Are HLBs Becoming Obsolete?

Date: August 28, 2015

Author: astottler

Today’s topic is going to be a bit on the touchy side. Plus, we’ll do some food catch up because I like to actually call this a food and fitness blog, right? I’ll intersperse the food to keep us all entertained!

It’s no secret that I haven’t been blogging as much lately. Partly it’s time. My work schedule has been pretty crazy this summer, and when I get home I have no energy to crack open my computer. (Sidenote-these past couple of days of blogging, I’m reminded of how much I enjoy putting words on the screen and creating something, when I have the time and energy to put in).

(Blueberry banana bread remains one of my favorite healthy pre-workout snacks.)

But at the same time, I feel like I’m running out of things to contribute to the world. Maybe my own healthy habits are waning (definitely true), maybe I’ve moved on to other topics of interest, but lately I’ve felt that I’ve already put everything out there that I have in me to contribute. I’ve been blogging for two and a half years now. My life is so different now than it was then, and I’ve had all kinds of life experiences in between. My blog viewership has also changed quite a bit, not specifically in terms of numbers, but I feel like I have a different set of readers now than I had 2 years ago.

I also used to be better about commenting on other blogs. I still read other bloggers’ posts, but I never seem to take the effort to leave a comment anymore. Maybe the quantity of blogs I read now is higher, that my quality as a reader decreases.

(Panini on a gluten free ciabatta with basil, mozzarella, tomatoes, mushroom tapenade, and a sprinkle of truffle salt. Side salad: balsamic vinaigrette, crumbled feta, dried cherries).

At the same time though, I feel like there are so many blogs out there that have grown stale. Not to be putting anyone down at all, but I’m just not enjoying reading the posts of some of the big bloggers who started it all anymore. I guess after reading hundreds of posts over several years, things kind of blur together to be and the posts seem repetitive. There are so many blogs these days, that how much information is left to gain or be given out?

(I made my pumpkin banana bread and sprinkled cinnamon cream cheese on half. It’s never too soon for pumpkin.)

Maybe I’ve just become so set in my workout routine that there’s no time to try new things or workouts I find online. Maybe I don’t cook as much as I used to, and don’t get the same inspiration. Maybe I don’t have that “healthy living” spark anymore. Maybe my passion is faltering, and maybe I haven’t put enough effort into my health lately to have the energy for these things to excite me.

The healthy living blog world exploded as a result of some key bloggers, but does anyone else feel like it’s dying a bit? Other social media platforms are starting to take over, partly as our population’s attention span decreases. Instagram, vlogs, twitter. Is this the future of the healthy living world? Quick inspiration? Or has everything that there is to say on the topic already been said?

(Still obsessed with this lunch. Side of Vans Gluten Free everything crackers.)

What can I say or write about to inspire myself and others? What can I contribute to an internet that is already so crowded with the thoughts and ideas of others?

(Chicken noodle soup and a cheese pupusa. Pupusas are my latest obsession-cornmeal exterior, stuffed with anything from cheese and spinach to kale and pinto beans.)

I hope to post more soon. I think my blog posts tend to be better when they are a more regular thing. I also want to talk about some vet stuff and let you guys know what is going on in my life now and in the future.

Tell me-are HLBs obsolete?

Authenticity

Date: November 5, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First of all, fair warning that today’s post may be sort of word vomit (ugh I hate that word).

So, I feel like I haven’t been very real on the old blog lately. At this point I probably have a pretty different set of readers as I did 2 years ago, but if you read any of my old posts, the tone is pretty different. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe I’m burned out on blogging. I think a lot of it is I don’t really want to psychoanalyze my eating habits on the internet anymore, because when I go back and read those posts, I feel ridiculous. Maybe I’ve read too many blogs and feel like I’m just adding white noise to the world of blogs. I think healthy living blogs in general have changed a lot in the past 2 years.

(Baby HLBer Aurora)

I also think that somewhere along the way, I lost my passion. I became apathetic. And honestly, I feel sort of lost. I’m having a hard time finding inspiration for something I used to be so passionate about.

(Totally should not have been eating this, totally allergic to it. But baby HLBer Aurora didn’t exactly know this.)

College is a pretty big transition in life. I think I’ve become apathetic about a lot of things. To be honest, I also feel lost without a sport. Softball was my life in middle and high school, and rowing was my life freshman year of college. I honestly feel like food is my only extracurricular and source of fun.

I feel like another reason I’m losing my passion for fitness and nutrition is I feel like I don’t live up to it anymore, if that makes any sense. The more I lose it, the more unhealthy I get, which makes me lose the passion even more. When I read my old posts, it makes me happy yet sad because I feel like I’ve lost a lot of that.

(I don’t miss the freezing cold days on the water though.)

And since we’re being honest here, I guess I’ll talk about the one thing I never talk about but occasionally mention and complain about and then never change anything.

(One of the first food-y things I posted. That smoothie had WAYYY too much mint extract.)

