The 2014 Bikini Series Is Here!

Hey everyone! I am officially back at school until the end of the semester, and no, I am not happy about it.

This also meant that I needed to say goodbye to my favorite running spot in St. Pete’s. Until next year my dear (slightly sketchy) running trail.

 

Today was also a very special day… One of my favorite days of the year in fact!

Today was the first day of the 2014 Tone It Up Bikini Series!

I am more excited than usual (which is saying A LOT) for this particular series because *drum roll* MY FAMILY HAS AGREED TO DO IT WITH ME!

It has been a crazy year, and apparently healthy has fallen to the side back home (it also doesn’t help that I am not there to cook healthy meals for my brother, meaning that he eats less-than-healthy things), and after gushing to my mom about how absolutely amazing the bikini series is, she agreed that we should all do it together! This is also awesome because it will help me keep myself accountable! This is going to be the best bikini series yet, I can feel it.

Today, my workouts and eating weren’t exactly on par… I ran a slow (SLLOOOOWW) 4 miles towards my #150bysummer (is it acceptable to put hashtags in a blog post? Probably not…) and the gym by my grandparents was closed so I didn’t get to do the arm workout that I was supposed to do today, so I think I will just do it tomorrow instead!

Like I said, my eating wasn’t exactly on point, my grandparents have a lot of yummy food that I only get to eat the one week a year that I am at their condo so I just NEEDED some refined carbohydrates… Whoops =P

In all seriousness though, I can’t wait to be home and to be able to buy healthy food and to have access to a fridge and to cook.

 

One of my mail goals for this bikini series, besides the obvious losing weight and toning up, is to get rid of all of the artificial sweeteners that have been plaguing my diet since coming to college… diet drinks used to be an occasional treat for me, reserved for vacations and when I’m just really really craving one (not often); but since coming to college, they have been making a daily appearance in my diet (multiple times a day even) and it’s really awful. I don’t feel well because of them, yet I keep drinking them. It’s time to say goodbye.

I am SO ready for this!

Are you?

 

You can find out information about the bikini series/sign up here.

Also, you can track my progress on my instagram @snapbacksandracingflats and on twitter @snapsnflats.

 

You’ve got this beach babes 😉

Questions

Ever participated in the Tone It Up Bikini Series before? Are you planning on it this year?

Where is the sketchiest place that you’ve ever run?

 

 

See You Soon

 

Well, today we had to take my mom and brother to the airport so that they could go home.

Kind of bittersweet.

I know that I only have to be here at school for 2 more weeks (less than that actually), but it still feels like such a long time and I am just so ready to be done with this place… It also doesn’t help that my grandparents are leaving this week, meaning that I will be on my own for the next 2 weekends.

Wow, I sound like such a baby.

I just can’t wait to get home.. Now onto more positive things!

I started this morning with my regular Sunday morning 8 mile run, I was going to try 9 miles, but I ran out of time given the fact that we had to go to church earlier than usual since my mom and brother had to leave for the airport right after!

It … wasn’t great… I don’t know what has been up with me lately, but I have been running at about  9 minute mile pace on most of my steady state runs, yet I have been doing my speed work faster. I’m hoping it’s just maybe the lack of sleep I have been getting (or not getting) and not a decrease in speed/fitness!

After mass, we went down to this cute little area called Gulfport for some coffee for me and breakfast for my mama and brother!

This little breakfast/tea/coffee shop is my absolute favorite! This little area around it is so adorable…

And…

They. Make. The. Ice. In. The. Iced coffee. Out. Of. Coffee!

So it never gets watered down! It’s wonderful!

Awkward-coffee-drinking-selfie.

I also dressed like a toddler today. Babydoll dresses forever and always!

After we took my mom and brother to the airport, my grandpa asked if I would like to go to the driving range with him. Of course, I couldn’t say no,

Fun fact – I may be the worst golfer on the planet…

 

For dinner, I just made some egg whites and veggies and then picked at pretzels and stuff.

Now I am off to bed! I have two term papers to write tomorrow before I have to go back to school… needless to say, I am not all the excited.

