Monthly Archives: May 2013

Social Networking

Date: May 24, 2013

Author: astottler

TOMORROW IS FRIDAYYY. I swear, this week dragged by. And, it is a 3-day weekend 🙂

Right now I am listening to my 25 most played songs on iTunes. A good portion of them are Spanish…heehee. Here’s one of my favorites! SUPER CATCHY.

Check it out.

Before I get into today’s post, I want to share with you guys some of my search terms. “what would peacocks and pigs look like if there were combined”

Awesome.

“cocoa powder gets everywhere”

Yes, yes it sure does!

“ate jar of sunflower butter”

At once?? Yes, I can relate. Kidding. Kind of.

And I’m glad that my blog is the very first thing that comes up if you google “puffed out stomach mono.” The VERY first. Really??

As usual, my day began with a Spin class. I REALLY REALLY want Spin shoes. Like now. Unfortunately, I have no means of getting Spin shoes. However, I do have a $120 credit at REI, which is where I plan to get them, so I guess it is worth the wait.

Breakfast after spin was plain Greek yogurt, sliced melon/pineapple, and a mix of granola and unsweetened muesli. They didn’t have the better kind of granola, but the mixture actually really worked well! Plus a buckwheat pancake. Don’t worry, it was not very sweet. Believe me.

Class, blah blah blah, then LUNCH. I had an amazing salad from Coupa. Those toasted walnuts were just…there are no words. They were salty, sweet, and had a perfect crunch.

I was still a little hungry afterwards, and I decided kettle corn was just about right. It was kind of embarrassing to go to the same cashier and buy more food….

I had a lot of meetings/psych study/section this afternoon. I also had a snack of some type of cinnamon-y bread from a different cafe.

It had apple and oats…that’s all I know! I love this little cafe- they have the best quickbreads! And they’re not very sweet, either, which as we know, is right up my alley. These snacks got me thinking, how do I define the “no sweets” thing I am doing? It’s funny, it is hard for me to articulate my philosophy and reasoning on what is ok for me to eat or not, but in my mind it is very well defined. No cookies, cake, ice cream. Cinnamon bread is ok. Pancakes without syrup are ok (in moderation). Muffins…borderline. I guess the best way to describe my definition is no desserts. When I get home and have more freedom in the kitchen, I will probably slash sugar a bit more.

And back to the normally scheduled programming…more food!

I had half a frozen microwave english muffin from 4 months or so ago, so I topped that with Garlic and Herb Laughing cow, and half of my last avocado from my Big. I swear, those avocados are magic! It was super soft so I was worried that it had gone bad, but when I broke it open, it was nice and green! I also had a mango and some more pumpkin bread. I have a class on evolution this quarter. Thing 1: My professor had a cold, and he was drinking Evolution brand grapefruit juice. Too great. Thing 2: I have to do…gasp, an art project! I am not a very artistic person, and I have to do something expressive about the evolution of carnivorous plants. I went to the bookstore today to buy paper and oil pastels. I accidentally bought pastels instead of oil pastels. The difference? Oil. Pastels are really dry and dusty. However, I had already opened them when I discovered this. Oh well. I decided to test them out, and naturally, what did I do?I was considering doing a blue ombre background but I kind of liked it as is (minus the smudges). Thoughts?

Messy hands!Dinner was super boring…I hate eating meat off of the bones! Only a few more weeks! Overall though, today included some pretty good eats! My face is going to hate me though…I had nuts 3x today, including some peanut butter I had with cereal after dinner….oh well. YOLO.

Now, I want to talk about Social Networking with you guys. Do you guys tell people outside of the blog world about your blogs? I generally don’t because I feel like if one is unfamiliar with the food and fitness blog genre, they’d think I was crazy for taking pictures of all my food and posting about it. Do you post about your blog on your personal facebook? I’m deciding whether or not I should try that, but I’m leaning towards not. This summer I want to spend some serious time on the blog, and I’m trying to decide if that is a way I want to spread the word or not. I’d love to hear what you guys do!