Yeah, gaining weight in college is real. I feel like my eating habits have become apathetic (yeah, totally overusing that word in this post). I’ve gained weight, and I’m not comfortable with myself. To be honest, ever since that happened, I haven’t really felt like myself. And to be even more honest, I feel like living unhealthily is sort of wasting my college years. I feel like this has leaked into other areas of my life. And I really, really want to change, but it seems so impossible and far away.

And I feel emotional even writing this post because it saddens me how much I’ve changed since coming to college. I feel like I just care less about things in general, and that’s no way to live your life. I was going to do a whole post about how I feel like I lost my Type-A-ness and how that’s a bad thing but I guess that will come up here too. So I don’t know what this means for me. I’m not sure what to do. Maybe if I start being more authentic on here that will help reignite that spark, but I also don’t want to be ashamed or embarrassed by anything that the whole world can see. So that’s where I am right now.

(My gosh I love cats though.)

At a Crossroads

Date: May 17, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s currently Friday night at 1am, but I can’t sleep because my room is 1000 degrees and I have ice cream running through my veins (not a decision I regret though). I’m sitting outside (much cooler) watching drunk people slowly trickle back from one of the wilder parties of the year. I wasn’t feeling it-I spent my night with my only friends I need:

Kidding. All jokes aside though, I’ve never actually had Ben and Jerry’s, so my roommate and I decided to fix that! But today’s recap is for another post. I have a slightly more serious (how serious am I ever? Let’s be real here) post for tonight. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting. I guess this past month or so I’ve been feeling a bit of blogging identity crisis. What’s the point of what I’m posting? Is it interesting? Deceptive? (I hope not). Who am I writing to? Who am I trying to please?

In this post, I’m going to attempt to piece my thoughts together in a way that makes sense, as much as possible.

Tonight, I spent some time reading through some really old posts from another blogger-one that inspired me to blog wayyy back when.

Additionally, my blogging was slacking for a bit there, thanks to my so-called food rut.

I guess here’s what it comes down to. When I’m eating junk and feeling bad, it’s hard for me to be passionate about the things I care about and love and find SO incredibly interesting-nutrition, metabolism, etc. It’s something I truly am passionate about, but when I’m not following my own advice, it’s hard to find that spark.

I feel like my blog has really more fallen into what I tend to call it, a food and fitness blog, versus a healthy living blog. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it ends up turning into lazy posts where I throw up pictures of my food and say “This is what I ate.” Don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic for me to look back on. But what value is in that content? A lot of what I’ve been eating hasn’t been particularly healthy, so who am I hoping to inspire?

On the other hand, I find myself not talking about my exercise and fitness-just brushing it off. Even though, as a food and FITNESS blog, this could be a big thing. And it’s a big part of who I am that gets neglected quite a bit! But here’s where I run into trouble-and as I’ll probably elaborate on in a minute, maybe the source of my blog rut-I’ve been worrying too much about what people will think. Will they say I’m exercising too much? But here’s the thing. Everyone is different. My exercise routine is balanced, and I look forward to most of my workouts. Crossfit is fun. I pick and choose the workouts I go to based on what I would find the most fun. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t go. Also, I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I’m in good shape. But I tend to be self conscious about the fact that I usually run in the morning, and then do Crossfit in the evening. So I don’t discuss these things. But I really should! It shouldn’t bother me what people think because I know what works for me. I love running, and training for races, and I love Cross-training. So be it.

And onto the topic of caring what others think…I’ve ALWAYS wanted Fitness is Sweet to be a positive place. I don’t want to be negative in my posts. And there’s one topic I absolutely hate talking about, but I’m going to talk about today. This is a weird one though-I’m not worried so much as to what others will think, but rather what future me will think. I cringe at all those past-Aurora posts freaking out over this or that, and all those random “a-ha” moments (OMG I need to eat Paleo! OMG I need to avoid gluten! UGH.)

So this post is probably not one I’m going to look back and love, but it is what it is. Because the one topic I HATE talking about is weight. But hey, why not talk about it then?

I’m in college. It’s spring quarter. Nutrition seems to once again have gone by the wayside. So here I am, up a few pounds. And running SLOW (priorities, right?). And as much as I HATE discussing this, here we are. Because as much as I preach a healthy lifestyle, I never really did figure it out. I never returned to my pre-college weight, which drives me crazy, and I never returned to my pre-college eating. I’m active, which is fantastic, but my eating habits clearly leave a bit to be desired. Sure, I eat my vegetables, but a lot of sweets and snacks never make it to the blog. I guess I’m at a crossroads because I’m ready to really dig into this issue, but not too sure where to start because after all this time I’m still not there!

I feel like the extra pounds are really holding me back, in terms of my confidence and my athletic capabilities-I really want to PR my half this fall!

This past week, I’ve been trying to focus on staying calm and mindful, which helps but is still hard to stick with!

And at the same time I want to make myself healthier, I also want to have healthier content. I want to show delicious, nutritious meals, not just thrown together pictures of froyo and muffins.

