Fall Weekend: Caturday and Pumpkin Bread

Date: November 6, 2016

Author: astottler

I’m starting this post on Saturday afternoon while watching college football, with Yoyo snuggled in at my side. It seems like the 80+ degree weather finally broke, and it was a chilly 43 this morning!

This has been a really low key weekend, which was needed after a few crazy ones. I was traveling the last 2 weekends, and had an action packed weekend the week before that with my parents visiting.

Friday morning began with a great Crossfit workout—front squats and deadlifts! I love anything with power movements. We did 10×2 front squats, and I used 125 lbs. The WOD was

15 deadlifts (135 lbs)

15 box jups

15 deadlifts

15 box jumps

rest 3 minutes. repeat.

For breakfast I had something a little bit different. I’m trying to make my way through the freezer, so I made a protein smoothie with a frozen banana, milk, cocoa powder, and Quest salted caramel protein.

I haven’t been feeling meat as much lately for some reason, so my lunch salad was meatless. Pears, dried cranberries, and lots of goat cheese in champagne vinaigrette, with crackers on the side.

And a pice of chocolate.

I can’t believe I only have 2 weeks left of zoo life!

My wild Friday night included plan at a coffeeshop to work on my online Microbiology class. With all the travel lately, it’s kind of been put on the back burner.

I started out by ordering a sandwich. I ordered it on GF bread but I don’t think they actually gave me GF bread because I’ve gotten sandwiches there before that don’t look like that! Despite the results of my gluten experiment, I decided I didn’t want to lose mental capacity so I just ate around the bread. The sandwich was turkey, swiss, and herb cream cheese with a side salad.

After enjoying that, I ordered a baked pumpkin maple latte (decaf!) to sip on while completing an assignment.

I’m not normally a sweet coffee person, but this was no Starbucks. It was really delicious and actually tasted like coffee!

I was planning on watching Game 7 of the 2014 World Series (I have it on DVD) afterwards, but I was craving a book so I stopped by Target to pick one up. This was my night:

I like this book! There’s definitely a lot to it, and it’s fairly dark.

Saturday morning I was supposed to teach spin, but no one came to the class. Instead, I headed out to a 9am Crossfit for some clean and jerk work and a partner WOD. In groups of 3, we split 75-60-45-30-15 push press (65), calories on the rower, and kettle bell swings.

Afterwards, it was time to hit up a St. Louis must-do.

Rumor was they have GF donuts Friday and Saturday mornings, and I picked up a GF pumpkin spice cake donut!

Of course I had to try a bite in the parking lot (but managed to save the rest for when I got home because it needed milk).

It was good, but to be honest, I think I would have liked it more baked. I don’t really like the fried flavor. But my first donut in a very long time was well enjoyed.

I also really like this milk, so I wanted to mention it. It’s filtered to have lower lactose and high protein than normal milk, but mostly I like it because I actually have a pretty strong fear of sour milk, and I feel like if it’s super filtered that’s less likely to be an issue!

My entire day basically consisted of reading my book on the coach with kitties. Mostly Yoyo, but Scooby joined us for a little bit. He sat on my lap but kind of spilled onto Yoyo and was directly on top of him, so I LITERALLY had cats on cats.

photo-on-11-5-16-at-2-14-pm

Saturday night I went to a Crossfit night out.

My local Crossfit here organized a night out at a local bar. It was a really fun night; it was nice to actually talk to people outside of working out (though of course the topic of Crossfit was brought up once or twice 😉 ). It was really interesting learning more about people’s lives outside of them gym, and of course I had to try some local craft beer! It just makes me all the more sad to leave these people in 2 weeks!

One really nice thing was that it was within walking distance of my house, and while the temperatures have dropped quite a bit these past few days, it was a really nice, crisp night to walk.

Sunday morning at 6am, Yoyo busted open my door and before I knew it I had 2 kitties snuggled up on my bed.

Despite their antics, I managed to sleep a little bit longer!

