Fruity Friday

     A few weeks ago, my mom and I were at Sears when we stumbled across a refrigerator on sale for $175 ! This was an amazing opportunity since I had been on the lookout for a refrigerator for my fruit. In the winter time it was ok to leave half of my fruit out on the counters when we ran out of space in my mom's refrigerator, but in the summer fruit can rot and/or fruit flies and spiders come into the house to get at them. Most refrigerator with any sort of decent storage space had been way out of my price range. 


     In the end I bought the refrigerator and about two weeks ago it arrived safe and sound. However, in all the joy of finding, buying, and recieving this refrigerator, I had forgotten in considering where I was to put the thing! Up So up until last Friday, my poor refrigerator sat in my mom's kitchen, laying dormant, awaiting to be used. 


     Last Friday was Farmer's Market day and there were lots of good deals in bulk buying organic fruit this time around, so I really stocked up. When my mom and I got home I knew that we weren't going to be able to fit my groceries and my mom's groceries into her refrigerator. It was then I convinced my mom to let me get her to move the refrigerator into the garage. 


Behold my brand new refrigerator and its first load of fruit and veg!! 

     It didn't take me long to devour all of this! My mom and I split the figs and oranges between us, but the rest was all me. Sunday is whe I get to replenish my supplies. Luckily my Mango and Dragon Fruit order came in over the course of the week. I also bought a watermelon today at my local Publix so I should be good until Sunday.

The fridge was filled with:

- A large Yellow Watermelon!

- Organic Black Mission Figs

- Organic Navel Oranges

- Organic White Cherries

- Organic  Georgia Peaches

- Organic Strawberries

- Belize Papaya

- Organic Grape Tomatoes

- Cherry Tomatoes

- Organic Iceberg Lettuce

- Organic Asparagus

- Organic Radishes

     As for today I had a completely clear schedule! I was so excited at the prospect this morning and decided to use it by spending most of the day exercising in whatever way I felt like! I didn't have to rush through the workout because there wasn't anything I urgently needed to get done and there was no one that I had to meet at a specific time. 

     When I finished working out, I was able to take my time in the showers and getting dresses, and I even stopped off at Starbucks to buy a water and eat my lunch (a bunch of bananas) in the sun! During my lunch, a few people looked at me as if I were mental! However, I might have misread their facial expressions and they might just have been jealous of my yummy bananas! LOL.

My lunch set-up (from left to right): Garbage baggy with banana peels inside, organizer, yet to be eaten bananas, journal, and Runner's magazine.

In summation of my day. . .

Sleep: 8 hours (getting better) 
Sunshine: 2 hours 
Water: So far 2 liter (working on my 3rd liter at the moment)
Food: Dragon Fruit, OJ, Bananas, and a giant Mango/Banana/Peach smoothie
Exercise: 22 minute run 6mph pace, 20 minute 3mph walk with my mom and the dogs, 10 minutes lifting weights (tried a new routine and felt muscles I didn't even know I had!), 18.5 mile bike ride (approx. 80% of the course being uphill) at an average 15 mph pace, and 22 minutes swimming laps freestyle as hard as I could!

I hope everyone enjoys there weekend and that it is filled with warm sunshine, a cooling breeze, refreshing water, and juicy fruit!! =D

Fun in the Sun

Today. . .

Sleep: 7.5 hours
Sunshine: 4 hours
Water: 2 liters
Food: banana/fig/carob smoothie, LOADS of watermelon, and a big salad!
Exercise: 4 miles of hiking (ran some of it to race my friends), 30 minutes of paddleboat racing followed by a water fight, and a 20 minute walk.

Today I realized just how high my energy levels are in comparison to some people. All the excercise I did today, I did with my brother  and his two friends.  We got to Stone Mountain Park at 9:30am and left at 2pm. We were planning to stay longer (until 4pm) but everyone but myself was tired so we called it a day. I still had loads of energy and was sad to leave. I hope that when I go to college in the fall I can find some people with as much passion for exercise and energy as myself!


Despite leaving sooner then wanted to, today was absolutely wonderful! It was so nice to get outside, move around, hang out with some awesome people, laugh, and eat sweet and juicy watermelon! I didn't realize how much I needed to do something like this until today and I hope have another day like this again soon.

Keep it simple and stay motivated!