Good night!

Questions

How to do you mentally get through periods of bad workouts?

Ever been to a driving range? Are you any good?

 

Familia

Hey!
So I know that it’s been over a week, but I have been WITH MY FAMILY! And there is also no internet and barely any cell service at my grandparents condo so I haven’t really been able to blog… So I apologize in advanced for this super lame iPhone post. Just want to do a quick summary of this past week!

So as you already know, I, along with my mom and brother, flew back to Florida last Saturday to spend the week at my grandparent’s condo.
I, unfortunately, had to go back to school for a super busy week. I had a fitness post-test in biokinetics on both Monday and Wednesday, an anatomy test on Tuesday (didn’t go over well, as per usual), and an oral report I’m Exercise Science *groan*. But on the upside, now all I have left are two terms and my finals and then I’m done! I seriously can’t wait.

I didn’t get to spend much time with my family until Wednesday, when they picked me up to go to my absolute favorite place.

LOWRY PARK ZOO

It’s just the nicest zoo ever (in my opinion)! I have been going there since I was a baby and they also have a manatee hospital there and manatees are my favorite animals and it just makes me so so so happy

Other highlights from this week included baking yummy vegan banana bread.

Reading and sipping green tea on the beach

Good food

And beauty

Once again, I apologize for this being such an utterly dull post… I’m hoping to find somewhere with internet tomorrow!

Questions
Where is your favorite place?
What is the last thing you cooked/baked? How was it?
What is your favorite restaurant ?
Mine is any seafood place for the most part! Or maybe Cody’s Roadhouse!

Monday In A Moment..

Hey all, I am far too swamped with studying and essays to write anything of substance today… So here are some pictures from my day to give you a little gist of what went down without any words!

 

Hope that you all had a great day!

Happy Easter!

I’m back in Florida again after a super nice day back at home! The amount that I have flown this year is crazy… I am NOT a fan of flying, nor am I a fan of school…

But on the upside, my family is down here for the week!

Bye bye my wonderful New York… See you in a month!

Happy Easter everybody!

I hope you are all having a wonderful day and are stuffing your faces with chocolate. Unless you don’t like chocolate, and if that is the case… What is wrong with you?

But I don’t like Peeps are jelly beans, so I guess I’m weird too.

(I just really wanted an excuse to put this picture in this post… I laughed way too hard at it.)

Anyways, I started my day off with an 8 mile run! I feel like I haven’t done a long run in FOREVER… really. It’s been 2 weeks!! Also, I feel kind of silly calling 8 miles a long run… it seems that every single blog I read runs like 20,000 miles a day. But I’m working my way up to it!

 

Definitely not my best run… I don’t know if it’s from being on a plane or from the fact that I have done hard workout the past two days, but my pace averaged a little bit over 9:30 minutes per mile. But hey, I did it!

I think I’ve sort of hit a sweet spot with 8 miles, I think I’m going to try to bump it up to 9 next week. But we shall see!

I also wound up accidentally running down a path that took me through a graveyard this morning.

 

Eerie… My dad actually used to take me to graveyards A LOT. He just liked them, I couldn’t really tell you why. He especially loved the really old ones. Personally, they half sleeve me out and half break my heart.

After my run, I cleaned my sweaty self up, had a bite to eat (some fruit and nuts) and got ready to head out to Mass.

Oh look, it’s the sunflower dress I talked about here.

I don’t really know what I did with my hair today, but I kind of dig it.

After Mass, it was time for the best part of every Easter (besides Jesus rising from the dead and stuff… that’s pretty rad too), BRUNCH (at 2:00…so not really brunch).

Second plate of food, loaded up with sweet potatoes, the best salmon ever (besides my mom’s) and salad with carrots, beets, and ginger dressing!

I ate my first plate too quickly to take a picture of it, but it had lox, 1/4 of a bagel, a half piece of that salmon, shrimp cocktail, and steamed zucchini and squash. YUM!

Then my family got a whole bunch of plates of cake to share.

