Monthly Archives: January 2013

The Big Question

Date: January 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Happy Friday! Who’s ready for the long weekend? I sure am! I don’t have practice until weights Monday afternoon, so I’m pretty pumped! It’s 2 pm on a Friday, and I’m done for the day! Yayyy! I’m posting early today because I don’t have a lot to do right now, and I won’t have much to comment on earlier in the day anyway.

Ok, so this morning I woke up at 5:45 for weights. Ugh. I definitely didn’t make my 10 pm bedtime last night, and after a hard day yesterday, I was dragging. My legs were still tired from yesterday. And throughout all this, one question was running through my mind. Uh oh, what is this tiredness is me getting sick? EVERYONE is getting sick! Gahh!

As usual, my snack before weights was quick bread! More of the peanut butter banana. I actually found the recipe I used, which wasn’t the link I posted before (Though you guys should definitely try that one, it looked awesome!) The one I actually made was from fANNEtastic food, which you can find here. This bread is growing on me, I’ve started to crave it! I love Anne’s recipes because they’re mostly low sugar. I have been wanted to make another quickbread for a while, and I will hopefully do that this weekend! I need to restock my freezer! Also, her granola bar recipe looks great! I really liked having something around that was easy to snack on, and I like that the recipe has brown rice syrup.

Well, I powered through weights. I’m happy with how I did. I’m getting the hang of the workouts now, plus it’s less crowded as my teammates are starting to go to the later weights session more. After I finished my workout, I did 5×10 ab roll outs. As I stated in an earlier post, I think ab strength may be one of the keys to improving my rowing, so I got a little extra work in. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the baseball team was in the weight room after us. 😉 I definitely want to go to some of their games this spring, I LOVE watching baseball! (Go Giants! Anyone? Anyone?)

After weights, I was planning on finishing up a Greek yogurt I had in the fridge, but my coach was insistent that I drink a protein shake. I really didn’t want one of the ones from the weight room (ugh), so I had to promise her that I would make my own back at my dorm. Remember my idea from yesterday? I was considering making a protein smoothie with my vanilla whey protein powder, and adding cocoa powder. So that’s just what I did!

Plus a banana, milk, yogurt, a spoon of peanut butter, and 2 heaping spoonfuls of cocoa powder. And a more surprising ingredient? Frozen blueberries! Since my banana wasn’t frozen, I wanted something cold to thicken it up a little bit. The addition of blueberries turned out to be a great idea! The fruitiness of the blueberries really brought out the dark chocolate flavor!

I also had some fruit, and a little cream of wheat because I felt like I needed some carbs. I’m glad I decided to make a protein smoothie after all. After my workout, I realized I was pretty shaky, and the greek yogurt probably wouldn’t have done it for me.

Here’s the smoothie recipe:

Dark Chocolate Blueberry Smoothie

1/4 c plain yogurt

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

1/2-1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used 1/2 because I’m always scared to add too much) or chocolate protein powder (just add less cocoa)

1 tablespoon peanut butter

1/3 c blueberries

2 heaping spoons of cocoa powder (more or less to taste, I like more)

milk (enough to get it moving)

Blend and enjoy! Top with peanut butter if you like!

I definitely need to post my favorite smoothie recipe at some point because I’m actually sure of the proportions. That smoothie is good, but not my absolute favorite. Any guesses as to what my favorite is? I’ll post it next time I make it!

After breakfast I had a little time because I didn’t have to do a run this morning. I felt pretty tired, but I knew I was planning on napping later, so I compromised and drank a cup of caffeinated tea.

This is my favorite black tea!

