WIAW on Stormy Days

Date: July 15, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Wednesday! (Feel free to ignore the fact that I’m posting Tuesday night. You get the idea.) As usual, I’m celebrating WIAW with Jenn!

I have lots of good things to share, including a recipe! Yay!

Before I get to food, let’s talk about workouts. I was all set to go to Crossfit after work Monday, but I walked outside to a giant storm, and then the Metro stopped running, so I missed the class, and didn’t feel like going to the late class.

Anyways, this meant Monday was rest and today was a 3 miler! After pouring all afternoon, I decided to take a chance and go for it during a break in the rain. I did my usual 3 mile route.

Yeah. I live here.

And this is not a bad turn around point:

Yes, the Washington Monument is EXACTLY 1.5 miles away, so it should be pretty clear why this is my typical route now!

On the way back, storm clouds began to threaten. It started POURING right as I was running up my block. Talk about lucky!

The run also felt fantastic. I was running on rested and not “just woke up and it’s 6am” legs, plus I’m been working hard in my training, and it’s certainly paying off. This is week 3, and each week I’ve done this route. I’ve done it faster each week, and each week it feels better. Week 1 was super slow for me-10:18 pace. sat week was 9:48, and today was 9:29. And it wasn’t like it was an all out pace, so it’s a good start!

Now onto the part everyone actually cares about. Food.

Breakfasts have been the same old-sunflower seed butter with lots of fruit! Plus chai tea since I’m laying off the coffee.

Lunch Monday was leftovers of Cheesy Mushroom Quinoa plus some yogurt.

Lunch on Tuesday was extra special. I was on trip at work, and the food they prepared us was amazing and beautiful.

I’m not sure how much I should talk about work on here, but I will say this gives me so much hope for the future of America’s school food system!

I piled my plate high with all kinds of delicious salads. One of my favorites was a ginger root salad. This is the first context in which I’ve actually enjoyed beets!

I also got to take leftovers home with me, which made a great pre-run snack/dinner.

And finally-for the recipe!

Coconut Flour Arepas

*Edited to add: this is based on the fantastic Blogilates recipe for healthy quesadillas!

Ingredients

2 T coconut flour

1 ear of corn

2 T water

6 T egg whites

1/8 t baking powder

salt to taste

Directions

1. Mix together coconut flour, water, egg whites, and baking powder in a small bowl.

2. Remove the corn from the cob, and add to mixture.

3. If mixture is too thin, let it sit a moment. The coconut flour may take a bit of time to absorb the water, but this will still be fairly runny. Add salt if desired.

4. In a large pan, add a touch of olive oil and heat the pan.

5. Once pan is hot, pour mixture into pan.

6. When bubbles begin to form on the surface, flip and cook through.

7. If desired, sprinkle with salt, and fill with desired fillings. I used smoked gouda.

Delicious, and comes together in minutes!

What is your favorite type of cheese?

Not for everything, but I love goat brie. If you haven’t tried it, you absolutely need to!

Fruit, Fitness, and Family

Date: September 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! As I’m sure you know, I’m in Hawaii! I hope you are enjoying the fabulous guest posts! I don’t want to do a TON of vacation recaps so I’m going to stick to some of the highlights of the activities, food, and workouts.

The first night I went to a luau with my family. I showed you guys some of the delicious food in WIAW. I wanted to highlight some of the other cool non-food things as well though.

Tiki carver!

This luau had some of the best dance performances as well-there was humor integrated as well as some really impressive fire dancing. During one part, the dancers (men) put out fires with their grass skirts. Ouch.

Check out that aerial dancer-how impressive is that??

Sunday morning began with a 6 mile run. It was…not terribly fun. hot. I had been on my feet a lot the day before-it didn’t feel great. I’m SO not used to heat and humidity. I’m pushing this week’s long run back until I’m home!

The activity of the day was zipling-something DEFINITELY new to me!

We went to the Maui tropical plantation-somewhere we’ve visited many times in the past. The zipline was new to us though! It was really terrifying at first-we were up high and it was windy so the whole tower was moving. We were hooked in the whole time though, so it was totally safe. It ended up being a ton of fun!

The tropical plantation was beautiful as well.

