paleo | Daily Moves and Grooves

I got up before 6 am two days in a row, and got up before 8 on a SUNDAY.

Unlike most people in the healthy living blog world, I am usually a total night owl (for no good reason except that I’m a procrastinator who likes to start things an hour before I plan on going to bed). But for the past few days, I’ve been early(ish) to bed, early to rise.

The earlier sunrises definitely help. The weather has been pretty lovely lately too! So lovely that I took a ~~one~~ 1.5-hour break on Thursday to take a long walk with my friend Zoe.

The next day was not quite as nice, but I still got up to run with my friends Sarah and Moises at 7 am. ‘Twas thanks to them that I started my early bird trend.

I actually got up before 6am because I needed to pee really badly (typical), so I did a short 12 minute circuit outside before we met up for our run.

3 rounds, 30 seconds work, 10 seconds rest:

air squats
pushups
bench step up hops right
bench step up hops left
elevated knee to elbow planks
bridges

We ran three warm and humid miles. You might know that I don’t love running, but if it’s at a manageable pace with friends, I can deal.

Continuing with the trend of non-trends in weather, the rest of Friday was sunny and gorgeous!

I worked for most of the day, came home to break for a snack…

…sit on my butt for a couple hours, and then walk to dinner with my dear friends (who went on that awesome cruise with me last summer!) Christie and Monica.

We met at Umai for sushi, because it’s basically canon law that we eat sushi whenever we see each other.

And we finished it off with ice cream from J.P. Licks. I feel like people always eat ice cream after sushi, but that seems like a horrible combo when I think about it.

mint cookies ‘n’ cream

We weren’t complaining at all though. It was so fun catching up with these ladies! ♥︎

Instead of going out for more social activities after saying goodbye to Christie and Monica, I went home, did a whole bunch of nothing, and went to sleep a little after 11. My roommate Megan was so impressed. I almost never go to sleep before her.

I did have a little bit of motivation to go to sleep early because I agreed to work out with my Spartan Race buddy, Ben, at 7am on Saturday morning. I was in charge of the workout, so I came up with this:

6 rounds:

Partner 1: Run to end of dock and back (a little less than 400m probably)
Partner 2: AMRAP 5 burpee bench jumpovers + 20 tricep dips + 10 plank jacks

We both agreed that the running was the worst part of it. Then we ~~struggled through~~ finished with 8 minutes of core before calling it a day.

Next on the agenda was attending our friends Piers’ and Dani’s Confirmation Mass. A bunch of us from the Catholic Center headed to Newton to witness the beautiful sacrament and show support for Piers and Dani. It was a GREAT DAY.

one of the most beautiful things in the world is seeing my friends so earnestly speaking with God

Congratulations, Piers (pink tie front and center) and Dani (white dress)!!

The rest of the day involved studying, breakfast for dinner…

plus a ton of roasted broccoli straight out of the oven

…and leftover carrot cake from Easter.

I went to bed a little after 11 again, WOW.

Sunday was another wonderful day. I slept in until 7 (what a weird statement) and made Kylie’s simple paleo pancake for breakfast.

added blueberries, topped with sunflower seed butter and maple syrup + 1.5 glasses o’ milk

The next eight hours of my life were spent helping out for our Catholic Center chaplain’s 20-year priesthood anniversary celebration (with a two hour break for Mass in there). I would not have wanted to spend those eight hours any other way than with good people in honor of a good man.

A few people (shoutout to Fran, Joe, and Bobby!) worked exceptionally hard to make the whole surprise come together, and so many people came out to celebrate!

We love you, Fr. Barnes!

And now it’s time to descend into the depths of finals. We have three days of classes left, but I feel like it’s all just a straight shot to the finish line of finals.

🎶 here comes the sun doo doo dooooo 🎶

I’ll try to keep up this early bird streak; I like the early mornings, especially when the sun is up! I hope you all have a marvelous Monday!

So tell me:

Are you a night owl or an early bird?