My main event for Sunday morning was going to Crossfit run group. It’s basically just people meeting at the gym to go run together. There was a short and a long option. The short was 1.5, and the long was 5…1.5 seemed a lot shorter than what I was hoping for, so I decided I might as well go for 5 and turn back if necessary. I hadn’t run this far since my stress fracture; I had only run 4 miles 2x, and 3 is my normal distance.

My foot performed fantastically! I was able to cover 5 miles pain-free, which is pretty huge. My legs were feeling it by the end though! A group of 3 of us did the 5 mile option, and apparently our average pace was 9:36, which is not too shabby! It felt good to run longer again, and I’m sure I’ll be feeling it tomorrow. My plantar fasciitis is flaring a little bit from the increased effort though. Running on my foot is pretty variable. I think the fact that I spent the entire previous day on the couch is part of why I was able to cover those miles pain free. I walk and stand a ton at work, which limits my mileage.

I was HUNGRY when I got home and had a few gulps of chocolate milk while preparing lunch.

I messed up flipping my egg, but somehow it turned out perfectly bread shaped! I’ll take it! I made an open-faced egg sandwich with American cheese. On the side was a salad with goat cheese and dried cranberries.

After lunch, I facetimed a friend back home, while mixing up pumpkin bread (and dividing the recipe in half!) Somehow, despite multitasking, I think I managed to not screw anything up.

I asked my mom to dig up my favorite pumpkin bread recipe which I haven’t made in a little while. The recipe is from so long ago, it’s 1. pre-blog and 2. on paper!

I tried to find the link to the recipe, but I can’t find it!

I cut the recipe in half, used GF flour, and used a bit under 1/3c brown sugar and 1/3c maple syrup in place of the full cup of sugar. I also sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top of one side!

Delicious!

Chilly temperatures+pumpkin bread?

NOW it’s fall.

I spent the afternoon studying. I went to Rise for a cozy decaf cappuccino.

Dinner tonight was another warm fall favorite: soup! I heated up some mushroom lentil soup and topped it with fat free cheddar (kind of rubbery but trying to use it up!). On the side I had some buttered toast.

For dessert, I sautéed up some apples with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. I don’t think I added nearly enough butter, and the edges got sort of caramelized. I served that with some vanilla Halo Top.

It was a great, relaxing, low key cozy fall weekend!

What do you like to do when the temperature drops?

Well That Was Interesting—Gluten Experiment

Date: November 3, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi friends! I’m currently in quite a good mood. I got some very unexpected good news today, and I had an awesome fall run after work in Forrest Park! It was my fast casual run post stress fracture!

It’s nice to see some 8:xx back in there! I just signed up for my annual Turkey Trot as well. In the past, I’ve done the 10k, but decided to actually use good judgment and just do the 5k this year. As much as I wanted to do the longer distance, it just wouldn’t be smart to run twice as much as my normal with a sketchy foot.

I wanted to share some tidbits from my Wednesday with you. Spoiler alert: I had my first actual gluten (minus tiny amounts accidentally 2x) in 14 months. Whatt??

I woke up pretty hungry on Wednesday morning thanks to a full day of travel and had my usual Cinnamon Apple Cheerios pre-workout. The workout of the day was a Crossfit shoulder killer. I basically trashed my creaky shoulder, but it’s fine because that’s how it is going to get stronger. I just need a few days off from overhead! We did 8×3 push jerks, which I used 85 pounds for. Technically we were supposed to do 70% but my 155 lb one rep max was pre-shoulder injury when I was a whole lot stronger. Then, we did an EMOM for 14 minutes of 5 strict presses on the even minutes and 5 strict pull ups on the odd. I did the pull ups with a band. Immediately following this we did 2 minutes of max burpees. My shoulders are feeling it today, that’s for sure!

Post-workout I had the best breakfast. Cottage cheese with pumpkin butter, sunflower seed butter, and a side of strangely delicious blueberries.

For lunch, I made a hummus, egg (microwaved), and goat cheese salad with some Glutino crackers on the side.

For snack I had a small berry granola bar.

Before the moment of truth, I have some obligatory zoo pictures. Because I only have 2 weeks left.

Bae <3 <3 <3

I’m going to miss my girls!

For my gluten of choice, my friend who works at Panera brought me an M&M cookie. Free food=instantly more delicious.