Do you tell friends/family/acquaintances about your blog?

The Great Microwave Scare and Something New

Date: May 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello everyone! I am loving reading everybody’s posts about BLEND. I am determined to go next year, even if it means doing a ton of random Psych studies for the money! Experiments with my brain? BRING IT ON.

So last night after I posted, I was sitting on my bed attempting to do homework. I had a lot on my mind, and could not sit still. I decided, gym at 9 pm? Why not? Ok, now looking back on it, this doesn’t really seem too late, but I’m definitely an early morning workout kind of girl. But honestly, nothing sounded better than spinning my heart out. I hoped on a bike, shuffled my Now That’s What I Call Music 45 album, and just had such a great time. It was on shuffle, but all the songs came up perfectly for my profile. I was there for about 45 minutes.

While this was something I really needed, I regretted my decision just a tad when my alarm went off at 7 to go lift weights….but I’m glad I got up! I did this tried and true workout:While I love it, I think it is time to start upping the weight on those squats.

And being the good blogger that I am, I ate semi-more interesting things today, and photographed a majority of them!Plain Greek yogurt, frozen blackberries, and granola with added raisins. It was a different type of granola at the dining hall, and I’m not a fan. It was too sweet. Granted, the other type probably has too much sugar for me as well, but whatever. For lunch, I bought a super expensive salad in an effort to begin to use up my outrageous amount of meal plan dollars. I had half for lunch, with the plan of having the other half for dinner. (That didn’t happen, as you shall see.)

I had plans to run with my friend after class, but she was feeling sick and I wanted a nap. And a mango. In lieu of running today, we made new plans to run tomorrow evening. That’s my fruit knife, which I love. I seriously only use it for fruit though, not that I’m complaining!

My snack ended up being larger than planned, and included some bites of my now-soggy salad, banana bread, and another mango (the above mango is tiny, but you can’t tell from the picture). Oh, and some yogurt!Frozen banana bread. Since the school year is ending, I’m trying to eat up my freezer!

Enter microwave woes. For some reason, our microwave wasn’t working, so I went downstairs to use the dorm one-which, by the way, is super janky. And kind of gross. But it got the job done!

When my roommate got back, we looked a bit closer into the microwave problem. It appeared that the plug it was attached to was dead, because when we connected my lamp to it, it would not turn on. After further investigation, we finally discovered the root of the problem. The whole octopus the fridge and microwave were connected to was unplugged. Yayyy smart college students. I’m just glad we realized this when we did! The fridge is fullll.

I also received my housing assignment for next year! I’m actually super happy with where we are, although it is technically not considered very good housing. We got a pretty good draw number, but we had a huge draw group (8 people). (Oh, and the housing is a draw- you rank your top choices and they draw numbers.) But the dorm we are in is solid- centrally located, pretty close to 2 decent dining halls, and most importantly, very close to the gym. Because when I’m biking to the gym to go to a Spin class, and I don’t want the extra few hundred feet. You know.

I decided to make dinner in my dorm, since we had a now fully functioning microwave. I ran into the dining hall for spinach, and left with a slice of cinnamon raisin toast as well. This stuff is seriously so good! And then I whipped up some guac from the avocados from my big, and a packet of guacamole mix. I the cooked egg whites in the microwave with a ton of spinach, and topped the eggs with guacamole. Have I ever told you guys I like avocados? No?

“Dessert” was more freezer cleaning- frozen blueberries and a Paleo Pumpkin sort-of-bread creation, x2 (because it’s half a slice!).Whooo check out the ice crystals on those blueberries!

Well, that’s about all I have for you guys. I’m currently realizing that my abs are sore….Being the weirdo that I am, I really love that feeling! So if you guys have any great sore abs workouts, send them my way!

Bad Blogger

Date: May 22, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So guys…I’ve been a very bad blogger in that I haven’t been taking pictures of anything. Or eating anything remotely interesting.

