Yoga Hurts

Hey everyone! Hope you all have had awesome weeks so far!!!! Mine has been pretty busy with school, which is why I haven't been commenting on ya'lls blogs as much....I have been reading though!!! :D This week I have really been focusing on running for my cardio. I really, really want to improve my speed and endurance, and am planning on actually going out and timing my mile soon!

Another thing I've been working on is a little yoga. I do some videos post-run and have been loving it!!!!! There is one more difficult pose that I have been attempting and that has not gone so well with me.
The crow pose.

 Well, actually, I can get in to it, but I end up with massive bruises on my arms where the knees touch them!

It has started to fade a little, but that random mark on my arm in the picture is actually a bruise in real life! haha It doesn't hurt though....only when I attempt crow pose. :D

Anyway, I need some help!!! Today is my day to do dinner, and I have NO idea what to make! We've got some steak in the fridge, potatoes, onion, bell pepper, a little rice, some dried beans and pasta. Any ideas on a meal that would combine any of these ingredients? Or just a steak marinade? Anything would help!! :D I also have flour and stuff to make rolls or something! :P

Well, I'm pretty sure that so far we have absolutely nothing planned for the weekend......again. It'll be nice though, because we're all pretty tired from this week! What do you have going on this weekend? 

200th Post!

Heeey!!!!! How has everyone's week gone so far? I personally, haven't been up to too much (again), but I've definitely been able to get things accomplished.

Soo, this is  my 200th post, and I thought I'd quote my first post here, just for the heck of it! It's pretty short, but just sort of fun to look back on.

November 18th, 2010

Well, first of all, welcome to the blog.

I'm first and foremost, a Christian. That doesn't mean that I'm perfect, far from it, actually. It also doesn't mean that I always "walk my talk" and live out the gospel. I try to, but there are definitely times when it gets pretty hard.

As you can probably tell, I have a bit of a chocolate problem. Actually, I don't. I have a problem without chocolate. I  also absolutely loooove to cook, so you can bet on seeing some recipes on here!!! I also enjoy living a healthy lifestyle. Sometimes I can take it to extremes, which is very, very bad. Really. I've even gone days without eating chocolate, or really much of anything. I'm working on that though, and while I still have some "not so good" (read:really, really bad) days, my family is always with me, praying with me, and just helping me in general.

I'm thinking about either becoming a dietitian or a journalist (which are actually nothing alike), but I don't have any major college plans yet.

Sorry about the random topics in this post, I'm just trying to put all the basic information out there!

Anyway, I'm super excited about starting this blog and I hope that I'll actually get followers! =D

Well that was fun!!!! Actually, I haven't changed too much during the past almost-year. At that point though, I didn't have a camera at all, so there were even less pictures on the blog than there are today! hahaha That's definitely something that I need to work on, blogwise......I always, always forget to take pictures of things to post them! Is there something that you didn't know about blogging when you first started it?

Well, that's it for today's super random post! See ya'll later! 

Blue Velvet Cookies and a Quiet Weekend

Morning everyone!!!! Hope you all had wonderful weekends! Ours was quiet and we watched a ton of random movies. It was pretty fun! All of us had had pretty busy work/school weeks, so it was really nice to be able to just relax and spend some time together. How was your weekend? Busy or quiet? 


Remember how Friday was my sister's half birthday? Well, I couldn't post then what I was going to make, but I'll tell ya'll today! We had chicken cooked w/ onion and bell peppers in a chipotle marinade. I made some pasta and homemade cheese sauce to go with it. Simple, but yummy. The best part though, was dessert! My sister's faaavorite cake is red velvet, but since we didn't have any cream cheese with which to make the icing, I decided on cookies based on this recipe, specifically because they are cake-y cookies. I didn't make the cookie sandwiches, and instead of red, I dyed them blue because its my sister's favorite color! Here's my recipe:

Blue Velvet Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cups flour (our flour is really fine here, so I needed to add more to make the dough the right consistency)
• 2 T cocoa
• 2 t baking powder (we don't actually have baking soda here...)
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 T buttermilk
• 2 t apple cider vinegar
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1 T blue food coloring

Directions:

1. Combine flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt in a small bowl.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until light, add eggs one at a time, stirring after each until fully incorporated. Beat in buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla and food coloring. Add dry ingredients to wet, stir until fully combined. 
3. Drop batter onto baking sheet, making 2 inch rounds. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes, or until cooked through. These cookies should be cake-like and fluffy. 

