Old Habits/ My Puppy is Growing Up

Date: August 5, 2015

Author: astottler

So I know I haven’t blogged much lately. Part of it has been business, part of it has been I feel like I don’t have that much new to contribute! Either way, despite my hiatus, I’m still in the habit of taking food pictures, so I thought I would share some of them, because why not?

These are spinach and cheese pupusas, and I’ve been sort of obsessed lately. They come frozen, and are basically spinach and cheese in a cornmeal shell.

Super simple dinner: BBQ chicken, spanish style rice, and green beans cooked in the same style as my garlic roasted broccoli.

Lunch at Le Boulange-salad with balsamic, chicken, dried cranberries, and gorgonzola.

Chicken and dumplings with a salad on the side.

I’m obsessed with this salad-I actually have it for lunch most days. Chicken, goat cheese, dates, nectarine, tossed in a champagne vinaigrette.

Funfetti pancakes with the family. For the pancakes I just did the banana+and egg trick in the blender and threw in some oats.

Cooking Light’s lemon parmesan risotto, with a salad on the side. The awesome thing is that this recipe is made entirely in the microwave, so it’s half the work on regular risotto!

Last weekend I went out to brunch with my friends. I got an egg white omelette with turkey burger, spinach, and cheddar inside (topped with avocado of course!).

That evening, I went to a Latin restaurant with friends and got delicious salmon over rice.I loved the fruit salsa on top!

Another Cooking Light gem was this lemon marinated chicken, with a side of feta rice. Super fast and simple, but so flavorful!

I’m obsessed with figs. Don’t you love summer?

Now-puppy picture overload!

Day in the Life: Summer 2015

Date: July 10, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I don’t have work today since I’m working Sunday, so I went to a 5:45am spin class this morning. I’m running on about 4.5 hours of sleep and am definitely going to take a nap soon! I wanted to do another day in the life post for while I work my summer job.

6:05am alarm goes off (with a day in the life post reminder)

Then I get ready for Crossfit and packed everything up for the day!

Then, I come downstairs to be greeted by a crazy puppy. Full disclosure-we’re having some behavioral issues right now.

Pre-Crossfit snack/breakfast: a little baking experiment-carrot oatmeal raisin granola bars!

6:45am: leave for Crossfit.

7-8am Crossfit

Workout:

Warmup/accessory:

3 rounds- 20 double unders, 8 bent over rows, 100m farmer’s carry with 2 25# plates

WOD:

7-14-21-28

pulls ups

wall balls

kettle bell swings

The original workout called for burpees instead of wall balls but my hip isn’t that great so I subbed wall balls with a shallow squat

We then finished with some ab work.

8am: Clean up and change into scrubs. I’ve never actually gone straight from Crossfit to work before so this part was new for me.

8:15am: Hang out in car, eat, browse blogs.

9am: Start work. It’s a fairly slow day at the vet today.

1-2pm: Lunch break! I don’t normally work 9-6, but it’s one of my favorite schedules because it’s pretty normal. When I start later or earlier, I eat at either 11 or 2/3!

Leftovers: BBQ chicken, coleslaw, mashed sweet potatoes.

I eat lunch in the break room with coworkers and also enjoy a few break room snacks. One of the vets brought in Jamba Juice for us!

6pm: Done with work! I get out right on time today. It’s a pretty dark sky.

I was planning on going to the track, but I get a text from a friend wanting to hang out, so I spend time eating a snack and debating my options.

Plus 2 squares of dark chocolate

6:20 Decide to do a slightly shorter track workout. Regret eating dark chocolate because 2 squares of 72% is a lot of caffeine for me right now!

Track workout was originally 8x400m, but I end up with 5x400m. Given I’ve done 0 speed work lately, that’s good enough for me.

7:10pm: Arrive home, and make myself a quick and easy dinner. I’m not super hungry since I just had a snack, so I make some frozen veggie/potato snacks. One flavor is sweet potato, the other is broccoli. With ketchup. Yes, they are Spongebob shaped.