And then it was time.

*insert jaws theme*

I nervously took a bite. And waited. Then another. I had 1/4 of this large cookie to start, and another bite about 20 minutes later when I felt ok.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was hard to imagine it would cause a vicious flare up because I haven’t had anything like that in a while.

If I had to guess what would happen, it would have been what did happen.

My stomach felt ok. My brain stopped working. That was interesting. I had my part of the cookie about an hour before I was off work, and I was inputting data into an excel sheet. And suddenly I kept messing up. I was in this weird fog. I was so incredibly tired that I felt like I needed to fall asleep on the spot. My brian was moving in slow motion, and I couldn’t quite get my brain to communicate with my fingers.

Does this surprise me? Not really? If you look way back into the depths of my blog, you’ll see posts from freshman year of me wondering if I had a problem with gluten because I’d eat pancakes for breakfast and then in class afterwards suddenly feel overwhelmingly and all-consumingly tired.

But I didn’t flare. That being said, I literally had less than half a cookie. At a point when my stomach was 100% perfect to start. I still don’t totally trust it in all situations, and right now it’s not worth risking the fear of a flare. Plus the brain fog? I think I’ll keep avoiding it. But this means I don’t have to worry about small amounts/contamination in things like soy sauce. And if we’re being 100% real here, I really just wanted to do this trial now to know if I can eat the top off pumpkin cheesecake at Thanksgiving without worrying about any crumbs from the crust sneaking their way in. And I think that will be ok!

Because priorities.

For dinner, I made cheesy polenta with an egg that I seriously messed up flipping, and mushrooms with spinach sautéed in garlic and soy sauce.

And of course I needed baseball watching snacks.

I had a little bit of vanilla Halo Top with a GF snicker doodle and some Trader Joe’s Pumpkin O’s.

As for baseball? I just wanted a good game, and this certainly delivered. The fact that I have no investment to either team and yet I’m crazy nervous about the game is why baseball is the greatest sport ever. I’m happy for the Cubs. I really disagreed with some of Joe Maddon’s (the coach of the Cubs) decisions, and I’m glad that the questionable decisions came back to bite him despite the final outcome!

Did you watch the World Series? Thoughts?

WIAW—Guinea Pigging it Up?

Date: October 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi friends! Welcome to another WIAW.

Before we get into my full day of eating, I wanted to show you guys what I did with my Soulard Farmer’s Market haul. I sautéed the zucchinis in garlic and nutritional yeast, and served them with fresh mozzarella and some of my mini heirloom tomatoes. Cookies were an appetizer because I stopped at Target after spin to pick them up, and it was late, and I was about to eat my arm, and if you thought I’d make it the mile home without breaking into them….

Ok, time for WIAW!

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For some reason, I’ve gotten in the habit of having a flapjacked muffin on my days off. We’ll go with it. This is only my second time having the apple cinnamon, but it’s good! For some reason it’s hard to find. The other day, I was wondering if, since I hadn’t known this flavor existed, there were other flavors I was missing out on?

The answer is yes. There’s a S’mores flavor! I ordered a 4 pack online to try, so I’m excited for that! Plus packages are awesome. But food packages? Amazing.

I also had a few snap pea crisps (I often randomly have a few of these at meals) and half of a mediocre peach. Target has has awesome nectarines, but I didn’t see any when I went so I got these. They’re fine. Not amazing. The season is ending, I suppose!

Before getting ready for the day, I did half of a Blogilates ab video. I’ve neglected these. They’ve gotten so much harder haha. Sidenote: I got a yoga mat to do at home ab workouts and hopefully some yoga classes. I didn’t realize until rolling it out in class for the first time that it has a rocket ship on it. It’s pretty cool! But I think it might be meant for small children…it’s also sort of short, but good enough for me!

My coffeeshop of the week was The Mud House in Cherokee. This is my second to last one on the list!

As per usual, I got a decaf cappuccino.

I liked this a lot! It had that bitter/rich high quality coffee flavor. A little darker than some, which I would say is not quite as much my preference. I would say this falls about at the same level as Rise, but I might rank it a hair above because they had food!