During class, I was feeling exhausted and a little shaky. I felt kind of weird as well. Again, I asked myself the big question, am I getting sick? I was starting to get worried, because I felt pretty off. Finally, I was sitting in Math, when I figured it out. I was definitely suffering from caffeine overdose. Now, keep in mind, I don’t drink caffeine that often, and whenever I have coffee, I have half a cup tops. It was a huge mystery to me why a single cup of tea would cause me to feel so jittery. Now I never have to drink coffee, right? If tea can wake me up this much? I’ve never really felt the effects of caffeine from tea before, so this was all very strange. The only thing I can figure out is that a) maybe because I just exercised hard, I was more sensitive? Or b) I put a TON of cocoa powder in my smoothie this morning….So it was probably a combination of things. I was relieved that I wasn’t getting sick, but I was a little uncomfortable for class. This morning was full of weird sensations in my body. I realized that going up stairs was really not tiring. However, down stairs? My legs were shaking like crazyyy! My hamstrings and glutes were pretty much shot! And after math, I was hit with a huge wave of hunger, out of nowhere! Good thing it was lunch time!

I caught up with my sister at lunch. Can you believe I haven’t seen her since basically Christmas? Which is kind of strange, considering we go to the same college. Here’s what I ate:

This is basically the best salad ever. We have a salad restaurant here, and this is the only type I’ve ever gotten. It’s a Southwest salad, with beans, cheese, corn, tomatoes, salmon, and a cilantro dressing. It comes with tortilla chips, but I prefer it without. Normally they have avocado too (they didn’t today), which just puts it over the top. SO good. The thing is though, these salads are huge! It may not look like a big container, but they absolutely cram it in there! Especially if I get it with chicken (they put so much in), it’s super heavy! I usually end up picking the best parts out, and still walking away completely stuffed, but this time I came prepared and brought tupperware so I could portion away half of it (which will probably be dinner tonight). Then after picking up some school supplies, it was back to my room to relax. I wanted something sweet, so I grabbed a few handfuls of that spicy trail mix. I didn’t really want to eat a ton of cocoa powder before attempting to sleep, so I decided not to get creative.

The rest of my day will be spent relaxing! We had a suggested run or erg this afternoon, but my body is so done. I feel way better and stronger now that it’s been a few hours since my workout, but I think I’m best off taking the rest of the day off and hitting it hard again tomorrow. I have some freedom in my workouts, and you can bet I’m going to take advantage of that! I probably won’t post again today. Dinner will most likely be a repeat of today’s lunch. I have an avocado in the fridge, but I don’t want to end up with an extra half of an avocado sitting around if I’m going to be gone. I might experiment on my “dessert”, so I’ll let you know if I come up with anything amazing! Have a great weekend!

Any plans for the long weekend?

A Sweet Dilemma

Date: January 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Yoga was awesome! I haven’t been to a yoga class since before Christmas, and I definitely missed it! This was a power yoga class. I generally like Power yoga best, although one of the only other types of yoga I do is Vinyasa yoga. For those that don’t know, Power yoga focuses more on strength, while Vinyasa focuses on moving with your breath. I personally find that Power yoga helps me more with flexibility, and today’s class was no exception. My muscles were killing me but I definitely loosened up.

After yoga, it was dinnertime! I had big plans for dinner; an avocado stashed in my fridge! At the dining hall, I whipped up this plate:

Greens and tomatoes with grilled chicken, and avocado of course! I also had a little of the prepared salad, which was some kind of ranch mixture that wasn’t very exciting. I do wish the dining hall had more interesting things to put in salads though. That little red chunk on their is tofu with tomato sauce, which I was curious to try. I didn’t have any carbs on my plate, so I decided I should probably grab some. I ate a banana with peanut butter, plus a half a whole wheat english muffin with butter. Overall, not a bad dinner.

One thing I want to talk about is the timing of my posts. Normally, I write up my posts at the end of the day, after my last meal. While I really like this timing, it allows me to reflect on the whole day, it doesn’t make the most sense in terms of my work. Evenings/nights are my best time to get my work done. I have several awkward roughly hour long breaks during many of the days, and this isn’t really enough time for me to be productive anyways. So I’m considering trying to post then. Thoughts?