Something wonderful about your weekend!

Is sushi followed by ice cream a thing, or am I crazy?

Hey!

I hope your Fridays have been off to a lovely start! Mine started later than I anticipated when I rolled out of bed at 10:00. I got 7 hours of sleep two nights ago when I tried to “sleep in”, so I guess my body is finally accepting the fact that I can sleep in!

Yesterday’s breakfast was green, creamy, and banana-peanut butter-y — some of my favorite adjectives (in proper context).

Amanda’s cookie dough oatmeal smoothie plus spinach + Greek yogurt for dippin’

For lunch, I knew I wanted avocado toast, because I missed that green food also. On the side I had some of my mom’s homemade salmon and tofu curry with mushrooms and bamboo shoots. Home cooking makes my heart sing fa la la la laaaaaa la la la la.

Sing along with me!!

While I was eating this lunch, my baking binge began. I mean, the last time I baked something was during Thanksgiving, which wasn’t long ago, but the Christmas season (along with the one billion recipes I have bookmarked) gave me the URGE.

I wanted to use up some unsweetened, unsalted sunflower seed butter that tasted like pasty nothingness. Arman’s paleo cranberry walnut cookies were perfect for transforming the pasty sunflower seed butter into something mighty tasty!

Not before this happened though…

Cleaning up an egg is messy business.

There are only four cookies left now if that says anything about how good they are. No, I wasn’t the only one who ate them.

I visited my high school and met up with several friends in the afternoon. It felt weird, different, and the same all at once. I had to remind myself that it has only been six months since I’ve been at the school. I’m only barely an alumnus, but once you pop that high school bubble, things just aren’t the same because you’ve experienced so much more!

Then I made a trip to the grocery store to get more baking ingredients because I have a problem. I ate more curry for dinner, went to my high school’s winter concert, and came home to bake again at 10 pm.

First up was Amanda’s pumpkin gingerbread bars. My brother requested something pumpkin pie-like, and when he saw the pictures of Amanda’s bars, he pointed to it and said, “make that one!”

Being me, I forgot to add the brown sugar to the pumpkin filling, so halfway through baking (when I realized I forgot to add the sugar), I poured about ¼ cup of maple syrup all over the bars to sweeten them. That’s why the bars look kinda dark and splotchy on top. Luckily, my desperate measures worked, and the bars were perfectly sweet and delicious!

My mom and I had our heart set on some bread-like treat, so I also made Kylie’s healthy pumpkin gingerbread since many of the ingredients for it were the same as those for the bars. It was past 11pm when I finished the batter for the bread, so I made muffins instead of a loaf to speed up the baking time. Also, muffins are cute.

I made 12 in this mini Bundt pan, plus five more in a regular muffin pan. I contemplated having mine with vanilla ice cream, but I decided on a more nutritious accompaniment for a late night snack— Greek yogurt and peanut butter!

YUM.

Now I need to share the bounty of baked goods! Or at least…I should share…

After the muffins, I finally turned in the whisk for the night and chilled out to Christmas music with my brother before going to sleep.

Upon rising late this morning, I made myself a fancy brunch! I whisked together one egg and two egg whites with some salt, pepper, dried thyme, and dried sweet basil. Once it set in the pan, I added fresh spinach and parmigiano reggiano cheese. Then I topped the omelet with cranberry sauce because I’m a fan of the sweet/tart/salty flavor fiesta. I OD’d on it though, so I only had about half of the amount of cranberry sauce you see in this photo.

On the side was a pumpkin gingerbread muffin and banana!

I ♥ brunch.

Ahhhh it’s past noon already! I am determined to be productive today. I’m hoping to work out, make a Christmas playlist for our road trip to Florida next week(!), and see some more friends. I’m having dinner with some dance friends tonight too! Pumped.

Happy Friday!

So tell me:

Do you ever go on a baking/cooking binge?

Pumpkin bread or gingerbread?

What do you want in an omelet this very minute?