They had amazing sounding grits, and an amazing sounding goat cheese sandwich (and they had GF bread), but after much deliberation, I went with the soup of the day, which was vegetarian split pea.

It was definitely a good call. I swear, my entire diet could consist of soup, salad, and sandwiches, and I’d be a happy girl.

I actually had a pretty productive day, school wise. I was dragging a bit in the morning, but with my low caffeine tolerance, the decaf was enough to make me WIRED. Not bad wired, but wired to the point of happiness and productiveness. (Note: I’m very certain I didn’t accidentally get full caf because that actually would kill me.)

I did a little bit of coffeeshop hopping today. Actually, I planned my entire day around visiting the other coffeeshop. Why? It’s trial day.

I haven’t had gluten in over a year. Not exactly at least. I accidentally had a tiny bit twice (that I know of): Thanksgiving (eating the top off of cheesecake and getting some of the crust) and a mislabeled turkey meatball. Both caused flares, but not terrible ones. (Thanksgiving wasn’t great partly because the excess of other things that make me flare.) The last time I intentionally ate gluten was a few crackers the night before my endoscopy. I spent most of the night lying on the floor, super nauseous, feeling like death.

But it’s been a long time. My gastroparesis is so much better. I don’t have to take stomach meds daily in order to function anymore. The fear of a flare is not constantly on my mind. Part of this is managing what and how I eat, but I honestly think my stomach has healed a lot, even since the spring. I’m not going to take over this WIAW with talk about all that, expect another post soon, but the sum of it all is that it was time.

I couldn’t think of anything that I wanted enough to test for a long time. But I don’t envision myself having to be meticulous about gluten long term; it’s a pain, and I hate the social situations I find myself in (I know it really isn’t a big deal to have to avoid a food, but for some reason I’m really self conscious about this.) But then I discovered a true St. Louis staple, and I could not find anywhere that had it gluten free: Gooey Butter Cake. After much research, I learned that Park Avenue Coffee had some of the best gooey butter cake, so this afternoon I stopped by to pick up some of the original (they have tons of other flavors too).

I decided to plop down there for an hour or so with my textbook, so I got some peppermint tea (#nomorecaffeine).

For a snack pre-workout, I had a Luna bar and the rest of my peach from earlier.

Around this time, I started feeling off. (I should note I started this post earlier in the day.) I was feeling pretty wired earlier in the afternoon, and I thought I was just really sensitive to even decaf, but then I started to feel a little like death. I think my cappuccino must have accidentally been full caf. To preface, I’m super sensitive to caffeine. It runs in my family, but when I developed my stomach illness my caffeine tolerance dropped to zero and it makes me really sick now. I started to feel really sick and shaky. It felt exactly like one of my flare ups. I hoped that Crossfit would make me feel better. I walked up and almost turned right around because I felt so rough. Luckily, copious amounts of stomach meds and some movement helped me feel a little better.

The workout started with an EMOM for 10 minutes of 3 burpees+1 deadlift+hang power clean+jerk. I stuck with 85# because I was still really shaky and didn’t want anything too heavy overhead.

The WOD was 2 8 minute AMRAPS of 200m run, 10 russian kb swings, 10 overhead lunges at 55#. Lunges are still a little hard for me with my foot. I can’t get my knee to the ground on one side without over stretching it.

After my workout, I did feel better but still rough. I decided that there was no way I could do my cake trial. I decided to take it as a sign from the universe that maybe I’m not ready, and not as healthy as I thought. Plus, when I got back to my car, I heard a commercial about all kinds of GF products, which I’ve never heard anything like before. Another sign. I don’t normally believe in non-baseball superstitions, but come on.

On the plus side, from an academic perspective, it’s very interesting to better realize that too much caffeine feels the same as a flare up, and my flare ups probably involved over activation of the central nervous system. Huh.

After my workout, I knew I needed to get some food in. This WIAW sure didn’t go as planned, but that’s life.

I knew I was low in calories for the day (I don’t think I got nearly enough food in after cycling last night) and needed to make sure I got something in without making myself feel worse. I had some GF crackers and a plain piece of GF bread while I started making soup.