Ok, now on to today! I was up early for a team erg. Thursdays are our hardest workouts. Beforehand, I had a few bites of my Vanilla Peanut Butter Protein bars. Love them! My workout was tough, but at least it was shorter intervals, rather than longer ones like 6ks. However, it was a little frustrating for me. Although I beat my goal times significantly, I still had trouble getting my times as low as my teammates. I was feeling pretty down about this, but since then I’ve thought of a few things I can try to work on the close the gap. Besides rowing technique, I think I really need to strengthen my core. I usually have a pretty strong core but I haven’t done too many abs exercises lately. During the workout, I was slowing down, not because I wasn’t pushing myself mentally (I tend to have trouble pushing myself through the longer pieces), but because I simply wasn’t going fast. Core may have something to do with this. At the same time, this reminded me that I definitely have room for improvement on the longer workouts, because for those, the barrier is mental, so I know I am at least capable of doing better. So in summary, the workout was hard. One thing that made my day a little bit better was a t-shirt! My first piece of varsity athletic gear! The shirt was for my school winning some type of championship…no one was exactly sure what it meant, but still awesome! I wore it today with pride. Plus, it’s a really nice shirt. Normally I feel like feminine fitting t-shirts can be kind of strange shaped, but this was really nice!

After my workout, I was excited to try out my new chocolate protein powder!

A chocolate protein shake was in order! Being the cool person that I am, I took basically all the ingredients (except milk and yogurt) to the dining hall just so I could use the blender and avoid cleaning mine…

Into the mix went protein powder, cocoa powder, milk, plain yogurt, a frozen banana, and a spoon of peanut butter. Overall, the protein powder was pretty good. It was a little bit grainy. It’s not Whey, and I think Whey mixes better…But it doesn’t have any artificial sweeteners, which was a requirement for me because they usually leave a weird aftertaste that I don’t like. I also probably put a little too much in….I also have vanilla protein powder that is whey, which I used for my protein bars. They turned out well despite the stevia in the powder, so maybe I should try making a protein smoothie with the vanilla protein powder and cocoa powder to see what happens. I also ate some fruit, as you can see.

After breakfast was class. I was overjoyed to find that the weather is warming up a bit! It was a single jacket day, for the first time in a looong time. After class, I had a sort of awkward amount of time. I thought about blogging, then decided that a quick nap was in order. It was only half an hour, and I’m not sure if I ever fell asleep, but it was rejuvenating all the same. I definitely need to be getting more sleep. Tonight’s goal is in bed by 10! I don’t have any work due tomorrow (although I always have things I should be working on), plus I have a long weekend coming up, so that should be an attainable goal. I woke up in time for lunch at my more local dining hall. I forgot how good lunches are now, way better than dinners!

Salad with sesame dressing, pesto tofu, and a cheese and chicken quesadilla. Plus salsa and some type of salsa mixture that appeared to contain avocado…not sure about that one. The pesto on the tofu was good, but the tofu in general would be so much better if it was cooked differently. It’s always the same, and I’m not sure how it’s made, but it’s always kind of tough. Oh well. Can’t win them all.

After more class, I ate some pistachios and an orange before practice. I wasn’t hungry but I knew I’d be starving after practice if I didn’t eat anything.

I also had the last bite (literally! It was tiny) of my protein bars. I need to make something else like that to keep on hand for a snack, that I can just grab a few bites of. I’ve seen a ton of recipes for protein balls, so maybe something like that. Any suggestions?

After my snack, I was craving something sweet, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Finally, I realized I really wanted super dark chocolate. I didn’t have any baker’s chocolate on hand, so I ate a small spoonful of peanut butter with unsweetened cocoa powder. Pretty darn good if you ask me!

Practice today actually went pretty well. I wasn’t feeling too great about it at the beginning because my legs were still dead from this morning, but my boat ended up getting into a great rhythm, plus the water was super calm. We got to row out way farther than normal, all the way into the bay! Nothing like watching a sunset from the bay, on a calm day!

