Can you believe that March is upon us? I feel like 2018 has been flying by so far! I was starting to put together a fitness recap post for January & February when I realized that I have been busy kicking butt with a lot of great sweat sessions. Yea! I also realized that my hiking workouts have really picked up in recent weeks. In the summer the weather had been so hot inland that I wasn't hiking much. Then we had a lot of super dry weather, SoCal fires, & fire danger keeping parks closed, so I stayed off the trails for most of the fall. Then, I did a ton of traveling towards the end of the year that kept my workouts simple & mostly indoors.... but in January & February, my hiking workouts have been on fire! So instead of talking about all of my recent ... [Read More]
Archives for February 2018
Turning Challenges into Strengths: How I Became a Foodie Health Nut
"No one is you, and that is your power." Recently I had the pleasure of being featured in my city's main newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune, in their health section. Between my current and past jobs of being a publicist, freelancer writer, newspaper journalist, and health coach, I'm usually the one asking the questions, so it was kind of funny to be the one interviewed for a change. I brought my dog Harley along for the photo shoot at one of our favorite nearby parks, and it was neat to see the article in the newspaper. You can check out the full online version of the article here. The story touches on my workout regime, diet, and healthy living motivations, and in reading it, I started thinking more deeply about how & why I became a health nut. When the reporter asked ... [Read More]
A Day Trip from Southern Spain to Morocco
While planning my recent vacation to Spain, I found out that it was doable to do a day trip to Morocco from the southern Spanish area of Malaga. Getting a taste of Africa almost didn't happen due to my cell phone breaking the first day we were in Spain. The idea of going nearly 2 weeks without a phone wasn't appealing to me, and we wound up spending an entire day of our vacation journeying to an Apple store to get it fixed. Since we missed out on a day of adventuring and had some things already planned, we had to make a choice between a really cool hike I wanted to do, and a trip to Morocco. I really went back and forth on what to do, but I couldn't pass up the rare opportunity for us to hop over to another continent and see Tangier, Morocco. So, we had the most unconventional ... [Read More]
10 Ways to Show Some Self-Love This Valentine’s Day
This Wednesday marks the holiday of love, and for any of you out there rolling your eyes because you think it's just a Hallmark holiday, I agree with you. But I also believe that it's important to celebrate our relationships not only with our significant others, but also with ourselves. Why? Because your relationship with yourself is the backbone for every relationship in your life, and it's something that should be honored. Many of us are constantly running around taking care of our loved ones and responsibilities, but don't forget, you cannot pour from an empty cup. Showing yourself some self-love doesn't need to be some grand gesture. The idea of celebrating yourself this Valentine's Day - or any other day of the year - is simply that you take time out of your busy schedule to ... [Read More]
Brownie Batter Almond Butter Banana Bread {vegan}
Here's a fun tidbit: February is National Chocolate Lovers' Month. There are so many days and months out of the year declared food holidays - but I'm not complaining, I kind of like celebrating the randomness. The other day, I decided to start checking out the food holidays of February. Besides the entire month being declared a chocolate lovers' celebration, we also just passed National Carrot Cake Day and National Homemade Soup Day last weekend. And then there's National Fettuccine Alfredo Day on the 7th, National Drink Wine Day on the 18th, and National Chocolate Mint Day on the 19th.... and those are just the holidays that I can really get behind, I'm leaving out the ones that didn't appeal to me! Chocolate is certainly worth celebrating, don't you agree? Someone asked ... [Read More]
5 Awesome Sightseeing Experiences in Barcelona
After tapas cooking, wine tasting, and sightseeing around Malaga on my recent Spanish vacation, my hubby and I hopped on a plane to travel from southern Spain to Barcelona. After all, with it being just a cheap hour flight away, my stance was, how could we not experience Barcelona? Barcelona is a magical city full of charm, funky architecture, and inviting bakeries everywhere you turn. We ate some delicious food there - which I'm looking forward to sharing in another post soon. I really loved the city & was glad that we made it the finale of our trip. Today I want to highlight my favorite sightseeing of our time there, so here are 5 awesome things we experienced in Barcelona! 1.) Barcelona Cathedral. I had Barcelona Cathedral on my list of places to visit, but ... [Read More]