After baking, I drizzled some sweetened condensed milk on some of them and left the others plain. These really do taste like red velvet cake!!! Cool, huh? hahahaha 

Now, I have a question for all you runners out there. How do you plan you runs??? I have a couple of treadmill workouts that I found online that I like to do, but I really don't know how to put my own tempo, speed, hill, etc run together. How do I know how fast to run so that I get a good workout in without exhausting myself either? 

Well, that's about it for today...off to study! :D 

Have you ever made a baked good that was supposed to taste like another baked good? 

It was really fun for me to make cookies that tasted like cake, because they're a little bit easier and faster than making a whole red velvet cake! 

Happy 1/2 Birthday to my Sister! :D

Anyone else glad that its Friday? I feel like this week has just flown by! My poor sister has been stuck doing tests all week long. Brazilian schools are like that....they schedule a "test week" instead of the teachers choosing the test days. You only really have 1 or 2 tests per class each quarter, and they're a major part of your grade. While its nice to know that after the week is over, you won't have to worry about tests for a while, the whole process can definitely get exhausting!

So anyway, since last year we have celebrated half birthdays. The story behind that is that my sister never gets to celebrate her actual birthday in the US....we always go on furlough during the second half of the year. So I came up with the idea to take her out to eat and celebrate her half birthday! I actually kept the whole thing a secret and she never suspected anything! Of course, by the time we actually got to the restaurant, I was about to spontaneously combust from keeping the secret for an extended period of time, but we had fun! Then, in June, she planned a surprise dinner for my half birthday. So now, its a tradition. Can't say what I'm making for her yet, because I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I'm really excited! Do ya'll celebrate half birthdays?


In other news, I just caught my kitten playing with a plastic bag....it was pretty funny! Here's a pic:

Aaand I'm glad to say that I'm finally figuring out how to edit and upload videos, so here's one of the cat playing.. Please excuse the crappy quality...it was taken with my camera. Hopefully though, the fact that I'm learning the whole video thing means that I'll actually get that vlog that I've been talking about up! 

Well, that's about it for now......see ya'll later! :D 

What are your weekend plans?

Do you have any questions or anything that you would like me to talk about on a future vlog?

Recipe Success!!

Morning!!! :D Hope everyone is doing well! Can ya'll believe that we're already halfway through this week? I haven't done a whole lot besides school, but I still definitely feel like the week is flying by!!! What have you all been up to this week?


Right now, I'm thinking that maybe I'll go with a friend to a group bible study tonight. I haven't confirmed with him yet, but I'm really hoping that I'll be able to go. A couple of years ago I was going to a group like that pretty regularly, but since we went to the US on furlough last year, I haven't gotten back in that habit.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet around here. I had my jump class on Monday, which was fun, yesterday I did a workout at home, and today I've got spin, which I'm super excited about! Besides running, spinning is probably my all-time favorite cardio workout!!

So anyway, sorry about the absolute lack of pictures on my blog....I really, really need to find some batteries for my camera! hahaha

Last night, I made dinner for everyone!! We had some simple pork chops, rice, and mashed potatoes! I found the mashed potato recipe online, and really loved it, so since I can't seem to find it in my history, I'm going to share it here!

