MIMM-Guacamole Sunday

Date: February 2, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Monday! Today I will be linking up with the fabulous Katie for MIMM!

Today’s post will focus on all things guacamole-including my race!

I’ll back up to Saturday night-I went to a hall dinner for my dorm, and we went to a fabulous (and very dark) Mediterranean type of place. So here are so really poor quality pictures of my chicken shish kabob plate. But everything was delicious!

I went to bed an early as I could given it was a Saturday night and I live on a college campus. In the morning, I quickly scarfed down breakfast-a homemade granola bar.

Oats, banana, chia seeds, cocoa powder, coconut flour. For some reason this was less bland than when I made it last time!

This morning was one of the first times all winter that it rained. We’re in a drought-so who would have thought a race day would have gotten poured on? I was suited up in my best attempt at an intimidation outfit-all black. I was there to race! When we arrived, I picked up my bib and promptly headed into a coffeeshop to stay warm until the start. It was a really small race, so there was no issue arriving at the start at the last minute.

We used the coffeeshop as an opportunity for a dry photo opp. Because it’s not a race unless there are tons of pictures to prove it.

Then, I bundled back up to go to the starting line. I clearly chose the best day for shorts. But if I’m getting wet anyways, what does it matter?

My mom always likes to take awkward pictures of me stretching:

Also, I’m pretty sure I’m the least attractive person ever running.

I decided to go out not stupidly on this race. My goal was to hit an 8:00 pace for the first 2 miles, and then turn it up as much as possible at the end, which would give me a PR. I hit the first mile around that, but as soon as I reached the turnaround point, I realized this was definitely not going to be a PR race-the rain and wind had picked up quite a bit, and I was running into a really strong headwind. I felt like I was pushing, but not really going anywhere. So I shifted my goals from PRing to racing. I felt really good for two miles, and not too badly like death at the end. I finished in 25:32, which was I think 4 seconds faster than my 5k in December. But I consider that a major win, given the weather conditions today.

Even more marvelous? It really was a win! I got first place in my age group! There was supposed to be a fancy ceremony with a band and everything, but the weather did not permit that. Instead, I had to tough out the weather for about half an hour extra, but I couldn’t care less! I got my winner’s cup!

And then we rushed inside for some warm food and a change of clothes. Yay for a free race shirt! Bonus: it says “I earned my guacamole” on the back.

At Panera, my mom and I shared the tomato and feta soufflé (I just ate the insides out).

And I had turkey chili.

As for the Super Bowl, I watched the first half but to be honest, I wasn’t into it. I was rooting for the Broncos just because I don’t like the Seahawks, but I’m not really a fan of Payton Manning, so definitely not my favorite match up. I didn’t eat anything during the game, but here are the before and after snacks.

We got goat gouda at Whole Foods the other day, and it’s so delicious! And bonus-I found crackers (Mary’s) that basically just have seeds and brown rice-score!

For after the game (or after I gave up watching), I had to have my guacamole-I earned it! I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

And ate it with some more crackers and carrots.

Overall, a pretty darn good day! Sadly though, my Chemistry is most certainly not studied for Tuesday’s midterm….at all. I’m off to the library now-have a Marvelous day!

Favorite Super Bowl commercial?

My Little Adorable Wake-up Call

Date: December 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I must admit, I haven’t been the greatest about posting. Or at least it seems! With Christmas less than a week away, there seems to be so much to do! I think I’m actually more or less done with Christmas shopping. I CANNOT wait to share with you guys what I’m doing for people, but it will have to wait until after the recipients who read my blog have opened their presents!

I never recapped my last day (ok, morning) in Solvang!

Here are a few of the last pastries of the trip (or of the next few months-WHEW we ate a lot of pastries!)

Blueberry boat.

Cappuccino at an adorable bakery.

A much more delicious version of a poptart.

On our way out of town, we stopped to see mini horses. I really want one. Not quite as much as an ostrich, but still!

