Indian Food Baby

Hi pretties! I’m posting during the day today because my parents will be in the city this evening, and I want to have the night free to spend with them! We’re going to Candle 79 for dinner, which I am SUPER excited for J

Yesterday morning I woke up and had a massive bowl of CEREAL to fuel me for the run I had planned with Mike:

Fiber One, banana and almond milk. Thank God for my stomach of steel.

Afterwards, I headed up to meet Mike for our run through the Bronx Botanical Gardens. It’s a gorgeous place to run, especially on a beautiful day…we did six miles in 52:02, which I was pretty proud of considering the amount of hills there! I give Mike a hard time for always telling me to run harder and faster, but I have to admit he’s good at pushing me to do my best…I wish I’d been training with him the whole time!

For lunch post-run, I met up with a friend from high school who was visiting her boyfriend who also goes to Mike’s school. We went to Tino’s, an incredible Italian deli with some of the best Italian food I’ve ever had.  The veggie options are kind of limited (lots of soprassetta and prosciutto), but my Caprese hero with mozzarella, tomato, basil, oil and vinegar definitely didn’t disappoint:

After lunch, I headed back into the city to pick up my race packet at the expo in midtown. I grabbed some of my favorite candies on the way to feed my sugar addiction:

The expo was really neat! It was my first time ever going to one, and free stuff is always good in my book! I bought two pairs of Mizuno spandex running shorts for five bucks a pop, plus three pairs of running socks for twelve dollars. I also sampled a free Skinny Water they were giving out:

Your name sucks, but you taste delicious.

My favorite part of the goody bag was the free Lululemon headband…hot pink, my favorite color! I’ll post a pic when I wear it.

On my way home, I munched on the top of this blueberry muffin that Mike handed off to me. He’d gotten it by accident after ordering a chocolate chip, and I was happy to take it off his hands:

I also snacked on an apple before heading back uptown to meet Mike at Chola, an Indian restaurant in midtown. We knew it was going to be good when we sat down and were surrounded by people speaking in Indian…it’s always a good sign when people of that ethnicity flock to a certain foreign restaurant! We started off with an appetizer of vegetable samosas (sorry for the atrocious camera pics):

Potatoes, peas and carrots in a pyramid of deep fried dough. I don’t even need to tell you how good these were.

I didn’t manage to snap too many pictures since it was dark and I didn’t want to use a flash, but Mike and I split some coconut rice and habernaro garlic naan to accompany our entrees. I choose the bhuni gobi matter, which was a combination of potatoes, peas, cumin, coriander and ginger:

Habernaro garlic naan

Bhuni gobi matter with coconut rice (times 100000)

Holy foodgasms. This was the absolute best Indian food I’ve ever had. I wish I’d taken a picture of the entire table, just to show you how much we devoured. The coconut rice was especially outstanding, full of lentils, coconut, curry leaves and ginger. I want to recreate it so badly! I highly recommend this restaurant to any NYC-ers. We left with food babies and spent the rest of the night hanging out at my apartment, too full and tired to do much else. There may or may not have been some dark chocolate consumed as well…I’m never too full for my nightcap J

This morning I had some Fiber One, frozen blackberries and almond milk for breaky:

I took the day off from the gym to be well-rested for tomorrow, but took a half hour walk around the West Village just to get my legs moving a little. I came home, did 45 minutes of stretching, and made lunch not long after:

   

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Protein Oats: ½ c oats, 1 c almond milk, 2 scoops chocolate rice protein powder, 1 T cocoa powder, 2 T chia seeds, 1 T flax seeds, sliced banana and a scoop of Maranatha PB

Carb loading at it’s finest. I also had some carrots and hummus and two clementines for fruit and veg. I spent a few hours packing up some things to send home with my parents (to facilitate moving out next week!), and had a snack while typing this:

 

Fuji (those of you who follow me on Twitter know I saw Blake Lively while buying these this morning!), and a Chocolate Peanut Butter protein Luna from the depths of my bar drawer

I’ll leave you with something funny/disturbing I found this morning on one of my celeb gossip sites. Ahh, the wonders of photoshop!

Don’t forget to email me any pictures you took of the love on your arm if you celebrated TWLOHA day! I’ll probably put them up on Monday. I'll be taking tonight off from blogging and commenting, so have a great night loves!

Do you have a workout buddy, or do you prefer to work out alone? I really enjoy the “me time” of a long run, but I also like having someone to push me sometimes!

Rest days and a pasta challenge

Hellooooo loverlies!! Happy almost Friday! Today’s post is going to be rather light on the photos, since I ate an early dinner out with my friend’s family and didn’t want to whip out the camera for bloggy action. I know you understand J

I enjoyed another day of  “sleeping in” (7:30…living on the wild side here), since today was another rest day in preparation for Sunday! I’m going to go for a run with Mike tomorrow morning as my last run before the race, and I know I need all my energy to keep up with him. One thing that training for this half has taught me is the importance of rest days, and how much is can actually hinder your performance to skip them. Taking the day off has always been challenging for me, both because I actually LOVE working out. My training plan called for 1-2 cardio-free days per week, and although I sometimes felt the urge to work out anyways, I tried my best to calm down and realize that those rest days would actually help me in the long run. Now, I really do notice the difference in my legs after a day off…they make my legs ENERGIZED and RESTED for the next long run!

