Monthly Archives: March 2017

NEW BLOG SERIES/PAGE: Quick and Easy Meals for Busy Students

Date: March 17, 2017

Author: astottler

You may or may not have noticed, but the ol’ blog has a fresh new page! It’s titled “Quick and Easy Meals for Busy Students,” and you can check it out through this link, or clicking on the top tab.

So what’s that all about?

Basically, I’m going to vet school. It’s going to be really freaking hard. I’m going to have very limited time to cook, but I want to still eat healthy meals. In general, i I can’t have it in front of me in 20 minutes or less, it’s simply not happening. I also HATE cooking meat/don’t always trust myself, so plenty of vegetarian or pre-cooked chicken meals are included!

With no extra time, I decided I wanted a page to scan where I could just look at pretty food pictures and pick one out. Simple. No thought. 5 minutes tops. Therefore, a created such a page! Sometimes I scan old food photos or blog posts for meal ideas, but with this page, I’m basically doing that ahead of time. Before school starts, I have PLENTY of time to look for all the ideas I might need for next week. Some ideas featured are recipes that are already posted on the blog, but others aren’t. As a result, I will be doing a series of posts giving instructions for these meals. Some I have regularly, some I don’t. I hope both you, dear reader, and I find this helpful!

Pi Day!

Date: March 16, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

You better BELIEVE I celebrated Pi Day on Tuesday!

Sadly, I am not capable of reciting hundreds of digits of pi, but I am certainly capable of eating delicious pie!

My morning started off with a little walk with Chloe and some of my friends! They actually love walking with her, and are even willing to get up for a 7am walk with the sunrise and the pup!

For breakfast, I had my typical pre-spin meal of fruit and a flapjacked muffin.

Also—I’m playing around with less ridiculously large pictures, so let me know what you think!

My pre-teaching spin snack was Berry Cheerios.

Class went pretty well, but I feel like a lot of the playlists I’ve been doing lately have had really similar formats. Sometimes after teaching a lot without a break, I get a little uninspired. I vowed to bring something different on Thursday, so I actually just now spent a good deal of time finding some fresh music, and let the music dictate the format. I think it’s a good one! A lot of the songs are new and haven’t made it to the radio yet, which always gets me excited. Check it out here on my spotify!

I ate lunch outside afterwards because the weather was insanely nice. I had leftover chicken dijon stew with some GF fire roasted veggie crackers.

On my way home, I stopped at Whole Foods to pick up a GF pie for Pi Day!

That afternoon when I arrived home, I had a quick snack of a lemon blueberry muffin and the rest of the lemon yogurt I used to make the muffins.

Then, it was time to drag the kitties to the vet for their annual checkup. It was really rough. Charlie is the biggest scaredy cat, and his tail puffed up the second he got in his crate. He HATES the car, and was panting and drooling the entire drive there. He also had an accident in his crate since he didn’t use the litter all day. While we waited for the vet in the room, I was able to hold him (cat urine and all) and he calmed down a lot, but the entire process was just the saddest thing.

On a happier note, I’m going back to working at the vet in a couple of weeks, now that my crazy traveling is over! I’m really excited to be back.

For dinner, we made pizza pie! Tortilla BBQ chicken pizza pie, that is!

I used Trader Joe’s pulled BBQ chicken on top, along with pizza sauce, spinach, mozzarella, and red peppers.

We served the pizzas alongside roasted brussels sprouts.

(We used the rest of the BBQ chicken for the following night’s dinner, in salad form!)

And then, it was time for the pie! It was SUPER crumbly. Blueberry peach, with a crumble topping.

Post dinner snack was a brown rice cake with whipped chive cream cheese.

How did you celebrate pi day?

Talking Nutrition

Date: March 15, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I think for a little bit I’m going to go back to blogging full days of eating. I’m trying to change up how I eat a little bit, and get more creative with what I’m making! As a result, let’s take it back to Monday and go through the day in that format.

