Grapefruit Oatmeal

Remember nearly three weeks ago, when I had the audacity to christen myself "Lauren the Runner?" Yeah, well, I spoke too soon.

The week that I wrote that post, I went running every other day, and I loved almost every minute of it. I felt great, motivated, and eager to move.

The next two weeks, I felt the exact opposite. What happened?

I've come to realize that there is, in fact, a direct correlation between the weather and my motivation. Back in January, I stuck to my New Year's resolution...until the temperature suddenly dove below 10 degrees and the clouds dumped a foot of snow over everything. Suddenly, my mood plummeted, and all I wanted to do was sulk around the apartment.

Around mid-February, the weather was consistently hanging around between 20-40 degrees, and the snow was almost entirely melted. Out of nowhere, I willingly hauled myself to the wellness center and ran a full two miles for the first time ever. Then I did it again two days later. The rest of the week, I consistently kept running.

Until the next week, when we had a mini-blizzard on Monday afternoon. I dragged myself to the wellness center on Tuesday night, but I've yet to go back since. During this length of time, we have experienced a drop in temperatures, fierce winds, and several snowfalls.

And don't even get me started on this week's major blizzard. Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to call it an ice storm.

Ice, ice, ice, and more ice

All of this evidence supports my belief that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have actually had a rather pleasant winter this year, due to the fact that we have had little precipitation and only one or two days when the temperature dropped below zero. Last year, during a string of nasty blizzards and a consistent negative temperature, I remember dragging my feet everywhere, feeling hopeless and desolate, and even crying at the thought of getting out of bed and physically transporting myself to class. If I didn't love school so much, it's possible that I wouldn't have gone at all.

I haven't had to deal with that this year, luckily, but I'm still seeing it impact my motivation for exercising.

So what's a girl to do when it's snowing and the wind is howling? Try a new oatmeal recipe, of course!

I first stumbled upon a recipe for grapefruit oatmeal on Pinterest (imagine that!), and I was initially skeptical. I have never used citrus in my oatmeal before, and I had a hard time imagining how those segments of bitter juice would mesh with an earthy bowl of porridge.

Well, I'm here to tell you that they mesh beautifully. Even more impressively, after I dropped the segments in and stirred, they broke into their tiny, individual pockets of juice, which resulted in every spoonful having an equal dose of grapefruit!

Although I got the idea from Pinterest, I made up the recipe on the spot. Here's what I did:

1. Begin cooking the oatmeal like you normally would. For me, this means cooking a 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats and a tablespoon of milled flax in one cup of half-water, half-almond milk at a low boil. For this particular recipe, I would also recommend coconut milk!

2. Spoon/cut out the segments from half a grapefruit and drop in the oatmeal. Stir, stir, stir!

3. When the oatmeal is closer to your desired consistency, add a pinch of ground nutmeg and a shake of cinnamon.

4. When the oatmeal is ready, serve topped with shredded coconut and another splash of almond/coconut milk. Enjoy!

If you're interested, here's another method of preparing grapefruit oatmeal, using the actual grapefruit as the bowl!

**You can check out my other oatmeal recipes here, or by clicking the oatmeal tag. You can also find dozens of other oatmeal recipes on my Pinterest board (along with tons of other meatless recipes!). Thanks!

Run, Lauren, Run!

Okay. I hate exercising. Like, I really hate it. That is, traditional exercising: running, lifting weights, etc. Not only am I clearly a descendant of the sloth, but I also just get bored. I listen to music and everything, but the whole time I'm running, all I can think is, "Ughhhh, so bored, wanna stop, I have so many other things to do right now, so bored, how much farther? Ugh...so bored...so bored.......so bored..."

Being in Ireland really got my legs going. All that walking!! After returning to Amurrica, I spent the month of August speed walking and even jogging around the nearby track. I was doing great...until school came along.

Not only does school suck up all my time, but now I have to deal with the weather. As someone who suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder (diagnosed by myself, of course), every single ounce of motivation to go outside and exercise disappears the second the thermometer drops below 35 and the wind picks up to over 10 mph. Yeah, I'm a wimp.

But I read this article today called "Diabetes a growing threat to young and slim," and it's basically about seemingly healthy girls getting Type II Diabetes because they only focus on diet and don't exercise, creating a "skinny-fat" atmosphere in your body:

"A big skinny-fat risk factor? Neglecting exercise and regulating weight through food choices alone, a behavior plenty of young women in our diet-obsessed, desk-strapped culture are prone to. Turns out, breaking a sweat is key in lowering blood sugar, because even moderate exercise causes muscles to suck up glucose at 20 times the normal rate (regular workouts are also the only way to shed visceral fat)."

Fudgecracker! That's me.


I thought about this for a while and came to the conclusion that if I'm willing to preach to people about eating whole foods, despite the extra time and effort, I should be willing to put more time and effort into my exercise.


But I won't be running. Oh no.


I love cardio. It does feel good. But I only love it if it's in the form of dancing. :) So that's what I do. And that's what I will do now.

This is going to make everyone realize how much of a loser I am, but I love pulling up Just Dance 1/2/3 videos on YouTube and dancing to them. It's incredibly fun. And it's doable, but still challenging. And it requires me to focus on something OTHER than boredom, school, or life. And it has lots of good songs. And it makes me feel talented (as long as I can't see my reflection anywhere).

Oh yeah, and it makes me sweat and stuff. Without having to go outside. Or run.

And the best part? I didn't have to go out and buy a Wii. Thanks, YouTube!

I will update you on how well my exercising is going. I will test things out for a while and then set some specific goals and expectations for how often I'm going to do it. Because I really don't want Diabetes.

P.S. Happy Veteran's Day!