The coconut oil also needs some coercing to go from a solid to a liquid.

4. Mix all of your wet ingredients together until well combined.

5. Add your dry ingredients and beat until just combined. The less you stir, the more tender your muffins will be.
6. Gently fold your blueberries into the batter.

Recipe adapted from PaleOMG.

I recently started CrossFit again since coming back from school, and the transition has been brutal. I’m no stranger to sore muscles after nine years of competitive basketball, swimming, and all of the other activities I’ve fallen in love with. But over the years I have accumulated quite a few tricks to prevent sore muscles or help ease them if it’s too late.

How to ease sore muscles naturally

1. Hydrate! Be sure to stay hydrated before, throughout your workout, afterwards. When I really pound back water after a workout I feel a noticeable difference in soreness than when I don’t. Coconut water is another great way to rehydrate. Throughout the day try to drink half an ounce of water per pound of bodyweight (meaning if you are 200 lbs you should drink 100 ounces). For more intense workouts, some trainers recommend drinking 3/4 ounces for every pound.

2. Warm up. Before you start working out, be sure to warm up your body gently. After you workout, keep your body warm to prevent muscles from tensing. A heating pad (you can make you own by pouring rice inside of a sock and heating it in the microwave) can also help to relieve tight muscles.

3. Stretch. Be sure to gently stretch your muscles. There are a lot of great poses or movements for specific muscles online. Just search the muscle group or area you want to stretch and carefully try a few out.

4. Magnesium. Found in many sports drinks, coconut water, and other foods, magnesium helps to release muscle tension. Calcium and magnesium work together to help your muscles move. Calcium makes the muscles contract, and magnesium makes them release. When I am really sore or my muscles feel incredibly tense I take a supplement. Just be careful, magnesium is one of the main ingredients in laxatives and it is easy to overdo it or throw off your bodies balance. Start with the smallest dose possible before finding your optimal level.

5. Rub it out. Self- massage can be a great way to release muscle soreness and tension.

6. Roll it out. My foam roller is my best friend. I foam roll before and after workouts as well as before bed. Foam rolling is essentially like massage in that it presses on the muscles and helps to release knots and tension. I also roll my calves on a 3 inch diameter PVC pipe. My trainer recommended this while I was battling shin splints, and it makes a huge difference.

7. Rest. Listen to your body. When you are sore your body is telling you it’s time to take a break and let it rebuild.

Coconuts are the newest health food craze and miracle problem solver. They are everywhere from the personal care aisle to cooking. As much as I hate to admit that I am going along with what is most likely a trend, I’m in love with coconut water for a post workout pick me up and coconut oil for just about everything.

When I found this list of 52 uses for coconut oil I couldn’t stop myself from sharing some of my favorites.

1. Hair and scalp treatment: on weeks when I have multiple workouts  or I have to straighten it, my hair gets incredibly rough and my scalp itches like crazy! I heat up a tablespoon of the oil and rub it on my scalp as if it was shampoo and through my hair. Let it sit for at least 20 minutes before you wash as normal. My hair stays soft for days and my scalp is significantly less oily than normal and not itchy.

2. Hair styling: just a little bit tames fly aways and makes my hair look shiny and smooth

3. Incredible for cooking and baking

4. Shaving cream: the warm oil makes shaving less painful and my legs are wonderfully moisturized afterwards.

5. As a “lotion”

6. Make doors stop squeaking

7. Dry skin moisture balm

To see the rest, check out Delicious Obsessions

I am ticking off the day’s until my summer break officially starts, but for everyone else who is already heading out to celebrate here is a quick guide to protecting yourself from the sun.

How to protect yourself without slathering up:

What to watch out for:

9 surprising truths

1. There’s no consensus on whether sunscreens prevent skin cancer.

2. There’s some evidence that sunscreen might increase the risk of the deadliest form of skin cancer in some people.

3. There are more high SPF products than ever before, but no proof that they’re better.

4. Too little sun might be harmful, reducing the body’s vitamin D levels.

5. The common sunscreen ingredient vitamin A may speed the development of cancer.

6. Free radicals and other skin-damaging byproducts of sunscreen.

7. Pick your sunscreen: nanomaterials or potential hormone disruptors.

8. Europe has better sunscreens (and more options)

9. The 34th summer in a row without final U.S. sunscreen safety regulations.

All red meat is bad for you, no matter what the serving size, according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times. A study that followed more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years has found significant correlation between eating red meat and the chance of dying. Even just adding a 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat (no bigger than a deck of cards) daily was enough to increase the chance of dying by 13 percent during the course of the study.


According to the article, “All red meat is bad for your, new study says:”

“Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.

“Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk,” said An Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study, published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.” 

So what are your options? Obviously not eating red meat would be best:

“Eating a serving of nuts instead of beef or pork was associated with a 19% lower risk of dying during the study. The team said choosing poultry or whole grains as a substitute was linked with a 14% reduction in mortality risk; low-fat dairy or legumes, 10%; and fish, 7%.”

What is it about red meat that makes it so bad for your health? Researchers have hypothesized that the nitrates and nitrites used to preserve them, the chemicals created by high-temptertaure cooking, and the iron and saturated fat in the meat may be to blame. 


If you really are absolutely unwilling to cut red meat out of your diet at all costs, the researchers recommend limiting yourself to one or two servings of red meat per week and to eliminate all bacon or other processed meats (such as hot dogs). 

With finals beating down my door I am drowning in what feels like endless stress. One of the worst parts about finals is how long they drag on for. For some classes I will end up studying or writing a paper over a week or more. 


To deal with some extra stress I have been cleaning. It’s amazing how much better I will feel after cleaning the kitchen floor or unloading the dishwasher real fast. I can study for hours and then see progress after only a few minutes of scrubbing. To finish something and actually see progress makes the biggest difference.


What do you like to do to relieve some stress?

With my recent project on veganism (a magazine piece that I will link to or post when it’s published), a lot of people have been asking me if I am vegan. So here it is, my complicated explanation. 


I have been vegetarian for six years. My original reason for going vegetarian was because meat really freaks me out. I don’t see the difference between eating an animal and chewing on human flesh. I am also lactose intolerant, so I rarely, if ever, eat dairy. So why am I not vegan? Well, to a certain degree I am. I eat vegan for many meals, but if something was made with a slight bit of whey, milk, or other animal products, I will still eat it. I will also eat desserts or other items made with eggs.


I have recently been exploring vegan alternatives to many of these items, and although I have mostly cut out butter from my daily meals, as of right now I don’t see myself going completely vegan (although I do not use products tested on animals or buy things made out of animal products when I can avoid it). It is too frustrating to not be able to eat something because it has a small amount of an animal product in it, or make people feel horrible when you are a guest in their house and you can’t eat anything they made. It is already such a struggle for friends and family to be able to meet my dietary needs, and to add one more thing in would cause a lot of problems.


To all of the vegans out there, I completely admire you, and perhaps one day I will go completely vegan, but for now I am happy the way things are. I will continue to eat as little animal products as possible without sweating the small stuff.