However, I firmly believe that a negative attitude and negative relationship with food is never going to help with weight loss, so there is going to be none of that here. Which is why I have zero regrets about that Ben and Jerry’s-it was delicious! And it’s over, and I don’t regret it. I don’t plan on eating it every night forever, but it is what it is.

So I guess the summary of this long and super rambling post is that I’m going to take better care of my health and also work on improving my blog content-but I also think the two go hand in hand!

So if you made it this far, thank you! I know this post will probably make me cringe later, but I also think it is important. As bloggers, it’s easy to paint a healthy glow on everything, but we’re not always as healthy as we make ourselves seem to be! That’s very important to remember!

What makes you uncomfortable?

WIAW-Lately

Date: March 11, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s Wednesday and I’ve officially on that dead week grind. I have an infinite amount of studying to do before Monday, but a collection of delicious things from the past few days is a great way to break it up! Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting!

To be perfectly honest, I have not been super inspired with my blogging lately. I may be having a mid-life blog crisis. What is the purpose really of my blog? Should I make my writing voice more formal? Is this really a “healthy living blog”? What does that even mean? What valuable content can I contribute to the vastness that is the Internet? I’m also starting to think about myself and how to be a better person. I think that’s something we can all work on! It’s interesting because I have a post from sometime around this time last year talking about a similar thing. Although of course it sounds silly looking back on it now just in the way I worded everything!

I suppose my current contribution to the Internet is my food as a college student. Which means easy and microwave friendly, more often than not! And many times lazy-I am not ashamed of ziplock bag pictures! (Ok, maybe I am.)

This is an easy breakfast that never gets old. An orange and scrambled eggs with interesting cheese. Microwave scrambled eggs are SO easy, and are indistinguishable from stove scrambled eggs. And a quality cheese completely makes the dish.

Brunch of a whole wheat waffle and a little bit of yogurt+fruit.

Dining hall dinner-Indian food! I admit, I ate virtually zero vegetables this day, and normally I would have a bed of spinach in there, but some days I’m just really not feeling it.

A ziplock bag lunch which is always a winner, and so, so easy. Simply microwave (or bake if you’re fancier than I am and have an oven) a sweet potato, season, and top with salsa! I have little guacamole packets which I put on at lunch time. I also packed some hardboiled eggs for protein. To season, I used this amazing salt blend:

This is SO GOOD. It has a very smoky flavor, and reminds me a bit of barbecue sauce.

This dining hall dinner was a complete WIN. I seriously lucked out. Salsa baked chicken, cilantro brown rice, salad, and the star of the show-roasted cauliflower and carrots! I don’t know why the dining hall always insists on steaming cauliflower, so this was quite the treat! I definitely brought back some to pack in my lunch for the next day.

My yogurt mess really is quite the mess in this picture because it rode around with me all day. It is reduced berries with sunflower seed butter and plain yogurt-my favorite!

If you haven’t tried dried persimmons, this should be a priority in your life. We all know I was a tad obsessed with fresh persimmons this fall, and while these definitely aren’t the same, they seem to disappear quite quickly!

In other things that you should go out and buy: this. Now. Run. It’s delicious! Everything I could have hoped for and more. Creamy goat cheese, sweet and fruity blueberries. Amazing.

An unexpected treat-dinner in the form of a care package from home! Vegetable soup and a corn and cheese cake. There was another cake as well but it seemed to disappear before the picture was taken! Yum!

I guess one contribution I have to the healthy living world right now is my attempt at a microwave St. Patrick’s Day cookie. Which may actually be made in the oven if I can get the microwave version to turn out first (it’s lower commitment!)

I did make one major mistake though. Check out the results:

Pre-“baking.” (Wouldn’t it be awesome to have an Easy Bake Oven in a dorm room??)

Post-“baking.”

These don’t really look like St. Patrick’s Day cookies, do they? Let me explain.

We already know about the Mystery Bread I’m obsessed with. (Which is now solved, by the way!)

See the green things? Those are sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds react to turn green under certain baking conditions. I wanted to make green sunflower seed butter cookies. I SWEAR I thought it was baking powder that caused the reaction, but I failed to check before producing marvelously un-green cookies. It’s actually baking soda. So attempt #2 will come soon! The good news is, they tasted great!

On the fitness front, today I did one of the “girls” at Crossfit-Helen. This is 3 rounds of a 400m run, 21 kettle bell swings, and 12 pull ups. This one is harder than it sounds! I’m happy to report that I beat my last time by about 20 seconds, but I used much less assistance (a thinner band) on the pull ups!

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to run 6 miles but I’m considering cutting it to 5. Today is my heaviest week of running on my training plan (4,6,4,12 miles), and despite following the training plan twice already, I’ve never actually fit in all the runs for the heaviest week! My calves are feeling a bit tight so I might cut it to 5 and then play it by ear. Lots of rolling out will be happening tonight between studying though!

Have a great week!

Any fun St. Patrick’s Day Traditions?