Caramelized Onion Mashed Potatoes

serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lb peeled chopped potatoes
• 3/4 cup chopped onion
• 1-2 tsp oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup milk 
• 2 T butter

Directions:

1. Place potatoes in a medium pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, cover and simmer 15 minutes or until tender and easily pierced with a fork. 
2. In a skillet, heat up your oil, add the onions and cook 15 minutes or until caramelized. 
3. Drain the potatoes, add milk, butter, salt and pepper to pot.
4. Mash the potatoes until desired consistency, adding more milk if needed. 
5. After the potatoes are mashed, stir in the caramelized onion. 

Seriously, the onion tasted SO good in these mashed potatoes!!!! The thing that I love most about this recipe is that it is fairly easy to put together, but tastes like it took a lot more effort that it did! The hardest part for me was waiting on my onions to finish caramelizing....I'm not that patient. But, I am definitely glad that I waited because, like I said, they were yummy!!!!!! You could also probably add some garlic to these and it would be delicious! 

Well, I had better get going.....

What's your favorite way to eat mashed potatoes? (random question, I know)

Even though I loved the potatoes that I made last night, my favorite are my mom's because she whips them in the mixer. Then, I just put some salt, pepper and a dab of butter on top!

Same Old, Same Old

Gooood morning!!! How is everyone? Hope you all  had an awesome weekend! We just relaxed and hung out at the house this past weekend, which was fine by me! Dad bought an upside down pineapple coffee cake, so we just ate off of that for breakfast and no one had to cook anything! hahaha We had a lot of fun! How was your weekend? 


I didn't post yesterday because nothing much has really been going on.....basically my days consist of school, gym, more school, and sleep. I do want to thank ya'll for the awesome comments on my previous post!!!! My disorder is something that I still struggle with occasionally, and its so awesome to hear encouraging words from people that I only "know" through blogging!!!!

A few days ago, I found this banner on Pintrest:

Too true, right? I mean, when I look back, the stuff that I stress out about is usually stuff that doesn't matter too much in the long run. Anyway, I just thought that this tied in with what I wrote Friday about my stress issues!!

So, I made some muffins last night....they're pretty tasty, but I'm not going to share the recipe quite yet...there are some tweaks that need to be made before giving it to ya'll. They're marbled chocolate muffins, and I followed someone else's recipe to make them, and am not completely happy with the end result yet! 

Well, that's about it for today!

What do you have going on this week?

Have you ever tried someone else's recipe and found you needed to modify it a little bit?

The Truth About my Eating Disorder

Hey everyone! Today's post is a little more serious than usual for me, but its been a long time coming.

  I believe that many times, people don't realize just how serious an eating disorder really is, and how deeply it can affect someone who is dealing with it. A lot of the time, there seems to be an idea that eating disorders aren't really that serious; that whoever lives with one is doing so of their on volition, purely because we want to be thin.

   While I definitely believe that today's society has put an extreme emphasis on the idea that being thin is being beautiful, I also know from experience that eating disorders aren't solely about attaining that image. For me, personally, it was definitely more of a way for me to deal with the extreme amount of stress that I put myself through. I saw exercise as a way of escaping, and counted calories to have control over something, even when I felt like everything else was spinning out of control. The saddest thing is, what I thought I was controlling ended up taking over my life.

   At one point, I was in complete denial, cried at pretty much anything, waaaay underweight, and more stressed out than I was in the beginning. What had started out as an interest in exercising and being healthy, became a very unhealthy obsession. I've gone through periods of depression, anxiety, I've fought with my family more than I ever had before. My eating disorder almost became a second personality. It wasn't just about being thin, it was about being obsessively in control. OCD at its worst, basically. It is something that I still deal with, and will probably always deal with my OCD in some form or another. What I'm learning to do is to never, ever go to extremes, to live a more balanced life, and guess what? to actually talk about things that are bothering me instead of bottling everything up inside.  I found this chart to show just how much an eating disorder affects our bodies:

Well, that's about all I've got to say on the matter. If anyone out there is going, or has gone through the same thing, feel free to email me at healthychocoholic@yahoo.com.

In other matters, I'm sooo glad that today is Friday!!! What are you doing this weekend? 

