Tag: learning

Tidbits for the week

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

I ate good and bad lol. Day off from running.

Thursday

Day 2 of pre-cleanse

Had half a bagel for breakfast then went for a walk with the roommate. Made myself a midmorning juice if carrots, apples, blueberries, ginger and 1 kale leaf.

Lunch was leftover homemade pizza then the bf came over and we (or at least I) struggled through every step. We got 4 miles

Then the bf took me to dinner to have breakfast which is what i was craving

Photo from google because i was too hungry to take a picture before i ate.

Friday

Didn’t really do anything exciting, I sat on my butt most of the day and relaxed. I got some grocery shopping done though. The only pre-cleanse thing I did was to have my warm lemon water with ginger.

The cleanse starts tomorrow!!!! AHHHHH this is going to be very difficult for me lol, I love my food. See you tomorrow!!!

Juice Cleanse!!!!

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle

I did a little research and the perfect cleanse for me jumped out! It was made by the guy from the documentary Joe Cross and Dr. OZ or at least it was endorsed by Dr. Oz hahahaha. It is a 3 day cleanse with a meal at the end of the day. They suggest only fruits and veggies for this meal but I am going to make a vegan lentil soup so I get a little extra protein from the lentils so I can still train for my half marathon.

I am going to do this for 4 weeks, every Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday will be cleanse days for me and I will do smoothies, juice, homemade salads, and keep it as free of processed foods as I can (on my budget) for the other 4 days of the week. I will start this Sunday and do it this week, next week (the 23rd) the next week (the 30th) and my last week will be a little different. I will be skipping Sunday the 6th and instead doing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday that week. The 6th is my BF and I’s 1 year anniversary and he is taking me out to dinner 🙂 and in full disclosure I plan on picking up a whole pizza just for me on my way to work or having one delivered the day of the half marathon lol. So that is 2 days I will be a little off of my eating but otherwise I am going to try and keep it as clean as possible.

Here is the link to the website: http://www.doctoroz.com/article/joe-cross-3-day-weekend-juice-cleanse

Make sure you check out the link because it has tips for getting ready and finishing the cleanse.

Image result for joe cross 3 day juice

Who is onboard with me????

I am not a doctor or nutritionist, please consult a physician before doing any radical diet changes ESPECIALLY if you have any chronic medical issues or are on any medications.

Half Marathon Check In

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, training

25 days until my half marathon and the longest I have run is 5 miles……..Yesterday and today I did 3 miles and 3.4 miles, both felt pretty good. If I could get a 7 mile run in this Friday, a 9 miler next Friday and 11 miles the Friday after that I will be golden. That is going to be my goal.

It is going to be pushing it a bit for me but I can do it. As long as I don’t try and increase my pace I’ll be fine, but increasing pace and distance at the same time is a recipe for an injury. I also need to make sure I stretch and foam roll if I am going to push it.

My two runs this week have been good so fingers crossed.

I also think I am going to start some kind of juice cleanse/reboot thing. I have been eating like crap ever since I went to California and my body is revolting. I can’t seem to eat almost anything without my stomach/digestive system cramping, not eating leaves me feeling bloated and a little nauseous, though so does eating so its a lose/lose. I am lethargic and having headaches. It is time for a system overhaul.

I watched this on Netflix 
 image from google

The question is, how do I want to do it?

Should I have a smoothie for breakfast have a healthy solid food lunch and juice for dinner, should I juice all day, should I intermix juicing and smoothies, should I juice with little solid snacks of nuts and seeds and things like celery with peanut butter? What is going to work for me and have the results I would like without driving me crazy or being too extreme so I cannot complete it? I am going to do a little research and set up a plan. I will let you know if a few days what the verdict is.

Please feel free to weigh in with your opinions, comments, and advice in the comments.

Also, does anyone want to join me?

Monday Motivation**July 10, 2017

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training, Uncategorized

Week 3 of summer semester classes. The weather is heating up over here!!! Well it is heating up then cooling down then heating up then cooling down. Early morning is the best time to run but that is a problem for me on several levels right now. Saturday and Sunday morning I already get up at 5am to make it to work by 7am. I would need to be in bed asleep my 8pm to get up at 4am to run, that is really hard to do especially in the summer and especially when Friday is the only full day I get with my boyfriend currently so that is pretty much a no go. Mon-Wed I work 2:30-11pm. If I am lucky I can be in bed falling asleep by 12:15am, normally it is closer to 1am though. Which gives me a 8:30-9am wakeup, which isn’t too bad except currently my mattress is killing back (I am hoping to have a new one soon) and because of this I have to let my back stretch out in the am before I can run, meaning the earliest I can run is around 10am. I need to find something productive to do that still rests my back between when I wake up and 10-10:30am because right now I just watch TV and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

That is my current conundrum.

