Sunday Recharge

Hello all!

After a crazy weekend of foam parties, philanthropies, and birthdays, Mary, Ana, and I decided that a relaxed night of cooking for ourselves was just what we needed!

I headed over to Mary and Ana's sorority house and since they had a ton of veggie burgers in their fridge, we decided to build our dinner around that. We took to the local Harris Teeter to pick up some spinach, sprouts, and beautiful red and yellow tomatoes. Once we got back, all it took was a little grilling of the veggie burgers, cutting up the tomatoes and finally, putting it all over the spinach. To add some more flavor we seasoned it with salt and pepper and added some olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette dressing. 

Needless to say, we finished every bite...

This delicious meal plus a Sex and the City episode was all I needed to re-focus for the week! I took it pretty easy on the running last week but this week I plan to start training again, this time for the Richmond Half Marathon!! I am going to try to set out my training schedule tomorrow so stayed tuned for that! Also Mary and I are going to be making one of our favorite blogger's famous Green Monster smoothie this week and of course I will be posting all about my first half marathon!

Here's to Monday being over!

-Shelby

Meet Mary!

Get ready for another GUEST POST! Have a great weekend everyone!

-Alexis and Shelby

Hello Health Nuts! I’m so excited to be a guest blogger and share with you all about my experience so far as a vegetarian. I'm an avid runner, much like Alexis and Shelby. As you can see being active is definitely a huge part of our friendship!

Although I’d like to say my choice to eat Vegetarian was something that I had given plenty of thought and pondered for weeks on end, the truth is that after watching just one video narrated by Paul McCartney about the horrors of animal slaughterhouses (meat.org) and doing a little of bit of online researching of the lifelong health benefits, I decided I wanted to simply give vegetarianism a “test run”. As days of this “test run” turned into weeks and weeks into month, I can now proudly say that I have been a faithful Vegetarian for six months and am still going strong! (If you had told me this a year ago I would not have believed you).

I currently live with Alexis in our sorority house—a very vegetarian-friendly place. Our sorority’s new chef, Brian, provides a vegetarian option for every brunch, lunch, and dinner he prepares making it easier than ever for me! In addition, our kitchen is stocked with veggie burgers and other high protein, meatless foods like oatmeal, soymilk, and peanut butter.

Of the past six months, I have found these first few weeks of the fall semester to be the easiest for me due to the large number of healthy vegetarian options at my fingertips. In comparison with this past summer, when I worked as a camp counselor in New Hampshire, it is quite a relief to now be living in a place with so many great alternatives to meat. At camp I would find myself having a soy peanut butter sandwich for lunch multiple days in a row, not fun!

However, Brian is not around all the time and our sorority house is obviously not the only vegetarian-friendly place in Charlottesville. My new favorite veggie option when dining out is Rise Pizza. This quick-serve, locally owned restaurant in the Barracks Road Shopping Center of Charlottesville has everything from gluten-free pizza crust to the most well priced gourmet veggie pizzas and spinach salads that I have found at UVA! I have been to Rise four times already this semester, including one trip for dinner after the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon. The simple thought of Rise Pizza waiting for us made the traffic-filled trip go much faster! Not only is the food fantastic but Rise employees are super nice as well: When we thought Alexis had lost her ring in the Rise trash, the manager delved his bare hands into the bag where she had thrown her food away on a determined search to find it. A very accommodating bunch I’d say! Check out the menu for yourself: http://www.risepizzaworks.com/index.html

That's all for now. I hope to be doing lots more posts in the future here as I learn more about how my newfound vegetarianism has affected my health! Have a great weekend!

-Mary