Plus s small slice of my granola bar with sun butter.

Then, I shower off all the animals and get ready to go.

8pm: Leave to make the 25 min drive to school where my friends are living for the summer. I arrive around 8:30.

After debating what to do, since I have a car we go to get boba. They realize how small my car actually is. It’s actually kind of ridiculous.

I ended up getting Rose-Aloe tea. I think it was rose tea with chunks of gelatinous aloe? I would have preferred pearls, but I actually had no clue what I was ordering-all I cared was that it was decaf, and my friend got this and knew it was decaf!

Around 10, we head back to campus and meet up with my other 2 friends. I stay there until around midnight, and am in bed by about 12:30! If I had work the next day, I definitely would not have been out so late!

What is your typical day like?

Wiped

Date: July 7, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I’m finally blogging on a week night. I finished my day, and am now awaiting a visit from my friend’s 2 new kittens! I only met them last week briefly at the vet, so I cannot wait!

So, what are my days looking like? I started my morning with a really hilly 3 mile run. Workouts before work are pretty essential for me because I’m allergic to everything at home (i.e. Charlie, Lilly, and Chloe), and I’m allergic to everything at work (i.e. every animal there), so a little workout and fresh air helps keep things under control. Side note: my hip has really been bothering my lately when I squat for some reason. Not the motion of equating, but being down in a low squat position. I went to a yoga class yesterday, but I also played a softball game yesterday which stiffened it up. Anyways, I’m trying to avoid squats for a little while.

Sidenote: Guess what? I’m going to IDEA World Fitness Conference next week! Is anybody else going to be there? I’m pretty pumped! I’m going as part of the college program, so hopefully I’ll get to meet other students! Additionally, I’m signed up for all kinds of spin workshops!

Anyways, post-run I was running a bit late so I had a super quick breakfast of an Oatmeal Raisin Luna bar and mango. For some reason I have so much trouble finding the oatmeal raisin flavor…

Today, I worked 8-4, which was a fairly ideal schedule in my mind. Evenings are usually pretty slow. At 12:30, I broke for lunch.

Lunch was Trader Joe’s chicken strips, brown rice, and leftover green beans. I haven’t been a fan of TJ’s chicken lately. There have been a lot of tendons or something in it lately and the texture has been kind of gross.

During my lunch break, I stopped in to the nearby froyo place for a small container of chocolate sorbet with blueberries and a couple of raisins.

Tonight was my spin teaching night, so I sprinted out the door at 4 to make the traffic-filled drive across the bay. Maybe it was the holiday weekend, but traffic wasn’t awful. I had a pre-workout granola bar in the car while driving.

I have to get to spin pretty early to avoid even worse traffic, so I’ve gotten in the habit of taking power naps in my car when I arrive. It makes a difference!

The class went pretty well. It was a smaller class than usual, but I think everyone got a solid workout in!

I came home and unleashed the ~~beast~~ puppy. She was a little crazy, but now she’s asleep.

The first week of work, I came home totally wiped, and after dealing with animals all day, I had little patience for my little puppy. Now that I’m getting more into the routine though, it’s getting a lot better! That being said, I’m looking forward to my pillow tonight!

Dinner was a Trader Joe’s salad with leftover cheesy polenta.

On Sunday night, my family made our annual 4th of July cake. Normally, we do a big sheet with a berry flag pattern, but we simplified since the holiday had already passed. This year, we used a gluten free chocolate cake mix.

For dessert tonight, I had a small slice of this. Unfortunately, my stomach doesn’t like something in this cake and I honestly have no idea what it could be, but I had my reoccurring illness issues on Sunday after having this, and I’m feeling kind of off now. My stomach is 99% healed, but there are some random things that are still iffy!

So that was my day! Also-I updated my Races page FINALLY!

What is your favorite granola/protein bar?

