Volume 1, Issue 5
The Best Personality Quiz Ever
I have not been able to stop making people I know take this personality test.
It’s a “Which Character Are You” personality test that matches you with the fictional character you are most similar to out of basically every relevant fictional character ever written into existence (1,410 options total, to be exact).
I am a sucker for any type of personality profile: zodiac signs, the enneagram test, all of them. The “Which Character Are You” test delighted me because, compared to a Buzzfeed-style quiz, it took itself seriously enough to spit out somewhat meaningful results. Somebody put work into building this, which makes it amazing for personality test lovers like myself.
Please check this test out and leave a comment telling me who you get! Nothing would make me happier.
My highest match was an 85% match with...Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls!
I was also 83% Jane Villanueva from Jane the Virgin, 82% Cho Chang from Harry Potter, 81% Georgiana Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and 81% Charlotte York from Sex and the City.
And all this time I thought I was a Carrie-Miranda blend.
Jake’s number one match was Jim Halpert from the Office at 87%! Though Jake thinks he’s more Dwight than Jim. He is also 86% Mark Watney from The Martian and 86% Donna Pinciotti from That 70’s Show (haha).
If you have never taken this test before, please do so and comment your results for me!
TJ's Fajita Steak Salad
Let’s talk about ~salad~.
If you’re like me and strive to maximize your veggie intake, having a variety of actually yummy salad recipes is key. Salad is one of those dishes that has range. It can be so bland and unsatisfying that I am hunting for chips in my pantry afterward (plain lettuce with some oil and vinegar thrown on it), or it can so thoroughly hit the spot that I finish my meal thinking I could eat that every day for the rest of my life and be happy (Sweetgreen’s Guacamole Greens). Understanding this difference and learning to love salad is CRITICAL to building eating habits centered around leafy greens. I’m a person who loves salad, but I will usually always pass up that classic garden-salad starter that comes with your meal at restaurants. I know how good salads can be, so I don’t even bother making myself miserable eating something that seems like a chore. Why ruin your relationship with vegetables?
It is so, so important to eat your greens that getting those actually good salad recipes under my thumb has been one of the best investments I’ve made in my health. Generally, the more time and care I put into a salad, the bigger the payoff.
This Trader Joe’s Steak salad is a happy medium because it is low-work, high reward, thanks to Trader Joe’s doing most of the work for me. It’s based off of TJ’s delicious and amazing pre-seasoned Carne Asada (have you had it?), which I used to use only for fajitas, until I got the bright idea to put it over lettuce. This salad has all of the fajita flavors, minus the junky white flour tortilla and plus an abundance of hydrating, bacteria-balancing, fibrous, nutritional greens. It is also boyfriend approved :)
TJ’s Fajita Steak Salad
Salad
1 package Trader Joe’s Carne Asada Autentica
1 small onion, sliced
Cherry tomatoes
Your favorite TJ’s lettuce mix (I do half Butter Lettuce and Radicchio and half Power to the Greens)
Dressing
Juice of 1 lime
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper
1. Cook your Carne Asada: Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan on high heat before adding your Carne Asada pieces. Place the pieces so that as much of their surface area as possible is searing against the hot pan. Cook until the first side is seared and brown (about 5 minutes) and flip and cook on the other side (about 6 minutes). Switch to medium-high heat as needed, but the pan should be kept very hot. You usually cook food “high and fast” — very quickly over high heat — or “low and slow” — slowly over low heat. This is definitely a high and fast recipe. I like my steak well done in this salad, so I cook mine until no more pink is visible on the outside of the pieces, and then for an additional 1-2 minutes.
2. Place your Carne Asada on a plate and cover with tin foil. THIS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT STEP. I don’t know why. But if you let the steak rest for ten minutes in tin foil it turns out especially amazing. This also helps cook it a little bit more, so don’t stress if you’re not sure if your steak is done enough.
3. Saute onion slices in the same pan you cooked your Carne Asada in, so that they soak up the leftover seasonings. Cook to desired doneness.
4. While onion is cooking, slice your cherry tomatoes and mix all ingredients for your dressing.
5. Add greens, cherry tomatoes, and onion to your salad bowl. Mix in your dressing.
6. Uncover your Carne Asada and slice into bite-size strips. Top salad with your steak.
7. Ta-da! Enjoy! Make this recipe your own and add anything you’d like in a Tex-Mex-style salad — avocado, crushed tortilla chips, whatever. Throw a sliced pepper in with your onion. Just eat your greens, okay?
What it Really Takes to Maintain a Consistent Exercise Routine, IMO
I was not a sporty person growing up. Which means that physical fitness was not something I ever felt accustomed to doing or even very skilled at. I do not have a history of any sort of team practices or cross-country running or varsity competitions (these are sport things, right?) to set me up with a natural appreciation and desire for exercise within my life. And yet, as an adult, I am someone who loves and craves exercise. I tend not to struggle with keeping my commitment to working out. My exercise habit is so well-integrated that I can only picture some pretty drastic circumstances for me to go even a week without it.
I’ve been reflecting a little on how this came to be. I can so clearly remember a time — senior year of high school, maybe? — when I would start exercise programs and then fall off of them after only a few days. I can also very viscerally remember that *feeling* of finding it unnatural, thinking that me and working out went together like oil and water. Like I was not really a fit person. Today, I so thoroughly feel like a fit person and I know I am an exerciser for life.