 

(Image from google)

Workout goal-3 workouts

I made 2 workouts last week. I just had no energy and watched too much TV. Got to get my stuff together again.

 

What is your workout goal for the week?

What is your biggest workout challenge right now?

Tidbits for the week

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

Hi!!! Lets catch up on this week.

There is not a single day I go without studying, whether it is reading a chapter and doing work like that below (PS that is what your tonsils look like when you have tonsillitis), working on my online hw, or studying vocab on an app.

I got this little gel for curly hair in the little sample packs I was getting each month and loved it. I had been looking for a good curly gel , I just went out and purchased the full size one.

I went to Costco looking for this Chinese chicken salad mix they used to have but of course they discontinued it!! ARG!!!! So instead I walked out with Strawberries, raspberries and chicken sandwiches. OMG the fruit prices at Costco!!! Why have I been going to the grocery store???!!! All of this was $15. I am so going back.

I have been making smooties with the fruit, though really its like a fizzy drink more than a smoothie because I don’t have ice at home and have been adding strawberry kiwi emergency powder. It’s pretty good though I need to get some frozen fruit to add in and thicken in up, but this works for now.

2.3 miles run/walk on Monday. My times are still pretty slow but hey the 2nd mile was faster than the 1st so yay!!!!!

Tuesday held a delicious pre-run breakfast curtosy of my wonderful boyfriend

After that yummy breakfast we went out for a 5 mile run. 6 was the goal but we went out a little late and ran out of time before I had to come back and get ready for work.

Check out this grading!!!!You need a 75% to pass, I mean yay that medical students are held to a higher standard, I certainly want the people saving my life to be extra competent but damn lol. I have been in classes were a 68% was passing.

Quickie little run Thursday morning, my legs felt a bit like lead.

Post run small glass of wine

I have been thinking about swinging my eating a bit more toward the Mediterranean diet kind of eating.

How was your week?

Volunteering in Costa Rica

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle

Spanish lessons ended and the next day I had to meet up with all the incoming people who hadn’t done the Spanish lessons. The Spanish lessons and the meet-up place were in San Jose, Costa Rica. I don’t remember if I took a cab or if my host mom dropped me off where I had to meet everyone but I know I made it there hahaha!

I met up with the other nine people I would be volunteering with, including our guide. We stayed in a hostel that night and boarded a bus early the next morning to head up into the mountains, our destination was San Cristobel Norte.

When we got there we played a few ice breaker games and were introduced to our host families.

Thankfully one of the nine other people was going to by my roommate so I would not be alone this time. We hopped in the back of our host dads truck (which we were told the next day was a big no-no, whoops) and headed up to our home sweet home for the next 2 weeks……to say that it was different than what I was used to is an understatement, it wasn’t horrible or anything it was just not what I was used to but it was cozy and my host family was very welcoming. We hung out with our host family that night and went to bed early, or tried to go to bed early, we had to meet the group at 7am the next morning.

We were there to build the town a new water tower. The water tower was up a pretty good hill, that got very muddy whenever it rained……..it was summer in Costa Rica, it pretty much rained everyday at some point. What we started with was just a hole in the side of a mountain, it had been leveled out already by the towns people in preparation. We laid out grids then got everything to make concrete, we had a cement like mix but also added rocks and water to it and mixed it all up and poured wheel barrel after wheel barrel until it was a big cement slab. Thankfully we had oxen pulling an ox cart to haul the heavy materials up the hill for us……………yep you read that right, we worked with an oxen! It was pretty awesome!

In just over a week we went from an empty hillside to poured concrete, rebar reinforcement and rebar legs to hold the tank up, then we had to wait for an inspector to approve the next step.

Since we didn’t want to waste our time there just waiting we painted some desks in their school, repainted their boys and girls football (soccer) locker rooms and started paving a road.

Each morning out host mama would make us breakfast: usually eggs, tortillas and GalloPinto (rice and beans, don’t ask me why it was gallo pinto when I thought arroz meant rice) and fresh cheese! We also had black coffee with sugar, they do not have cream for your coffee over there.

My host family

Our host mama would bring us lunch every day, I was full vegetarian at the time so it was always a guess what I would get. Gallo pinto was part of EVERY meal, strangely I never really tired of it. One time when we were going for an afternoon hike I got a butter and cheese sandwich………I could only stomach about half of that before I had to say no way and dig into an odwalla bar I had packed from home.

