Monthly Archives: August 2016

WIAW-My Shoulder is Cranky

Date: August 9, 2016

Author: astottler

Guess who is back for WIAW? I’m trying really hard to blog more old-school HLB style these days since I have more time. (Or am I just procrastinating vet school apps? We will never know.)

Thanks to Jenn for starting this party all those years ago!

WIAWbutton

Before I get into my full day of eating, I wanted to share some things from Monday night.

We made a rosemary chicken, bacon, and avocado salad, although I left the bacon off of my portion!

I usually try to build my meals my having a protein, a carb, a vegetable/fruit, and sometimes a fat. Thus, I added a slice of gluten free toast on the side. My biggest health tip is to use fresh herbs generously. They really boost the flavor of the dish and add nutritional value, without extra calories/sodium.

We had some extra ripe bananas (I am NOT a spotted banana eater), so I tossed them in a pan with Earth Balance butter substitute (I like the flavor more than butter, actually), a spoonful of brown sugar, and cinnamon.

They sautéed up perfectly, and tasted decadent. The fruit naturally caramelizes, so it doesn’t take much sugar/butter for these to caramelize right up. I enjoyed my portion with some vanilla frozen yogurt. I like having the cold stuff in a separate bowl, otherwise I feel pressure to eat quickly before the ice cream all melts!

Now, finally, onto the full day of eating!

My morning began with my gummy vitamins and 2 gluten free crackers before Crossfit. Only 2 crackers because I wasn’t super hungry, and I was running late, but I like to have some sort of carbs in my belly before lifting heavy things.

At Crossfit, we worked on reverse hypers and pistols (onto a box for me). Reverse hypers are basically back extensions on the GHD. Fun fact: 3 years into Crossfit later, last week I finally learned what GHD stands for: gluts-hamstring developers. Who knew.

The WOD:

12 AMRAP:

5 deadlifts 155#

5 handstand push ups

The scale for handstand push up was strict press, and I of course took that option. I used 55# for the presses.After yesterday’s pull ups, my shoulders were pretty sore. My upper back actually got pretty tired from the deadlifts, something that doesn’t normally happen. I got through 10 rounds.

My shoulder is cranky though. I partially dislocated it a year ago, and while I can do everything now, it gets tight and painful if I use it a lot.

I wasn’t feeling yogurt for breakfast, so I decided to take advantage of my access to a Vitamix and make a smoothie. It was super simple, but super delicious: 1 frozen banana, cocoa powder, nonfat milk. I topped it with some raspberry KIND granola.

Because #nutrition, I do want to note that in my food choices, I do make an effort to stay pretty low fat. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I think the health merits of fat are—I think whole foods are extremely nutritious, including whole milk and olive oil, and in the past I’ve eaten a lot more fat and felt great. However, a lingering effect of my illness last year (I seriously need to do an update soon on that) is that I can’t handle much fat without feeling sick. So I choose the lower fat options as much as possible to stay feeling good.

I spent the morning doing vet school apps—I’m slowly but surely getting there!—before breaking for lunch.

On Sunday night, we grilled up a TON of chicken, so it’s been featured in pretty much every meal lately. I heated some up (and dipped it in catch up), and served it with a caprese salad. We were gifted homegrown tomatoes, so I chopped one up with fresh basil and fresh mozzarella, which I topped with salt and pepper. This is another example of choosing lower fat options—in the past, I might have topped this with olive oil, but I enjoyed it plenty without!

I also ate some gluten free crackers on the side, plus a couple of squares of mint dark chocolate.

I sent some emails and then went to the grocery to buy granola bars and things for dinner. An exciting new find was KIND dark chocolate granola, which I can envision on top of a chocolate banana smoothie bowl! I’m a big fan of KIND granola—the nutrition facts really can’t be beat. Also, a little goes a long way! It’s part of a great breakfast when paired with protein, such as yogurt!

Of course, I had to try some as part of my snack.

On the side was a farmer’s market plum and a NuGo bar. At this point, I basically eat exclusively Luna bars, but got a different brand to mix it up today. It was delicious, but honestly a little too much dark chocolate for me—I felt a little jittery!

I went to a spin class with one of my favorite instructors that evening. It’s a class with lots of choreography and push ups on the bike, but I really love her playlists!

Dinner made use of some of the food we had on hand.

Watermelon salad with mint and feta. Literally mint, watermelon, and feta.

Also, roasted garlic-parmesan zucchini and tomatoes. We topped them with basil, and this dish was incredibly delicious. The parmesan got brown and bubbly, and the vegetables were bursting with flavor.

