Full Week of Eating Quarantine Edition—Day 1

Date: May 1, 2020

Author: astottler

Wow. It’s been such a long time since I’ve posted here, and boy what a time it is. We are closing out Week 7 of the COVID-19 quarantine and things have been both crazy and quiet. Given everything that is happening, I thought it would be a good time to come back here and post some meal ideas, especially given I’ve eaten every meal at home for 7 weeks now. I also thought it would be fun to include my workouts that I’m doing this week, given they’re definitely a little different. I’m really lucky now in that I have acquired a fair amount of gym equipment. I ordered a few things off of Amazon, but most importantly, I’m renting a dumbbell, a barbell, and some plates from Crossfit. My Crossfit has maintained a great community during this time. We still have programmed workouts everyday, there are plenty of live zoom classes, and we get a daily text from our coach with an individualized workout. They’re going above and beyond, and in this time, it’s been amazing to have that solid community and structure in my life.

Quarantine has also been a wonderful excuse to reach out and reconnect with old friends. I suppose perhaps that is how I found my way back here!

First, I’ll cover some of the meals I have made lately, and then I’ll move to my full day of eating!

One of the big things to come out of quarantine is that I’ve finally conquered my fear cooking chicken. My cooking method of choice is getting thin sliced chicken breasts, and baking them at 350 for about 25 minutes, with a pan of water on the lower rack in the over (a separate pan from the chicken) to keep the chicken moist. Game changer! This is a chicken breast with pesto, roasted carrots, and kale massaged with balsamic and olive oil.

This combo was surprisingly delicious. Baked chicken, hummus, zucchini roasted with Elote seasoning from TJs, and more massaged kale. Can you tell I visited my produce stand this week? It just makes me so happy to go in there.

More zucchini. This time zucchini noodles with pesto, chicken, and mozzarella.

Baked chicken with BBQ sauce, rice, and an artichoke (boiled for about 25 minutes) from the produce stand. I made a mayo-balsamic vinaigrette dipping sauce like I always used to have with artichokes growing up.

This salad is kind of strange, but it’s been a staple for me throughout the years, although probably not within the last year. Hard boiled egg, hummus, goat cheese. That’s it! This meal made me so happy because it’s simple, delicious, and healthy. And I love cheese puffs. These are Barbara’s baked cheese puffs, and these were a treat as a result of a very rare Whole Foods visit.

Another one of my favorite produce stand meals. Balsamic kale, roasted carrots, hummus, over easy egg.

Another artichoke, but this time with avocado toast. I love my avocado toast with 1/2 an avocado, cumin, a splash of lemon juice, feta, and an over easy egg. Basically my avocado smash, but the lazy version

Given we were on week 7, I decided having a super stocked freezer was no longer quite as necessary. That, and my mom warned me ice cream might be coming my way for my birthday. Honestly, when all this started, the main foods I stocked up on were veggies. I had a few bags of frozen veggies, and some canned veggies. Which I realize would not provide the calories long term in a crazy situation, but priorities, right? These were frozen butternut squash spirals that I sautéed. Served with baked lemon garlic salmon. Salmon is another meat I’ve gotten pretty good at cooking in the last year. For the Trader Joe’s salmon I normally get, I do 14 minutes at 425. This was a bit thinner, so I only did 11 minutes at 425 and it came out perfectly. Plus some sautéed spinach.

More salmon, this time teriyaki, plus frozen stir fry veggies. After royally messing up a number of stir fries lately with fresh veggies, I have decided to just make them with frozen from now on.

One random quarantine discovery was these gluten free spinach tortillas. This wrap is a winner. 2 laughing cow wedges (this is cheddar), red pepper, spinach, and chicken. With a side salad dressed with simple aged white balsamic, salt, and pepper.

And another meal of salmon similar to the above.

Ok. Without further ado, let’s move on to my full day of eating! Plus a little bit of day in the life of quarantine.

Breakfast:
I forget to snap a picture, but another quarantine staple has been protein hot chocolate. I invested (ok, only a $10 investment but 100% worth it) in a handheld frother and this has been game changer. My recipe is about a cup of soy milk with a splash of milk heated up, then blend in about a table spoon of DARK cocoa powder, plus 3/4 scoop of chocolate protein powder. Right now I’m using PE Science chocolate. I also had a chocolate rice cake with sunbutter.

