The Summer That May Have Changed My Life

Date: September 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Ok, to be fair, this title is a little overly dramatic. But let’s just get right into it, shall we?

It’s no secret I like cats. I feel like every survey I’ve done somehow ends up with every other answer being how much I love my kitty.

(Who just so happens to be sleeping purrily next to me as we speak.)

My phone pictures? Cats and food. And the food is a branch out from what my phone was like a year ago. I even made a calendar of my cats.

(Sidenote-apparently my Resident Fellows for my dorm have 3 cats! SO pumped!)

So volunteering in the kitten nursery this summer was an easy decision. Even if it was the early morning shift!

I mean, I knew they’d be freaking cute.

But I wasn’t prepared for the impact they would have on me.

I loved every minute of the kitten nursery- playing with the kitties, cleaning litter boxes, getting meowed at constantly, hand feeding them, leaving COVERED in cat food.

I learned how to syringe feed a kitten. I learned how frustrating kittens can be when they don’t feel like eating. I learned the impact one person can have on a kitten’s life.

I took this little guy under my wing.

I could tell he was kind of falling by the wayside, which really upset me. Black cats are usually the last to be adopted. This guy was underweight and not particularly receptive to being syringe fed. I could tell by his charts that the previous volunteers had just given up-he was not given anywhere near as much as he should have. He wasn’t that receptive to syringe feeding (a lot of kittens aren’t), but I spent an entire hour with just this one little kitten. His paper said he was “antisocial” but I think it was more of shy, because he eventually purred for me. This kitty ended up being fine, and a ball of energy a week later once his weight was back on track.

I also experienced the heartbreak of losing a kitten.

I fell in love with this little kitten the first week she came in. Her litter was so energetic and full of energy. 2 weeks later, she was so sick she couldn’t stand. She had lost a ton of weight-her whole litter was sick (and one of her sisters didn’t make it either) but she was the worst. I felt so helpless that day. This kitten had been a ball of energy 2 weeks before, and now was clearly suffering and not going to make it. I wanted so much to help them, but there was nothing I could do for them.

I’ve always loved animals, but believed I could never be a vet because it would be “too sad.” I even avoid books I know will have sad endings (Nicholas Sparks, anyone?). But you know what? Sometimes the hardest things are the most worthwhile.

My experience at the kitten nursery has me rethinking my whole career. I always thought I’d do nutritional research. But now, I’m seriously considering becoming a veterinarian. Because yes, when that little kitten died, it was sad. But you know what? They don’t all die. Most of them make it. What if I had an opportunity to save the life of an animal?

Wouldn’t that be worth the wave of emotions that came with losing one? Shouldn’t I put aside my OWN issues for somebody else? Sure, losing that kitten was unbelievably sad. But there are others out there that need help-that one loss shouldn’t stop me from saving the rest.

Have you ever completely rethought your career? Have you had an experience that changed your life?

WIAW-Summertime Loving

Date: August 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! That means-you guessed it-another edition of What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Jenn.

By the way, did you guys see her chocolate chip banana bread recipe? It looks AMAZING! I was going to make it but was short a ripe banana, and my dad may have killed me if I made it ~~and ate it all~~ while he was out of town.

But now onto what I actually DID eat!

Saturday lunch-leftovers. Sloppy joe meat (with turkey) in a lettuce leaf, plus leftover sweet potato wedges.

ANOTHER fruit bowl. I’m kind of obsessed with these. The best ones include bananas and peaches. WIth or without peaches though, there needs to be a tangier component than just banana-like berries or even apple in a pinch. Topped with crunchy sunflower seed butter for some healthy fats.

I also tried a new chobani flip-vanilla with corn flakes, honey oats, and praline pecans.

I paired it with a slice of veggie pizza and broccoli. My overall opinion? A little boring. And corn flakes+yogurt are not a great combination, just because they got super soggy.

Since over the weekend I was still on my no sugar challenge, when my parents broke out the peanut butter cups, I decided to make my own no sugar version. I heated up unsweetened chocolate and coconut butter (unsweetened chocolate is really hard), and then filled mini muffin cups first with the chocolate, then sunflower seed butter, and then topped with chocolate again. I also added a touch of sea salt to the top-to make them gourmet of course! I wouldn’t recommend using no sweetener if you aren’t use to the taste of unsweetened chocolate, but this would work just as well with dark chocolate.

One thing I love about summer is going to Farmer’s markets. I love tasting all the fruit-especially peaches. White peaches or nectarines are by far my favorite! However, fruit is not the only amazing foodie find at Farmer’s markets. Have any of you ever gotten kettle corn there? It’s the best kettle corn ever. When you get it, it’s so hot and crisp. What better to munch on while browsing the produce?

I do love my fresh produce though too. Some highlights-white raspberries and butternut squash hummus! I love topping salads with hummus, and I prefer less sharp hummus for this. Butternut squash worked just perfectly!

Also from the Farmer’s market-artichokes and corn. I also had a grilled portabello mushroom, but sadly we could not find any at the Farmer’s market.