All with BBQ chicken!

For dessert, I tried a Blueberry Yasso frozen yogurt bar. I had Yasso bars most nights in Tennessee. I LOVE the salted caramel, and like the mint chocolate chip a lot as well. The blueberry was good too, but the salted caramel still holds the main place in my heart.

(Check out the puppy in the background! She’s always there—she’s at my feet right now as I type this up!)

My family and I started watching The Gilmore Girls tonight. We finished our show last night (The Good Wife), and couldn’t find anything else we were in the middle of on Netflix, so we decided to give it a try. I like it well enough so far, and it’s quite a blast from the past (2000).

I was a little hungry, so I snacked on a little bit of KIND Dark Chocolate granola, and a few freeze dried grapes (they’re really fun—they were on sale at CVS!)

And now I’m planted in front of the Olympics. So far I’ve seen a couple of swimming finals, both of which I already knew the results of. It does make it less stressful though!

What is your favorite granola/protein bar?

I’m So Happy I Started My Blog

Date: August 8, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I’m supposed to be working on my vet school apps (story of my life right now), but the kitty in my lap is making things difficult.

I’m not sure why I thought blogging would be any easier?

Vet school apps have me doing a lot of reflecting. I’ve changed so much in the past 4 years, and it’s really hard for me to remember who I was back then and what I was like. Having my blog is invaluable. I’m so glad I started it during my freshman year. It’s taken me all the way through college, through so many changes. It’s just incredible to have all that documented. Plus, having my original thoughts on why I wanted to go into veterinary medicine, in real time, is super helpful as I write my essay. With new experiences, things change, and it’s really nice to be able to go back to my roots. I also feel like when I’m blogging, my posts are more raw and authentic than when I’m actually writing. My essay was feeling really stiff, so I sat down, in wordpress, and typed up a blog post reflected on my vet experiences. I can’t post it for privacy reasons, but it was a great exercise.

In a similar vein, I discovered a whole bunch of pictures from high school and middle school that I’ve never seen before. I thought my most awkward years were undocumented. That is not the case. Why did I think bright yellow sweatpants were a thing??

Actually, going through the old pictures was super interesting, and I think there needs to be a post about all that at some point. And don’t worry, some embarrassing pictures will be included.

I found one picture from 2011 that I feel like perfectly sums up who I was then.

Softball glove. Cat. That’s all ya need.

Last night, we made my fig and goat cheese salad, with the fig bounty from the farmer’s market.

This morning I went to Crossfit. It was hard. I took one look at the workout and knew it would be a rough one. For the strength, we worked on cleans. I worked up to 110#, which is not close to my 1 rep max, but the heaviest I’ve gone since my foot injury, and all felt good!

The WOD:

30-20-10

thrusters (55#)

pull ups

Here’s the thing. In the past month, I’ve stopped using a band for pull ups, and have been kipping. But everything has been in smaller sets. I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do a set of 30. (This is of course with breaks in between some of the reps, but it’s not the same as a full recovery). I didn’t even get a band out because I figured I would dive in and not give myself a way out. And here’s the thing. Thrusters make anything after thrusters feel way harder. I broke my first set of thrusters into 15 and 15 to avoid burning out right away, and then attacked the pull ups in 5s, so doing 5 and then coming off the bar, and coating myself with chalk. Honestly, I think grip strength was a major factor here too. But I got through the set of 30. Then 20. Then 10. I finished as a chalk monster with jelly arms, but accomplished! Seriously, chalk on my forehead, chalk in my hair, chalk on my shins. I though it was going to take me forever, but somehow it was only 13ish minutes? I don’t think I’ve ever done that many non-banded pull ups! While having a stress fracture stunk, there is always a silver lining. I could not have done this a few months ago. Even when things get rough, you have to look for the positives, and hold on to what you do have!

Post workout breakfast was my current go-to. Plain Greek yogurt with sunbutter, cinnamon KIND granola, and a peach.

I spent the rest of the morning working on my app, and then made the same fig and goat cheese salad for lunch. Real talk: 2/3 of the figs didn’t make it into the bowl. I love figs.

Also-Something kind of fun. We tried grilling watermelon last night! I still don’t know what I think. We have a charcoal grill, so it was a really smoky flavor. I made a mint/honey glaze for it. The watermelon felt like it should be savory. I think I liked it best with a little salt, a tiny bit of glaze, and goat cheese.

Have you ever grilled watermelon?

Olympic Fever

Date: August 7, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Has anyone else caught the Olympic Fever?