I’m currently starting my first week of my clinical year, which is my last year of vet school! I’m on the Anesthesia rotation virtually now, so we had morning rounds. We were hoping to see horse anesthesia, but there was a problem with the connection. Here is my rounds buddy (one of them):

Lunch:

For lunch, I had the hummus, goat cheese, and egg salad mentioned above, plus a few GF crackers.

I also had the best cookie ever, a GF chocolate chunk cookie from Salty Sweet. These are the amazing cookies I used to get at the SFO airport that I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. I happened upon them and where else to find them and that has been amazing. My parents also sent these for my birthday!

After lunch, I had to prep for afternoon rounds, which involved making an anesthetic plan for a kitty patient. I also discovered the Giants were streaming a classic baseball game on facebook, so I watched this while working. During the last few weeks, I’ve had a lot of screen time and the weather is beautiful, so I try to get outside as much as possible. Normally I would try to go for a walk before afternoon rounds, but it was SO nice to see baseball again.

Snack: I had an unpictured white cheddar rice cake with kale greek yogurt dip, and then a handful of blueberry chex cereal right before my workout.

Workout: This one I made up myself since the prescribed workout was basically the extra credit I did yesterday, biking and running.

4 rounds:

15 deadlifts (130#)

15 box jumps

15 med ball cleans (14#)

I followed this up with an online abs and yoga video with my yoga group. I am now part of a group that does daily Zoom yoga classes together, mostly with videos from Corepower. It’s been a good time, and also good for me to get back into yoga. On literally the first day gyms were closed, I did yoga and planned to do it frequently during quarantine. I never did it until I joined this group of high school friends a couple of weeks ago.

Dinner:

This salad was a real winner, and my first time trying it. I did lettuce with Bolthouse Avocado Salsa Verde dressing, Mexican cheese blend, corn (frozen then sautéed) with Elote seasoning, and chicken. So good!

Dessert: A clio yogurt bar and a few spoonfuls of my birthday Jeni’s ice cream—blueberry and lemon!

Nighttime snack:

Caramel rice cake with sunbutter. This has been another staple if I’m hungry in the evening after dinner.

And that was my day! Wow, it’s weird to be back here but it also feels really, really natural. Hope everyone is surviving this quarantine!

Day in the Life: Fall 2018 (Second Year Vet Student)

Date: November 6, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know, I’ve been a bad blogger. But I did want to squeeze in a day in the life post, so here it is!

5:30am: Kittens don’t understand the time change and start wrestling on my bed.

6:05: I finally get up.

I get ready for morning Crossfit and eat some Cheerios.

I was up earlier than I needed to be so I had plenty of time to snuggle kitties.

6:45am: Leave for Crossfit.

7:00: Crossfit. For strength, the rest of the class did cleans and I did snatches. My wrist has been feeling a ton better but cleans are going to be the last thing I’m able to do. The WOD was a long one.

100 sit ups

400m run

75 push ups

400m run

50 box jumps

400m run

Oof. I did push ups on a box because I am not strong enough and it’s easier only wrist! We ended up finishing class a few minutes late, and then I hit really bad traffic going back, so I was fairly flustered and rushed when I got back!

8:20: Arrive home.

8:25: Sit down to breakfast. I did a 9 mile race this past Sunday, and ever since then I have been so hungry! I was starving and had a few bites of chicken from soup that I made the other night because I knew my breakfast wouldn’t hold me over. This hunger will be a theme of the day, haha! Breakfast is cottage cheese with an apple from my Apple Hill weekend (where I did the race) with sunbutter.

8:45: Leave for class, more or less on time. We have lab today so I’m in scrubs, so thankfully getting ready is pretty quick!

9:00: First class of the day! We just started Reproduction, so I’ll spare you guys pictures.

After my first class, I actually ate a full size 3 Musketeers bar. Someone put out a big box of giant candy bars and I haven’t eaten a full sized candy bar in years, plus I was quickly burning through my breakfast so I just went for it. I only intended to have half but ate the whole thing and don’t regret that at all. I was expecting to feel sick afterwards, but again, my metabolism has been on fire since the race so I was more than hungry at lunch, after another couple of lectures!