It was a long drive home, but a delicious and interesting dinner made up for it. I tried Ethiopian food for the first time! (For others in the area, it was called Walia).

I honestly couldn’t tell you what anything was. We got somethings with chicken, some things with other meat, and veggie combos. But really, everything I tried was excellent. What is really cool also is how the food is served. There were no utensils-the table got served all the dishes on a giant platter.

(Excuse the awkward hand in the picture).

This was served with Injera, which is sort of like a spongy bread made with teff. It has a vaguely sourdough flavor, which was great to cut the spice.

You use the Injera as a utensil and kind of just go at it. Being the totally neat person that I am, somehow I ended up totally soiling 3 napkins, and still ending up with food all over my hands, while the rest of my family had barely used one napkin. I don’t get it!

And then Thursday. That was an interesting day, thanks to a 4:30 am wakeup, courtesy of this little guy:

He’s sort of in the habit of coming into my room in the middle of the night-loudly. For some reason, at 4:30am, he desperately needs attention, and won’t stop meowing and purring, which would be great and all if I actually wanted to be awake then…

I went to my home gym for a spin class with one of my favorite teachers, and then desperately needed to go to yoga because I’m so tight, but yoga was an awkward amount of time from the end of spin-not really enough to leave…so I killed time by doing some abs and a treadmill workout. I started with an 8:00 mile, and then did 10 2:00 intervals at about a 7:30 pace, with 2:00 of walking in between. It was a good one-my legs were done by the end. I’ve been really loving running lately-ever since my 5k, I’m starting to feel faster in my every day runs. I think part of my problem was being overly ambitious in my 5k-I wanted to break 24:00, when I should have been racing to break 25:00-next race I will definitely not go out so fast!

After yoga, I over caffeinated myself with a curiously strong cappuccino.

After some quick grocery and Christmas shopping, it was lunchtime! I picked up some turkey apricot soup at Whole Foods, plus some carrots and guacamole.

Whole Foods’s eggnog selection was quite dissapointing-they didn’t have either of the two types I was hoping for. I got a baby jar instead-it was good but very vanilla flavored.

My afternoon was spent cursing my printer and working on Christmas things. Then, I threw a bunch of things together for dinner, and the flavors worked really well together!

The basica idea was sweet potato nachos-all the toppings, but with sweet potatoes in place of chips. The result reminded me more of deconstructed veggie tacos, or a Mexican style vegetarian chili.

Topping the sliced sweet potatoes was this mixture-my idea was for this to be black beans, but I’m also trying to incorporate more veggies into my life, so I added some kale, and half a can of diced tomatoes and jalapenos, plus salt, pepper, and taco seasoning. (Of you’re wondering about the things in there that look like carrots and cabbage, the only kale I found came in a ‘salad mix.’)

Then, I topped everything off with guacamole (of course), fresh salsa, and cheddar cheese.

And believe me, much more guacamole was added after the fact. I’m just a little obsessed. I’m seriously considering making a 2014 calendar consisting only of avocados. Too far?

And with that, I leave you. Hope everyone has a great day-and remember, I’ll do the drawing for my 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway tonight at 9:00pm PST.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever woken up to?

Given I’m cat-deprived, I can’t complain about Charlie too much. I used to have this alarm clock that had nature sounds, and for some reason it was set to blast the sound of rain as my alarm, so it sounded like extremely loud static. Not pleasant.

WIAW-Last Wednesday at Home

Date: September 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Aaaand here we are already at Wednesday! I swear this week is flying by. This could have something to do with the fact that it’s the last week before school starts. And I’ve managed to save any and all errands until now. Other problem-I ordered a bunch of things online recently that probably won’t get here until school starts. Whoops.

BUT before life get’s crazy again, let’s celebrate the party that Jenn hosts every week!

Monday for lunch I made a “throw everything in a bowl” kind of salad. The flavors worked pretty well, but not sure I would do it again.

