A Taste of Sparkle

So lately, I’ve been having a hard time with my confidence levels. No, surprisingly, not my level of confidence about my body…my level of confidence about my intelligence. I go to a rather challenging school that has very short semesters and crams as much material as possible into them, plus it seems like I am surrounded by geniuses 24/7! It’s enough to make me feel very stupid.

This is a new feeling for me. If there is one thing I have always been confident about, it’s my intelligence. I’ve struggled with many things over the years: body image, feeling “cool” enough, etc, but my intelligence was the one thing I knew I could be proud of.

Recently, however, some tough classes and tough exams have really shaken my confidence in myself. I am finding myself going into tests thinking things like “I’m going to fail,” and “I’m so stupid.” Needless to say, these are NOT helpful thoughts! I think part of the reason I have always been able to succeed in academics is specifically because of my confidence I had in my abilities, and since this has been shaken, I find that I’m having a much harder time.

So I decided to use something I learned in treatment for my eating disorder and body image issues: affirmations.

An affirmation is “a carefully formatted statement that should be repeated to ones self and written down frequently. For an affirmation to be effective, it needs to be present tense, positive, personal and specific.” Affirmations are part of positive thinking, or “fostering a positive mental attitude.”

However, instead of making affirmations like “I am beautiful no matter what,” I made these:

This may seem silly, or even a bit conceited – but it’s really helped! Instead of going into my classes with negative thoughts like “I will never understand this,” I am thinking more positive things like “Alright, this is going to be a challenge, but it’s going to be one I can handle!” Just this change in attitude has made so much of a difference. So yes, when people walk into my room and open my closet doors, they may think I am silly – but if it’s helping me, who cares!

Affirmations about my body have never been extremely helpful for me, but I have to say that these affirmations are working! If you’re like me and think that affirmations will never be helpful to you, maybe you haven’t tried the right kind of affirmations – so keep trying!

It is 87 degrees in my non-airconditioned room today! Not nice weather for doing work! But I’ve been pushing through it and am slowly getting done what I need to. I didn’t sneak a yoga session in though – I wasn’t really in the mood for doing Bikram!

After my early lunch, I snacked on some refreshing watermelon (I ate it too fast, so no picture!) and a new flavor of ClifBar – Blueberry Crisp.

Now, let me say, it did not live up to my expectations. I was really excited to try this flavor; doesn’t “blueberry crisp” sound amazing? Well, it was all right. As in, I ate it. I did consider throwing it away though, but figured I should at least eat the things I buy. It was just sickly sweet. Way too much of something and not enough blueberry But, I guess I should expect energy bars to taste as good as homemade blueberry muffins I think I’ll stick with my PB Crunch flavor from now on, though.

After working for a while, I got hungry again – it was only 3:30, much too early to start dinner, even for me, so I had another snack: a cucumber from the Farmer’s Market…

…and some Mary’s Gone Crackers with a little bit of hummus (no, not the entire container!).

I ended up having an early dinner anyway, even with the extra snack. I wasn’t really in the mood for anything because it is just so hot, but I was getting too hungry to concentrate, so I made a quick gardenburger-hummus wrap with a side of carrots and almond butter. Later, I had some dessert: coconut milk ice cream with two pieces of Laura’s Wholesome Junkfood. I need to take pics of this next time, it’s so yummy looking!

Wish me luck sleeping tonight in this sauna of a room

Not me!!

Woke up early this morning ready to get my study on for my Physics quiz today and decided to take a break and go for a run around 9:30. My little temperature thing on my computer said it was about 65 degrees out – great! Oh wait, just kidding - it was mid-80s outside, with blinding sun! I’m sure that is dream weather for some people, but it’s just too hot for me, especially to run in. I had to stop every mile or so and walk.

