Let's talk about eating habits shall we

I like food. In fact I spend most of my day thinking about eating food. In high school I would wake up and the first thing I would ask my mom was "what are we having for dinner?" Way before I had a chance to even eat breakfast. My parents always made a point of telling me the value of food, and how I was lucky that I could eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that I had to watch what I ate. Unless I wanted to have terrible eating habits for the rest of my life. I am like an avid fan of The Biggest Loser (everyone should go watch it that show is freaking amazing) and my dad always made a point to teach me how to eat healthy, but also how to enjoy the food that I was putting into my body. People really don't realize how bad processed foods are for them which is why we have such and obesity problem in our country. The people in our country are literally eating themselves to death and its truly disheartening. Now I don't claim to be a nutritionist but I do take pride in the fact that I know exactly what I am putting into my body and I know whether its bad for me or not. For this reason alone I completely cut out sodas from my life and I don't think I have had a soda since 2010.

One of the things that everyone talks about when you get to college is the "freshmen 15," and how if you don't watch it you will bloat like a balloon and nobody will be able to recognize you because all of a sudden you have cankles. This again is just a ploy to scare freshmen into believing that they will have cankles, but what they don't know is that you will also have a double chin... No, haha I am totally kidding! But it really is a skam, now I am pretty sure that there are people out there who eat to there hearts content (those people have and obesity problem and they should never be made fun of because it is a serious disease) but most of us weren't born that way.

I can honestly say that once I got to college I didn't gain weight. Now before I get grief for that statement first you have to understand that I have a high metabolism. Second I didn't move out of my house for college so I still have a fairly controlled diet even though I buy and make most of my meals (and by meals I mean lunch). So I didn't really have the opportunity to gain loads of weight (even though the cafeteria at my school makes the BEST FRENCH FRIES) I maintained my diet and I got to eat all of the foods that I loved. As a college student anything that has "free" in the name is automatically your best friend especially if its free food (its because we are all poor). So its really easy to fall under the I'm going to get the cheapest, fastest, and freest food I can get. I will be the first to admit that I have done this which is why by the end of my freshmen year I got so sick of eating pizza that the thought of eating it makes me want to gag a little. It got to the point that I was practically eating pizza everyday. Don't get me wrong pizza is delicious and its cheap which is why when you go to any sort of college function there is pizza. I took a long hard look at what I was eating and decided to make a change and to eat better foods that are better for my body.

Now I'm not saying that you have to eat exactly what I eat. My only suggestion is instead of eating a burger for the fourth time in a week eat something healthier like fish. Or if you aren't much of a fish person try some pasta instead of pizza. You don't have to make sacrifices on what you eat, the trick is to find healthier ways to make them. This allows for every once and awhile for you to eat something not so healthy, which is totally fine. Just keep in mind that you have only one body to live in and its going to have to last you many years so take care of it now and you will thank yourself later.

Just for point of reference I am going to post some pictures of the foods that I like to eat (if you would life the recipe to anything let me know). Alright so picture number 1 are waffles of course except they are gluten free! Now if you are in a dorm room you probably don't have a kitchen to make waffles (unless you do) my trick is that I used the same exact normal waffle recipe but I use either rice flour or any non gluten flour that I can find. With gluten free waffles however the density of other flours is different so you sometimes need to add more then you would with regular flour. The second picture is of course "pan con tomate y jamon" and for any of you who are friends with me you know that its french bread with rubbed tomato some olive oil and salt. You can also add cheese and of course ham this can be serrano ham or just the regular store bought kind. Picture number three is traditional tomato soup and a grilled cheese (thats pretty self explanatory right?). The last two are some of my favorite drinks the first one is freshly squeezed orange juice that I get from Whole Foods but anyone can make it really just get some fresh oranges and squeeze them. Finally the last one is french press coffee, for those of you who don't know what this is I'll explain. French Press is a container that presses the coffee now everyone is thinking "duh victoria"the difference is that you self heat the water so that its almost boiling, allowing for the coffee grounds to absorb all of the hot water making coffee ten times yummier. The nice part is that it requires to mechanical heating devices which means that you can easily make it in your dorm room (that is as long as you have a microwave). Now I must be off (I actually need to go eat, ironic right...)