It’s basically a Greek salad-except I used Thai Coconut Curry hummus, which was just a little too strange for this mix. I had the idea that it would make really awesome fried rice though!

While at the grocery store the other day, I passed by the pastry counter (because who doesn’t?) and saw this guy. My mom and I decided I should have one last celebration before I go back, so this was it! Since I’m starting a Mini Whole30 (just 7 days) on Friday, this was the right time. Carrot cake it was!

Ok, I know I keep going on about how everything I own is the same color so I’m ALWAYS matching, but I just had to document the evidence YET AGAIN.

I wore this to Spin the other night. Some exciting news-I talked to my Spin teacher after class the other night about becoming a Spin teacher. She directed me to the certification she used, as well as recommended some gyms to interview at. I’m excited about this-now that I’ve talked to her, I’m really gonna do it and get certified. My goal is to be certified (and hopefully teaching!) by the end of the year, although I’m going to wait until after my half marathon in October.

Guess what Monday was?

NATIONAL GUACAMOLE DAY! You better believe I was all over that.

The best part? I planned this meal before even realizing that it was that particular National holiday. #guacaddict

I celebrated in the form of a taco salad. I love this particular salad-the dressing is simply a mix of salt, pepper, olive oil, lime, and tomatoes. The meat on top (turkey) gives it plenty of flavor. I also subbed in chopped celery for the beans the recipe called for.

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early for a treadmill run. Which I really should never do; treadmill+early+tired=lazy run. I only made it 3 of the 4 miles slowly before giving up. I think I’ll add in some hill sprints tomorrow (which I’ve been meaning to do) to make up for it.

After my run, I was pretty tired during yoga, so I grabbed a cappuccino from Peet’s, who makes one of my favorite cappuccinos.

Check out the milk foam on that baby! The sad part? I haven’t had coffee much at all this summer, plus I’m sensitive as it is, so I couldn’t drink much of this before feeling like it would be too much. I hate wasting good coffee!

I then headed to Whole Foods to stock up for the school year, as well as prepare for my baby Whole30. I decided soup will be a staple for me this fall-although I could only find 2 soups (yes, in all of the store) that were totally Whole30 friendly.

After drooling over the scones in the pastry case, I compromised and got some of their delicious vanilla granola over fruit, along with chinese chicken salad and a vegan taquito for lunch.

After lunch I went to buy a water belt for running. Has anyone else thought that running belts are basically glorified fanny packs? Haha. I’m not thrilled with the one I got, since it holds just a large water bottle-I’m worried it will be too heavy. The ones with smaller bottles kind of interfered with my arms though…

I also saw this mug at Marshall’s and had to have it!

I also stopped at a craft store for some fall decorations for my dorm…and was met with an onslaught of Christmas. Really?? It’s September! But I’m not going to complain about all the fall stuff being 50% off!

Speaking of fall, try this recipe for microwave friendly Baby Pumpkin Pie! I just posted it yesterday!

And here’s an afternoon snack.

Ok, I’m going to get some outrage for what I’m about to say, but I’m officially done with Quest bars. For a while, I couldn’t decide if I really liked them or really disliked them-probably because the flavors are good but I just don’t like the taste of stevia. But they have kind of a lot of nuts, so my face breaks out. And they mess up my stomach. I had a piece of one today and my stomach immediately cramped up. It might be because of the sugar alternatives (like sugar alcohols)? Obviously everyone is different,t and most people love them, which is great but they just don’t work for me!

Aaand back to what I actually ate. A REAL Greek salad (as in, no weird hummus, just red pepper).

And a dessert of figs and a granola bar. I love that these bars now come in non-peanut butter, because then I don’t have to worry about my skin. Did I ever mention what happened in Hawaii when I ate a ton of Macadamia nuts? Yikes-I got weird lumps all over the back of my legs.

That’s all I have on the food front for you guys today, but I have to share with you what I worded on today. I have the Nike Women’s half coming up in October, so I wanted a special shirt to wear for the occasion. I made a Fitness is Sweet tank earlier this summer, but it’s just going to be too cold for that.

