be having one again for quite some time. Flavors are nice but it just doesn't seem worth it anymore. I crave for read food like fresh plums and garlic kale with steamed carrots. Commitment. Commitment. Commitment. I can do this; anyone can do this. It just requires you to read up on nutrition and healthy habits like saying no to Dunkin and yes to the power of Kale and a pot of tea.




Measurements as of now are:

39.75" shoulders
33.5" chest
29" under bust
9.5" biceps
26.75" waist
30" belly button
36" hips
37.75" butt
21.75" thighs
14" calves

I want to include my weight but unfortunately I do not currently have access to a scale. I'll have to rummage through Salvation Army or Good Will and pop some tags. If not, I'll find one at the USF Rec Center and add that into my weekly updates.
Workouts lately have mostly been on the elliptical (which I will be making a post about soon). I've had some great results in the past with this particular machine and it's a great way to bring me back the good habits I enforced last spring. In addition to this fascinating machine, I've also kept to my daily yoga routine and added sit-ups.Sit-ups seem to have a not-so great reputation with people and are more often than not replaced with the loatheful crunch (seriously, I hate crunches-- sit-ups cover a bigger area and don't give me a neck ache while I'm building my core strength). It's safe to say I much prefer old-fashioned sit-ups.
Aside from last night's donut, I have kept a hearty and veggie-ful diet. Lots of Kale. Alex even put Kale in the soup he made this past Sunday.
Things are going really good and truly think I have the one-up in this Race to Abs.

Hope you all have got this New Year going with mindfully, happy and healthy habits!
Namaste.

Sake House

When this arrives on your table, sizzling and steaming, all is quiet in the restaurant. While Sake House of Tampa has a lot of hit or miss rolls that are accompanied by mayo or cream cheese, this teriyaki wonder is one to come for. It's the Tofu teriyaki and it comes with the steamed white rice, miso soup, and ginger salad. The tofu falls apart like perfectly cooked fish and is cooked, skin and all, in the teriyaki. The dish has a delightful amount of mushrooms and a decent amount of broccoli but make sure to ask for extra veggies to get this much (as I did). Underneath all you see is a thorough layer of sliced onion, contributing significantly to the over-all flavor of this sweet and flavorful dish. Worried the rice won't be enough? Trust me; it is-- especially since the tofu you are given probably equals a whole package of tofu.

I mentioned that their rolls or hit or miss and, indeed, they are. When they are hits, the flavors are very similar-- probably due to their foundation of mayo and/or cream cheese. The Spicy Tuna is more like a tuna mash with spices in it than the nice strip of tuna and spice. The Baked Salmon Roll (cooked fish), however, is a nice savory surprise. The eel sauce and asparagus make this unique roll one to add to the list of ones you should try.

Over all, this restaurant is nice, and it's really close to campus (right across from Einstein Bros and MOSI). Lunch specials are good but not as good as Koizi, the endless sushi & habachi restaurant down Bruce B Downs in the Tampa Palms plaza. I think Sake House has the one up because of it's proximity to campus. At night time, the atmosphere is appropriate for an intimate night out but even during day time this would be the case because of the dim lighting in the main/front dining room. Service is OK but not the most welcoming. Both times I've been here, Alex and I have felt like a bother to the staff instead of a welcomed customer.
If you're looking for new places to try in Tampa, this would be a good place to add to your list but don't expect too much more than showiness. Some dishes are amazing while others lack significant difference and texture from others. If you're looking to get the most for your buck and you value quantity a bit more than quality, head on over to Koizi. Lunch special is $9.95 per person for as much as you want of anything on the menu. Sake House's lunch special is more around $8/95 for two rolls from a specified group.

Race to Abs Week 2

If you know me you know that I like to make schedules but it's difficult keeping to them while keeping up with prior commitments. I'll get the hang of posting on Thursdays or just have to adjust. I'll make it work.