This morning, I had Harry and David pear. (Old picture…cheating but we’ll go with it).

I also wanted some protein, so I whipped up some egg whites in the microwave, and topped them with a lot of avocado. There was probably more avocado than egg, not that I’m complaining!This was one of those mornings where I throw a ton of stuff together in a hurry in an attempt to not be late for class…

Lunch is unpictured, as it was not really according to plan. After my 9am class, I had planned to go to the library, but I was SUPER sleepy so I headed back to my room for a nap instead. I ended up finishing off my sunflower seed butter jar with yogurt and a banana, and some carrots. Plus a Harry and David Orange! So not very photographable. Also, I made a major life choice today-I’m not going to open a new sunflower seed butter for a while. It’s time for a break!

Dinner was semi-exciting. I went to a different dining hall, and they had a baked potato bar! I loaded mine up with butter, cheese, and scallions, although it is hard to see under the salad. In the front is some type of veggie with some type of non-meat tofu-like product. In the back is some couscous with roasted mushrooms. I also had a slice of cinnamon bread (so good!).

So as you can see, not a lot of excitement going on in the food front. Or in life. What stinks about having such a great weekend is that the week seriously pales in comparison. I hadn’t really been bored with my weekdays at all until this week. And now, the week. is. dragging. I can’t wait for the weekend! I am going rafting on Sunday with my dorm, and I have a million and two friends from high school who want to stay with me this weekend (but I have a chem midterm next week, so I don’t know if that will be able to happen). I don’t think I’m ready for the year to be over!

On the plus side, my workouts have been quite good lately, if I do say so myself. They’ve been a little more varied than normal, as in they haven’t JUST been weights, or JUST rowing. Yesterday, I lifted in the morning. I was annoyed because I wanted to do cleans, and the rugby team was taking up most of the bars, so I took some time to do a circuit with pistols and pushups, and then some dumbbell snatches. When a bar opened up, I jumped at the opportunity and did this workout:

10-8-6-4-2

Hang clean (95#)

Box jumps

Technically, I was supposed to do the whole circuit twice, but my wrists were DONE after this. And dropping the bar on myself=not good. I followed this up with some work on the rowing machine…I believe I did 2k. Yeah, my shoulders were seriously feeling the cleans!

Here’s an ab workout I have been loving lately! I’ve been doing it most days with my workouts.(The wrestler move is lying down with your legs in butterfly, and then pressing yourself into a crunch with your elbows.)

In the afternoon, I went for a 3.7 mile run with a girl from my sorority. She is interested in running together regularly, and wants to do a half this summer as well. Yay for more training buddies!

This morning I went to a Spin class, and then this afternoon I decided to do a rowing workout. I’m getting inspired to get back on the erg more. In some strange way, I miss those marathon workouts. I definitely have trouble motivating myself to go all that fast though. I could never do a 6k on my own. Today, I did a pyramid:

250 m

500m

1000m

2000m

1000m

500m

250m

I took a minute or two of rest in between. I followed that up with that abs workout above, and a few other moves. Back in my room, I saw all the balloons still here from my Big, and was inspired. I did some crunches with a ballon under my lower back, which was super hard! But then the inevitable happened…the ballon popped. Eh, what can you do, right??

One more thing, I have posted about the concept of Healthy Living College Blogger retreat…if you guys are interested, could you publicize the idea on your blogs as well? The more the word is out, the better! I think we could totally do this thing!

Got Avocados?

Date: May 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I feel like the days are just flying by now! Next week is Week 8 of our 10 week quarter. And then…freshman year is over. How crazy is that??

A quick blogging sidenote-my blog currently has basically no recipes and basically no workouts, When school is out (which is fairly soon) I’ll get on posting some more of those things in a more organized manner.

Also, I really want to tell you guys about a complement that I received the other day. I was at a party with some friends and a guy came up to me and complemented me on my weight lifting. This was super awesome; I am so proud of my weight lifting! Best complement ever!