Here’s a throwback: does anyone remember when I trained at the Olympic Rowing training center?

They had a countdown clock down to the seconds. Crazy how that seemed insanely far away then, yet here we are!

All the plates in the cafeteria had the Olympic rings on them!

I’ve spent most of the weekend on the couch, between the Olympics and baseball. It’s been fantastic. I’m watching swimming as I type this up! Food and workouts have been good as well.

Friday morning Crossfit was heavy deadlifts, then conditioning: 1000m row, 30 thrusters, 30 dips, 1000m row.

Friday eats:

Corn chowder with white cheddar, and avocado toast. A classic.

Greek salad with chicken.

I’m sort of obsessed with halo top+leftover GF chocolate cake from the freezer.

These bars are really delicious. I like the blueberry one better, but they legitimately taste like pie.

Friday night, I got to hang out with my high school friends. It was so great to see everyone; it’s absolutely insane, but some of these people I hadn’t seen in 3 years! Time flies, doesn’t it?

Saturday morning, I went to Crossfit. The workout didn’t feel bad at the time but I’m actually pretty sore!

It was heavyish bench press, and then a team workout. For a team of 3, we split up 75 hand stand push ups, 75 pull ups, 75 GHD sit ups, and 75 pistols. We did 25 each, in sets of 5 or 10. For the push ups, I did them off a box. My shoulder still isn’t 100% from last year’s injury, and it turns out hand stand push ups are one of the few things that doesn’t feel great. For the pull ups, I went unbanded kipping and they weren’t too pretty by the final sets, because there wasn’t a lot of rest time. I did the pistols with assistance because flexibility and balance is not my forte.

I’ve been craving pancakes lately, so I finally made some for brunch afterwards.

I made them with a sweet potato base, and added oats, cinnamon, egg beaters, vanilla, and baking powder. I tried to blend them for a smoother texture but that wasn’t happening as it turns out because the blender didn’t have enough in it.

I got some greens in while they cooked up. I had a salad with ginger dressing.

Finished product! They didn’t have as much flavor as I was hoping; they could have probably used a pinch of salt, and more cinnamon. I remedied this by topping them with cinnamon sugar and Grade B maple syrup. Someday I would love to try Grade C, but you have to go to Canada to do that, as I understand it!

For snack, I made quite the throwback recipe. I don’t think I’ve made my banana chocolate chip custard in 3 years! I don’t know why—it took 2 minutes to whip up, and tasted delicious!

I had a pretty simple dinner—pizza on tortilla, some kale roasted with nutritional yeast, and a salad with fresh mozzarella.

For dessert, I finished off my chocolate Halo Top, with a dab of sunbutter. Kind of the chocolate pb ice cream.

That night, I drove down to see some of my college friends. It was so, so nice to see everyone again. I’m really trying to make the most of the 3 weeks I’m home! These people are awesome.

Also, I had the opportunity to cut a watermelon, which makes me unreasonably excited. I consider myself a professionally trained watermelon cutter, after learning at a fruit and veggie cutting workshop as part of my summer internship a few summers ago. I meant to do a tutorial post years ago. I’m not sure if I never actually wrote it (I took pictures!) or if I just can’t find it. Maybe I should try to get that up!

In the past week, I feel like all my worlds have been colliding and it’s incredibly confusing. Knoxville was totally different from college, which is totally different from high school. I don’t know what to think! And of course, St. Louis is going to be even more different!

This morning, I went to an 8:15 spin class, which felt incredibly early after a late night. I wanted to try this hour long class. It wasn’t my favorite; it was pretty traditional (no crazy choreography) which isn’t a bad thing, but I felt it could have used a little spice. We did 3 15 minute hill progressions.

Speaking of which, did anyone catching the men’s cycling race? It was absolutely crazy! I’m subbing spin this week, and I might have to do an Olympics themed class, based on the profile of the Olympic course.

After spin, I went straight to the farmer’s market with the intention of buying figs. I was a little early for most of the stands to have all their samples out, unfortunately, so I didn’t end up buying as much fruit as I might have otherwise.

I got a mild chicken tamale to refuel from spin, which was delicious!

I’ve gotten into tamales lately!

A little bit later, lunch was served in front of the Giant’s game.

My mom made bruscetta out of the beautiful heirloom tomato I bought.

On the side, I had some strawberries, plus a little experiment. I was curious what would happen if you tried to make nachos out of crackers. The result?

They just tasted like crackers with melted cheese. Definitely not a bad thing, but not nachos.