I decided my body needed a break from exercise so I had a leisurely morning. I’ve been in a major breakfast rut lately (all I want is flapjacked muffins), so I was happy to find myself going for a yogurt bowl! Plain yogurt, maple KIND granola, sunbutter, and mango on the side.

I’m actually planning a mini-blog series to work on my breakfast rut. I’m going to take a little trip down yogurt memory lane (….yes, just go with it) and remake my different variations on yogurt bowls over the years.

At lunchtime, I gave a lecture on nutrition to my dad’s company. I did a basic overview on different food categories and what they did in the body, as well as discussed practical applications of nutrition (eating out, for instance). I do want to talk about trans fat a little bit here (otherwise appearing as partially hydrogenated oil, fractionated oil, hydrogenated oil). Trans fat is not “generally regarded as safe” by the FDA, which is saying something because there’s a lot of crap that is. It’s also the ONE thing in nutrition that everyone actually agrees on. Everyone agrees it’s incredibly harmful to health. While preparing for this talk, I did a little research on fast food. Several years ago, trans fat was a big issue. It was a big enough issue to the public, that the government began requiring the grams of trans fat to appear on food labels (note that trans fat still appears as “0g” if the serving of food has <0.5g). A lot of food companies made a big deal out of removing trans fat from their foods. McDonalds made a big deal about it. Jack in the Box was always one of the worst trans fat offenders, and they never did this. Well, imagine my surprise, when I found out that now, several years later, companies have been quietly adding trans fat back into their foods. McDonald’s used an oil blend containing trans fat to fry their foods, so any item at McDonald’s that has been fried has trans fat. Girl Scout cookies are another example. For a few years, they took it out, and now it’s back. Basically, when people stopped paying attention to trans fat, companies added it back in. Stay vigilant, my friends!

I also made a loaf of my healthy banana bread to demonstrate that you can have low-sugar baked goods that are still delicious!

Lunch was catered, so I had a turkey sandwich.

After lunch, I immediately changed into shorts and a tank top and took Chloe for a walk, since the weather was absolutely beautiful! We went on a route with fabulous views of the whole bay.

When I got back, I grabbed some sliced mango and embarked on another spring activity, baking!

Lemon baked goods just taste like spring to me. I used this recipe for blueberry lemon muffins. For a year, I’ve been searching for the perfect lemon bread/muffin recipe, and I was excited about this one!

That being said, I think there’s some reaction with gluten free flour and lemon, because in the lemon products I’ve made with GF flour, the texture is always a little off, and I’ve never had that issue with other GF baked goods. These had great flavor, and ended up being pretty dense when they eventually cooled. They were jam packed with blueberries! And surprisingly, I think they actually had plenty of lemon flavor, something a lot of lemon recipes are lacking.

That evening, I went to a Core Yoga class at the gym. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already, but I’m trying to go to all the fitness classes at my gym. That’s well and good for all the spin classes, but the Zumba? Yeah, that’s going to take me out of my comfort zone.

I really enjoyed this class. I normally go to the Vinyasa Yoga classes, and this was definitely different. There was a lot of deep stretching, which was so much needed after 17.3′s squat snatches. The focus of this particular class was the feet and ankles, which was actually a really interesting and effective way to cue different poses. I think I’m going to try and go back to this class next week, although that will be my last chance for a while since I’ll soon be teaching spin Mondays!

For dinner, we had Chicken Stew with Kale and Dijon, with a side of cornbread pulled from the freezer.

One modification we did make was to use chicken breast in place of chicken thighs. My family prefers white meat, especially in soup, and when we made the recipe with thighs in the past, we decided we would prefer this modification.

For dessert, I had a See’s Peppermint Scotchmallow, See’s St. Patrick’s Day candy with mint marshmallow and caramel. It was SO good. It tasted like a thin mint! I also had some chocolate Halo Top.

For an evening snack, I had a handful of blackberries.

What are your thoughts on trans fat?