Also-a side note: I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I haven’t posted many pictures of my breakfasts lately. That just means they’ve been super boring and/or really quick and early in the morning. For example-this morning I grabbed a Thinkthin bar before Crossfit. And as much as I’m sure everyone wants to see the same picture every other morning….

So far this week my workouts have been good ones. Monday was my first run of half marathon training 2.0. It took me about 3 hours to get going…but hey, I still did it. I realized I haven’t A) done that run in my newer shoes and B) done that run since the beginning of my first half marathon training. I did a 3 mile run in my neighborhood. It’s pretty hilly, so it was great practice for the hills of SF. It’s a run I’ve done a million times throughout high school. I did it once, at the very beginning of my training, and was DYING. I was in pretty awful shape at the beginning of my training-after recovering from Mono a month or so prior, I never really got back into running shape. Well, the run was sooo much easier. It’s good to know the 10 weeks of training I put into for my first half helped me be in better shape.

Confession: the whole time I was climbing the big hill I was think “I’m scaling this hill, just like Spiderman.” #facepalm

I refueled afterwards with an iced chai tea latte. A weak iced chai tea latte-because who has time for something to ACTUALLY brew fully?

When I make my chai tea lattes, I brew the tea directly into the almond milk, which I heat up. Since I’m adding ice, I find it gets too watery if I brew it in water and then add milk.

Aaaaand one last piece of deliciousness to leave you with. Remember how I said I wanted to bake Jenn’s chocolate chip banana bread but was a banana short? Well, I wasn’t just going to let a good banana go to waste. Or a good craving for chocolate chip banana bread to go to waste. Instead, I whipped up a concoction that turned out to be a pretty awesome banana chocolate chip custard. So let’s go with that.

I don’t have the exact recipe. But there’s only one solution to that-I’ll have to make it again and measure it out! I kind of just poured and mashed, but I used 1 banana, liquid egg whites, a dash of salt and baking powder, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

Have a great day everybody! I’m sorry this post was a bit disjointed-I was a bit behind on food posts so I kind of just threw it all out there. I’ll leave you with some kitty love.

I really wanted to take a selfie with him-because I’m cool and take selfies with my cat…but I didn’t get quite that angelic facial expression…

Do you love microwave cooking as much as I do? What’s the best way to train for a hilly race? Favorite summer produce? Anyone else take selfies with their cats? Please?

WIAW-Dessertless

Date: August 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! That means, it’s time for another edition of What I Ate Wednesday. Thanks so much to Jenn (who is welcoming a new little human to the world pretty soon!)

I’ll make this post pretty short-I need to study for tomorrow’s Psych final! But all you really care about is food anyways, right??

One quick aside-I went to yoga today. Owwww. I haven’t been in over a month and I’ve gotten soooo tight! Lack of yoga could definitely contributed to my calf problem-it felt much looser after class. I need to make weekly yoga a priority as I train for my next run! And just to clarify-I’m only doing the half of the Nike Women’s marathon. To be honest, my feet couldn’t handle more than that. Exhibit A: It’s a week and a half since my last half and I’m still waiting to regain some of the feeling in my toe. So until I get that figured out….

Ok, onto the food. As you may know, I’m doing a no sugar challenge this week. I’m not doing 0 sugar, just no desserts. So a lot of my eats will feature healthier, no sugar “desserts.” Enjoy!

Breakfast burrito pre-roll. Tip: make the eggs for this in the microwave. It saves dishes and time-the texture is only a tiny bit off and you can’t even tell in burrito form.

Breakfast burrito post-roll.

Lunch sides require their own plate.

Tortilla pizza fail-I sort of overestimated the amount of toppings necessary. This was all cheese and sauce. Whoops…First “dessert.” I’ve been loving my fruit bowls lately-especially anything with peaches and banana, topped with sunflower seed butter. Indian food out of a pouch-hey, good enough for me!

Imitation coconut Chobani. I can’t find anything but the coconut flips, so I took matters into my own hands. After attempt #1, this was spot on. I used Oikos vanilla greek yogurt, which was a better choice because it’s slightly sweeter than my normal vanilla yogurts. I added unsweetened coconut and, this was the key I was missing, coconut extract. I then let it sit overnight so the coconut would soften up. DELICIOUS.

I’ve been loving my lunch plates lately. Where’s the other half of the English muffin you ask? I had the biggest fail splitting it, so it came off in chunks unfit for the toaster.

I took it as a great sign that I was craving grapes for dessert after this meal. I’ve also been loving my dried mango lately (the unsweetened kind). But that could just be major mango withdrawals-I haven’t found much fresh mango lately.

Cheesy polenta with mushrooms, a side of asparagus.

Another delicious fruit bowl as a post-softball snack. (I finally hit a homerun!)

Imitation PB&J crackers. Sunflower seed butter and a raspberry on top of a whole grain and seed cracker.