For dessert, I had another Halo Top bowl. This time, Birthday Cake ice cream over GF chocolate cake. Plus sprinkles.

Yum!

Now, the women’s bike race is on. It simultaneously makes me want to do a race, and convinces me I will never do one. I love the idea of it, but I’m far too worried about crashing. In the men’s race yesterday, there were some nasty crashes going downhill.

What is your favorite Olympic sport to watch?

Gymnastics and diving are always amazing. I also want to catch weight lifting and rowing (because I know a few rowers from my rowing days!)

Email Stress?

Date: August 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Does anyone else feel that as we acquire more methods to communicate, communicating becomes more difficult? I feel like in the past few years, even since I started getting 1000 emails a day, it just becomes so much more difficult to send a basic email. With smart phones, we have the ability to check our email every 10 minutes, wherever we are. Which allows us plenty of time to ponder, over ponder, and ponder some more on the response. That’s currently what I feel! Can anyone relate?

My day this morning started with a difficult Crossfit workout, Diane. I saw this last night and thought, “That looks terrible.” I suppose I was slightly comforted when I realized that it was one of the girls, and that I’ve done it a couple of times before. If I survived it before, I could do it again, right? The workout is:

5 rounds

400m run

30 box jumps (20″)

30 wall balls (14#)

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how my foot would hold up with all the box jumps. I only starting jumping to 20 inches a few weeks ago. I planned to do step ups or stop if it was bothering me, but it ended up being just fine! Somehow I managed to beat my best time by a whopping 7 seconds. Hey, I’ll take it!

I think the hot temperatures in Tennessee were responsible for my yogurt hiatus. For some reason, when it gets hot I never want it! However, it was 65 degrees today. (Brr!) So, I’m back on the yogurt train. I’ve been making yogurt bowls with cinnamon KIND granola and sunbutter, and having fresh fruit on the side. Today’s fruit of choice was an amazing nectarine from my roommate, and the world’s largest cherries.

The big event today was taking Chloe to the vet for her annual check up. She was particularly on edge today, I think in part because she tore up her paw pads running yesterday and was a bit painful.

I really enjoy going to her appointments, now that I have seen a lot more of the clinical side of veterinary medicine.

I’m still going strong with the Pinterest recipes. For dinner the previous night, we made zucchini corn chowder, so I had leftovers for lunch with avocado toast.

Plus more giant cherries.

I liked this recipe a lot, but we did make a few modifications. We used skim milk instead of half and half, and it was plenty thick and creamy. I also threw some grilled chicken in instead of bacon. I loved the added zucchini; it made this soup feel even more like summer!

This evening, I taught another spin class back at school. It does feel strange going back, knowing I won’t be returning in the fall. I can’t decide if I feel like I should be going back, or if I feel like I’ve moved on to the next thing. Either way, as always, teaching was a blast. I played a little bit of playlist roulette today though. I chose an old playlist based on the songs it contained, but left the choreography as a surprise. It turned out to be a fun one—we did some watts testing, which is a lot less complicated and formal than it sounds. Watts are a measure of the power, which is a function of the speed and resistance. For watts testing, we basically do short sprints, trying to get the watts as high as possible.

Dinner was another Pinterest win. This one was on my radar for quite a while, and when we had extra butternut squash lying around, I decided it was time!

This is a crispy kale autumn salad with brie grilled cheese croutons. Recipe here. This was a fun one, and unlike any salad I’ve had before. The base is kale, roasted until crispy with parmesan. Honestly, I could have eaten a bowl of just the kale. In the mix are spiced and roasted butternut squash and apple, and spiced pepitas. It is drizzled with a reduced apple cider dressing, and topped with brie filled croutons. My mom actually made this and said it was a bit labor intensive. A couple modifications that could be made to make this easier would be for one, skip the dressing. The salad had so much flavor without it, and I barely put any on. The spiced pepitas were fun, but store-bought roasted pumpkin seeds would have been a fine substitute. Also, I made my croutons by throwing my brie filled bread in the oven, instead of in a pan to cut down on the fat content a bit. Overall though, it was a bit hit in our house!

The cayenne in this recipe had me hankering for something cool to end with.

I’m currently fully on board the Halo Top train, and tried the mint chip for the first time today. It’s GOOD. I made a little sundae by thawing a little bit of plain GF chocolate cake from the freezer (left over from our grad party), and topping it with a serving of mint chip and half a serving of chocolate Halo Top. YUM.

That’s all I have tonight—off to more emails!