Hiking

After lunch it was back to work for a few hours then in the afternoon we would stop for coffee and snacks at the various people of the towns homes. What we did at night depended on the day, some times we would play soccer with the local kids until the sun went down or would have little gatherings in the town. One family had an area in their backyard with a wood stove and a pretty big room. In two weeks we must have had at least 4 party type nights. We danced and cook and ate. There was a woman in town with the peace corps, we hung out with her a little bit. Some nights we would head home earlier than other nights due to exhaustion. Overall it was an amazing, sometimes very trying, but wonderful experience.

Milking a cow

Two things I distinctly remember that were difficult but definitely made me a better person:

HUGE spiders. I am afraid of spiders so this was very hard for me, especially when almost every night 2 giant spiders would show up on the walls of the room I was staying in at my host families house. We are talking the size of my hand. I would flip out a bit, my host family would tease me but kill the spiders and kick them out the doors!!!!!!! That is how big they were you can’t flush them down the toilet or anything like that, you just kick them out in the yard…….. It certainly helped me deal with small spiders a lot better hahahaha.

Our room

The other one was cold showers. I grew up in middle class America, I have never really not been able to take a hot shower. Our host family had this thing on their showerhead that was supposed to heat the water but it either didn’t work or work for about 10 seconds. Now I am been camping and am no stranger to a quick rinse off with cold water but when you have been laying concrete in the mud all day or paining or paving a road all with summer bugs nesting in your hair, you want a proper shower. I would turn the water on, rise off, get my hair wet, then turn the water off while I shampooed and scrubbed the dirt off, then the water would go back on, rinse everything off, turn the water off and repeat with conditioner. I also had to detangle my hair every time I washed it because the humidity was wreaking havoc on my hair.

When I got back to the states to my aunts house I hadn’t had a proper shower in over a week and my hair was a crazy mess. I jumped in a hot shower and stayed in there forever, detangling my hair and taking care of it………..my forever shower that I would have been like an hour was 20 minutes. My idea of a long shower had totally changed.

The ox cart parade happened while we were there. The designs were amazing

And that was my two weeks of volunteering in Costa Rica.

Tidbits for the week

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

Good Morning!!!!! Here are a few tibits that have been going on over here.

 

An old roommate cleaned out her closet and I got lots of goodies!!! Most are barely worn and some even still have the tags on them!!! I love having an ex roommate that works at Nike.

Fun times with the boyfriend, yep we are dorks

I have been enjoying some salads this week. I plan on hitting Costco in the next day or two and picking up their Chinese chicken salad mix so live on this week.

Medical terminology is in full swing!!! I have already been doing lots of studying!

I am sort of obsessed with Triscuits right now, they are pretty amazing, I finished this box and am currently eating rosemary and olive oil.

Saw this on a run this week……………

and in other news…………..this blonde…….has gone…………………

RED!!!!!!!!!!!! Well auburnish, The funny thing is, a lot of people haven’t really noticed because in certain lights my hair already had a bit of an auburn tint to it, so I just embraced it.

That’s it for me! Oh the bf and I have officially registered for a half marathon on August 5th. Better get my butt into gear!

Talk to you soon!

Tidbits for the week

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

 

Its been a pretty boring week for me, still getting over being sick.

I managed a 2 mile walk Thursday morning

 


and got together with my friend from my last job Thursday evening.

Did a mountain of laundry on Friday, and still have more to do.

Today I am back and work and this evening is my BF’s sister’s wedding. I am meeting the family!

Wish me luck!!!!

Monday my new class starts, medical terminology, I am pretty stoked for it, I have cases to read and try and diagnose and everything!!!!! It is online which will be nice. No more rushing from class to work.

I am also excited to get back to a normal schedule in my life this coming week as well. The first weekend of June my BF was out of town for a bachelor party, then next weekend I was in Cali, then I got sick. Now I am finally recovering. I am excited to get back to running and hiking and seeing my BF for more than 12 hours lol.

What does your week look like?

Tidbits from the week

by Ariana Peters, posted in food, healthy lifestyle, school/studying, training

WHEW! It is over! Finals for this quarter are done! Time to rest and relax!

And of course I am now sick. I don’t know if its a cold or what but my throat is on fire however my nose isn’t stuffed up so who knows. I spent the majority of Thursday and Friday laying in bed watching movies and sleeping and now I am back at work trying to talk as little as possible and taking lots of sips of water to sooth my throat. I need to pick up more throat lozenges but I can only have so many of those before they start to kill my mouth, too much menthol maybe, I don’t know.

That is pretty much what my week has been, work, study, finals, and sickness. Wish me luck that I recover quickly. I hope the rest of you have a great weekend!

Credit cards shouldn’t be allowed until you are 30

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle

Warning: this is going to be a long, wordy post.