Crazy Cats and a Fun Outing

Heey!!!!! Hope everyone is doing well this week!!!! My week has gone by super fast! Lots of stuff to do, I suppose. Well, to start off, I just want to let ya'll know that the cats are getting along juuuust fine.....

Yep, they live hard lives......hahahahaha

On Monday, a friend of mine from spinning said that a bunch of ladies were getting together for lunch and invited me to go along. We ended up having lunch yesterday, and it was soo much fun!!!! I'm pretty sure that we sat and talked for about 2 hours! One of the ladies brought an awesome chocolate cake, so we each had some, and just chatted about anything and everything! We're already planning our next get-together!

Other than that, I've been pretty busy doing school stuff. Nothing really interesting, just time consuming. :D

I do have a quick frozen "cookie" recipe to share....no pics because the things are ugly! haha Anyway, these are not dessert cookies, they're small snacks for after a workout or if you're just craving a little sweet something! All I do is mix about 1/2 cup oatmeal, 1-4 T cocoa (depending on my mood that day....:P), and some sugar in a bowl. Then, I add 1 mashed banana to the dry ingredients. Then, depending on the flavor of cookie I want, I either melt some chocolate chips (1-2 T) and stir them in, or I soften some peanut butter (1 T), and add it to the "cookie" dough. Then, I add different extracts, and form about 7 small cookies. So far I've made mint chocolate, double chocolate, and pb chocolate cookies. Like I said before, I don't consider these a dessert cookie, and they are nothing like a freshly baked cookie, but they're a fun snack!

Well, I think that's about it for today....see ya'll again soon!!!!

What's your go-to snack??


Do you ever meet up with friends from the gym? 

Coconut Muffins Make Me Happy

Goood morning! Hope you all had a good Monday!!! :D Today's post is going to be quick...I just really wanna share this awesome muffin recipe that I made today!

Do you like coconut??? I really hope so, because that's what these muffins are all about! Coconut and lemon....one of my favorite non-chocolate combinations!

While not exactly the "healthiest" muffin around, these taste really great.....and anyway, I believe that part of a healthy diet is enjoying other stuff in moderation as well. So, if you like lemon and coconut, please bake these muffins. And make the glaze......it really completes the muffins. And I promise to have a workout or recipe that actually goes along with the "healthy" part of Musings of a Healthy Chocoholic....hahaha

Coconut Lemon Muffins (based on these)

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup coconut milk

2 eggs

1/4 cup oil

1/2 cup lemon juice

Flaked coconut

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, combine milk, eggs, oil and juice.
3. Add liquid to dry ingredients, stir until just combined. 
4. Spoon dough into greased muffin tins until halfway full. Sprinkle coconut on each muffin, add more batter until about 1/4 inch from the top of the tin, and sprinkle more coconut on top.
5. Bake at 400 for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
6. For the glaze: Mix 2 parts sweetened condensed milk with one part coconut milk and drizzle on top of warm muffins. 

The original recipe called for regular milk, but I found that the coconut milk gave the muffins an awesome texture and flavor!!!! If anyone makes these and likes them, please let me know!!!!! 

See ya'll later! :D 

Fun Weekend and Yummy Treats

Morning, everyone!!! Hope you all had wonderful weekends!!!! Mine was great! Saturday was really busy because we had an event for the ladies of the community. We watched a movie, Fireproof, and then gave each a plant to take care of this month and to bring back next month to actually plant at the church. Then, Saturday night, there was a youth service at the same church in the community, which we went to as well!!!!! Yesterday, I actually think that I only left the house to go and rent another movie, Unknown. The entire rest of the time, I hung out at home, which was fun, too!!! I finally made that chocolate cobbler that I've been wanting to for like a year now.....its pretty incredible! I don't have any pics, but here's one of Jessica's:

(Photo courtesy of How Sweet It Is)

Seriously, if you like chocolate, make this now! The sauce part thickens as the cobbler cools, and becomes almost pudding-like!!! I will admit though, that it was probably one of the weirdest things that I've actually put together pre-oven time. I definitely had to resist a strong desire to stir the hot water in to the batter! hahaha

Another thing that I've made this weekend (well, actually this morning, but in my head, still counts as the weekend...:P) is the French Vanilla version of this creamer. It is cooling now....can't wait to try it out!!! If my mom likes it (her favorite creamer is french vanilla), I definitely want to try out the peppermint mocha version (my favorite!)! 