Breakfast was a bowl of Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise cereal with fresh bloobs and almond milk (love my girl Lizzy for introducing me to this cereal!):

Post class, I did the usual Thursday routine and stopped at the Space Market for my favorite tofu pita, plus some seaweed salad and watermelon that I supplemented with an apple from home. Best lunch ever!

 

Since we were meeting for dinner at four, I wasn’t planning on having an afternoon snack, but the sweet tooth called and I had to listen. I made some protein cookie dough (err…which came out more like soup, due to my over-zealous watering) with chocolate rice protein powder:

Tonight, I had plans to attend the Tribeca Film Festival to see Beware the Gonzo, which my friend Jillian actually has a small role in! Before the movie, we went to the Tribeca Grill, which is owned by Robert DeNiro. I had an awesome crusty roll and chose the trenette pasta with wild mushroom ragout as my entrée. 

Afterwards, we hurried over to the theater to see the movie! I loved it, and I’m not just saying that because of Jillian J It was a cross between Superbad and Mean Girls, which is to say that it was absolutely hilarious in a snarky and sometimes raunchy way. Jesse McCartney is in it, and the twelve-year-old girl in me squealed when I saw him in person. Any other former Summerland addicts out there?

Since I’ve been home, I’ve eaten an apple and two bricks of Baker’s chocolate with some PB&Co. White Chocolate Wonderful. Amazing nightcap J

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday loves!!

How many rest days do you take per week? Lately I’ve been doing one of total rest, and one of light weights/stretching with zero cardio!

Are you a pasta lover, or do you prefer the other Italian delicacies? I’ll take a thin-crust pizza over pasta any day!

Dessert for Dinner

Hi bloggies, happy hump day! I’m currently posting instead of working on my Parisian pastry paper…fail. No matter how fun of a topic it is, I still have to turn it in for a grade, which makes it significantly less enjoyable. Boo. Onto the eats.

Breakfast was a bowl of straight Fiber One with raspberries. I know I have a stomach of steel, because two servings of this stuff plus an entire container of raspberries doesn’t mess with my digestive system one bit…holy fiber, right? What can I say, it’s a gift.

I hit up le gym for some weights and FOAM ROLLING! After a race-pace mile on the treadmill, I did arms, abs and a whole lot of stretching and rolling. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but after twenty minutes on that thing I felt like Gumby. Must invest in one of these things to use at home!!

For lunch, I rummaged around in my pantry to see what needed to start using up before I head home in two weeks! I found a box of quinoa I’d forgotten about, and made myself a salad with quinoa, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, green olives, salsa and humnut:

 

Plus two clemmies:

As usual I packed afternoon snackage:

PB&J Larabar, Gala apple

In my Paris class this afternoon we discussed WWI’s influence on Paris and Europe in general. My professor showed us some particularly brutal war footage, which included interviews with the geules casses, (“broken faces”), veterans of the war who were literally maimed beyond recognition. It was absolutely heartbreaking; of course I’ve heard about how violent WWI was, but this was the first time I’d seen such raw footage. War is a scary thing…I feel like this generation of Americans, myself included, doesn’t realize how lucky we are for being so far removed from the current situations of violence in the world.

After those haunting images, I was in need of some serious cheering up. A little texting with the best friend helped, as did my dessert for dinner:

 

New jar of Maranatha PB, cocoa powder spread and a sliced banana on a roll-out wrap, with carrots and hummus for veg

Holy yum was this amazing. It was definitely a desserty dinner, but there was NO ADDED SUGAR in the entire thing. Can you believe? I’m a cocoa powder convert J Of course, I continued the trend with strawberries + cocoa powder sauce for dessert, along with some Endangered Species Dark Chocolate:

 

What can I say…when I like something, I love it!

I’m currently snacking on a bowl of Nature’s Path Mesa Sunrise, a sliced apple and some applesauce with cinnamon. I’ve definitely been in a bit of a food rut lately, largely because I don’t want to buy too many new groceries before I move back home, and also because I’ve been too lazy/busy to think beyond what will taste good at the moment. When I’ve got school on the brain 24/7, culinary concoctions are pretty far from my mind, which I think is a pretty good development considering my past! I apologize for the boring posts lately…I can’t wait until school is over! I’ve already got a list of topics I want to talk about when I get a chance to devote more time to the bloggy this summer!

Also, if anyone wrote love on their arm today in support of TWLOHA day, take a pic and send it my way! I’d love to do a compilation post later in the week!

Alrighty chicas, I’m off. I’ve got a full weekend ahead of me, so I better tackle some of these assignments before it all goes down! Hope you have a great Thursday loves!

How does your belly react to fiber-rich foods? Does your tummy get easily upset, or do you have a stomach of steel? It takes a LOT to mess with my stomach! Fiber, sugar, dairy…I’ve never had a problem with the usual suspects!

How are you with gory movies? Love em or hate em? For me, it depends on the context…battle scenes in action movies don’t bother me nearly as much as poignant scenes in war films.