 

Hi!!! I have mentioned on several occasions how broke I am and one of the main reasons for that is…….my stunning credit card debt. I will go into more detail in a minute but here are some staggering things I have been realizing lately……I have not had a zero balance on a credit card since I first got one at 18. That is 11 years!!! I have been in debt for more than a decade!!!!!!!!!! I also pay $500/month in credit card bills!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did I not realize it was that much? If I didn’t have credit card bills I would be rolling in it.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????

Don’t get me wrong this whole situation is my fault and I understand that and am not making excuses. But I think there are some things inherently wrong with the way our society handles credit cards and what is ingrained into us at a very young age.

Not only do we have society telling me that we NEED all these different things, I grew up with a dad who bought what he wanted when he wanted and tried to buy some of our affection with things. Don’t get me wrong I love my dad and he was a great dad but no one is perfect and this was one of his faults.

I never knew that you couldn’t just go out and buy whatever you want, my mom was great and didn’t want us kids to worry about things so I never knew we were in debt or lived paycheck to paycheck or that my mom never bought things for herself because my dad was always overspending. I am kind of torn on whether I think that was 100% the correct approach or not, on the one hand I never worried about money and had a carefree childhood as children should but maybe it wouldn’t have taken me over a decade of digging myself a hole if I had been a little more aware of dads spending problems. IDK. Either way my mom is awesome so I lucked out there.

Society tells us from day one we need credit; want to rent an apartment? you need credit. want to buy a car? you need credit. want to buy a house? you need credit. It seems for everything in todays world you need credit, and what is the easiest way to get that, open a credit card the day you turn 18. And that is just about what I did, I turned 18 in April and by September I had my first shiny credit card with a $500 limit.

I kept my spending relatively in check and paid my minimum payment on time and after a little while that credit limit jumped up to $750. Woohoo!!!!! Still I couldn’t get into too much trouble with that amount, even maxed out the minimum monthly payment was $25.

Then the trouble started, my bank sent me a credit card with a $2,500 limit…….that is a little easier to get into trouble. It didn’t take me long to get both cards up near their limits, but I always paid the minimum amount required so all was well in the credit world. Apparently if you continually pay your bills on time they up your credit limit!!! Suddenly I look at my statement and I have a 4,900 credit limit! Sadly all I see is oh I have 2k available to me…….oooh that is a cute top I need that, oh I need Starbucks every day, oh Christmas presents for everyone! I feel like getting a massage and a facial, I am bummed out while living in the dorm and decide to go to 3 movies in a row and buy soda and food for each one to escape for the day. I’m gonna order a pizza and on and on and on it went. Both of those card have hovered within about 5% of their limit since a few months after I got each one.

Even that wasn’t too bad, between the two my minimum monthly payment totaled about $150.

Than about a year and a half ago I got beyond stupid. I had discovered my love for travel and thought I need a card with miles so I can get free airline tickets and use points for anything to do with travel, so I opened a 3rd credit card and the limit they gave me was stupid. And they had the “if you spend 3k in 3 months you get 60,000 bonus miles”, so I spent on anything and everything to hit that 3k and get those miles, and they did come in handy but I just kept spending and suddenly that card is maxed out and the monthly minimum payment is $300!!!!

I am in quite a bit of debt now and it is completely my own doing but I do think that maybe we should make people wait until they are older to get a credit card, until they are more responsible, or maybe limit the number of cards they can have until a certain time and definitely limit the amount of credit.

I also whole-heartedly think we need to teach kids budgeting and real life money management in high school. It has taken me over a decade to realize that I have a problem and need to change my thinking, but I am doing it and one day I will be out of debt.

About 2 months ago I cut up my first credit card!!!!!!!!!!!!! It will be paid off by the end of this year, big smiles!!!!!! Obviously it is that small one but every dollar counts! Cutting up that card felt wonderful and horrible all at the same time, I felt like cutting it up was wrong, like I would get in trouble for doing it. It was weird but I am so glad that I did, because as the balance goes down I cannot recharge on it and that is so important.

I am not perfect and I still have days where I want things I don’t need and days when I buy something I don’t need to or don’t have the money for. I am a work in progress but I am quite happy to say that progress is being made!!! And I am keeping an eagle’s eye watch on my credit score and the credit I have available on that card because seeing the progress helps.

I am so lucky to have a wonderful support system (MOM) who has helped me start taking these steps and start learning that I can still have things but it needs to be responsibly and in moderation.

If you have gotten yourself into the mess I have or feel like you might not have control over your spending, talk to someone. Don’t let it ruin your life.

Debtors Anonymous | Official Website

http://www.spenders.org/about.html

Check out the movie “Confessions of a Shopaholic” they overdramatize it but I can definitely relate to a few things in that movie. Plus it is adorable.

Thanks for reading my crazy long post.