And I’ll leave you with this 🙂 How can I possibly study with that face to distract me?

Sorry for the short-winded post, I have lots of studying in my near future!

What’s the best thing that happened to you this week? What does your cat look like? Have you ever gone dessertless? Results?

WIAW-The I Didn’t Forget Edition

Date: July 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I still can’t believe I forgot about WIAW last week. Let’s just say I was more than ready to go with it this week! As always, a huge thanks to Jenn for hosting 🙂

I began my morning with an early spin class. My calf was sore after Sunday’s run, but after spin class I walked away feeling 1000x better. In an attempt to get a head start on the day, I walked over to Starbucks for a strawberry smoothie and some reading for Psych. Sadly, my productivity was short lived. After about an hour of work, a nap was beginning to feel really necessary. 6 hours of sleep a night is not enough for me! Since it’s summer and I didn’t have to go in to the lab, I saw no problems with a nap.

Sometimes simpler is better-lunch was a plate of snack items- carrots with laughing cow, celery(one stalk with sunflower seed butter, one without), and a Chobani flip. I’m obsessed with the coconut yogurt; I can’t find any of the new flavors anywhere around here though!

I finished the meal with something sweet. A dark chocolate square and a mango log. I picked up a bag of mango logs at a fruit and garlic stand on the way back from San Luis Obispo. We passed through Gilroy, which is the garlic capitol of the world! You can even smell the garlic as you drive by; it’s crazy! The mango log is basically dried fruit ground up in log form and wrapped in coconut. Probably with some sugar added somewhere along the line. They’re DELICIOUS.

I spent the afternoon attempting to catch up on work for my Psych class with my little homework helper.

Please note the previously black shirt-I swear that cat sheds like no other.

I also spent some time reading blogs-please tell me I’m not the only one who gets hungry from reading food blogs?? So being the healthy living blogger that I am, I whipped up a protein cake. I would post the recipe, but it wasn’t exactly a winner. I should have added cocoa powder, which I forgot to do. The “cake” (and I’m using this term loosely here) was made up of protein powder, egg whites, a splash of almond milk, a splash of apple sauce, and some chocolate chips. Like I said, this wasn’t a winner. However, chocolate chips can right a lot of wrongs, so I didn’t mind. I think in the future, I’d prefer more of a sweet scramble kind of deal with no protein powder, banana, and chocolate chips.

Before dinner, I went to Crossfit. I got new Crossfit shoes at the Reebok outlet last weekend, and I was more than ready to try them out!They were awesome! The shoes I had been wearing were worn out and not great for weight lifting because they weren’t so flat. I used to lift weights in flatter shoes which coincidentally were terrible for running. These guys are the best of both worlds!

Lots of Olympic Lifting happening today! Our strength portion was snatches, which I’ve found a new love for. Not gonna lie, I like showing off juuuust a little. Plus, the movement feels so smooth.

The WOD was Elizabeth-my first of the girls!

Cleans and ring dips for 21 reps, 15 reps, and 9 reps. I didn’t Rx this. This is my first time doing cleans at Crossfit, so although I can clean 95 pounds, it had been a little while since I’d done them, and when I lifted weights in the past, I always did fewer reps. I went with 85 pounds for the cleans, which was just about right. I broke up each round into roughly 5s (putting the bar down and resting a little every 5 reps). I also didn’t Rx ring dips. Anything strictly upper body is pretty awful for me. I used a band, and I didn’t do them on rings, I just did regular dips. Well, with those modifications, I finished in 7:43! And my clean muscles will be sore tomorrow…

When I first started lifting weights with my trainer (3 years ago), I only heard him say the names of the lifts, I never saw them written out. I thought “cleans” were actually “clings.” Haha!

When I arrived home, dinner was waiting for me. We had corn and potato chowder with added rotisserie chicken and finished with cheddar cheese and green onions. On the side-asparagus and garlic aioli for dipping.

Not a bad day of eats! I wanted to show a few more pictures to you guys. Here’s my lunch from yesterday:This little guys LOVES meat. I was making turkey wraps, and he would not leave me alone! He kept trying to eat the food off my plate, trying to eat the turkey out of my hand, trying to eat it out of the container. And of course, when he wants something all he does is purr, act super sweet, and forcefully try to push his head into my food. It was so hard to get this picture-I almost had to sacrifice my lunch for the sake of a good picture. The things I do for you guys…

Also, check out this tan line from my hike the other day. Fun fact-I also have a tan line from the strap of the bag I was wearing during the hike. Nice. You know what else is sad? I have a sunscreen tan line. On my face. Only it’s worse than that-I have a tan line from rubbing the sunscreen off the edges of my face with sweat when I run. In other words, I have pale blotches on my cheeks. At first I thought some face product was messing with my skin. Nope.

On another positive note, I’m getting so psyched for my half marathon on Sunday! I’m feeling much better about my calf, although I’m not sure I’ll run at all before the race and risk it tightening up again. We’ll see!

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

What did you eat this week? Highlights? Details?