This year I have started what I hope will be a new tradition – Winter Break. A few of my good friends work in Academia and I have always wanted the week between Christmas and New Years off like they have- and this year I used a week of my vacation time to have an extended holiday break. It is the best thing I have done in a long time! I had extra time to visit with family visiting from out of town, I had time to exercise, read, rest, and prepare and eat healthy food. I wanted to feel recharged by the time I went back to work and I have definitely reached that goal. It is a wonderful feeling!

The day after new years, SC and I slept in a lot longer than we normally do. It was almost 11 AM when we finally woke up! We stayed up really late the night before watching the movie The Martian. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it – we both loved it. I think we were up until 1am or maybe a little later.

Once I woke up on Saturday I scraped together my breakfast and coffee:

Starbucks Christmas Blend coffee, a piece of toast with peanut butter and a banana on the side. It was a great breakfast!

Eventually I got on the treadmill for another 45 minute workout. I watched a Ginger Runner video while running and it was really helpful! After my run I made myself stretch (I also did a few minutes of dynamic stretching after my 5 minute warm up during my workout) and foam roll. After my shower I went into the kitchen to make a recovery smoothie. This smoothie was really good and the key ingredient was Vega’s sports protein powder. I added unsweetened almond milk, a small spoonful of almond butter, 1/2 a cup of fresh blueberries and a sprinkle of ground flax seeds.

Other than running and reading I did not do a whole lot on January 2. I watched some HGTV and Food Network, and relaxed. It felt great! Over my winter break I organized the bedroom, did a lot of laundry and cleaning – it felt great to have the time to do all of these things.

Eventually I reheated the turkey chili for dinner, and added some crushed organic blue corn chips and reduced fat Trader Joe’s shredded cheese to the top of my bowl. I was slightly devastated that I was out of scallions. (On a side note – can we just discuss the fact that scallions are one of my all time favorite ingredients!? In the last few days I went through a good size bundle of scallions. Some days I can eat them with three meals a day!) This chili was a little sad without scallions!

A little after the chili I had a piece of corn bread that I had made the night before.

Saturday night we watched another movie. We each relaxed with a glass of Malbec and I made myself another healthy snack – a classing, apple and peanut butter! It did the trick and filled me up, and for that I was very thankful.

That about wraps up the second day of 2016! I have truly enjoyed this self imposed Winter Break. I am definitely going to plan on taking this time off again next year!