Five Minute Friday #2: Less Protein, More Carbs?

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

I don’t know if I believe in seasons anymore.

Yesterday it was almost 60 degrees, and today there is snow.

idunnodoctor

It has been both a beautiful and messy week over here. I won’t type too much, but I do want to preface this week’s Five Minute Friday vlog.

This week I’m talking about one part of my nutrition project, which involved recording everything I ate and drank on a typical day of eats. I also used the course’s diet analysis software to calculate my daily goals for calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients based on my age, weight, height, and activity level, and then entered my “typical day of eats” data to find out how my diet measures up to my goals.

So here’s what I thought about it all!

A few notes first:

If talk about calories or macronutrients is triggering for you, I recommend you skip this vlog today. ♥︎
I cheated— the video is not under five minutes. This was actually my second take, and I still couldn’t get it under five minutes!
I say at the end, “Just because some nutritionist or some nutrition program tells you what you should be eating, as long as you’re as balanced as you can be…that’s all you can ask for.”
- Clarification: PLEASE DO listen to your licensed nutritionist (RDN, LDN). They know what they’re doing. I obviously don’t. My point is that even RDN-approved softwares and diet analyzers are not end-all-be-alls. The computer/calculator does not know YOU in person.

video link here in case it’s not working!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

So tell me:

Do you feel better when eating more of a certain macronutrient?

How do you feel about the big protein hype?

What are you doing this weekend? Studying, working, and Super Bowl partying!

Day in The Life {Last Month of Freshman Year}

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Hello for the third time this week!

I thought I’d check in with y’all again this week with another one of my favorite kinds of posts— day in the life! Everyone keeps asking me if I can believe that I’m almost done being a college freshman. My answer is always, “Sometimes I have to tell myself that I’m in college.”

I still need nap time and snack time, so I’m basically still in preschool.

Nevertheless, here I am in my last month of freshman year at Boston University, and here is what a typical day during this hectic time of year looks like!

6:40 AM— Alarm goes off // Realize that sun is peering through the windows and panic for a split second, thinking I overslept. But alas, it’s just springtime finally. // Check emails on phone

6:45 AM— Bathroom, brush teeth, put in contacts, etc.

6:55 AM— Eat some frozen banana pieces // Pray

7:05 AM— Get stuff ready and run to the gym // I wear my workout clothes to sleep if I know I’m going to the gym in the morning.

7:15 AM— Arrive at the gym and meet my buddy PJ there // Work out

dynamic warmup
upper body strength
rowing + thruster workout

8:10 AM— Walk back from the gym

8:30 AM— Arrive at the dining hall and eat breakfast with PJ, Sean, and Rachel // I failed to take a photo, but I ate scrambled eggs, bacon(!), and oatmeal with coconut, honey, peanut butter, and banana

9:15 AM— Go back to room to shower // Realize I’m still hungry (yes, even after that large breakfast) and eat a mini blueberry oatmeal bar

9:40 AM— Run out the door to meet a friend before class to go over some homework

10:00 AM— Organic chem lecture

11:00 AM— Anatomy lecture

12:00 PM— Writing class // class got out 10 minutes early, hooray!

12:40 PM— Lunch // A mighty delicious lunch! I enjoy every last bite.

salad of mixed greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, tuna, feta, and honey dijon + turkey and roasted vegetables

1:00 PM— Decide that I want to write this post!

1:30 PM— Walk back to the dorm to get some gum [to fix the tuna breath] and a bigger jacket for my tour // See that it’s supposed to snow in an hour. SO MUCH FOR SPRINGTIME, BOSTON.

2:00 PM— Tour! // A little sleet never hurt anyone…

3:30 PM— Go back to the dorm to change my soaking wet jeans // Steal some dining hall peanut butter out of desperation after running out of my own peanut butter // Eat snack of frozen banana with the PB

4:00 PM— Meet a friend to study for our linguistics exam

5:15 PM— Dinner with PJ, Jon, and Rachel // “ballpark night” at the dining hall

salad with carrots, tomatoes, beets, roasted red peppers, Greek dressing + Italian sausage and peppers

apple crisp a la mode because it’s my FAVORITE

6:00 PM— Anatomy lab // look at cat cadavers, cows and pigs in utero, and…never mind

7:10 PM— Go back to the dorm to drop off my backpack and put on some warmer clothes for intramural softball with the Catholic Center team

7:25 PM— Start walking to the field across campus // Get a text from my friend that the game is cancelled // Back to the dorm

7:40 PM— Check emails + work on planning next semester’s schedule // Find out that I will be dead last for class registration this time around…Oh dear. // Snack on banana and peanut butter

9:00 PM— Homework and studying // Some more banana and peanut butter in there

12:00 AM— Finish typing this post

12:30 AM— Get ready for bed! (I have a 11AM class on Thursdays, don’t worry 🙂 )

A busy but wonderful day indeed! I’m also realizing that I ate a lot of fats yesterday. Bacon, eggs, cheese, peanut butter, more peanut butter, ice cream, sausage… But hey, don’t fear the fat!