Sincerely the crazy spaniard,
Victoria

Don't let the Stairs get you down

If you have ever met me you probably know that I am the biggest clutz who ever walked on the face of this earth. That being said I take pride in my clutzsness because It gives me an excuse to use sarcasm whenever I "purposely fall to the ground." With all that in mind let me take you back a year, and explain to you what happened to me, and why for once in my life I hated being clutzy. I never really knew how much I valued school and education until I graduated from high school (which by the way was in 2013) and began my freshmen year of college at PVCC, that is short for Piedmont Virginia Community College. I spent the entire year focusing on getting the best grades possible so I could achieve the highest goal, getting into UVa. Then for some crazy reason that I have yet to understand I signed up for summer classes, attempting to study the days away while watching the world cup (don't judge me the world cup is awesome). Everything was panning out just how it was supposed to, I had finished freshmen year on a high note and I was well on my way to getting good grades until one frightful night when I fell on the stairs and my worst nightmare came to life. On the night of July 29, 2014 I tripped and broke my arm, humerus to be more exact. I will not bore you with the story of how I broke it (mostly because its not that interesting) I will however tell you how I handled it.

Ask anyone I am pretty tolerant to pain. What people don't realize however is the mental pain a broken bone can have lasting effects on the mind and body.  So there I was lying on the ground with a fresh broken arm, my family running around the house trying to figure out how exactly to get me to the hospital, and all that was going through my mind was HOW IN THE FREAKING WORLD AM I GOING TO BE ABLE TO TAKE MY EXAM. Now a normal person would probably be jumping for joy at the fact that yes! I broke my arm, now I get a free pass and, no longer have to take the exam. However if you have ever met me you will know that I was not happy or nearly content with my current predicament. My plans were ruined I could no longer take my exams. But worst of all I could not longer go to Va beach to shadow the speech pathologist, something I had been planning for months.

All of my plans had been crushed quite literally, my arm had practically snapped in half just like my plans for the future. I began to think all sorts of negative thoughts about how I would never get into UVa and how I would be a failure. This of course was quite strange for me because I usually the girl who goes around telling people to live each day as if it where your last. It got so bad that my family didn't even know what to do with me anymore. It wasn't until my English professor sent an email saying that she would help me in any way she could did my new viewpoint on life begin to turn around for the better. I decided that I was not going to be defeated by one silly broken arm I was going to crush the test and I would do everything possible to start Sophmore year of college on a high note. In fact I did just that I finished summer classes with A's and B's
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Everything good and happy had been restored in the world and I was back on track to getting into UVa. Now I will admit that having a broken arm in college isn't easy, but if you have the right attitude you can conquer anything as long as you set your mind to it. Moral of the story is it dosen't matter whether you fell on the stairs and broke your arm, or if you are struggling with something internally, never let it defeat you because I promise you it will consume you until you don't even recognize yourself. On that note I will exit with one of my favorite quotes by Mr. Winston Churchill himself. "If you are going through hell, keep going."

Sincerely the crazy spaniard,
Victoria
P.S for those of you wondering what my broken arm looks like, look at the picture below
I am on the very left wearing a sling and this nice little contraption called a sarmiento brace (way better then a cast I will tell you that right now) and I am alongside my friend emma (in the middle) and Emily (far right).

Hello Everyone, I'm back!

Hello bloggesfere is that even a word? I don't know, anyways I have recently decided to restart my blog. I know what everyone is thinking, she starts a blog then two weeks into it she gives up well this time I am not. Only recently have I discovered that college as hard as it can be is actually really enjoyable. So here I will give tips on how to survive college, life and anything else that comes to my borderline ADD mind. If you guys have any suggestions or if you would like me to talk about anything specific just give me a shoutout. Good thing we aren't actually speaking in person because I more then likely would not hear you (yes I just made a reference to my half deafness) it's a problem I realize. Anyways I am back and I'm genuinely excited to share my life experiences with everyone. So stay tuned there are more blogs to come......

Sincerely the crazy spaniard,
Victoria