After practice, I made myself dinner. Naturally, I snacked on trail mix while I did this. I seriously can’t prepare food without eating. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to grab spinach earlier, but this worked all the same.

This tofu is from Trader Joe’s, and it has a ton of flavor! I highly recommend it.

Plus this. It’s from whole foods, and it’s delicious! And look at that ingredient list! Awesome!

To make this:

That’s dorm room cooking at its finest, my friends. I had a pouch of microwave brown rice, plus a leftover half avocado laying around (seriously, most people would kill to have half of an avocado laying around), plus broccoli which I brought back with me from break. Yum! Super simple, and super delicious. Plus, avocado makes everything better, right? For dessert, I had this:

On the left is the last of my frozen cherries. On the right? BEST IDEA EVER. Half of a microwaved banana, plus peanut butter.

I seriously don’t know why I ever messed around with microwave brownies. This is definitely where it’s at. Super healthy, and super delicious. I bet it would be superb with some chocolate chips added in (for when I’m not on my sugar challenge). I’m considering experimenting with this to make it into more of a cake-like thing, and possibly added oats and egg. We’ll see. I also considered doing something like that peanut butter apple crisp thing I posted yesterday. Like doing the base of banana and cocoa powder, then topping it with the peanut butter and oat mixture. How does that sound?

So I’m going to go home a little bit during this long weekend, but I’m not sure how long. I don’t have practice, so I have some freedom. I was only planning on being home a day or two, but now I’m considering being home all weekend because there’s a nasty stomach bug going around my dorm, and I really don’t want to catch it! One thing I am excited about for this weekend is a little bit of freedom in my workouts. We don’t have anything assigned, so I get to do pretty much whatever I want! I’m super pumped to lift some weights on my own on Saturday. I’m going to do my all time favorite weights workout (more on that later). I’m also looking forward to a couple of shorter workouts on the erg to work on speed.

Ok, now on to talk about my no sugar challenge! It’s going super well! I’m not sure why it’s so much easier this time around. It could be the additional effort I’ve put into eating better lately. It’s easier for me to resist sweets when the rest of my diet is healthy. But I’ve started to ask myself, what happens when the challenge is over? What do I do then? It’s easier to avoid sweets when there is a particular amount of time that they are to be avoided. But it’s not like I want to give them up forever. I definitely intend on indulging a little right when it’s over, although this will probably be the time I will want them the most. Here’s the thing about me and sugar. In general, I have a pretty bad reaction to it. It makes me jittery. It makes me crazy- I feel like my hormones are all over the place. It makes me feel gross, and worst of all, it makes me crave it even more. Here’s the thing about my challenge: I wouldn’t say I feel better all the time now that I’ve cut out the sweet stuff. But I never feel bad. In the past, due to its addictive nature, I would often gorge myself on sweets! Which naturally left me feeling terrible. So I never get that anymore. Plus, the temptation of sugar often put some added stress into my life. I looove the science behind the metabolism of sugar, so I know just what it is doing to my body. But despite all this, sugar definitely tastes good. Hopefully I will have some more answers for myself by the end of this challenge. Maybe I could continue 30 day challenges, with a treat in between? We shall see! Either way, I’m enjoying this one.

Do you have any suggestions for my future with sugar? How do you find a healthy balance with eating sweets?

Cinnamon Dreams

Date: January 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s kind of strange to write 2 posts basically back to back. Well, here’s today!

I woke up at 6:30. Ugh, this definitely wasn’t enough sleep. I went to bed kind of late because I was working on my paper. I grabbed a few bites of my peanut butter protein bar from the freezer. I really love having this just hanging out in my freezer. It’s really nice to be able to grab a few bites of something quickly. Plus, Since I was erging soon after waking, I didn’t want a full piece of quick bread. My erg workout was a little bit frustrating. My legs felt pretty tired right away. It’s frustrating because I feel like I’m not getting any better, and my pace is slower. But then I have to remember that these are new and different types of workouts, and I’ve only really been doing them on this schedule since, oh I don’t know, last week! I’m a little concerned the slower times are a result of all my indulgences over the holidays though.