Cake graveyard. That carrot cake > everything, the the dark chocolate mousse cake coming in at a close second.

At the end of our meal, my family shared a truly delightful pot of chamomile tea. I never actually drink chamomile tea, I just always forget about it. But I think I’m going to start because it was SO good and I know that it’s good for your stomach!

 

There were also some quality family selfies.

I just want to look like my mama. She’s so beautiful.

Erm…

 

oh the awkwardness.

And now I am just sitting on the floor at the country club trying to get some school work done, I am SWAMPED with assignments and tests this week.

So on that note, I am just going to leave you all with this.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed day with friends and family, whether you celebrate Easter or not!

Friday Favorites

Hey all! I’m very excited to say that I am currently writing this post from MY HOME!!

I’m only home for a day unfortunately… The only reason that I am actually home is because my cousin is getting married tonight (yes, I do think it is a bit odd that he is getting married on Good Friday… but oh well), so I fly back tomorrow morning. But it was super nice to get to spend a night in my own bed, and I also got to do Insanity today! So that was super nice. I am seriously counting down the days until I get to go home for good. My college is not good for me, I am not myself there, and it certainly does not bring out the best in me. I feel unmotivated, tired, and heavy every single day. My diet isn’t good there either… soo many artificial sweeteners (something I almost never consumed when I am home) so I am sure that my diet is definitely contributing to my general fatigue. But at the same time, I know that it is also my school that is wearing me down. I feel great on the weekends when I am with my grandparents, but the second I get back to my campus, I feel sick and unmotivated. Isn’t it crazy how much your environment can affect your health? It’s wild.

But now, on to the actual point of this post…

My Friday favorites! Here are some things that  I have really been loving lately!

Favorite Clothing Item: Babydoll Dresses

 

 

 

American Apparel

Nasty Gal 

I always feel weird wearing a dress as just a casual every day clothing piece, but I really want to start wearing them more often! I love baby doll dresses because of how comfy, youthful, and versatile they are! You can dress them up with some heels or wedges, but you can also dress them down with simple sandals, jelly shoes (a new favorite of mine), or booties! I am actually planning on wearing the sunflower printed dress on Easter!

Favorite Decor: This Rustic Porch

Oh Pinterest… you fill me with the biggest home lust on the planet… Now I just need to graduate college and somehow land a well paying job… Gotta dream big right?

Favorite Television:

I was really wanting to watch something light (all of the shows I have been watching lately have been super heavy and gruesome) and this show just happened to show up on my Netflix. I am currently on season two and am LOVING IT! It’s a very interesting story and I just love the entire cast. Fred is probably my  favorite character.

Favorite Recipe: This Carrot Cake Roll from Crazy For Crust

crazyforcrust.com

Ugh, I CANNOT wait until I have access to a kitchen and can bake again. How good does this look? I am a sucker for all things carrot cake and with Easter a couple of days away, my carrot cake cravings are at an all time high.

Favorite Smile: The one on my brother’s face when I saw him last night.

It’s always nice to feel loved.

Oh, and my hair is purple now…

Off to go get ready for this wedding!

Three Years…

Three years ago, Someone up in the clouds took my best friend away.

 

Three years seems like such a long time… But then again it doesn’t. I feel like I should be over it, but I’m not.

I’m not sure how long it will take for this to all feel real…

I apologize for this downer of a post; I just don’t really feel much like writing today. It’s been a rough one. Pretty much everything that could possible go wrong went wrong.

So in the hopes of staying positive… here are some good things from the day.

The cafeteria had pineapple.

I had a really good workout.

And I got to end the day with froyo.

 

Promise to be back to my usual content (whatever that actually is) tomorrow. I apologize for this mess of a post.

Balls and Etiquette and Comfort Zones

So this weekend, I did something a little bit different.

I went to a ball (!)