Since avocados are kind of the theme of my blog, I wanted to do something similar, but maybe a little more running related. I tried to find pictures of avocados running on the Internet, but luck. Who wouldn’t want to look at pictures of avocados running? I mean, come on! I found some pictures of other vegetables/objects running, so I decided to try my own hand at it. I started by tracing the legs and face.

I then drew an avocado to fit the arms and face. I decided the eyebrows looked to much like antennae, therefore making my avocado look like a colorful green beetle, so I scrapped those.

I then spent time designing the perfect shirt, only to find out at checkout that I could only have 2 colors on the shirt. I looked at a few other sites, but I had already fallen in love with the font. SO. After a ton of fooling around, here’s the end product, which I just ordered! It says “fitnessissweet.com” on the back.

I’m so excited!

What is your favorite fall produce? Have you ever made a shirt?

California Sunshine

Date: April 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

The weather has been absolutely beautiful here lately! Well, actually kind of hot. Yesterday my room never cooled off and I was sweating just sitting in there doing my homework. Today was better though! Yesterday basically consisted of yogurt for me. As in I ate a ton of yogurt. And that covers maybe half of the yogurt I consumed. I’m really not a fan of the yoplait Greek yogurt I got…you can really taste the Sucralose. I ended up mixing it with the plain Greek yogurt I brought back from the dining hall, which was much more manageable.

My weekend was definitely lacking in workouts (I blame the heat) so I kicked my week off the right way with a weight lifting workout. Fun fact: I screenshot my workout and then set it as my iPhone backdrop. And then usually forget to change it back for at least a week….

This is one of my current favorite workouts to do at the gym at school. I did it a ton the first quarter. I’ve done it once since being sick, but I scaled back a lot of the reps and weight. Well, today I did it all. A) I’m going to be sooo sore tomorrow. B) I was expecting my rowing to be a lot slower than it was…I’ve recovered a lot from the beginning of this quarter!

I had to cut the burpees short because someone was waiting on my bar so I rushed straight through the overhead squats.

After my workout, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my dining hall had Greek yogurt (normally a different one only has it). I topped it with frozen berries and pineapple, which I ended up having to thaw so I wouldn’t freeze my teeth off. On the side is a veggie filled scramble.

Lunch was another salad, similar to a lot that I had last week, chicken southwest. I’m trying not to waste any meal plan dollars this quarter, and I really can’t complain about this salad! On another note, my no sweet challenge is going really well! I think just putting it out there is really going to help me get back on track. I resisted frozen yogurt (despite the perfect weather), as well as several other things. It just makes you think twice about putting something in your mouth. My eating overall had felt really good today. Consequently, as I avoid sweets, I’m also avoiding gluten products. Because honestly, I can live without plain bread.

After class, I went on a bike ride. I’ve been dreading running lately, so I just haven’t done anything. I decided I needed I new hobby and something active outside, and I seriously think I have found it. It was a beautiful day (although a little warm), and I just had the best ride. I didn’t even notice my breathing hard or my burning legs. I think I may have found my thing. The ride out was mostly slightly uphill the whole time, which allowed me to really fly on the way back. I ended up riding for a little over an hour. The ride was so awesome minus one small mishap. And by mishap, I mean me wiping out. Yeahh. I haven’t actually done this before, despite my shaky beginnings on a bike. It was really dumb. I was back on campus, and going at like 2 miles an hour, but the bike lane was really narrow and then the the pavement dropped off. I skimmed the edge and then just went down. But since I was going slow, and knew pretty quickly I had no chance, the fall ended up being really minor. I’m not even scratched up, just a bruise on my knee and cramped up fingers. My fingers were cramped from riding so long, and then having the handle bars ripped out….But it was a fun ride! I ended up in a sort of rural area with horses. The view was beautiful, but I didn’t take pictures because quite frankly, I didn’t want to die. Stopping at the side of the road for a photo shoot…not a good way to go! My butt was starting to hurt by the end, although I’m not sure if it was from the effort or from the seat. So combined with squats…ohhh tomorrow.