I was really proud of myself this weekend for being more go with the flow in regards to food and stuff! I can definitely remember a time in which randomly whipping up a dessert, without (gasp!) planning it would definitely have not been ok with me. I did just that yesterday, and enjoyed the heck out of it! :D Yay for me! hahahaha Do you have trouble doing anything unplanned or do you enjoy spontaneity? If you couldn't already tell, little OCD me does not do well with changes to a plan, even if it is a plan that exists only in my head about which no one else even knows....I'm definitely working on that!!! :D

Other than having chocolate for breakfast, my day actually looks pretty quiet...mostly just school stuff.....there is this book that I'm reading for my Lit class, Deerslayer, that my teacher called dull and tedious (in parts), so for some reason, I'm not actually too excited to start reading it. Wonder why that is? 

So I feel like I've been sorta wordy today......so I'm gonna leave ya'll with some questions!

Have you ever had a teacher say something that made you lose interest in an assignment?

Um yes. Exhibit A: Deerslayer. hahaha 

Do you prefer weekends where you stay at home or busy weekends?

Well, while I enjoy being at home with the family, I start to go a little bit stir crazy after a couple of hours at home....so, a weekend like this past one, with one busy and one quiet day is pretty much perfect for me! 

That's about it for today!!! See ya'll soon! 

Butterfly Award

Heey everyone!!! Who else is glad that its Friday?? I have a few tests to take today, but after that, I'm officially DONE with this week of school!!! :D Tomorrow we're having another event for the women of the community, which will be fun, and I don't think that we have anything planned for Sunday yet! What are your weekend plans? 


So Kat, gave me this award:

How sweet is she?? Loove ya Kat!! :D So, anyway, I have to answer some questions now, so here we go!

Name your favorite color:


My all time favorite color is light purple! Not dark, thunderstorm-y purple, but lilac! I'm pretty sure that it has always been my favorite!

What whizzes you off:


People who don't do what they say they will! I have no patience with them!

Name your favorite dessert: 
 Crap. It depends on my mood! haha For a decadent dessert, I looove fudge brownies or brownie sundaes, but for an every day dessert, nothing beats a good oatmeal raisin cookie.....or a chocolate chip cookie...or a peanut butter cookie...hahaha!

Best Feature:


I like my eyes!!! :D

Favorite Pet:


Dusty, our old dog! My parents bought him when they first were married and he lived to be 18!

Your biggest fear:


Letting my stress get the best of me again!!! Definitely do not want to go down that road!

Guilty Pleasure:


Well, I can take down massive amounts of anything chocolate in record amounts of time....also I secretly read silly celeb gossip...which I already know is silly,but read anyway. hahaha

When you're upset you:

Find something to do to take my mind off of whatever it is so that I can clear my head.

What is perfection:


Being happy with myself despite any flaws, being in a good relationship with family and friends and walking with God every step of the way.

I don't know who all has been tagged with this award yet, so I'm just going to say that if you haven't, just want to do this, I officially tag you!!!!! You're all awesome! :D


Well, I should probably start studying....see ya'll later!!!

Unplanned Rest Day

Good morning!!! Hope you all have had a wonderful week so far! Brazilians don't celebrate Labor Day, so I didn't take Monday off, but today is the country's independence day, so my sister is home from school and I'm going to study as little as humanly possible. The day started off right with a fun breakfast!!!!! We still had some scones, so I finally managed to snap a picture of them!