After my erg was a 40 minute run. My legs were pretty shot at the beginning, which I wasn’t exactly expecting. I stopped to stretch a couple of times at the beginning, and about halfway through the run I had recovered significantly. I ended up turning back a little sooner than planned so I could make it back in time for my 10 am.

This morning I was running super late, and I had to decide between a shower and a good breakfast. Guess which one I chose? I wanted something filling (but not heavy!) for breakfast because I knew I wouldn’t get a chance to eat until later, and this guy kept me full for 6 hours! So what’s in that? Well, not vanilla for starters. Normally I add a ton of vanilla, which totally makes the dish. I spent a good 5-10 minutes searching for my vanilla, and I absolutely could not find it. I was sooo mad. But the dish was delicious anyways! I added a bit more cinnamon to compensate (more on that later). Along with cinnamon was a banana, egg beaters (egg whites), unsweetened vanilla almond milk, and pieces of torn up whole wheat bread. Plus a nice dollop of peanut butter! When I actually have all the ingredients, and have time to measure it out, I’ll be sure to post the recipe!

But back to the cinnamon idea. I was sitting in class today contemplating my delicious breakfast when it occurred to me: could I recreate the delicious goodness that is buttered cinnamon raisin toast, but in a marginally healthy way? And could I make it into a french toast bake? I have high hopes for this one guys. It’s definitely something I need to experiment with!

I had a full day of classes, basically straight from 10-3. After class, I came home and chopped up an apple, coated it with cinnamon, and popped it in the microwave.

Plus a little peanut butter? SO GOOD. This is one of the best non-dessert desserts. It’s also really good with almond butter, but I didn’t want to open a whole packet of Justin’s almond butter just for a small bit. Like the peanut butter apple combo? Make this. Peanut butter apple crisp. Plus, it’s microwaveable! I liked it but didn’t love it the first time, but it certainly grows on you! Here’s my picture from the first time I made it:

And it’s super healthy: no sugar! Make this! You won’t be sorry! It is a great snack too!

Ok, off to yoga! More later!

This morning, I had big plans for breakfast. It’s my modification on Tina‘s French Toast Breakfast Scramble. I call it my Microwave French Toast Bake!

Make Up Post 1/15!

Date: January 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So sorry that I didn’t post last night! I had to work on a paper, and it was already getting late, plus I knew I’d have to be up early this morning. So here it is:

You know you’re truly a blogger when something in your life happens and the first thing you do is think about how you will describe it on you blog…

So the reason for the delayed post is I had a paper to write last night, and it was getting late as it was. Gahh. So my day?

I woke up at 5:20 and busted my butt to get out to workout as soon as possible, so I would finish my erg in time for a 7 am spin class. Right before I walked out the door (around 5:35) I remembered that nothing opens here until 6. So…if I got inside at 6 there was no way I’d be done by 7, and I’d be stuck waiting outside in the cold…luckily there was someone there who opened up early, but I’m not sure what I’ll do next Tuesday. I certainly don’t want to depend on that! I loved the spin class, as usual. I’ve only been to this instructor’s classes once before, but I really like her music choices. My legs were pretty shot after an hour of erging and 45 minutes of spin, but I pressed on! I still had a 30 minute run! I initially planned to do it on the treadmill, but they were all full or broken, and I didn’t have time to wait around! Instead, I headed out into Winter Wonderland (not sure a few sheets of ice constitutes Winter Wonderland, but I’ll roll with it). The best part? I got to listen to my favorite scientist talk (nerdy, I know), Dr. Robert Lustig. He recently came out with a new book about the dangers of sugar, and he was on NPR’s Science Friday to talk about the book and answer listener questions. Aaaand it was available on my NPR app. And even more perfect, it was 29 minutes. Obviously, it was meant to be. I’ve listened to a ton of sugar podcast while I run in the past, so this was no new experience.