A couple of weeks ago, a friend from high school who goes to school on the other coast of Florida contacted me. She is in ROTC at her school, and each year, the battalion that she is in (I believe that all of them do this, but I’m not certain), hosts a military ball, and her friend needed a date. Now, my first reaction to her question was to make up some BS excuse as to why I couldn’t go (just thinking about staying at a different school with people that I don’t know and no way of leaving makes me want to hide), but after thinking about it, I decided that I really need to start pushing myself out of my comfort zone more often.

Now, one of my biggest flaws is my anxiety. I am terrible at pushing myself out of my comfort zone, whether it be in running, or in life in general. I know where I am comfortable, and that usually means my isolating myself in hopes of keeping my anxiety at a minimum. When it comes to running, I always push myself during my speed work… But at the same time, I always tell myself that I am not good enough to get any faster, and I truly believe that this impedes my reaching my full potential.

So back to the ball…

I sucked it up and agreed to accompany my friends friend to this ball… Yikes.

So on Friday, my friend picked me up and we headed across Florida to Daytona for the weekend.

I honestly loved her school. It was so much nicer than mine in every aspect. It was small, everyone was friendly (a kid played his guitar for me, and put my name into “Stand By Me”), it was quiet, the town was adorable.. Oh, I could go on for forever.

Anyway, I was freaking out about absolutely everything while I was there. I was anxious about every single thing that was happening: having to wear a dress (my friend was in her uniform so I felt super awkward), not being able to run on Saturday (I know… God forbid I have a rest day… Gotta work on that),  being around new people (I had to be separated from my friend for a few hours and was alone with strangers).

Oh boy….

However, it wound up not being nearly as bad as I expected! In fact, I actually had a very nice night!

My cute friend in her uniform.

So proud of this girl.

I am so happy for my friend and for all that she has accomplished this past year. I was honestly amazing to be in a room full of people that have made the decision to dedicate themselves to protecting our country. I really admire them and all that they do, and will do in the future. Kind of made me think about what I am doing with my life… I really want to make a difference in the world. All of these people are enlisting in the army, but what am I doing to make a difference?

I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.

I am also so happy for my friend in regards to the group of friends that she has made. Everybody that I met was absolutely wonderful. I hope that someday, when I get to start over at a college that I am actually meant to be at, I meet a group of friends as lovely as hers.

 

And now, I am back at campus. After getting back, I got lunch and then headed to the gym to get in a quick workout. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but I was super shaky and had a gnarly headache… So I decided that it would be best to stick to the elliptical!

 

(workout via Blogilates)

Love this workout for days when I am not really feeling it. It’s tough, but not too tough. Just enough of a challenge to feel good after but not burned out!

Later, I just got dinner with Shannon and then we watched Once Upon A Time. Does anyone else watch this show? I swear, it just gets more and more ridiculous… Yet I can’t stop watching! Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Captain Hook isn’t all that bad to look at.

 

And now tomorrow we have a super rough workout in my Biokinetics class in the morning… which means that I should probably get to bed. Until tomorrow my friends!

One of the Best Days….

This post was supposed to go up on Monday.. However, I got caught up in school work and didn’t have time to post it.

I had one of the best days that I have had in a very long time yesterday.

At one of the most magical places on earth.

Epcot in Disney World!

My best friend down here at school, Shannon, finally had a weekend day off from work. So we decided to take full advantage of that by essentially emptying out our bank accounts to go to Epcot for a day! Epcot is one of my favorite places on the planet, and Shannon is a frequent visitor of Disney, so it was absolutely perfect. She knows her ways around the parks like the back of her hand, which meant a very smooth sailing day for the both of us!

We spent the entire beginning of our day in the futuristic area of the park (I want to say it’s called Future Land or something… but I could very well be wrong), and we totally lucked out  because there was  barely any lines for anything!

First stop… Test Track!

This was my first time ever going on this ride (I’ve only been to Epcot once, and we spent pretty much the whole day in the countries), so needless to say, I was a little bit excited.

Shannon and I’s beautiful car.

Next we hit up this ride that’s basically an educational journey about learning about energy… that just happens to be narrated by Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the science guy! There were dinosaurs and an animatronic Ellen… can you really ask for anything else in life?