So I wasn't awful this past week with food but I did make and eat cookies and had a tiny piece of pie (I actually mean tiny). I did good with avoiding processed foods aside from some crackers on the road trip home. Veggies have been a delight each day and were much appreciated while at my parent's for Christmas. It's sad to say but I was actually quite hungry for the couple days I was there. It's tough being a mostly-vegetarian person in a home where the main staples are chicken and white rice. My family does their best to make adjustments but it's tough.
I've been working on getting lots of kale back into my weekly diet as well as the wonderful oil of olive. Sweets are yummy but I'm going to work harder on kicking those out by replacing them with tea, an apple, or even a banana-- my banana cookies would be a good choice here too.
So the measurements for today are:

40" shoulders
33.5" chest
29" under bust
9.5" biceps
27" waist
31" belly button
36" hips
37.5" butt
20.75" thighs
14" calves

The changes are small but they're still changes-- credit to my time on the elliptical, sit-ups, and yoga. Once the campus gym is back on regular scheduling, it's back to the weight floor for me! Oh, and the rowing machine will get to see me again, too, of course.

There was some gossip going on about my last photo and I'd just like to clear the air in regards to the public-access of the image of me in my underwear. I viewed it as equivalent to wearing a bathing suit, which it is, but our society views a two piece and a bra and underwear as entirely different articles of clothing, even though they cover the same amount of body. So, I figured I would just wear my workout clothes and then at the very end I'll buy a new bathing suit or something and flash everyone with my new abs. Here's me in my new workout clothes (thanks mommy!).

"Same-sex" Marriage

Okay so this is the hot topic of the season with the catholic school that allegedly forced the vice principal, who married his same-sex partner of numerous years, to resign. I just want to put my own thoughts out there since everyone else is being quite vocal about it.

All this fuss and religious hubbabaloo over someone who married another someone that they love. What if we are all actually the same sex spiritually? The idea of female and male being different is a convention. Yes women can bear children and yes men have an organ outside their body. But what about all our happiness?

We fight for equality and freedom yet we confine and prohibit the very essence of many beings. Who are we to decide what will make another being happy? Who are we to berate and put down the choices of another that cause no harm to themselves or others?

Are those who do such things so afraid that there are no limits? So afraid that maybe the only thing that sets boundaries and "normalities" is social convention, not an actual law of the universe?

Life really isn't all that difficult when you take others into consideration. What is the point of it all if there is no love? 

Within me is an essence that recognizes the essence within all other beings and I believe that there should be no gender and no law that confines true love to the constructs of social conventions. 

Race to Abs

So my boyfriend challenged me with a Race to Abs. The point of the challenge is whoever gets abs (ahem, or the 'best' abs) by June 2014, gets one wish-- absolutely anything and the other shall grant it. The prize isn't all that exciting or motivating for me since there is nothing I would need to use the wish for. My wishes are so small, if not nonexistent, that they're granted when it's the right time.

In order to whip up an exceptional amount of motivation, I'm going to use my blog to track my progress. My plan is to take a picture of myself once a week in my underwear and post it here. If you want me to include my meals and workouts, I can though they always vary. 

Now, you know Christmas is just around the corner and I'll be heading home to PSL on Monday and staying until Friday-- so that's a challenge in itself; being vegetarian in my parent's house is about as hard as getting Rinpoche to play with his plastic balls with bells inside (if it's made for a cat, he mostly doesn't want it). 

Thinking about it, this Race to Abs is a bit different for me. This sort of goal has never been on my list before just because I thought I'd have to give up my sweet treats entirely. Well, that and I've just never had the desire to actually go for a sculpted core. I've just always wanted to be healthy and fit (and I actually don't consider a sculpted core to be a mandatory part of the fitness image). 

While my main fat store is indeed my lower abdomen, a small portion of sweets once a week won't hurt-- as long as I portion and balance my meals for the rest of the week.

So, challenge accepted, baby. Challenge accepted. Here's my photo for this week. Day 1.

Annnnnnd there's Rinpoche wondering what I'm doing. Hehe I guess I'll be taking pictures of him as well. He never allows me to go to the bathroom without him. 

I'll only post these measurements now and then at the end. I'll keep a record in Excel just to see my progress and give me that push towards the end. 

40" shoulders

33.5" chest

29" under bust

9.5" biceps

27" waist

31" belly button

37" hips

38" butt

21" thighs

13.75" calves

Alright let's do this! 

