Recovery Drink

Date: January 15, 2013

Author: astottler

Brrr! It was another freezing day here in sunny California! At 4:00 pm, there was still frost at the boathouse from this morning! That is absolutely unheard of here. Crazy! I guess I’ll dive right in to today’s eats!

Before my morning workout, I drank some milk and ate a piece of oat bread (thawed).

The recipe is from Haute Box, and can be found here. I found this recipe on stumbleupon and had been meaning to make it for the longest time. I always wondered what a non-sweet quick bread would be like. The answer? Delicious! Try this! It is soft and moist, yet it still maintains that great bread-y flavor like a normal loaf of bread.

Also, this morning I learned that the dining hall milk really isn’t all that good. It tastes really metal-y. The milk I brought from home was 1000x better. Who knew?

My morning workout was weights. I am starting to like this version of weights a little more. I just need to try and make the most out of my workout. I haven’t really been that sore from these workouts. I want to try to lift a little bit on my own just for my own enjoyment and sanity (Sore? Yes please!) but it is super difficult to find the time. There are certain hours that the gym is completely busy, and I have no hope of getting on a bar. Last quarter my classes started later than most, so I could go when everyone was in class. This quarter, not so much. I guess I just need to try and find a new less busy time. I wonder if I will be sore tomorrow from today. We had 3×50 squats with a bar. I wasn’t sore after 2×40 last time so we shall see. If I’m not, I definitely need to add some weight.

After weights, they provide us with protein shakes (if we want them). People always grab them, so today I decided to try one, with the full intention of drinking a few sips and throwing it away (I had bigger and better plans for my post workout recovery drink!).

My evaluation? It was…weird. Very unnatural. It only had 4g of sugar, yet it was very sweet. Which means fake sugar. And fake sugar almost always has a weird taste. So I tossed it. Yes, I know, very wasteful. I have interesting views on protein shakes. In theory, I like the idea of a homemade (the store bought ones are weird in my opinion) protein shake because it makes me feel like an athlete. On the other hand, I’ve learned from various nutrition experts that we really don’t need that much more protein after a workout, so I usually just drink milk, eat yogurt, or eat my normal meal. However, I am dying to try my new chocolate protein powder. It was literally the only kind I could find without Stevia, just because I really don’t like the flavor of Stevia. It’s not whey protein though, I think it’s hemp and flax. Plus it has added greens for antioxidants or something but I doubt that whatever dried and ground up vegetable will really help me that much. My plans for it? Milk+protein powder+frozen banana+peanut butter. I have a banana I need to freeze too. I’m thinking maybe this Thursday after our hard erg workout.

ANYWAY, back to my day. Normally after weights we have a timed run (roughly 4 miles). It was cancelled today. I planned on doing it anyway, but it was freezing this morning (actually, it was 31) and that is just too cold for me, so I decided to compromise and go on an easy 2 miler. My legs were so numb! My timed runs are going to be so much faster when it warms up! So what was my recovery drink of choice?

Homemade hot chocolate! This is the perfect post workout recovery drink. What’s in it?

Post-Workout Recovery Drink (Chocolate)

Fill a mug with about a cup of milk, and stir in 2 spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa powder. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir well, until cocoa is blended. If not hot enough, microwave for additional time to reach your desired temperature. Then, stir in a spoonful of brown rice syrup, or other glucose source (corn syrup, dextrose). Add honey to taste.

This is definitely not sweet. I added a dash of honey to give it a little sweetness, but not very much. This drink is very basic and easy to make, and contains protein and glucose (see why this is important here) to refuel your body. This doubles as chocolate milk. I used to make a big saucepan of it, and then just refrigerate it to drink on other days. However, today was freezing, and I wanted something hot!

I also snacked on some pistachios.

As I got ready for the day, my exercise high wore off and I realized how tired I was. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it through an OChem lecture without a little help….But here’s the thing. I am definitely not a coffee drinker. I really don’t like it. Call me crazy. It’s certainly an acquired taste, and after a full quarter of 5:45 am practices every morning, I adjusted well enough to it. But it’s been a while. Some people sip their coffee. I prefer the chugging method.

As you may notice, the portion size is pretty small. I dumped an entire pack of instant coffee into a small amount of heated unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I figure if I don’t like it anyway, might as well make it go down faster. It also doesn’t take a lot of coffee to wake me up since I hardly ever drink it. Normally I would only have half a cup at most, but the instant coffee isn’t very strong. Some may suggest, oh, why don’t you add sweetener to you coffee? You’d probably like it better. Well, you, I almost certainly would like it better. But I still won’t like it, so why waste the sugar? Ok, enough on my coffee tangent. It got the job done.

