Yes, it’s true – you read correctly. I made a muffin in under 5 minutes. With chocolate. For less than 300 calories. I’m not kidding. The recipe is at the end of this post. 🙂 But you gotta suffer through the rest of the post before you read it (or just scroll to the bottom, but I’m just going to assume you’re not smart enough to know that). 

After breakfast, I set up some guest posts for next week. Since I’ll be up at UniCamp from July 8th-July 15th, I won’t have access to the Internet or Twitter or Facebook or anything social media related! =) But don’t fear – there’s some awesome posts coming your way from some pretty amazing bloggers!

Then, Sister and I needed to head over to the tennis store because she broke her strings last night at the courts. We decided to play tennis on a whim….it’s been so long since I’ve played, but I really miss it. I keep saying I’ll start playing again, but I never do. Maybe I should join some sort of a team or find some people online to play with when I get up north.

The plan was to go to the gym after, but we were starving (because Sister’s dumb and ate breakfast at 2:30AM and I’m just always hungry). So we went to get a sammy at Submarina in Costa Mesa. Now that’s the kind of sandwich I like. (Remember? I like my vegetables falling out on all sides?!) 

We ran some more errands and then made it to the gym. Today was a really good workout for me mentally. Reason being is this. In 2009, I kicked ass. I was good at running, at stadium stairs, at everything (okay, maybe not everything. But the 2012 Divya is looking back at the 2009 Divya in awe and thinks she’s pretty effing cool). I was also really competitive back then. When someone challenged me to do something, I did it. When somebody told me I couldn’t do something, I did it. Because I knew I could. I think somewhere between then and now, that confidence has left me. Partially because I am not in the physical state I was back then, but also because I lost that mentality. When I run stairs now, I’m tired. And I have to stop. And it makes me scared that I’m not as good as I used to be. So my natural tendency is to avoid those things because I don’t want to be reminded of a time when I was able to do all this – at a faster speed with much more ease.

But today’s Stair Interval workout really allowed me to clear my mind and think about myself – both mentally and physically. I’m still an athlete. I still get so much joy from pushing myself to the point of exhaustion and sweat and breathlessness. But it will take me time to get where I used to be. And in the mean time, I need to remind myself that stopping mid-workout does not mean that it was a bad workout. It becomes a bad workout when I feel ashamed and stop working out altogether. So today, despite having to stop 3 times, I just kept going. Yes, I stopped but that’s OKAY. And I finished the workout drenched and happy knowing that I’m one step closer to my goal than yesterday.

Okay, as promised, here is the recipe for your Under-300-Calories, Made-In-A-Mug, Delicious-In-Every-Way-Possible, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins! =) 

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup oats
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk (I used almond milk)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Handful of chocolate chips
• 1 coffee mug (no, not for you to eat)

Directions: 

Mix all of the ingredients together in a coffee mug. Heat in the microwave for 2 minutes. Top with additional toppings if desired (I added a little bit of lite maple syrup). Enjoy! 🙂