As for the actual run? I took it pretty slow, but powered through and finished. I saw so much ice and frost! I’ve never exactly seen a frozen puddle before so naturally I had to stop and look at every single one, and test if it was frozen.

This one? Well, it was frozen on the surface. Yes, that is my footprint.

By the end, I was pretty hungry. I just had a few bites of my frozen Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein Bars beforehand, which was hours earlier. I was excited to finally get to a different dining hall for breakfast. Why? I can get some veggies in!

There is an omelette station with all kinds of goodies, so I always snag some spinach for my breakfast sandwich. On my plate: Half a whole wheat english muffin topped with spinach, scrambled eggs and cheddar, and mushrooms (how great would this be with avocado?). I also had some melon, and an unknown type of yellow fruit. One thing was for sure though, it wasn’t ripe! It tasted ok, but was really tough. My theory is that it was pineapple. I also has some pistachios. This dining hall has gone upscale for breakfast lately.

Just look at that fancy shmancy cheese platter!

After breakfast was a shower and then class, and then back to the dining hall for lunch!

The healthier options weren’t all that interesting, so I went with something less on the healthy side, because it looked pretty good!

I first filled up half my plate with Asian chicken salad (though I never seemed to find any chicken…), which hit the spot perfectly. I was hoping for something different than the vinaigrette salads I’ve been having lately. So what else is on that plate? Mexican rice, fajita chicken (I skipped the tortilla), a bit of refried beans, and nacho casserole. Plus some sauteed greens. It was really tasty! I saw that someone else had salsa and guacamole on their plate, so I went back and added some after I photographed. I was hankering for something sweet, so I went for a not too sugary alternative.

See? That pineapple was actually good, I could totally tell what it was! Plus cinnamon raisin toast with Smart Balance. Seriously, that stuff is so good! I think I may have overdid it a bit on the carbs, but hey, my plate was half veggies, right? By the way, those veggies on my dessert plate were for later.

I cracked open a mango before practice, and unfortunately it was pretty brown on the inside, but I still got a good 1/2 of it. I hate when I let food go bad, especially in my dorm room, because any food I have that has the capacity to go bad is a treat. I was really angry at myself earlier too because I had to toss 2 oranges because I never put them in the fridge. I also snacked on frozen cherries and a few bites of protein bar. Plus, I made a pb sandwich for later, which just happened to finish the jar, so I naturally had to take care of that. 😉

Since I knew i had a paper to write that evening, I packed a pb sandwich and those veggies which you saw earlier to eat in the van on the way back from practice, so I could go straight to the library. Unfortunately, this plan was foiled when a teammate twisted my arm into eating dinner with her. I figured a few more veggies couldn’t hurt.

I also had a few slices of fruit and another slice of cinnamon raisin toast. Unfortunately, this sparked a major carb craving (glucose rollercoaster anyone?) (see glucose post here).

Or maybe it was a result of my no sugar challenge? Either way, back at my room I pulled this baby out of the freezer:

Peanut butter banana bread! I want to say this is the recipe I used, but I’m not entirely sure. I used whole wheat pastry flour and and most likely reduced the sugar, although I’m not sure. I really like the texture of the bread. It is nice and oat-y. I love the idea of using oats in banana bread! My only suggestion for improvement might be adding a swirl of peanut butter. So this time I added my own!

After all those carbs, I finally headed to the library, but it was an hour later than I was hoping to get there. Oh well, I finished the paper.

A few notes:

My legs were sooo tired all day when I was biking around!

I think I need to rethink my meal timing. I wasn’t all that hungry at lunch, since it hadn’t really been that long since breakfast. I think that threw me off a little bit.

And lastly: I promise I’ll do a sugar post soon! Hopefully this weekend!

Any big weekend plans?

More to Come!

Date: January 16, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So sorry for the lack of a post today! I’ll recap my day tomorrow with tomorrow’s usual post!

Hopefully this cute kitty picture will help make up for it!