Lunch was a salad with cheese, strawberries, and apple, a cold brussels sprout and tomato salad (so good!), a few carrots, teriyaki chicken, plus a bean and grain mixture. I tried to hit all my main food groups: cooked veggies (more available nutrients), raw veggies (slows digestion), protein, slow digesting carbs (the beans), and healthy fat (olive oil in the salad dressing). I’m trying to be better about this! I also had a few pieces of fruit.

After an afternoon of classes, I ate and apple and then headed out to the water to enjoy a freezing practice. Seriously. I had 4 layers on my arms, plus insulated spandex pants. The problem was, as my body started warming up, the temperature kept dropping. I had so many layers on I could barely move! Finally towards the end I dropped my outer jacket, but still! I hope it warms up soon! These have definitely been multiple jacket days.

For dinner, I brought my leftover half avocado to the dining hall and added it on top of this salad:

Greens, tomato, olives, mushrooms, and italian dressing. I also had a little of the prepared salad, which was spinach and onions in a sweet-ish dressing. The dining hall is pretty dependable in always having decent grilled chicken, but the line takes forever, and it was just too long today for me to deal with, so I topped my salad with Thai barbecue chicken. It’s fattier, but definitely faster! I also had a piece of a breadstick because they looked amazing, and polenta. Dessert? Half a whole wheat english muffin.

This no sugar challenge hasn’t actually been all that hard for me. I’ve gone off sugar a few times before, and now this is by far the easiest it has been. Normally the cravings are terrible for the first 3 or 4 days, and here I am on day 3! Partly, I’m not at home where there is a ridiculous amount of sweets, but I think this blog definitely has helped! When I know sweets aren’t even an option, I don’t really think about eating them. WHen people offer me sweets, I just say no without thinking twice. I am confident I can finish out this challenge! Who’s with me?

I really need to go to bed early tonight. I am seriously dreading tomorrow morning. And it really is my fault. I have to leave at 5:45 to do my morning erg (it’s an on my own erg) because I want to finish it in time to make a 7 am spin class. This is really one of the only times I can go to spin in the week, so I want to make it. The problem? We also have a 30 minute run (SO COLD. But still better than the treadmill…), so I get to get my butt out of bed super early, then erg, spin, and run. Yayy. Hopefully you guys can get a good night’s sleep for me!

How do you feel about morning workouts?

Challenge Day 2

Date: January 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone’s weekends were fabulous! I personally had a great day. Why? I got see to my kitties again!

That’s Charlie! He’s the biggest sweetie! He purred in my bed all night! For some reason last night I kept thinking about vanilla protein powder…I must have had a strange dream!

A sleepy purring cat led to my 3rd nap in as many days. Because who can stay awake with all that going on?

As I was packing up my stuff to go back to school, he became even purrier. He’s trying to convince me to stay!

And of course the playful kitty, Lilly.

Ok, now on to the good stuff! Last night I had dinner with one of my high school friends. It was really nice to catch up and introduce her to everyone here!

Mixed greens salad, green beans, curry cauliflower, lentils, and a little bit of thai chicken. The cauliflower was actually really good! Normally I find cauliflower too boring or bland! I also had a few pieces of melon and a slice of cinnamon raisin bread with smart balance. That stuff is actually going to save my on my no sugar challenge! The bread is sooo good and definitely not sugary! After dinner and introducing my friend to my dorm, I went home to visit my kitties. At home, I snacked on pita chips with peanut butter and blueberries, as well as artichoke dip. I had really wanted to try eating popcorn with Nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. Why? I had just listened to a Nutrition Diva podcast on nutritional yeast, and it recommended putting it on popcorn as a healthy cheesy alternative. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any popcorn! How is that possible? We even had nutritional yeast! Ah well. You can’t win them all. At home, I caught up on Castle (love that show!).

What shows do you watch? Any suggestions? I love mysteries, but I also love How I Met Your Mother.

After a night of purry cat and protein powder filled dreams, I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Breakfast?

Whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and butter and an egg, which I made in the microwave. If it isn’t obvious enough by its square shape. Plus tons of blueberries and raspberries. Yum! I also had a little bit of shredded wheat cereal to eat with peanut butter and berries. I love the combo of peanut butter and blueberries on bread because it reminds me of healthy pb and j. I used to be completely obsessed with pb and j. I would have it every singe day. Ohh how times have changed. After breakfast, I headed to my home gym for a Spin class with one of my favorite instructors. I did a quick set of abs on a Bosu ball beforehand. The class was awesome, as usual. After class, I rolled my legs out a little with a pipe, and then did a quick 20 minute piece on the rowing machine. (For future reference, I’m going to refer to the rowing machine as an erg, for those of you unfamiliar with the term. I’m getting tired of writing out ‘rowing machine’!) I’ve felt better about my erg pieces lately. For the last month or so I don’t think I’ve been using my legs as much, and instead, I’ve been pulling more with my arms. The last couple of times I’ve really focusing on feeling the burn in my legs though, and my times (pace) are returning more to normal. As it turns out, pulling with your arms creates a lot less power.

For lunch, I snacked on some barbecue baked potato chips from Trader Joe’s.

I haven’t had chips in the longest time, and these were seriously addicting!

For lunch I made myself a smoothie and a salad.

Now it may not be normal to top a smoothie with peanut butter, but it’s seriously delicious, and you should all try it. Like now. My smoothie included frozen cherries, blackberries, mango, and banana, plus greek yogurt and milk. My salad was pretty basic. Lettuce and garlic roasted almond, with Trader Joe’s Spicy Peanut dressing. This salad is 1000x better with avocado (because what really isn’t better with avocado?), but there was no avocado at home because I stole them all for school (all mine! hee hee). At the end of my meal, the peanut butter jar was almost empty, so I naturally had to take care of it. I heated up some frozen blueberries until they were warm, juicy, and delicious, and added them to the jar. Yum! After lunch, I had a minor sugar craving. Not exactly a sugar craving, but more like a feeling that I needed dessert after my meal. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen, seeing as I’m doing a 30 day sugar challenge! Instead, I enjoyed some Ghiradelli baker’s chocolate with nuts and dried fruit. For those of you that are unfamiliar with baker’s chocolate, it is just unsweetened chocolate used for cooking. Warning: this is not for everyone. I happen to love super dark chocolate, so this ends up being delicious to me. Especially with some salted cashews. Which we did not have. Oh well. Still good. After lunch I did some work, then bid goodbye to my cats (wow, I already sound like a crazy cat lady) and headed back to school in time for dinner. The best part about dinner? I managed to snag some bananas on my way out. Score! It’s the little things in life guys. Dinner was predictable for a Sunday night. Meals on weekends are generally pretty predictable.

A spring roll, whole wheat mushroom pot stickers, a shrimp dumpling, and brown rice, topped with sweet and sour sauce. For some reason there never is any soy sauce…Plus a baby salad on the side. Dessert? I really should put that in quotes.

Fruit plus half of a buttered english muffin.

So, today I was pondering my nutrition. I know a ton about nutrition, but I haven’t really applied it much lately. For the most part, I am eating fairly healthy foods, but I don’t think I am optimizing the ratios. One fantastic thing about this blog is it makes it insanely easy to reflect on my nutrition. A picture is worth 1000 words, right?

I’ve been thinking about my goals for rowing. Obviously, I want to get faster. And let’s be honest, all those Christmas cookies didn’t help this! Nutrition is such a powerful tool when it comes to improving. So what are my goals for the week? First, of course, is my no sugar challenge. This takes precedence over any thing else. At all. Second, I want to work on optimizing my nutrition for performance. How? Well, I’m going to get into a little bit of what I learned in my nutrition class last quarter. Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician, and I am certainly not telling anyone to cut out carbs!

Carbohydrates are fuel. Glucose, in particular, is used by the muscles in our bodies, as well as by the brain. It’s possible to survive without carbohydrates, such as with the Atkins diet, but it’s not ideal, as it sends a body into a state of ketosis, which I’m not going to get into right now. Anyway, we really need carbs to fuel exercise, but we need them even more to fuel our brains. Muscles can store glucose, but the brain cannot. For this reason, a reasonably frequent supply (as in, roughly every meal) of glucose is beneficial. However, what happens if you ingest a ton of glucose at once? The cells that process glucose and turn it into energy can only process a certain amount per minute. In addition, carbohydrates store 4x their weight in water (ever felt bloated after a huge plate of pasta? this is why). So, if these glucose processing cells were to take in the huge load of carbohydrate that has been ingested, the cell would swell with water and most likely burst. To protect themselves from this, these cells will shut down and not take in sugar to process if the load of sugar coming in is too large. As a result, the glucose cannot be processed and turned into energy, and instead will converted into triglycerides, or fat. In addition, this effect takes some time to go away. After a carb heavy meal, your body may crave more carbs later on, because the carbs you ingested were not used as fuel. Does this sound familiar? After a huge carb heavy meal, you are hungry and crave carbs later in the day? However, depending on the carb load or amount of time since the carb load, the cells may still be in this state and unable to take in glucose. So this really is a lose-lose.