Any amazing lemon recipes for me to try?

California Sunshine|17.3

Date: March 13, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Daylight Saving Time…am I right? I spent Saturday night out with my high school friends for a birthday, and had the lovely experience of watching my bedtime shift from 2 to 3 am…would not recommend.

My St. Louis friend was snap chatting me snow in St. Louis the other day…meanwhile, spring has arrived here in CA. The weather has been absurdly nice. I’ve been trying to take advantage as much as possible!

Friday morning, I took Chloe for a walk after my own 3 mile run while listening to a podcast.

For lunch, I made a ridiculously simple yet delicious salad. Garlic hummus, herb goat cheese, and an egg over easy. With a side of sweet potatoes.

For snack, I tried the Vanilla Flapjacked Smoothie mix, but I blended it up with half milk and half ice for a frosty treat. It was a little bit watery in flavor (too much liquid), but I liked it at that texture!

Afterwards, my mom and I went with my sister for her wedding dress fitting! The big day is coming, and the dress is nearly finished! She looks amazing in it! After the fitting, we still had some wedding details to discuss so we headed to Pete’s for some honey macchiatos.

We stayed pretty late, but thankfully dinner came together in a jiffy! We made hummus sandwiches with cheese, tomato, spinach, and avocado. Simple, but delicious. On the side was a simple herb salad with mint, basil, and dill, and a dressing of aged white balsamic vinegar and lemon olive oil.

Saturday morning, I did 17.3!

It. Was. Epic.

I currently live about 30 minute away from my college Crossfit, the place I called home for 3 years. I haven’t really been back there since I left for Tennessee in June, so I decided the Open would be a fun time to see everyone. I have to say, a lot has changed. Apparently they moved (to a super nice new facility!), which I figured out 10 minutes before I left to drive there!

17.3:

Prior to 8:00, complete:
3 rounds of:
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
6 squat snatches, 95 lb.
Then, 3 rounds of:
7 chest-to-bar pull-ups
5 squat snatches, 135 lb.
*Prior to 12:00, complete 3 rounds of:
8 chest-to-bar pull-ups
4 squat snatches, 185 lb.
*Prior to 16:00, complete 3 rounds of:
9 chest-to-bar pull-ups
3 squat snatches, 225 lb.
*Prior to 20:00, complete 3 rounds of:
10 chest-to-bar pull-ups
2 squat snatches, 245 lb.
Prior to 24:00, complete 3 rounds of:
11 chest-to-bar pull-ups
1 squat snatch 265 lb.

*If all reps are completed, time cap extends by 4 minutes. (These weights are for men.)

Going in, I had no idea if I could do a chest to bar pull up. I felt like I SHOULD be able to, and I knew it would be close.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I was a few inches away, but knew that even if I got ONE, I’d never get a full round’s worth! I decided to do scaled, which was jumping pull ups.

For the scaled, the weight progression was 35, 55, 65, 75, 95. I knew I was good up to 75. My PR on the snatch is `108, but it wasn’t from the ground (I’m worse from the ground because I have trouble getting into the proper position), and it was right before my senior year of college where I was working hard on my olympic lifts and was super strong, and right before I dislocated my shoulder. The heaviest I’d gotten since my injury has been 75#!

In my warm up, I loaded up to 85, and didn’t even try it because it felt so heavy off the ground.

I went in the second heat, and had a pretty solid pace going through the first 8 minutes, easily making the time cap. By easily, I mean in terms of time, not effort! This felt harder than expected; jumping pull ups actually start to get hard with that many, plus with snatches!

A lot of people around me didn’t scale, so they finished much earlier than I did because they didn’t make the time cap. I was just kind of in the corner, doing my thing. I’m not sure a lot of people realized I was still going, and I was worried they would stop the clock before I finished, until my coach (who knows me) stole the clicker so that couldn’t happen!