Old-fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies

December 11th, did I have a cookie for breakfast? You can bet your festive stockings I did! Last night I made the best impulsive cookies ever! I was going through the 12 Days of Cookies from Food Network and suddenly got the hankering to bake cookies. I originally wanted to give Jeff Mauro's Spumoni Cookies a try but the low cooking temperature deterred me. The last time I baked cookies at 325 degrees, they ended up extremely dry and crumbly-- not an ideal cookie texture. So, it's safe to say I did not go for the Spumoni Cookies. Instead, I went with an Old-fashioned Peanut Butter Cookie recipe sponsored by Nestle Toll House. 

Now, if you know me, I rarely ever have everything I need for any sort of baking recipe. Luckily, this time, I had almost everything! The only thing I lacked was two sticks of butter; I only had one. So I cut the entire recipe in half. If you're a baker, you know that even cutting everything exactly in half, different results are given because, after all, baking is indeed a science. So, I halved the recipe-- all say for the egg. I just threw the whole thing in there. I also didn't make the dough balls a rounded tablespoon. They may have been closer to 2 1/2 tablespoons in size. It doesn't matter, they were ideal-sized cookies. 

In addition to keeping to the whole egg, and making the ball sizes bigger, I had to adjust the cooking time (of course!). I started by doing the suggested 8-10 minutes then tapped the top of one of the cookies-- too mushy still. I let it cook for 4-6 minutes more. Keep an eye on them; check in two-minute intervals after 10 minutes. This depends on the size of your cookies.

Once they did their time in the oven, I let them sit on the pan for four minutes, then I scooped them off to dry on the cookie rack (a.k.a. my toaster oven rack that I placed on the counter). 

One bite and these became Alex and my new go-to home-baked cookies (as long as we have actual butter in the fridge). They have a slight crisp on the edges, and soft buttery-chocolate goodness on the inside. A very nice treat to wake up to in the morning. Give it a try and let me know how it turns out. Maybe it'll make it onto your Holiday Cookie Gift Bag List!

Note of Changes (some not mentioned above):

Halved the recipe

Kept to whole egg

1 part dark chocolate chips, 1 part semi-sweet chocolate chips

Larger dough ball size

Generous sprinkle of granulated sugar instead of the weird cup-dipped indent thing noted in the recipe itself.

Cooking time ~15 minutes

Hello There, World

It's been quite some time since my last post. I've allowed myself to be engulfed in Vampire Diaries via Netflix, along with a few other shows available to me through Xfinity. While I do indeed enjoy these shows, I look up from this screen and I see my tea untouched, my homework piled, my other half immersed in Dr. Who or Minecraft. I see the world that we, as people, seem to make into a medium rather than the actual fruit of our lives. We walk to class, the library; we go on a trip to Disney World, but are we really there 100%? How much of our lives do we spend on Facebook or watching marathons of shows and movies?
Let me say it again, there is nothing wrong with enjoying your favorite show or movie but what happens when we delve so deep that we wake up wondering whether we're finally going to find out exactly how Elena Gilbert becomes a vampire instead of wondering if it'll rain today-- or even what we will do to fill in the time between what absolutely needs to be done?
I am guilty of allowing myself to fall down a self-made rabbit whole of obsession. I've kept up well enough with my homework and yoga but I haven't breathed life into my work or loved habits... they simply were routine.
So. This is me admitting to the world this obsession.
This is also me apologizing to myself. Life is short and by dedicating far too many hours to the computer screen, I've missed out-- or, at least, potentially missed out. I may not have missed out one week but when I finally come up for air from this obsession, I see responsibilities that need to be cared for. They could have been cared for earlier to keep room open for new experiences but instead they were spent ogling Damon Salvatore. I don't want to miss out. I don't want to live through a television show. I want to breathe fresh air and meet new people, make mistakes, and feel everything that comes along with the experiences.
I need to work on moderation. Moderation with television shows as well as sweets. Two birds with one stone.
So here's to more time spent on assignments and projects, trying new recipes, reading, writing blog posts, taking pictures, exercising, and spending quality time with Alex. I wish you all the same and best.

Namaste.