Embarrassing sidenote: SInce I want to practice talking while exercising (for teaching Spin one day), I decided it was appropriate to singe while biking on the way back. Outside noise was loud enough and I was moving fast enough that I figured no one would notice.

Dinner was delicious: burrito bowl with guac!This was at a dining hall I almost never go to, although I don’t know why given it’s fairly close and there’s guacamole every night…They also had Greek yogurt! And frozen blueberries to top it with! Jealous. Well it was good. I’m hoping to have a productive night. It’s midterm season, yayyy. Plus I seriously need to get some sleep. I never seem to get any anymore…

Have you ever wiped out on a bike?

How’s the weather where you are?

Owww

Date: April 4, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Remember how I said I reduced my squat workout so I could walk today? SO glad I did. I started getting sore last night. On tap for the morning was a run. I ran the campus loop, which is between 3.5 and 4 miles, more than I’ve run since my illness by a long ways. I was super worried about blistering, given the fact that I had some after my first run back which was only 2 miles, but luckily, I was saved by the socks! I got these news running socks that are supposed to prevent blistering, and they worked like magic!After my run, I went to breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in a looong while. I figured, why not try their yogurt??Plain yogurt (vanilla is better but at least I don’t have to worry about sugar content!) with frozen blueberries and sunflower butter, which I brought myself. Yes, I’m that cool. I carry around a jar of sunflower butter. Plus potatoes on the side and a sample of chicken. I forgot about this new thing my dining hall has been doing in the morning recently. They have some kind of non-traditional, usually ethnic dish. This often includes some type of meat, rice, and beans. Today was Asian style chicken so I decided to try a piece. Not bad, although I’m still not sure what I think about having that for breakfast….

Anyways, back to the title of this post….I was sore this morning. No surprise there. But not THAT bad. I did my run. It felt ok. I could tell after my run though that the soreness was going to get worse. The worst is getting up and walking around after sitting in class for an hour. Oof. Nothing wrong with walking like a zombie for a few steps until my legs loosen up, right??

I was worried I’d be too sore for yoga! I felt better by the end of the day. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about soreness. I actually really like it (sort of). I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything with my workout if I’m not sore. This way of thinking is mostly derived from my love of weight lifting. My absolute favorite type of soreness is ab soreness. I don’t have a ton of great exercises to achieve this, at least when my core was stronger before I got sick.

Before I started lifting, my dad tried to describe to me how weight lifting soreness is different than soreness from other things. And it really is. It’s somehow deeper. It feels bruisier, and loosening up or rolling out doesn’t help all that much. Have you guys ever been so sore that you can’t stand rolling out because it is so painful? That is weight lifting soreness right there. I seriously miss my lifting sessions with my trainer (I was getting stronger for softball). I can never do quite as well on my own; at pushing myself, lifting as heavy, and making my own workouts. I mean, part of the lifting heavier weights is I am so self conscious about dropping weights when I am on my own (plus some things like squats are tough if you fail). It is so loud! Somehow it seemed fine when I was with my trainer, and I failed lifts all the time, but now I never go as heavy as I think will cause me to fail. I also miss the superior equipment I used with y trainer. He had access to bands, bumpers, and other fun stuff. Plus my school gym doesn’t even have kettlebells! I’m pretty sure the workouts I was doing were pretty similar to Crossfit, which is why I am dying to try it (how many times have I said this??).