Finally, I found myself staring down a 95# bar with 30 people looking on. I honestly didn’t think I would be able to make the lift. I just wanted one, so I took some time to rest and catch my breath, and my coach definitely helped talk to me. I missed the first attempt, but after another minute or so of rest, with 30 people cheering me on, I hit 95#! I knew once it was overhead, I could overhead squat 95#, so catching it up there was the best feeling! I’m so proud of how I did, and was definitely not expecting to get that!

I helped judge other heats, and helped my coach change weights during his attempt at the workout. He was pretty amazing to watch. He hit 1 rep at 245# with no time to spare, and it was epic.

It was so nice to return, and I’m glad I did. Things are changing, my coach is actually about to move away! It left me with both a warm and a weird feeling.

The new location is in downtown Palo Alto, so I walked around a little bit to grab food. I got a delicious iced latte from Zombie Runner (interestingly, Zombie Runner is both a running store and an amazing coffeeshop).

I also picked up a Subway salad to go and took it to campus to hang out with my sister while she watched her fiancé play quidditch.

Plus a chocolate chip cookie!

After a little time in the sun, I drove home and was greeted with a delivery!

These blondies are chickpea based! I haven’t had any chickpea based baked goods before, and I must say, based on how they looked in pictures, they weren’t exactly what I was expecting! They’re really moist and kind of spongy, definitely bean based, but still tasty!

For dinner, we ordered take out from The Counter. I whipped up a side salad and split a custom chicken burger with my mom: gruyere, avocado, garlic aioli, tomato, greens, scallions.

And later that night, I was back to Palo Alto to celebrate a birthday (see above).

I woke up Sunday morning SO tired. Go figure. We drove down to Palo Alto again so I could run and my parents could walk the pup.

We grabbed lunch outside on campus, and on the way, Chloe met another dog and went fountain hopping!

For lunch, my mom and I shared an iced latte, a breakfast arepa (with scrambled eggs), and a salad with goat cheese, dried cranberries, and honey vinaigrette.

Then, we went to Tin Pot for ice cream. The TCHO chocolate is my favorite ice cream ever. But look how tiny the scoop was!

On the drive home:

Thanks to the beautiful weather, we had happy hour before making a summery dinner.

On the menu was grilled pineapple and grilled chicken, roasted cauliflower with parmesan, and a side salad with blueberry balsamic and blueberries.

We didn’t have any teriyaki sauce to marinate the chicken, so I made a marinade blend of liquid aminos, honey, garlic, rice vinegar, ginger salad dressing, and sesame seeds.

It truly feels like spring in CA now!

How Do I Fuel for 2 Spin Classes?

Date: March 9, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! As you may know, Thursdays I teach 2 spin classes: 12:00 and 5:30. Obviously, getting the right amount of fuel is incredibly important for these double days! I want to bring the same energy and intensity to my 5:30 class that I do to my noon class! I thought it might be fun to share a full day of eating on these days, especially since I end up on the go most of the day.

Breakfast:

Double chocolate flapjacked muffin+blueberries. (Old picture but I have this regularly.)

Snack: Pumpkin Spice Cheerios

Lunch Post-Class #1:

A salad with an egg (obviously cooked in the microwave), herbed goat cheese, and garlic hummus. The hummus and goat cheese were both much higher quality and more flavorful than what I normally use in this salad, and it made all the difference! Plus some GF crackers.

Afternoon snack: Luna Bar

Pre-Spin Snack: Several crackers.

Post-Spin Snack to hold me over for the 30 minute drive: Mango (not all mango made it to the picture)

Dinner: Chicken stir fry with mushrooms from the CSA box and roasted sweet potatoes.

Dessert (necessary): some whole grain carrots cookies from the freezer and some dark chocolate.

Post-Dinner Snack (as you can see, lots of snacks are necessary): half a brown rice cake with whipped chive cream cheese.

Today after my second class, a student came up to me and told me he worked at hardest in my classes, and I was able to get the most out of him for the least pain. That’s the highest compliment! That’s why I lovelovelove what I do.