So tell me:

What did you eat for lunch yesterday?

What were you doing at 7 AM, 3 PM, and 8 PM yesterday?

What kinds of fun fats did you eat yesterday?

Fantastic Fats

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Alison @ Daily Moves and Grooves

Good morning!

Just as last week flew by, this weekend was over *snap* like that. But that just means that it was filled with fun, right?

Katie‘s roundin’ up the marvelousness!

You know what it was also filled with? FATS! Definitely the best macro, in my opinion. Fats=fun. I definitely used to fear fats, thinking that I would become as squishy as a jellyfish:

But after a while, I realized how BORING eating is without fats! I mean, have you seen the copious amounts of peanut butter, avocado, eggs and cheese I consume? And they don’t necessarily turn me into Squishy. Arman also hosted a fun fats fiesta on his blog a little while back, but I didn’t get the chance to join it then. You should check out his post, but be careful not to drown in butter when you get there.

Let’s take a look at the fantastic fats {and activities while we’re at it} of this weekend, shall we?

Friday

First off, I ate peanut butter in my breakfast and snack:

On the way to the Coffee House performance, I was so glamorously scarfing down a piece of avocado toast with smoked salmon and this yogurt sauce. I also got yogurt sauce on my purse AND on my chorus teacher, because I’m Alison, and I paint my world with Greek yogurt.

Saturday

My dad took me as his guest to a lovely Pro-Life breakfast event, so I went sweet and savory with a corn muffin, fruit, French toast, and some scrambled eggs.

I also went home and ate a spoonful of almond butter because breakfast is incomplete without nut butter.

Dance company had a short and sweet lecture/demonstration at a nursing home, which went well! But one sweet, elderly lady was telling me that she thinks Japanese people are more graceful dancers than others and that white girls are confused. I think she was trying to compliment me…but I’m not even Japanese. I’m probably more white than I am Asian, come to think of it. (➔ Maybe not. I just commented “yum!” on my mom’s picture of cooked tendons from a Chinese restaurant.)

For late lunch, I had seafood salad for some omega-3 fatty acids (right?) + a side of avocado oil-roasted brussels sprouts a la mother:

After Saturday evening Mass, I came home hungry for some rice, broccoli, and coconut curry chicken of which I failed to take a picture because a) it wasn’t that interesting and b) I was hungry.

Sunday

I got to sleep in a wee bit before heading to teach Sunday school, but I also had time to make a breakfast that I hadn’t had in a solid two weeks: Hot banana oats with Greek yogurt and pepita sunseed butter!

I ate this while watching The Pioneer Woman on Food Network (TV is back after Lent!), and the perfect Sunday morning was fulfilled.

Fast forward through teaching third graders about the canonization of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII (WOOHOO!) and I’m at the gym since my dad offered to drop me off on his way to the gym (we go to separate gyms— logistical reasons for when he goes to work). I hadn’t been in weeks! I’m actually going to cancel my membership soon because I’m going to college this fall, I enjoy working out at home/outdoors, and I need to slow down workouts anyhow.

Moves:

5 min arc trainer warmup, then 3 rounds of each:

15-20 TRX rows + 10 pike pushups
10 TRX bicep curls + 20 tricep dips
10 pushups (of different variations) + 20 supermans

Then an 8 minute ab tabata, which was two rounds of weighted Russian twists, toe touches, cross knee planks, ankle touches, plank toe touches, leg lifts, spiderman plank, and plank.

I also walked on the treadmill for 25 minutes while waiting for my dad to come pick me up!

I was “hangry” when I got home, and I had something awesome in mind for lunch (I was fantasizing about it while on the treadmill): AVOCADO GRILLED CHEESE with sriracha chicken + unpictured brussels sprouts with hummus.

When I dipped the grilled cheese into that sriracha sauce➔ HOLY MOLY.

An hour or so later, I ate a banana with sunflower seed butter, and then another spoonful of almond butter 🙂

After a couple of hours of research and blog business (did you notice something different about the domain??), I was hungry for dinnah! I was feeling breakfast for dinner, so I whipped up a fat-tastic meal, which was an omelette with spinach and feta + avocado toast.