Another reason why today’s run was a tad rough: I felt the dreaded twinge in my right shin. You know, the one where you start crossing your fingers and whispering “Pleasenotshinsplints” over and over to yourself. I’m going to take it easy the next couple of days, probably do my speedwork on the elliptical or treadmill, and make sure I’m not running on pavement too much. Luckily, this is a week where I don’t have an increase in my long run, so that should help too. I’m not too worried yet.

I did get my scheduled 4 miles done, albeit with lots of walk breaks in between.

After that run, I needed some comfort food! I was craving something COLD.

Bear Naked granola with a Chobani vanilla yogurt (16 g of protein!):

Yum! I love the combination of walnuts, raisins, and dried cranberries.

Afterwards, for something to cool me down after my shower, I had an Edy’s fruit bar in lime. I love these! I bought them to try out last week and they will definitely be making more appearances. I like the other two flavors better, strawberry and wild berry, but this lime bar wasn’t bad either.

Alright, on the to-do list for this afternoon:

• fold laundry
• write up genetics lab
• get caught up with readings for Classics
• yoga (good for a study break: relieves stress and stretches out my tired legs!)

I’ll be back when I’m done (or probably before ).

I picked up a couple Promax bars from the organic section of my local grocery store while on a hunt to find some new protein bars to experiment with. My main use for protein bars is as a hefty snack to tide me over during classes between my breakfast (8 am) and my lunch (2 pm).

I was hesitant to try these at first because I really didn’t want to be eating something completely artificial, in both ingredients and taste. And to be honest, that’s what I expected when I unwrapped my first “Cookies ‘N Cream” flavor Promax bar. But when I took a bite, I realized…it tasted good!

This may or may not be due to the fact that recently, Promax started making all of their bars all-natural. In addition to this, Promax is phasing out the HFCS that is constantly used to sweeten sports drinks and protein bars. Currently they have three bars that contain NO HFCS: Cookies ‘n Cream, Double Fudge Brownie, and Chocolate Peanut Crunch. However, make sure that if you’re looking to buy a HFCS-free bar, the label says “No HFCS” because Promax is still phasing their “classic” formulas out and thus you still might encounter them in stores.

The only downside to these bars are that they are not vegan. They contain milk, soy, and wheat. Obviously, I would prefer them to be vegan, but it’s also important for me to get enough protein, and these bars pack a 20 gram punch!

Because I need a snack to hold me over for so long (6 hours!), I’m really glad that the bars have higher calories and protein contents than other bars on the market. I usually have half the bar sometime during my first class (10-11) and the other half sometime during my second (11-12:30). I have found that when I have one of these bars as a snack, I do not get the intense, dizzy hunger that I would get when having, say, a mini-ClifBar for a snack, but also, I am still hungry for lunch when I get out at 2.

I would definitely recommend Promax bars as a snack:

• when you need to go a long time in between meals.
• for a post-gym/run recovery mini-meal.
• for an evening snack (they’re almost like dessert!).
• broken in half for a regular between-meals snack.
• when you don’t have enough time to eat a good breakfast.

They come in 9 flavors: Black Forest Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Peanut Crunch, Cookies n’ Cream, Double Fudge Brownie, Honey Peanut, Lemon, Nutty Butter Crisp. My favorite is the Cookies n’ Cream – I love the yogurt coating on the outside!

Overall, I give them 4/5 stars.

Good morning!

This week is exciting for me because I’m leaving on Friday for a mini-vacation! My family always goes to South Carolina for a couple weeks every summer, but since I’m in school, I can’t come for the full time, so they are flying my boyfriend and I down for the weekend

Also, I’m picking up my birthday present this week: a new laptop! I’m going to pick out my new MacBookPro as soon as I get some free time – going on vacation is great, but it also means that I have to be extra-diligent about getting all my work for this week done so that I can actually enjoy myself.

I’m bringing along my new Sigg water bottle and a Cookies ‘N’ Cream Promax bar to keep me energized through my classes today. I’ll be back this afternoon to give the lowdown on the Promax bars!

‘Til then,