Saturday morning, I was in the mood for a smoothie, but I couldn’t really pass up the guacamole, so I mad a small Mexican salad bowl as well. I was trying to base the smoothie off of my Dark Chocolate Blueberry smoothie, but I kind of failed at that. I didn’t have the protein powder or peanut butter, or really the right amounts of anything. And I added spinach. The flavor wasn’t terrible, but the smoothie just wasn’t cold enough, so maybe it would have been better if I had added ice. Not that it was a bad smoothie or anything, but not my best effort.

After brunch, I did a quick workout before meeting up for coffee with some friends. And by coffee, I mean a mango smoothie. Basically the same thing, right? I didn’t have time to get through everything I had planned, but basically I started with 1k on the rowing machine, then did a leg circuit with single leg squats and single leg deadlifts. I had planned on doing another leg circuit, but I ran out of time. I always overestimate how long things will take, and how much is reasonable to do in one workout. I plan these elaborate long workouts, and usually end up skipping things. I had planned on doing some sprints on the rowing machine later as well, but that didn’t happen.

Next, I did this:

20 Minutes, As Many Rounds As Possible of:

5 Pull ups (I did pull downs on a machine)

10 pushups

15 air squats

I have no idea how many rounds I got through, but each round took less than 1:30. I followed that with a plank circuit.

That afternoon, I went to Half Moon Bay for a retreat with my sorority. We went to the beach briefly, mostly to take pictures. The water was quite cold, and getting even my feet wet was unpleasant, but worth it for the scenery!

And we saw a cat on the way back! Yay!Dinner at retreat was burritos-with plenty of salad of course!As you have seen, throughout the week I received gifts from my Big (a sorority thing). Yesterday was when I got to find out who she was! How did she do the reveal? She held up this shirt:HOW GREAT IS THIS???

Hmm I might just have to wear this for a race…I feel like it expresses me quite well. And yes, thanks to my big, I do have avocados.

We spent to rest of the night doing fun bonding type of activities, and before I knew it, it was time to return to the real world.

I was thinking about doing a run today, but then I remembered there was a power yoga class offered today, and I haven’t had any rest days all week. Since I ended up not going to yoga at all this week, I decided it would be perfect, and it was. My hips are sore from a lot of the leg work I’ve been doing lately, and we focused on that quite a bit. I also saw my Psych professor- she’s an aerobics instructor, and was teaching the class before mine. It’s always so weird to see teachers/professors outside the context of the classroom. After yoga, a nap was in order. I wasn’t all that tired, but I did not get much sleep the last 2 nights, so I knew it was a must. This afternoon and evening has been spent working on a take-home test due tonight-I finished right before writing up this blog post! I did break for dinner around 5:30. My friend wanted to go to Jamba Juice, and since it was hot, I decided that it might be a good way to cool off. I got one of the fruit and veggie smoothies- the tropical one. In this one, I think the only veggies in it are veggie juice, but I actually really like it because it wasn’t as sweet as smoothies blended with fruit juice. After that, this happened:Turkey burger and sweet potato fries. Hey, I got the veggies in my smoothie, right?? As I may have discussed before, we get a certain number of meal plan dollars to use each quarter as part of our meal plan. They work at several different restaurant type places on campus, including this place, which I’ve never actually eaten at before. I have never used up these meal plan dollars. Last quarter, I had a good excuse though (leaving school 4 weeks before the end of school due to illness). This quarter, I all of the sudden realized that I have three weeks left, and over $100 to spend, otherwise they will go to waste. So at dinner, I treated my friend, as well as some other people we happened to meet up with, and chipped away $50 from this mountain of meal plan dollars I need to spend. Yay! I still have a ton, and I am planning on buying some really expensive salads in the near future!

Well, that’s all I have for you today. Before I leave you guys those, I want to make a shout out to my friend Elizabeth. She just started a fashion blog, so if you like fashion (or even if not), check it out! It is called Styles by Elizabeth.

Have a great week!