My favorite day overall was probably Wednesday though. It began with a visit to Lahaina Crossfit. They were so friendly and welcoming. I met a few other visitors from California as well, and it was fun to visit a different box. Plus, it felt so good to get a tough workout in. Sooo now this vacation is turning into a game of “how many Crossfit boxes can I visit on one trip.” Tomorrow we’re touring a pineapple plantation in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny town, and there just happens to be a box there. So you better believe I’ll be there before the tour!

On Wednesday, while in Lahaina, we visited a pet/plant store. Let me start by saying that I’ve been to this same store a few times when I was much younger, and those visits are precisely why I stopped eating pork.

OMG TEACUP PIGS. They are sooo adorable. I’ve wanted one as a pet for years. Since we had been in the store for kind of a while playing with birds, the owner of the store let me sit in with the pigs and feed them from my hand.

They were so sweet! They behaved just like dogs- they had wet little snouts and made little snorting noises.

They eat an entirely vegan, organic diet.

The birds were super friendly as well. This guy-Prince, is 27 and has never bitten anyone. Another parrot was so funny-my mom and I would say “hello” to her, and she’d say hello back. When my dad said hello to her, she let out the LOUDEST squawk right in his ear, and then proceeded to laugh. A girl after my own heart.

I don’t want this to get too long, so I’ll stick to those activities for now. But since this is supposed to be a food blog as well, I guess I should add some of those as well.

Half of a chicken teriyaki plate (shared with my mom).

This is my dad’s-it has pork so I wouldn’t eat it-but I wanted to share it with you since it’s a traditional Hawaiian dish, and my dad’s favorite food ever. It’s called lau lau- it’s pork wrapped with ti leaves.

Pineapple ice cream with an oatmeal papaya cookie. This was soooo good. The cookie was PERFECTLY chewy. Yum.

Do you see the SIZE of this avocado? We don’t make ’em like that in CA! That makes a LOT of guac! While these are definitely fun, the California ones still have my heart. The island variety is a little starchier and less flavorful-definitely less creamy. It was a little hard to mash, and made for some chunky guac. We paired it with a nice salad-chicken, salsa, cheddar. The dressing was olive oil and lime juice, plus salt and pepper. Yum!

Sooo I guess I don’t have NEARLY as many fruit pictures as I thought when I named this post…but don’t worry-lots of tropical fruit is being consumed. Mangoes, papayas, passion fruit, coconut, and guavas. 🙂 I can’t complain!

Have you ever been to Hawaii? What did you do there? What should I EAT here?

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?

MIMM-Summertime!

Date: July 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Marvelous in my Monday! I wasn’t planning on posting this morning, but I feel there is so much marvelousness to be celebrated! Thank you Katie for hosting, especially right after giving birth to a beautiful baby boy! Congrats!

Marvelous is…

Seeing 3 cats on my long run the other day. They live in the rocks by the water-they are all spayed/neutered and someone feeds them daily, even though they’re strays.

Marvelous is…

We’re days away from a holiday! Yay!<

Marvelous is…

My half is about a month away, and I kind of feel ready!

Marvelous is…

Compression socks. No explanation necessary. <

Marvelous is…

My research schedule this summer is totally flexible, so I never have to miss a workout or hit rush hour!

Marvelous is…

My Health Psychology professor is a spin teacher…whose class I’ve taken! It took me the entire class to figure out where I recognized her from!

Marvelous is…

A COLLEGE healthy living conference in the works! YAY! I’ll keep everyone updated on that!

Marvelous is…

Summer fruit.

Also, as far as my summer shape up, I FINALLY figured out a goal for the week!

Make a REALISTIC workout and meal plan for the week. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I HATE wasting food. HATE. A meal plan helps avoid tossing old food and overbuying.

2. I tend to make unrealistic plans. Like HOURS of exercise a day; I often don’t think through how long things actually take. I’m more of a “Ooo this looks fun I should do it!” type of person. Which can lead to burn out, or general laziness. (I mean if I skip one thing, I might as well skip everything<- bad mindset). I also have never been able to stick with a meal plan. Like not ever, not one day. So it’s a new challenge-but if that plan is unreasonable, there’s no way I can stick to it!

And with that, have a Marvelous week!