Coming Home

Date: August 3, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi friends! It’s been a little while. I’m home for all of 3 weeks, and it’s going to be a little bit of a vet school app bootcamp here. I’m struggling a little bit with the flow of my main essay, so I’m hoping this blog post is a nice little warm up to get my creative juices flowing!

Let’s catch up! I’m back in California. But let’s take it back a little bit for some food+fitness+life, shall we?

Tennessee Food

I finally improved the appearance of my new favorite breakfast a little bit. It’s just a sunbutter+blueberry sandwich, soaked in 1 egg white and then baked in tinfoil! Super easy and delicious, and the egg adds a little kick of protein. I ate theses with copious amounts of watermelon.

There was a Wednesday night Farmer’s Market with tamales. I had a delicious sweet potato tamale the week prior and was hoping for another one, but I was on the later so so cheese was my only option. Still delicious! On the side was one of the weirder things I’ve eaten. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic on lettuce leaves and then dipped them in guacamole. It was just too much lettuce…

I’m a pretty big fan of Publix now. It was the closest grocery, and had lots of great healthy+GF options. And gourmet yogurt. This and the bananas foster yogurt was delicious!

I had one last honey lavender iced latte at K Brew while finished up the first draft of my essay!

Tennessee Life

On my last day, I got off pretty early. It didn’t take me long to decide what I wanted to do. I went to Ijams one last time for a little hike by the river. I took a slightly different trail than the previous time and explored some different areas.

And then Saturday I was homeward bound. What is crazy? There was literally no line going through security in Knoxville. As in, I was literally the only person.

California

My favorite cookies ever happen to be at one of the places in the SFO terminal. I was hoping the entire 5 hour flight that 1. I would happen to pass it and 2. they would still be open! It turns out, the place was right by where I exited security, so I picked up a spicy cinnamon GF cookie. I think I preferred the non-spicy version I tried previously, but this was the only option.

To be honest, it feels weird being home, especially the first day or two. I feel like I was worlds away, and came back a different person. I had so many new experiences in Tennessee, and I did so much in a short time. To be honest, I’m glad I’ve moved on to new things instead of moped around about how I was going to miss my undergrad. At first, I didn’t feel ready to go to TN so soon after graduating, but I think it was for the better.

Sunday, I dove right back into things. First, I went to a spin class at the local studio. Then, I made amazing banana bread. I used my tried and true recipe, and separated it into two halves: one plain, one with raspberries and chocolate chips.

For dinner that night, I was back to the soup+avocado toast grind. Butternut squash chicken soup.

That evening, I met up with my college roommate for the Panic at the Disco+Weezer concert. I’ve grown particularly obsessed with Panic over the course of the last year, so when I was able to make the concert work given my travel dates, I was excited! Honestly, I could care less about Weezer. I probably haven’t listened to them since middle school, but liked them well enough then.

It was a great show, but we had seats on the lawn so unfortunately we were pretty far back. I haven’t been to many concerts lately, but the concerts I’ve been to I’ve always been able to be closer to the action. Maybe next time!

I enjoyed Weezer as well, and found I knew more songs than I realized.

In terms of workouts, I’ve been going back to my home Crossfit. We tend to do more barbell movements there, and I’m already feeling this morning’s workout! For strength, we did back squats. It was supposed to be 5 sets of 3 at 90%, but since I lost a ton of strength with my foot injury, I did 5×5 at 70%. I’ve squatted some since my injury at the TN Crossfit, but it was pretty low volume. So I’m going to be feeling this. The WOD was also a heavy one: 15 Min AMRAP of 10 hand release push ups and 5 deadlifts, which I did at 155#. While my squats may have gotten weak, my deadlifts have progressed because it was one of the few movements I could do for a while! I made it through almost 12 rounds.

I also went back to teach spin on Tuesday! I’m subbing as much as I can in the few weeks I’m home. I saw a ton of regulars, which was just so fantastic.

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And finally, wrapping up some food for the week.

When my roommate came, she brought a ton of AMAZING peaches! They don’t last a long time because they’re perfectly ripe, so we’ve been eating them like crazy. No problem for me! I had a peach+nectarine for breakfast the other day, with a side of banana bread.

Yesterday I had a cappuccino with a really delicious cranberry oat bar to fuel an essay brainstorming session.

And finally, the best thing.

We made Brazilian Cheese Bread! I got the idea from Alison. It’s made with tapioca flour and cheese, and is naturally gluten free. I used this recipe. They came out beautifully, and it was a super fast recipe!

We served them alongside Grilled Peach and Goat cheese salad, which was amazing with the fresh summer peaches.

What have you been up to??