My Life: Puppies, Vet, Food

Date: July 6, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

What has been going on lately leaving me such little time to post? This one is part of it! She’s quite the handful. Fortunately, I think we’re starting to get through the worst of the biting phase, but it’s still a work in progress. She started puppy school a couple of weeks ago, and already knows come, sit, down, and shake. She’s a bit headstrong though, and still somewhat easily distracted. She listens to every word we say, and cocks her head to the side when she doesn’t know what we’re saying or if she hears a new noise. She puts her tongue and mouth on everything, and anything is fair game to be chewed on. The weird thing is she really likes licking feet and ankles. She’s also started jumping up to put her front paws on all the furniture. It’s only a matter of time before she’s stealing food from counters!

Work at the vet has been going really well, and I really like my job. That said, it’s basically my entire life right now, to the point that I have dreams about it every night.

And finally, food. Because I’m home, food is a lot more interesting! Last Sunday, I went to another Giant’s game with my mom and got cauliflower flatbread.

And a hot fudge sundae. YUM.

Oh, and a sunburn. Look at what a beautiful day it was in SF though!

Other notable and colorful meals?

A teriyaki bowl with asparagus. Quick and easy.

An egg white scramble with spinach, nutritional yeast, and lemon thyme salt, plus oatmeal and an amazing nectarine. My friend who lives on an orchard visited me again last weekend!

My current go-to work lunch. Recipe coming soon!

Eggs with brown rice/quinoa blend, plus a nectarine for breakfast.

Cooking Light Asian Lettuce Cups with mint snow peas, plus brown rice/quinoa.

A post-workout protein smoothie into which I accidentally dumped a third of the container of dark chocolate cocoa powder, hence the intense color. The smoothie was half cocoa powder, and the other half was a frozen banana, soy milk, a pinch of protein powder, and a handful of spinach.

Froyo at lunch at work. Want to hear something terribly sad? I realized I’m allergic to one of my favorite froyo toppings! Apparently the last ingredient in Heath bars is almonds. On the one hand, this makes me really sad that I won’t be able to enjoy Heath in my froyo any longer, but on the other hand, I’m glad I have an explanation to why I was having a significant mystery allergic reaction. Boo.

Brown rice+my copycat SweetGreen salad-watermelon and feta!

A very pale but delicious dinner. Cooking Light’s lemon marinated grilled chicken, rice with feta and spices, and frozen then baked cauliflower with Greek seasoning blend.

A simple breakfast of eggs, and blueberries/a tiny banana with sun butter.

And finally:

The Primavera salad from Le Boulanger with no nuts and added chicken!

What’s the best thing you ate last week?

4th of July!

Date: July 5, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July! I visited a friend in Monterey, and we watched the fireworks over the bay from Santa Cruz.

When I arrived in Monterey, our first stop was Carmel to visit the beach. The entire town of Carmel, including the beach, is incredibly dog friendly so I’m definitely brining Chloe later this summer when she’s old enough!

We stopped for dinner at a little cafe hidden inside a small shopping center off the main street of Carmel, and I had roasted chicken and the veggie of the day, asparagus, with lemon and thyme.

Since it was 4th of July, ice cream was necessary. We both got fudge ripple!

It was a beautiful day-pretty cool by the water but still warm enough to enjoy the fresh sea air!

Backing up a bit, Friday night I made red, white, and blue banana bread. This stuff is insane. I just use my regular banana bread recipe and throw in blueberries, raspberries, and white chocolate chips! I made it for the first time last 4th of July and knew I had to make it again!

In terms of workouts this week, it’s mostly just been Crossfit. I’ve been trying to get out the door for a run lately but it just hasn’t been happening. Since I don’t have a summer half marathon, the schedule and motivation is just not there right now! Additionally, my work schedule this past week made it hard to fit a run in. Such is life.

I apologize for the infrequent posting, but I promise a food+life update tomorrow!

What did you do for the 4th of July? Any patriotic treats?