12:00: Lunch at home. The handyman was supposed to come and I had a big gap between classes so I went home. On the menu was a big salad with persimmon, deli turkey (I recently started buying nitrite free deli turkey), cranberry goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette.

I also had a square of dark chocolate.

I watched an episode of Parks and Rec while eating. I don’t love it yet, but I’m still giving it a chance, and I needed a shorter show.

12:30: Study! With a side of wrestling kitties.

Marie’s current obsession is to climb on my shoulder and bite my hair.

Which usually quickly progresses to this:

1:45: I’m hungry (again) so I have my afternoon snack.

2:20: Take a short study break to start typing up this post.

2:35: Leave for lab.

3-4:30: Anatomy lab! Today is male reproduction.

4:30: Out of lab a little bit early, but it’s already getting dark!

4:45: Arrive home. I’m hungry (shocker) so I pick some veggies out of the soup I made.

Then it’s study time with the two babies!

5:45: Leave for soccer! We have a vet school team in the intramural league. Today’s game was against the 3rd year vet students and we sadly lost in penalty kicks! I still had fun and my ankle is not thrilled with me.

7:30: Finally sit down to dinner with an episode of Netflix ( I just started Riverdale). No matter how busy I get, I consider my Netlfix and dinner time sacred! On the menu is a stir fry of sorts. I microwaved some frozen stir fry veggies and then sautéed up tofu and spaghetti squash (Kind of weird, but sort of like chow mien!) with GF teriyaki sauce and served that on top of my veggies!

For dessert, I had a mini sunbutter cup and a GF snickerdoodle.

8:00: Have a few more Cheerios while icing my ankle.

8:20: Pick out an old spin playlist to teach tomorrow for Sunrise Cycle at 6:15am! I have actually a million old playlists to choose from. I teach 3 classes a week so I definitely don’t make a new playlist each time, but I have so many from years of cycling that no one will ever hear repeats!

8:25-8:30: Finish up this blog post. Before bed I’m going to try to squeeze in a little bit more studying or work on some emails, but on nights before I teach early morning spin, I try to be in bed reading a book and getting sleepy at 9, and asleep before 10!

Full Day of Eating: Full Day of School

Date: October 9, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know I did a full day of eating yesterday, but I figured why not do another one?

Pre-Workout: Cheerios

I was planning on doing Crossfit, but I could actually do zero of the movements with my wrist so I decided to just do a lift on my own instead. I did 10-10-8 back squats at 135-145-155, 3 sets of single leg split squats and pistols, and then some rowing for conditioning! 3x1000m with 4 minutes of rest in between! I think my average time was 4:13 per 1000? It took me back to my rowing days though!

Breakfast: Cottage cheese with pumpkin pie filling and sunbutter, plus a few grapes. The saltiness of the cottage cheese pairs perfectly with the pumpkin—kind of like cheesecake (but I wouldn’t take it that far).

Lunch: Same thing as yesterday, but packed since I was at school all day. Chicken, nectarine, apricot cranberry goat cheese, balsamic vinaigrette.

Snack: It ended up being a pretty warm day, so I went and got ice cream with a few friends. I had salted caramel.

And then when I got home I had a few carrot sticks.

Dinner:

Of course I had a dinner-making snack:

And I know I recently posted this meal, but here it is in context. Zucchini noodles, apple chunks, chicken apple sausage, and white cheddar laughing cow. Seriously so good.

Dessert: Same as yesterday. Pumpkin pie filling with dark chocolate chips and whipped cream. And a piece of dark chocolate.

Bedtime snack: The same rice cake with pumpkin cream cheese, and a couple of pieces of dried persimmon.

And that’s it! I’m currently trying to hurry up and get my studying done for the night because I have early morning spin to teach tomorrow!

Here is your obligatory kitten picture:

Full Day of Eating: Fall Foods

Date: October 8, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

One thing I really haven’t done in a LONG time is a full day of eating! So, I figured now that fall is in full swing, I’d share one! If you know me, I’m all about the seasonal foods, so let’s see what I got into today!