Happy Pants

Date: May 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First of all, let me just say, I am so jealous of everyone going on the BLEND retreat this weekend! Beth from Mangoes and Miles had the great idea of trying to put together a retreat for college bloggers. How awesome would that be??

My morning began with a quick workout- 3 sets of stairs. Each set- single leg hops (each leg), squat jumps, 2 sprints, and 25 (ea) scissor kicks. Then I followed that with 4k on the rowing machine.

I tried to finish my workout a little bit early so I had time for a photo shoot for my pear. Food blogging at its finest.

This is one of my birthday pears from Harry and David! Harry and David has the best pears ever. Sweet, juicy, and the perfect firmness. I seriously can’t eat any other pears.

Guess what? My duct tape solutions to my bike’s woes actually worked. My brake works fine and my basket stays in place.

Pshhh who needs to go to the bike shop?

A couple of shots from last night?

I do not like being locked out. Thank you car key lanyard for looking exactly like room key lanyard.

I had to walk to the library last night because my bike key is attached to my room key…which was in my locked room. But at least I got a nice picture!

My Big is seriously awesome. How great is this? 2 of those pictures are Lilly. Can you find them?

So this morning, my flowers all of the sudden looked….really really bad.

This thing drinks like crazy, I even watered it yesterday! I swear I’m not a bad plant mama!

Today was such a nice day. I got to pretend to be on the quidditch team and ended up with a free Ike’s sandwich. If you aren’t from CA, you probably don’t know what Ike’s is. If you are from this area, you are incredibly jealous. It was veggie with garlic and pesto!

And since we’re on the topic of food…

Guacamole complements of my Big. She gave me the MOST PERFECT avocados, and since I have guacamole mix, this whipped up to be a great snack!

The other half was used for dinner on my egg scramble with pesto.

See how much better the flowers look already?? Phew.

Now let’s get to the meat of the post. Today in Psych, we had a lecture on the Psychology of Health. Did you know that when you are stressed, you are way more likely to get colds? Ok, you probably knew that. But there are tons of other interesting studies. Apparently, you get sick more when you’re lonely as well. What I don’t get is how the researchers got the approval to administer the cold virus to tons of people…I would not want to participate in that study! Anyways, when you are stressed out, it is as if your body is in a continual fight or flight response. Cortisol has signals for the cells in your immune system that kill them off. Basically, your body focuses on the fight or flight issue, and conserves energy by shutting down your immune system. Yep, sounds about how I got Mono. Crew 5 hours a day, no sleep, and no clue what was going on? Yeah.

We also talked about the amazing benefits of exercise. Exercise can significantly reduce depression and anxiety. It has been shown to work as well at alleviating clinical depression as anti-depressants. How cool is that? This whole lecture got me thinking. What stresses me out? What is valuable to me? What makes me unhappy?

I realized, I exercise most days. I do hard exercise. That is awesome. I need to appreciate myself more, and what my body can do for me. I need to appreciate the world more. I feel like this past week I’ve really had my head in the clouds. I do feel like I got quite a bit of schoolwork done, but not a lot in terms of social interactions (which are SUPER important). And although it was technically a good week, it was just kind of blah.

The takeaway? I am trying to look at everything with a super positive light. I want to experience things more, and stop being concerned by the things that really don’t matter that much in terms of everything else.

I have some fitness goals that I set for myself. I had a reward planned for each goal. But I simply wasn’t meeting them, and it was getting extremely frustrating. So I decided to stop being so hard on myself, and appreciate myself for what I can do. So I went out and bought the first item on the list.

Did I need these? Absolutely not. But I decided that they are going to be my Happy Pants. They reflect a decision I made to appreciate and celebrate myself (wow that sounds incredibly selfish…). When I wear them, I want to remember that. On a different note, I am smack in the middle of the midterms. And I want a bit of time to myself to try and figure some things out. Anyone interested in doing some guest posts for next week? Shoot me an email at astottler@gmail.com.

Thanks guys! I’ll leave you with this-my current phone screensaver.