What made the biggest difference in how I felt was making some hot ginger honey water. Discovering how much ginger helps has been life changing.

It’s funny, the soup I was making I used to consider my “magic soup” back when I was really sick this past winter. It cured several flare ups. I was actually planning on making it before I even had wanted to do a trial, so I guess it worked out! I did it the lazy way though. The recipe for sweet potato, pear, and leek soup is here. I cheated.

I wanted to use sweet potato soup, but couldn’t find any. the butternut squash worked out perfectly though! I took the boxed soup and added the pear (I cooked it then blended it in to a little of the soup before stirring everything together—it’s a small blender), and then adding all the flavorings. I halved all the spices because I was making a smaller volume (except ginger because #magic). And then made the croutons.

I swear I felt better with each bite.

Finally, a little bit later, I had a Luna bar because I needed more gentle food.

As for the gooey butter cake? It did not go to waste. My intern buddy came over to take care of it and watch baseball with me 🙂

So was I a guinea pig today? Not in the way I was expecting. But seriously, what are the odds the one day in the year I got caffeine was the one I had planned on trying gluten for the first time in a year? Unless the act of buying gluten caused me to flare? haha. Honestly I felt like I was doing something illicit, buying the cake.

So I guess my trial is on the shelf for now….

I apologize for the depressing health-related turn this post took—it was definitely unexpected!

It’s Monday

Date: September 26, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hi guys! I feel like a lot of my posts lately have been just WIAWs or weekend recaps, so I wanted to do a normal day to day blog post. I’m currently blogging while watching the debate. One of the upcoming debates is actually in St. Louis, and I’m going to stay as far away as possible…

I started my morning with 6am Crossfit. Beforehand, I grabbed a few handfuls of pumpkin spice cheerios for some squat fuel. Lately, Monday workouts have been entirely strength, no conditioning, which is a good complement to my schedule because I teach spin (aka cardio) on Monday nights. The main events were squats, and we did 5 rounds at 75% of as many reps as possible without losing tempo. For reference, I did all my sets for 5 reps.

Then, we did 5 sets of bent over rows, before moving on to a final strength portion.

We did 4 rounds of max reps of kipping pull ups (I got 8 good ones and then called it there because I wasn’t fully making it over the bar), 10 pistols, and 20 hollow rocks.

I think I’m already sore from squats…

Breakfast post-workout was cantaloupe.

And a yogurt bowl. It’s not the prettiest, but I’m bringing this old favorite back. Mashed (super) ripe banana with cocoa powder, plain 2% Greek yogurt, and sunbutter.

Then, it was off to work! I actually saw a cheetah up close today! They’re usually hiding.

The weather was SO nice today. It was 60s and 70s. I almost needed a jacket! Fall, please stay around!

While I’ll start transitioning away from this salad once nectarines stop being so good (Target has the best), and will be having soup later this week, today’s lunch was one of my 2 typical (my other being sunbutter+jam sandwich with carrots).

Butter lettuce, nectarine, chicken, goat cheese (this week it’s garlic and herb!), and Newman’s Own light balsamic vinaigrette. Van’s GF Everything crackers on the side.

My coworkers are awesome. I feel like we’re finally getting to know each other, and they certainly brighten my day!

For an afternoon snack, I had a chocolate mint Vega protein bar. I love that flavor, and stocked up yesterday.

After work, I headed straight to the spin studio to teach my usual 6pm class. It was a good one!

By the time I got home, I was more than ready for dinner. I drank some mango kombucha and snacked on some of this gluten free snack mix while getting everything together.

Dinner was leftover ginger chicken mushroom soup+avocado toast with garlic salt. It’s been FAR too long since I’ve had avocado toast, and I was impressed with this avocado!

For dessert, I had a sea salt caramel Yasso bar.

I’m trying to get back into the whole “more smaller meals” thing, so for a mid-deabte snack, I had a rice cake with asiago laugh cow, which I had never had before, and raspberry jam. Honestly, I think all the laughing cow flavors basically taste the same.