So as a person eats carbohydrates, the said person is fueling her body. As a person continues to eat carbohydrates, at some point, the person will stop fueling the body and in turn, shut down the process of fueling the body. See the problem here? Carbohydrates are important to refuel from exercise, or to eat for energy, but after a point, too many will actually not fuel muscles. So if I am trying to recover from a hard workout, I don’t want to overload on glucose, and therefore not refuel my muscles at all. So what is this magic point? It’s different for everyone. And unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no great way to tell when one is at this point. However, the body can process glucose much faster after exercise, which is why it is important to eat as soon as possible after exercise. After an intense workout, the first 5 minutes are important because that is when the glucose processing is the fastest. See why I love Biochem?

So what is the best thing to do? Eat slow digesting carbs. Or better yet, eat some veggies with your carbs. Raw vegetables significantly slow the digestion of carbs, which will slow the rate of glucose entering the cells. In terms of carbs that digest more slowly on their own, beans digest slowly. Coarse grains digest slowly as well. the course the grain, the slower the digestion rate. For example, steel cut oats digest more slowly than whole wheat bread. European style bread is a great course-grain bread (plus it’s delicious!) However, the raw vegetables digest the most slowly of all, so that is the best option. With slow digesting carbs, you can fuel your brain and body for hours after eating.

Don’t like this idea? Another option is try eating more frequent and smaller portions of carbohydrates. For example, split your sandwich into 2 meals, early and late lunch.

If I sound completely crazy to you, and you don’t buy any of this, I swear it’s straight from my class, so don’t shoot the messenger. Want more? Check out this website. http://www.drclydewilson.com/

I bought the nutrition books, and they are the best and most inclusive of the nutrition books I’ve read. I highly recommend them if you are interested in learning more!

Wow, that was a long tangent! So if you’re still with me after all that Biochem, how does this relate to me and my performance? I’m pretty sure I’ve been overloading on the carbs lately. I believe my professor recommended a serving of carbs the size or your palm for each salad you eat. So my goal for this week is to stick to that and see what happens!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into the world of Biochemistry! I had a ton of fun reviewing what I learned last quarter. That was by far my favorite class I have ever taken. Have you ever loved something so much you have wanted to cry? That was actually me in that class. No joke. That class more than confirmed that I know what the heck I want to do with my life. Especially sugar metabolism, that’s my favorite! 🙂

How much do you want to learn about nutrition? Do you want me to go more into Biochem topics and metabolism?

Feedback would be much appreciated!

Getting Back into It

Date: January 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! I hope you had a great day! My day went pretty well! I have some more interesting food things to share with you today!

I got to sleep in this morning as well, no alarm! I didn’t have class until 12:30, but I had to do a workout this morning. I woke up around 7 and decided to make myself some breakfast in my room before my workout. What did I make? Only the best Oatmeal ever! Peanut butter and banana oatmeal!

Banana Oatmeal:

Ingredients:

1 ripe banana

1 packet of plain instant oats (I used quaker)

2/3 c vanilla unsweetened almond milk, or other milk of choice ( I usually eyeball it, less dishes!)

2 egg whites (once again, this is an estimate)

Instructions:

First, mash up the banana in a microwave safe bowl.

Add other ingredients and stir.

Microwave on high for 1.5 minutes (I recommend putting the bowl on a plate and covering in case it overflows)

Stir, and microwave an additional 1.5 minutes.

Enjoy!

I always top mine with a dollop of peanut butter.

Today, I split this into 2 servings, as it is pretty filling, and I was eating fairly close to a workout. Just save the other half in the fridge and enjoy later! It’s good cold as well (or maybe that’s just me…)

For the first time as far as I can remember, I put on too much peanut butter! See?

I couldn’t even finish it! Craziness!

My workout was 60 minutes on the rowing machine, plus 20 minutes on the spin bike. Nothing spectacular. It’s interesting that after a long time on the rowing machine, I don’t exactly feel more tired, but my power output significantly decreases.

After a sweaty workout, I decided to have some post-workout fuel. I wanted something kind of refreshing, but I didn’t have many ingredients for a smoothie, and who wants to put together and then clean a blender? I’m all about saving the dishes. 😛

So what did I come up with?

