Saturdays

Every Saturday Tara and I strive to get off of campus atleast once because of a long week of sort of being stuck at school. Today we checked out Josephine and it was amazing! We had brunch there and ordered the most random array of food, their delicious Brussel sprouts, donut holes, squash soup, hot chocolate, and we tried a few bites of our friends sandwich.. It was all SO GOOD. I Highly recommend if you're ever in Nashville. ....

Vvv

The hot chocolate was unforgettable.  

mug cake review

I made my first mug cake today. It was pretty good considering it was significantly low in carbs and high in protein!

However it was extremely dry. But it still tasted somewhat like a bread substance and looked enough like a cake so I was able to trick my mind into thinking it was one.

I used:
1 scoop of Corfetti Cullucor Protein Powder (basically just vanilla protein powder)
1 teaspoon of baking powder
About 2 or 3 tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce
splash of water

mix together above ingredients in a mug

heat in microwave in 15 second increments and poke around until it looks fluffy like cake!!

However the finishing product was dry, and I don't have enough ingredient variations to play around with. Maybe greek yogurt would have made it more moist? or eggs whites? Im not too sure.

My solution to the problem was actually kind of odd... and I don't know if I recommend it because I didn't have any cold item in my fridge or a liquid besides Haagen Daz ice cream, water or apple sauce. I ended up fixing the dry cake by topping it with: MAPLE SYRUP! Ew, it does sound gross, I know. But it was a version low in sugar and calories, and although I wanted to use the ice-cream, I wanted this dessert to be semi low calorie.

Let me tell you, the syrup wasn't all that bad. I just had to imagine that it was a breakfast french toast dowsed in syrup and it was kind of good! But if you have some arctic zero ice cream, or some break yogurt topping with sprinkles, I bet it would be a lot more promising.
Sadly, I took pictures of my creation, but only on snapchat so I do not have them here today for you.
I highly recommend trying it though! But do not make the mistakes I did!. If you use the same ingredients as me, just pair it with a better something than syrup and it will be phenomenal!!!
I hope you try it!
-Tara

#dontstaythenight

Advice to women in college...
don't stay the night.

My high school track coach gave me very important advice my senior year. He said, "there is no reason to live with a man before marriage. If your excuse is that you want to get to know each other better, that is a lie. You know your best friend plenty well and you do not live with her."

So girls, don't make a fool of yourselves.
You are better than that. You deserve more than a night with a boy. You deserve a good nights sleep. You deserve a relaxing morning.  You deserve more than a foolish college boy who wants to simply 'have fun'. You deserve a respectful man.

tara

Campus Food

A lot of students tend to get sick around the first month or so of being in college. Guess who did not get sick? ME! How? Not eating chips, fries, and cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

To be honest, if I did not participate in sports my diet would probably be trash. I would either eat chocolate for all three meals or attend zumba classes in my free time. But who knows. I'm not going to lie, my diet has probably gone a little down hill. Dessert after dinner has become an almost everyday thing.. and that needs to stop if I don't want to be chugging around an extra 10 pounds on the track this year.

The first few weeks kind of disgusted me. Not only did I disgust myself with all of the cookies I was eating after dinner, but what disgusted me were some people's lunches. For lunch, students typically ate, and still do, eat fries, burgers, cookies, and soda for everyday meals. NO WONDER WHY YOU FEEL LIKE CRAP ALL OF THE TIME. If you are eating a burger, the least thing you can do is pair it with a salad. One of the most valuable lessons I have learned is how important it is to eat your fruits and veggies in college. 

A typical day of meals for me is pretty balanced. 

I start my day of with one of these many breakfast variations (each include a glass of water):

-3 hard boiled egg whites, 2 pieces of brown rice GF toast with fig jam, strawberries and a banana'

-Kashi cereal, a banana with almond butter, strawberries and coffee

-oatmeal with fruit, banana, almond butter, and coffee

-egg white omelette made with spinach, peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms. and banana with almond butter and or GF toast.

A very few important breakfast tips are: 

-It is important before you eat breakfast to have at least 2 cups of water. This is something I need to improve on, but it will help you from choosing an omlette over a stack of cinnamon roll pancakes. 