Here are the key factors that have truly made a difference in my evolution into a consistent exerciser:
(1) All of those times I made workout goals and then failed to meet them actually did something. Remember the Kayla Itsines 12-Week Bikini Body Guide? Twice, I started this program and got to week 7 or 8 before dropping off. The third time I did it, I actually finished it. At a surface level, this might look like two losses and one success, but what it actually added up to was twenty-eight weeks of consistent and challenging exercise — that’s a ton of exercise! All of those workouts, no matter if they belonged to the time I successfully finished the program or not, built up my experience and made me feel like a person who exercises. And this is just one snapshot: I have been starting and then abandoning exercise programs for years!! Somewhere along the way, I learned to love it. I genuinely am in the exercise groove I am today because of all of these attempts. Exercising as a lifestyle habit is about time, not perfection. It takes years to build. I see this as good news — if you are tenacious and patient, and you just keep making attempts, you will actually get somewhere someday.
(2) I have let some truly inspirational close friends of mine change my habits and lead the way. When I was a freshman in college, I really looked up to my friend Molly, who was a year older than me and also my boss at a student job. She was an insane exerciser: she would show up outside the gym at 6 am before it even opened to work out, even when it was freezing in the winter! As a college student! Molly demonstrated a path for me that was very unique in our college-age environment — she was disciplined and responsible, valued what she valued regardless of what everyone else was doing, and let her workouts fuel her self-esteem and build her personal pride in herself. I completely let Molly inspire me and started working out harder because of her. My other impactful workout friend is my friend Kathryn, who is a yoga instructor and encouraged me to take classes at the yoga studio where she taught. The hot yoga at that studio is hard, but Kathryn is a yoga badass and made it look easy. I channeled her own dedication into my practice, and that yoga studio ended up becoming a place of refuge and escape for me (I also used to clean it for free classes, which was an interesting experience). So for me, letting my close female friends inspire me and change my habits has been a huge factor.
(3) The body image thing. Working out to achieve a certain look and body type has certainly been my motivation in the past. I think it’s okay if you start there. As the process of enjoying exercising naturally unfolds, it becomes a lovely side effect of a lifestyle. Truthfully, truthfully, the number one reason I put on my workout clothes in the morning is because I know I like the way it feels to move my body, and it sets me up for a better day. Personally, I think the habit sticks better when you find a better intention, and there are so many to choose from: completing the stress cycle, decreasing risk of disease, better mental health, feeling a runner’s high. Whatever it is, you just need to put a little soul into your workouts. Now, caring about the way I look sort of cycles in and out — there are some months when I suddenly become competitive about that goal and some months when I couldn’t care less. The advantage of arriving at this healthier mental place is greater acceptance when your body inevitably fluctuates depending on stress, diet, time, circumstances, and environment. When times like these happen (Hello, snacky quarantine), I think I have a greater sense of perspective and patience throughout them than I once did. Exercise isn’t employed as a quick-fix or a punishment, but a consistent way to enjoy the feeling of being alive and my ability to move my body. Because some people don’t get to do that — I’ll always remember one of the last cards my grandmother sent me before she passed away. She wrote, “Go for a walk, while you still can.” Moving your body is a gift.
(4) This might just be a personal preference, but this is my number one secret to being a consistent exerciser, something I have fully understood and developed within the past year or so: I have more than just one type of workout I like to do. At the moment, I have four — P.Volve, yoga, walking, and Kinrgy. Not only does cycling through these help me avoid getting bored, but different forms of exercise give you different benefits, so it’s ultimately healthier to have a few different things under your belt.
My personal formula breaks down like this:
P.Volve is my form of strength-training and toning. It is my building-block workout, sculpting the body and activating the muscles I do everything else with. Comparable workouts might be barre or weight-lifting; anything I can count on to get my heart rate up and work specific muscle groups. I’m a big fan of P.Volve in particular because it builds in prehabilitation moves and has taught me incredible body awareness.
Yoga provides me with the biggest mental benefit. The breathwork and mindfulness incorporated into yoga just can’t be beat. Yoga also provides a workout with goals incorporated into it, something that is really effective for me. There are always milestones to reach for, like greater flexibility in postures or the skills to do crazy things like headstands. I’ve personally found it important to have a workout where you feel like all of your effort is adding up into a greater whole, like training for a sport (I would imagine). I recently realized the other reason I love yoga is because I move my body so much during. Nothing else feels quite so full-body as yoga, where you are taking a ton of space with your limbs and moving every possible inch of yourself. I wish I knew some sort of scientific explanation for why this feels so important, but all I know is that it does.
Walking is my form of cardio — everyone needs to learn how to walk for pleasure! It’s a legitimate cardio workout and just a lovely pastime. This also tends to be my lazy day workout — it takes very little to throw on my shoes and go for a walk. Also, you get to be outside, something extremely needed in this current global...situation.
Kinrgy is the newest addition to my lineup, but it occupies the space of “something fun” — it’s dance-based and doesn’t feel like a workout (read my review of Kinrgy here). I have big plans for this category post-Covid. I would love to learn how to surf or to rock climb. Jake and I have also talked about taking a dance class together (we’ve been watching a lot of Dancing with the Stars). I think it’s important to have something you just enjoy, regardless of how good of a workout it is.
Sarah and Jake October Check-In
Jake and I sat down this week to talk about…really a lot of different stuff. Whole 30, paying your taxes, the best cooking shows, and poop-positive discourse all explored in the episode below! (Conversation breakdown underneath video)