Pre-Workout:

A couple of handfuls of Cheerios.

I teach 6:15am spin on Mondays and Wednesday now, so this was before my class! I’m still getting used to the early schedule, but it was a blast! I’m impressed at the class I get that early on a college campus!

Breakfast:

A couple of pumpkin crackers (these are really good and taste similar to Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup crackers, but with more spices).

And then a persimmon protein smoothie. One frozen persimmon from last year’s bounty, milk, salted caramel protein powder, and a few shakes of cinnamon.

Mid-morning snack: I don’t normally do a morning snack, but breakfast was on the earlier side and I didn’t have class until 10, so I had some of these carrot chips. They’re my newest obsession.

Lunch: I’ve had the same salad literally every weekday with a few variations. This one was nectarine, Trader Joe’s rosemary balsamic grilled chicken (this is amazing), Trader Joe’s apricot cranberry goat cheese, and light balsamic vinaigrette.

Whenever I had lunch at home, I always have to have something sweet. I try to keep it on the healthier side, so I had a square of 78% dark chocolate and half a piece of my sister’s homemade (!) chocolate.

Snack: Banana with Trader Joe’s unsweetened sunbutter. I actually really like this because I think it tastes a lot like peanut butter.

Dinner: Of course I have to have a bite of something while I cook, so I had a few of these:

And then my actual meal was a fall kale salad: kale massaged with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper, butternut squash, dried cranberries, parmesan, and chicken apple sausage.

Dessert: I forgot to take a picture, but I had the exact same thing as last week that I shared before—pumpkin pie filling with dark chocolate chips heated up and topped with whipped cream.

And a ginger chew.

Evening snack: Rice cake with pumpkin cream cheese.

What do you think—was that enough fall foods??

I’ll leave you with this:

Happy fall!

It’s the Last Week of School!

Date: May 21, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I can’t believe it’s the last week of my first year of vet school. Things are pretty crazy for me right now between studying for finals and getting ready for all kinds of travel. 2 hours after my final, I will be on a plane to DC for a wedding, and a week later I head to Nashville for the summer! I’m definitely a little worried about traveling with my little one.

He’s great in the car, but he gets scared of new people and new places.

I also just discovered he still has some residual baby teeth on his back molars and I need to have them taken out. I’m trying to figure out when and where I can get that taken care of.

For now, I thought I’d share a super fast full day of eating from today before I get back to studying!

Breakfast:

I got this super amazing apricot jam at a farmer’s market back home. It’s basically all apricot with minimal sugar. I’m trying to finish it up this week so it doesn’t go to waste! It’s super delicious with sunbutter and yogurt. Mango on the side.

Lunch:

Salad with grilled chicken, blueberries, honey goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. GF cheddar crackers on the side. Plus a little something sweet.

I ended up doing my workout on my own this afternoon, since the Crossfit workout called for deadlifts and I’m not quite ready for that yet with my back. I figured I might as well share what I did!

5×5 back squat working up to 165ish# I say “ish” because I’m pretty sure I had a 2.5 plate on one side and a 5 on the other and kept feeling off balance. That explains it…

8 minute AMRAP: push ups and box jumps I like this little couplet and do it a lot because I work on my strict push ups from my toes, and the (padded) box is higher.

8 minutes: 20 seconds max effort on the assault bike/40 seconds rest

2×25 hip strength exercises My hips are still a little jacked up from squatting but they’re a lot better. I figure some focused strength + stretching couldn’t hurt.

Snack:

Bar+freeze dried grapes and then some real grapes.

Dinner:

Leftover cauliflower crust pizza and a kale salad massaged with poppyseed dressing and topped with parmesan.

Dessert:

I’m in the “eat things up” phase and I realized I had a mostly full box of this vanilla cereal left. I decided it would be good with chocolate chips, and then kicked it up a notch by heating up some gourmet marshmallows (seriously the best I’ve ever had) and making an impromptu rice crispie treat type of deal.

Snack #2:

Mid studying I had a brown rice cake with whipped chive cream cheese.

Back to it my friends. We’re almost at the finish line!