I’m not sure how long I’m going to be able to hang with the debate for. I also took some allergy medicine which is likely to start knocking me out soon.

But it’s nice to check in with a normal post! I’ve seen some posts come up on time hop, and I miss the day to day blogging! In all seriousness though, it’s crazy through how much this blog has taken me. I started it at the beginning of my freshman year of college, and now I’m blogging from my house in St. Louis. What??

So we’ll leave it here.

Did you watch the debate?

WIAW-Microwave Spaghetti Squash Mac n Cheese

Date: August 30, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

And we’re back for another WIAW, started by the fabulous Jenn.

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Breakfast:

A Flap Jacked maple pumpkin protein muffin. I’ve learned these are much better when not overcooked. I think the chocolate is definitely superior though—this flavor tastes pretty artificial.

Coffee:

I’ve continuing down my list. This week’s choice was Northwest Coffee Roasting Company.

For any locals, it’s in Central West End. I got my usual decaf cappuccino. My evaluation? This was good coffee, stronger than the last two places I went to. But it didn’t have that almost sweet, rich flavor of the top notch espresso. Also, it was not air conditioned, so I didn’t stick around as long as planned. Tuesdays are my days off, but I’m trying to spend the day working on an online class, so I switched to the local public library after about an hour.

Lunch:

I stopped into Whole Foods to pick up spaghetti squash and the ridiculously delicious nectarines I found last week. While there, I figured I might as well hit up the hot bar for lunch.

Roasted beets with herbs, roasted carrots, roasted corn and artichoke, steamed cabbage, sweet potato with raisins and apple, and chilaquiles. Plus a root beer Zevia. I still have mixed feelings about Zevia because I hate the taste of stevia, but it’s a decent treat now and then when I want something more interesting than water.

Snack:

A handful of KIND granola, a handful of frozen grapes, and a Chocolate Mint Vega bar before Crossfit.

Crossfit:

Ow. Ow. Ow. So you may recall I banged up my hand pretty badly last week, leaving my palm rather skinless. It’s the base of my palm so I can hold a bar. I went yesterday and it was fine, but today…ow.

Strength:

5×5 narrow grip bench press. I worked up to 80#.

WOD:

5 rounds, 65#:

5 deadlifts

5 hang power cleans

5 front squats

5 shoulder to overhead

5 back squats

Cleans? Ow. The bar wasn’t touching my scrape, but the hanging/stretching motion was killer. And then that made all the other movements hurt. Again, ow. I finished in 7:23.

SnacK:

I went to the grocery for real post-Crossfit and spent forever debating (mostly on ice cream but that’s a whole other issue.) I was starving when I came out, so I snacked on some chocolate rice cakes as I loaded up the car.

And then while cooking dinner, I tried some cotton candy grapes. I saw these in someone’s cart as I checked out last time, so I was pumped to try them!

They do taste like cotton candy. They’re delicious.

Dinner:

This one was a little more involved today. I made spaghetti squash mac n cheese, entirely in the microwave! I was actually planning on baking the squash, but I microwaved it to soften it enough to cut (the website I found recommended scoring it and then microwaving it a few minutes), but by the time I cut it, it was already pretty soft. I cut and microwaved it most of the way in the afternoon, so when I came back from the grocery all I had to do was microwave it a few more minutes (I think maybe 15-20 total) and prepare the mix-ins. I took my spaghetti squash and tossed it with broccoli (frozen) and y favorite Greek seasoning blend for flavor. Then I microwaved 1/2c reduced fat cheddar and 1/4c nonfat milk, with some salt, pepper, and garlic. Then, I mixed up the sauce and squash blend, topped it with parmesan, and heated it up just enough to melt the parmesan.

Now, I have enough leftover squash for probably 2 more dinners! I might do this once and then traditional marinara once. This was delicious, and aside from cooking the squash, super easy and came together quickly.

Dessert:

Yasso salted caramel frozen yogurt bar. LOVE these. I tried to buy more today to replenish my dwindling supply, but they didn’t have them. Every other chocolate or caramel ice cream bar at the grocery had coconut oil. Booo.

What is your favorite way to eat spaghetti squash? I still have 2/3 to use!