Back on the topic of soreness. Funny story…over the summer I got my wisdom teeth out. I knew ahead of time that I wouldn’t be allowed to exercise for 10 days following the surgery. So what did I do? I lifted the day before to get maximumly sore so I would be sore for as long as possible while I was stuck in bed with chipmunk cheeks. And then I went to abs class the morning of, which kind of stunk because i wasn’t allowed to drink anything. Sidenote: If you have just gotten your wisdom teeth out, or for any reason are physically unable to chew, do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch Cupcake Wars on Food Network. BAD IDEA. I HAD to make chocolate pudding cake after that, which was basically liquidy chocolate cake, and was still super painful to eat but so, so worth it. Getting my wisdom teeth out was not terribly fun. I remember how much I missed salad. I couldn’t eat it for the longest time, and I ended up losing like 2 stitches to salad. Also, I was out for the surgery, and afterwards, I sent a beautiful picture of my puffy face to someone. But once the drowsiness wore off, I had no idea who I sent it to. Whoops. But for your amusement, here is said photo:

Wow, I am totally off topic…Let’s move on to lunch, shall we? I didn’t have a ton of time, and I didn’t want to wait in a long line. And I didn’t want something big or heavy. After walking around from place to place for like 5 minutes, and convincing myself I should get some veggies and not just yogurt, I settled on a Greek style wrap. I unwrapped it and ate the insides out, with a few bites of tortilla. And I resisted the urge to get dessert or a muffin. Yay!

Back at my dorm after class I had half a granola bar and 2 small mangos. Only 1 left 🙁 But they were getting a tad brown inside, hence why I ate 2 today. I CANNOT let these guys go bad!

Tonight was another yoga class. I have another few on tap for the next couple of nights. Loving this schedule! After yoga I headed straight to dinner to meet some of my novice crew friends from the fall! I love those guys! And I was excited to go somewhere different to eat. I’m too scared to go there by myself! They have guacamole. Every. Single. Day.Burrito bowl! It was so great to catch up with those guys! I think we need to make these dinners a weekly thing.

Soo update on Operation: Get Healthy? Eh. My workouts have been on target. Food? Room for improvement. I’m worried I’m not getting in enough veggies. I’m becoming addicted to sunflower butter, which is a problem because a) I don’t want to burn through my supply and b) I don’t want to cause some allergy from going crazy with it like I may have done with peanut butter (not sure if that’s a valid statement). I also haven’t been strict enough avoiding sweets. I’ve been pretty good about reducing my grain intake, but I faced some problems at dinner today when I reached for lemon merengue pie, and later some cereal. This left me with fierce sugar cravings. I had some yogurt and sunflower butter a little later, and even later a few small pieces of chocolate and some granola bar. When I got back to my room around 9, it was all I could do to keep from eating everything in my room. Reason #10000 why I don’t keep much in the way of sweets in my room. Soo I’m going to seriously focus on avoiding sugar, and grains as much as possible (I might need something to go into my yogurt to make it super amazing). I am going to try to increase my fruit and veggie intake, which should be interesting given that all I have in my room is half a bag of lettuce, 4 small celery sticks, 1 small mango, and a couple of oranges. I may hit up the grocery this weekend for some awesome produce. Anyways, I thin I need to really focus on myself for a few days, so I most likely won’t post for a few days, or read other blogs. I need to immerse myself in what I am doing, at least for a tiny bit. I should be back sometime this weekend, don’t worry!

A few last notes: not sure what tomorrow’s workout will be yet. My schedule works out perfectly to do a track workout, and I want to do a timed mile this week to see where I am at. My best mile time is like 6:55 or something but that was a few years ago and I haven’t done anything like that since. Plus I’ve been sick. When I timed a 2 mile jog, my better of teh 2 miles was like 9:30, but I wasn’t really pushing it and I’m better off than I was then. I think I’ll be happy with anything under 9 minutes for now. I thought this would be a good way to track my progress. HOWEVER. Tomorrow there is 90% chance of rain, which basically means it will definitely rain, so I think I’ll lift. I originally was feeling too sore for that but I think I’ll be good to go now.

Lastly, new week I’m rushing. I’m not sure I’ll necessarily join a sorority, but it should at least be a fun experience. Any advice from the sorority girls out there?

Were you/are you involved in Greek life?