For the past couple of weeks I have really been increasing my exercising regime.: swimming laps and speed walking with intermittent sprints mostly. I really feel like I am getting into the swing of things and am looking to bump it up a little. The humidity in Georgia is beginning to lighten up so jogging/running is back on the agenda. I have also found a yoga class (I hope they have a spot open) which I hope to sign up for, and I finally cleaned out the garage and set the karate/work out room back up with a punching bag.

I think exercising is quite easy of you can find a form of exercise you really love and/or when you can find a reason to WANT to exercise. This morning for example, I woke up and did not want to drive to the pool to do my laps, but I knew that is I didn't I would miss out on the majority of good quality exercise for the day and would being messing up fitness training. So I found something to motivate me to get my butt out of bed, into the car, and to the pool. I remembered how good I had felt in Europe where I walked practically ALL DAY LONG. I remembered how GOOD I had been felling these past few days after swimming laps every morning and I realized that I wanted to feel that way today, so I got up and went out. When I got there I wound up feeling so energized that I wound up swimming an extra 10 laps! So in the end I swam 40 laps in 25 minutes rather than my usual 30 laps in 19 minutes. It paid off and I've been feeling really good with a positive and productive attitude.

Tomorrow I am starting on some strength and resistance training and I really REALLY want to get a bike so I can start cycling. I have never wanted to do all this stuff so much before and actually went through with it. I really believe that if you can find a good and influential reason to to get fit, that it will motivate you and lead you to success!!

Today I was also in a very simple mood. I didn't want a lot of different stuff meshed together so today I went for simple and it was incredibly refreshing! :) It went something like this:

• Breakfast: 8 cups of watermelon (so sweet and juicy!)
• Lunch: 2 cups of chopped spinach and basil leaves topped off with asparagus and fresh picked yellow and red tomatoes from the garden.

• Afternoon juice: 16 oz. of green juice
• Supper: Quart of smoothie - 4 mango, 4 bananas, a handful of strawberries & blueberries, and a bit of raw honey.

On my 1 to 10 simple eating scale (1 being the simples, 10 the most complex) I would say today was about a 3. I find the simpler I eat, the better I feel and preform through out the day. Just enjoying each individual flavour is really a delightful experience!

So go out there and have fun! Move around, enjoy the simple things in life when you can, and above all else . . . SMILE!! :D

Sunday: Papaya, Green Juice, and Monopoly

Sunday was not am incredibly eventful day, but it was nice and sunny! For breakfast I had 2/3 of a lovely papaya. Now the way I eat papaya is unique. I take my portion of the papaya, peel it, and cut the "meat" into cubes. I take 2/3 of my portion of papaya, put it into my Vitamix (just got it and I love it so much! Makes everything so smooth and creamy.) along with juice from half a lime and a tsp. of vanilla, and blend for 25 seconds. It makes a lovely papaya pudding!! I eat this happily with a big spoon, and finish off my breakie with the last 1/3 of my papaya cubes.

Since the weather was so nice I spent a good portion of the ay taking walks around my neighborhood and listening to my iPod. My neighbors probably think I'm nuts when they watch me walk by their houses. Every  30 minutes or so they see an 18 year old girl in a pink and white sun dress and flip-flops with ear buds in her ears singing and dancing down the road with a goofy grin on her face. LOL! :D

I also spent a bit of time at Starbucks with my mom. We sat outside to soak up more sun while she had a soy chai tea latte and I had an Ethos water. I think we were there for about an hour or some just talking about anything that came to mind. That day the topic centered mostly on Darwinian Evolution, Intelligent Design, and America's educational system. My mom is reading a book about how these three topics are connected together and how they have and are reshaping America's morals and culture.

Later that evening my mom decided that we needed to do something together as a family. So my brother, mother, and I sat down at the kitchen table with our green juices and watermelon (an hour after the juices), and played monopoly! :) I don't know how he did it, but my brother somehow managed to win the game!!

2 apples, 1/4 a lemon, thumb size of ginger, 4 celery sticks, 2 leaves of dinosaur kale, 1 heaping tsp. spirulina blended with 6 ice cubes.

                                  

                                     

 

Afterwards my mom and I went out to pick up some dinner for my brother. He really wanted a Chili's Old Timer Bean Burger with fries so we got him one. When we got back I made myself a quarts worth of yummy mango, kiwi, pineapple, and banana smoothie and watched a Psych with my family. All in all not a bad Sunday.