We also happened to be the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot, so the park was decked out in beautiful flowers!

And some more fun shots from the day…

LIEUTENANT DAN!

Selfies with friends on the Nemo ride.

My favorite animal.

So thankful for this girl.

Seahorse hugs.

Surreal.

And next we were off to the countries!

Sorry for the excessive amount of pictures…

But, I am really so thankful to have had the day that I had on Sunday. It was truly one of the best days that I have had in a long, long time. I needed it. I know that it sounds cliche, but there really is just something about Disney that takes you away to a different word. It’s kind of amazing. It was the first day in God knows how long that I had no anxiety. I ate yummy food without worry (the chicken teriyaki in Japan? Grade A… let me tell you), I didn’t worry about working out (first day in FOREVER that I was able to let myself take a rest day), and I was just… happy. It was just an amazing day that I know that I will always remember.

And now, back to reality. I have 2 term papers, an oral presentation, tests, and a whole load of other work to get done. There is about a month left in semester, and oh boy is it crunch time. I’m kind of sort of freaking out… but I’m trying to get my act together and find the strength (and motivation) to push through the rest of the semester. I think I can do this!

On the upside, my workouts have been pretty good this week!

Monday: Interval workout on the treadmill –

5 minute warm up, 5 minutes moderate pace, 1 minute sprint, 3 minute jog, 3 minutes moderate, 1 minute sprint, 3 minute jog, 3 minutes moderate, 1 minute sprint, 3 minutes jog, 1 minutes moderate, 1 minute sprint, 5 minutes cool down

Tone It Up legs workout

 

 

 

Yesterday was a (sub-par) 30 minute run, followed by the Bridal Babe workout (one of my favorites!)

Now off to do some much needed spring cleaning! Bye guys!

Ups and Downs and The Little Things

Hey everyone.

Things have really been crazy around here recently. Everything is just so overwhelming, and it seems that life just seems to like hitting me while I am down.

While this is a personal  blog, I also really want this to be a positive place. I am just feeling so down and unmotivated lately. I am overwhelmed to the point that I am completely shutting down. I don’t have any motivation to do anything… work, school, exercise. Granted, I am doing all three of those things, I’m not one to just sit around being a lump on a long. But at the same time, I am definitely not finding myself able to put my all into anything. This blog included.

I am not one to wish away time. Time terrifies me.. There is never enough of it, and the thought of wasting time is enough to make me physically ill. That being said, I am finding myself just wishing the rest of this semester away more and more. I don’t feel like I am getting anything out of this college experience of mine. Each week is just another series of completely uneventful days. I feel lazy and purposeless. I want to enjoy each and every day of my life… Yet all I can really do every day is sit in my room.

I have had a few beautiful experiences recently though.

On Saturday, I rose early to (attempt) 8 miles. It wound up going so much better than I thought it would! It actually went really well and I enjoyed each and every mile. I’m starting to wonder if it’s maybe my mentality while at school that it causing this workout rut. It seems that whenever I am away from campus (with my grandparents) I feel much better (still not 100% though) while working out than I do here.

Having a running trail with a water fountain is the best thing ever. I always get so dehydrated on those early morning long runs.

We also got to celebrate my wonderful grandmother’s birthday!

We started with a yummy dinner from Cody’s (one of my favorite places ever… best rolls!)

 

 

Blackened tilapia with grilled vegetables and salsa.

And then it was time for the birthday celebration!

I made a vegan chocolate cake with mocha icing!

 

The beautiful birthday girl!

I have been really sick this week… Like, my stomach actually feels like it is about to tear open.  Wonderful. Will I ever get a good workout in again? I am starting to get really discouraged. I feel so gross and inactive. I managed 3 miles on Monday, started speed work yesterday but was in too much pain after a mile so I did 30 minutes on the elliptical instead. I know that I am too hard on myself, but I really can’t handle having such a low level of activity.

On the upside, my run on Monday was very beautiful. Sunset is the best.

And now I am off to Starbucks to buckle down and write a research paper. Weee! So Exciting!