Donde esta mi mojo?

In January, I decided to give vegetarianism a whirl. I'm not huge on meat to begin with, and my family would always jokingly tell me that I should just become a vegetarian due to how picky I am. I'm sure my mom was regretting always telling me to do so when I went to Florida for spring break and we had to get creative with meal options. More on that later, though.

Because I hail from the land of Wegmans (aka the greatest grocery store on the planet), plus my overall apprehensions towards meat (for years, I wouldn't even touch packaged meat at the grocery store, so you can pretty much forget about touching raw meat with my bare hands), eating all natural and vegetarian wasn't difficult. At all. In fact, coupled with at least one Jillian Michaels DVDs a day with my roommates, I felt pretty good. I think one of the biggest things meat lovers ask is what the hell do you eat if you're a vegetarian? For starters, I like fish, so I kept that in my diet. Tuna, shrimp and white fish were staples, along with Quorn tenders (great in a stir fry), chik'n patties (I used to get the Morningstar patties until I realized that they have a shitload of chemicals and although some grocery stores, like Publix, like to pass them off as organic... they're not), and grounds/crumbles (for tacos or chili). I was weary of a few of these products, but they all have the same consistency (more or less) of the real deal and generally take on whatever flavors you cook them with.

Although I know for myself personally, I really have to focus on what I'm doing in order to achieve results. This usually means breaking out the measuring cups and keeping a food journal (you can do this on paper, or use a site like myfitnesspal). However, there were times that I got a craving for sub or the best chicken fingers in the world (trust me on this one), so I ate them. As Gina of The Fitnessista put it, as long as you're eating healthy the majority of the time, a craving for chicken fingers or a small piece of dessert should be a mere blip on the radar. It's NOT going to kill you, nor will it negate the hard work you've put in.

After spring break at home (my mom is the type of person who says she needs to stop eating crap, but then will bring home ice cream or Tostitos, which are her ultimate weakness), the end of the semester started to creep up, and all hell broke loose. My roommate and I started to get lazy and thus, the fast food boom began. Being a busy/lazy/broke/enter-your-own-adjective-here college student isn't really an excuse for eating crap, but whatever. Let's face it. The last thing I wanted to do after studying for a final for hours in the library was come home and make an elaborate meal. I've never been a cook, so sometimes the idea of making a meal is daunting.

I don't want to get ahead of myself here and start thinking of what I'm going to do when I go back to New York (because damn it, I have 5 more weeks here, and if I hear one more person say that summer is ending, I'm going to lose it), but I am going to go back to the whole vegetarian thing. I'm going to stick with the 17 day diet because I like the philosophy behind it, I'm just going to do it meatless. I would also like to prepare more of my meals. Let's face it, I won't be making any top chef worthy meals because I'd probably burn the house down (minor details). But I feel like I should start with the basics and see where that leads me.

I've kind of lost my running mojo because it's so damn hot here. Although, I really shouldn't complain because according to my computer, it's 101 at home and "only" 93 here. You know it's sad when Florida is one of the cooler states in the country. Anyways, I should probably get back into the swing of things, but eh. I go to Zumba three times a week and tomorrow I'm going to try an intervals class with step and weights. Plus, we've been going to the pool a lot and taking walks with the dogs, so I'm hardly sitting on my ass and doing nothing. However, the longer I go without running, the harder it's going to be to finish the program and achieve the goal of running a 5k. I'll get there eventually. I could go to the gym and do it on the treadmill, but it won't be as good of a workout as running outside, which is the purpose of the program.

I've also lost my blogging mojo and I'm getting bored of typing. Maybe I'll hit the pool.