-Another important thing to remember is that omelettes, when served with salsa contain a lot of salt. -Unless you want to feel bloated through out the day, the salt in the salsa will carry the water you just drank and not make you feel too good!

-Also, almond butter is good for you. Despite it's "healthy fat" calories, almond butter will keep you full because of the fiber and protein content. 

-One last tip is that all smoothies are not good for you. Some smoothies made in dining hall have sugary bases such as sorbet ice cream. Naked juices as well. Make sure you look at the fine print.

I hope you enjoyed this post or found it useful.

Thank you,

Tara :)

Trend Differences: West Coast VS The South

The first time on campus that I saw someone in knee high socks and TUKs I freaked out. I spoke to my sister(Emma) in a Steve Irwin voice as if we had just seen a rare creature. Sadly, this was something I missed. I realized that the style here in Nashville is entirely on a different page. 

Close your eyes and imagine a room full of girls that are 1: obsessed with baseball and greek life, 2: own more than three vineyard vines items. Yes this incudes phone stickers, lanyards, and mens logo tees (No actual Vineyard Vines women's golf wear), and 3: they sport either Sperry Topsiders and/or Jack Rogers (don't ask what Jack Rogers are because PROMISE me, they are not worth your time.) 

Now open your eyes. I hope you are happy now, because you just encountered a fashion nightmare. Now don't hear me wrong, I have worn some pretty bad outfits from time to time. As an athlete, owning over 7 pairs of black sweats, and over 15 pairs of Nikes, of course my style has deflated a little bit when I get pretty busy. However, I make it up when I have time and I am not busy with sports. When I go out to dinner, I look nice. I own some very quality staple pieces and my eyebrow game kills most. 

If you can't do your make up right, at least have a good personal style. That is all that I ask. Anyways, back to the beginning of my story. The girl in 'grunge' was refreshing. She was wearing something that meant more than a whale logo or social class. It was like a breath of fresh air.

Regarding brands... some brands are still very much in style here. COACH. COACH IS IN. And so is Lilly Pulitzer (prettttty tacky colors and overpriced). Sadly, Jeffery Campbell and Brandy Melville haven't even hit. To many southern Californians, Brandy Melville has been in style for a while now.. and its descending pretty hard. Well what I mean is that it became uncool when you saw a 7 year old buying the same shirt at the same time you were at Fashion Island. Because Brandy hasn't made a dent in style in the south quite yet, my sister thought it would be cool to purchase a choker from Brandy Melville and wear it after fall break back at school. 

People looked at here as if she was an ALIEN! Friends joked around that it was a 'hooker necklace', while others recalled wearing them as a kid and thought she was joking or something. HELLO GUYS this is almost a trend ready to be passed to the 7 year old on the west coast. I really really do not understand the logic of style here. And I am pretty sure I won't be hopping on any Nashville trends anytime soon.

I hope you enjoyed my (kind of negative) (actually very negative) (I'm sorry) rant.

Thank you,

Tara 

:)

Adapting to the South

Leaving the West Coast, California in particular, and moving elsewhere can be hard. Especially if its a relatively small city, smacked in the middle of the United States. No beach, no acai bowls, no palm trees: how do we survive? I seriously have no idea. 

However, life is not made to be something to constantly dwell about. Myself (Tara), and my twin sister (Emma) have arrived to FSU. Yes, you read that right. Maybe your thinking it means Florida State University, and if you are, take a short time-travel back 5 years or to eighth grade urban dictionary and you might get the hint. 

As athletes at a top University in the country, finding time to have fun can be pretty difficult. Our lives very well could consist of simply running, sleeping, moping around, and eating. Sadly, my life does consist of all of those at a very high level. But I like to make things difficult and throw in about 903205 other complicated activities.

My sister Emma and I want to feel the Los Angeles vibes here in Nashville. We want to have a laid back, yet active lifestyle and venture out into the fashion, music, health, and food out in the middle of the country. 

Please enjoy this blog and what it has in store. We promise to give great, honest advice, update with reviews on restraints, provide fun activities, and share trends. 

Thank you so much.
Enjoy!
xox
Tara