Yogurt! I discovered this little creation over break, and simply could not get enough of it. It’s the absolute perfect post workout snack (I’ll get to why later), and it’s super easy and low dish intensive. Just add cocoa powder and brown rice syrup to greek yogurt to taste (I tend to like less sweet, darker chocolate things), and stir well!

And of course I mixed it in a Dixie cup, right? Don’t want to use those valuable bowls! This yogurt hit the spot perfectly! So why is this the perfect post workout fuel? It’s a combination of protein and carbohydrates, which helps replace anything lost during exercise. (Keep in mind, I’m not a dietician, this just comes from the million books I’ve read plus an awesome Nutrition class last quarter). It’s more natural than a protein shake; you know exactly what you are putting in it. Plus, a lot of times, you don’t need as much protein as is in a protein shake after a workout. I learned in my class that actually, the time you need the most protein is when Your muscles are repairing themselves, which is the time when you are sore. Carbohydrates are a priority, because they are our main source of energy, so that is what gets burned in exercise, mostly. Why is chocolate milk not ideal? The carbohydrates in chocolate milk come from sugar, which is a combination of glucose and fructose, its about half and half. I will definitely get into a conversation about fructose later on, but you really don’t need to replace your fructose stores unless you’ve been running a marathon, and to get enough glucose to replace what you lost through drinking chocolate milk, you are probably getting more fructose than is healthy. Glucose is what is mainly burned in exercise. It is what the body burns for energy (the brain needs it as well), and brown rice syrup is a great source of glucose. I will definitely get into fructose and glucose at a later date (it’s one of my favorite topics EVER).

After my snack, I got ready for the day and dealt with various random things until lunchtime, which was early because I had class at 12:30 and I needed to get textbooks beforehand. Lunch:

Salad with raspberry dressing and dried cranberries, teriyaki tofu over brown rice, and some type of sauteed kale/cabbage. It was actually a really good lunch. The tofu was really good, it actually wasn’t fried like it normally is, so it was soft as opposed to weird and hard. I think lunch at my dining hall is always fairly good, definitely better than dinner, but I hardly wen tat all last quarter because I had class around lunchtime. Though I think they stepped it up midway through the year.

I also had some fruit and a little bit of pasta because I really wanted to try it.

I’m in an Animal Behavior class this quarter, and I’m super excited for it. It looks really cool, and I learned some random things just on the first day. Did you know that many human couples have similar lengths of middle fingers? How random!

Before practice, I rushed back to my room to grab a bar.

It was a little bit sweeter than what I wanted, and I wished I had made the granola bars I had been wanting to make. Practice was uneventful, which is probably good.

Dinner was a salad (garden) with grilled chicken and cornbread (which was really good, haven’t had cornbread here before).

I also had a cup of cereal (although it was sugary cereal). I’m trying to wean myself off of eating so much sugar, but it’s definitely difficult! Back at my dorm someone brought in a ton of random pies, and I tried some that I think was chocolate cream.

Tonight was also the night of my guacamole party, which was at least planned. And my guacamole party, I mean a couple of friends and I made guacamole with some avocados I brought from home, plus limes, onions, and tomatoes stolen from the dining hall salad bar. Mash together, add some salt and pepper, and we were set!

Eaten with tortilla chips of course. Afterwards, I decided to make some protein bars I’ve had my eye on for some time now. I made Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein Bars, from After the Ivy League. I was a little worried about making anything with my protein powder, as I’ve never baked with it before (although these bars are no cook, yay!), and I’m not a big fan of the taste of the kind I have, but these bars turned out well! I added a little bit less protein powder than it calls for because I got scared, but they had really good flavor, and I nibbled at the edges quite a bit. They’re in the freezer now to harden, but from what I can tell they’re a definite win!

Tomorrow, no on the water practice, and no morning workout, so I can sleep in (relatively). Even though I slept in today, I was really tired by the middle of the day. I didn’t sleep that well last night, and I couldn’t figure out why, until I remembered other nights like this, when I’m really warm and tossing and turning all night. I’m almost positive it’s from too much sugar before bed. I had this problem a lot before the holidays when I ate a lot of junk, and I remember how much better I slept when I cut out sugar for a few days. So, goal for tomorrow? No sugar! It’s going to be a little experiment. To be honest, I can already tell I’m going to have a lot of work this quarter, and not that much time, so I need to make the most of the sleep I can get!