They're topped with a strawberry glaze!!! :D  You can't really tell from the pic, but there is the jelly inside each scone.....I would have taken another picture to show ya'll, but my camera's battery died on me! haha

Anyway, since today is a holiday, I've decided to take a break from working out for the day! Sometimes I will work out on a holiday, but especially since my sister is actually home from school, I'd like to be able to spend some fun time with her!!!! :D  I'm usually pretty bad at just going with the flow and taking unplanned rest days, so I think that not only will it be fun to have a family day, it will also be good practice for me to be more flexible with my schedule!!!! Are you good at taking unplanned rest days or doing anything outside of what was scheduled for that day? Call me OCD, but I definitely freak out a little bit whenever a plan is changed...haha!

I don't know if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but I pretty much love to read!!! Right now, I'm reading a book called Storm Glass, that I've really enjoyed so far!

My main problem is, living here, I'm sort of out of the loop as to what books are popular and what to read next. Sooo, does anyone have any good books for me to read??? I don't really have a favorite genre, I'll pretty much read anything from sports/nutrition related stuff to cutesy romance novels! hahaha Do you have a favorite book genre? I really don't, and I'm the same way about my music! On any of my playlists, you'll find everything from Newsboys (Christian rock band....my current favorite song of theirs is Miracles), to Van Halen (Jump), to Disney (Under the Sea), and pretty much everything else in between!! haha

Well, I had better get going! What are your plans for the rest of the week?

Giveaway Winner, Weekend Fun, and a Recipe!

Good Morning!!! How is everyone? Hope you all had fabulous weekends!!!! First things first, I would like to announce the winner of my very first giveaway!!!

Tara said...

I want to try the new chocolate chip cherry torte!! Yum!

September 2, 2011 4:02 PM 

Congrats

Tara!!!! Please send me you mailing info so that I can get your Larabars to ya!!! :D

Well, over the weekend, we pretty much stayed at home, which was really nice!!! We watched a couple of movies (Just Go With It and Public Enemies), played with our friend's Wii, and just basically had some family time!!!!! We also played with our cats....who are finally getting used to one another!!!  What did you do this weekend??

So, ya'll remember my lemon cream scones, right? The other day, I was thinking about what I wanted to bake. Everyone loves the cream scones, but I had made them a couple of weeks ago, and didn't want the same thing again. Sooo, I took some of my mom's jelly, split the dough in half, rolled one out really thin, spread jelly on it, and topped it with the other half of the dough. Then, I baked it the same way I usually do! We had strawberry lemonade scones, and they are sooo yummy!!!! I'll try to get a pic up soon!!! :D

Well, I had better get studying.....even though its Labor Day in the US, its not here, so I'm gonna work! What are your labor day plans?

Father Daughter Time

Hey everyone!! Hope your week has been going really well!!!!! Don't forget to enter my very first giveaway, if you haven't yet!!! It'll end tomorrow at midnight, and I'll announce the winner on Monday morning!! :D

So we've been pretty busy this week. First, we've had to deal with our old, big, fat cat getting used to having a small kitten around the house, which has been pretty interesting. Then, I've had a couple of big school projects and tests this week, so I've been sort of studying like crazy. I'm definitely glad that today is Friday!!!!! I really hope that we just relax this weekend!!! Do you have any major weekend plans?? 


This morning, I had some fun with my dad! I got a free pass to the gym a few weeks ago, and today, he came with me!!!!! We spent 30 minutes on treadmills, chatting, and then did about 25 minutes of strength training. I've never worked out with anyone before, so it was really interesting. I originally thought that it would be weird, because I'm typically use my workout time to "zone out" and think about life, but I realized today that having someone to chat with really made it the entire thing go by so fast! While I definitely think that some days I'll want to workout alone, but now that I've had a "workout buddy" I'll definitely want to workout with a friend more often!!!! Also, having someone there with me motivated me to do some strength training (ugh!) which I probably really needed to do!! Do you prefer to workout alone or with a friend?


Well, I should probably go study now....I have a bio test to study for! hahaha See ya'll later!