Yoga Fixed My Shoulders

Date: September 4, 2015

Author: astottler

Phew. Yesterday was quite the day!

I started my morning teaching a 7am spin class on campus, which was awesome. I didn’t think we’d get a big turn out because it wasn’t that well advertised and it was early, but I got a good group out, including a friend!

Then, I had a weight lifting session with my trainer. I tried to move it to not the morning I had to teach, but that didn’t work out so I had to suck it up and go in with less than fresh legs. We worked on cleans, back squats, and jerks. I PRed my clean again at 148#! That’s a 8# increase this summer, so I’ll take it! Sometimes being a little tired helps things-I don’t overthink the lift, plus I was super warmed up! I also hit 95% of my back squat max for 2 reps. This is especially good because my max is a year old, and I maxed out at my 95% when I tested it back in the spring.

As for the jerks, we didn’t go super heavy but they felt better than expected. Over the last year or so, I’ve developed very creaky shoulders, especially when I go overhead with the bar. I basically have not been able to go overhead more than once a week without stiff shoulders and pain when I press up. Earlier this week at Crossfit, we did a ton of push presses and high volume overhead work. But, the jerks yesterday felt fine! It was a night and day difference. So what changed? I started yoga about 6 years ago to help with flexibly (because I have none). I honestly think yoga was key for helping me stay injury free in my many years of softball. (I was a pitcher and never had any shoulder/arm trouble which is rare for someone doing it for 10 years!) In the past year, yoga has kind of fallen by the wayside. Last month, I finally started making it to class again, and I’ve noticed my shoulders getting stronger and looser. I felt a drastic difference from just last week’s class to this week’s class when doing low push ups-my shoulders felt strong and were losing their creak. Plus, this week I walked out of class with much less foot pain because I spent 60 minutes stretching out my tight calves. Needless to say I will be making yoga a regular thing again if possible!

After my training session, I met my sister for coffee at Bliss in Redwood City for any locals.

Of course, I got a cappuccino and it was fantastic. It was a light roast, and had premium quality milk foam (which is clearly what matters, if you ask me!)

After coffee, we headed home for lunch. I made myself a salad with truffle goat cheese (because we didn’t have any regular goat cheese), dates, a nectarine, and deli turkey.

Sweet potato seed crackers were on the side.

I spent the afternoon resting, and then apparently going on a baking frenzy.

It’s 4 days into September and I’ve already make 3 loaves of pumpkin bread and a loaf of sweet potato bread. Besides the pumpkin bread, I did lots of experimenting and improvising.

For the pumpkin bread, I baked some Noosa honey yogurt into the center for something fun.

If you take one look at my recipe page, you’ll see that most of what is up there is quick breads and salads. Those are my two claims to fame. I’ve gotten very good and making up recipes for healthy quick breads. I have one base recipe that I use, and I have yet to screw it up, surprisingly, despite how many modifications I’ve tried. (That’s actually not true-the one thing that didn’t work was coconut flour banana bread. Apparently bananas and coconut flour are not good together. It was gross.) I’ve even started making it with gluten free flour, and you would really never know. At this point, nothing contains more than 1/4 cup of sweetener, but you’d never know. Even my sister approved, and she is wary of anything “healthy.”

When the sweet potato bread came out, I decided I am a freaking genius. It was on point.

My third loaf was a total experiment, and I was running out of flour so I had to really improvise. The bread? Awesome. Exactly what I was looking for. The appearance? Uhhhh.

The batter was completely gray-this picture doesn’t do it justice. Anyone want to guess the secret ingredient that reacts to turn this color? I’m guessing it reacts to baking soda/powder. Because of the appearance, I’m not 100% sure I’ll share the recipe. Plus, it still needs tweaking because I think if I had more flour and didn’t have to improvise quite so much it would be better!

As for the sweet potato recipe, it’s coming this weekend-I promise!

That evening, I went to run club at Crossfit. My legs were not really up for it, but I’ve been wanting to go for a long time now and this was the only week I could really make it. Since everything is based on paces, I had to do a timed mile. Blech. I clocked in around 8:10, and with tired legs, I’ll take it. I should probably actually do a timed mile sometime with fresh legs! Back in the glory days, in another life I was actually reptty fast. I think my all time best mile is 6:53, but that’s not happening any time soon! Overall, between warm up and cool down, I covered 3 miles which is exactly what was on my half training plan for the day.

Dinner was another basic one. Stir fry veggies and cheesy polenta. The cheesy polenta was just cooked polenta with smoked gouda stirred in, and it was delicious!

I hope everyone has a fabulous labor day weekend. I’m on puppy duty full time, so I’m trying to think of things to do with her! And check back for that recipe this weekend!

What are your weekend plans?

Cherry Vanilla Bread

Date: August 31, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Update from last night: I finally got my 6 mile run in at 7pm. That’s later than I ever really run, but I got it done and get 1000x better afterwards, and that’s what matters. I’m one of those people who cannot function without exercise. I get drowsy and dopey, and I think I am sort of tightly wound, and exercise normally takes that edge off me.

Despite the late start, we had quite the delicious dinner, trying 2 new recipes of Cooking Light.

The first were cheesy cauliflower biscuits, which were filled with garlic and cheddar flavor. They almost reminded me of soufflés, because they were light and fluffy. The second recipe was the Roasted Carrot, Quinoa, and Grape bowl. I really liked this one-we cooked quinoa in chicken broth, and that was mixed with chicken, sliced grapes, and roasted carrots, all topped with a greek yogurt based dressing and served over a field of greens.

The dressing had an interesting and delicious cumin flavor. The only thing is that I think we used more quinoa than the recipe called for, so there wasn’t much dressing for the greens.

This morning, I had a dentist appointment so I made sure to not have something that would stick in my teeth for breakfast! I had a Siggi’s pomegranate passionfruit yogurt, topped with sunflower seed butter, and a side of nectarine from the Farmer’s Market. I love that Siggi’s flavored yogurts are not very sweet!

After the dentist, I went straight out to do my medium length run of the week-5 miles. My legs were dragged a tiny bit from running the night before, and my foot was a little stiff, but I knew I’d feel better if I just knocked it out early in the week because it works better with scheduling.

After my run, I headed home to get to work on some baking projects. I’m trying to avoid eating too many bars because they tend to be higher in sugar, and because I’m trying to eat fewer foods that may contain traces of nuts because my skin has been awful lately due to allergic reactions.

In the process, I threw together a quick lunch of leftovers, this time skipping the bed of lettuce.

Project 1 was just basic pumpkin banana bread.

Project 2 was sort of spur of the moment. I wanted to try something different. I’ve made cherry bread before on accident (when I realized halfway through assembling ingredients that we were out of pumpkin-whoops), so I thought making cherry vanilla bread might be fun to do for something different. It turned out great!

Interestingly, the bread doesn’t have a strong fruity flavor, but the cherry masks the banana flavor. If you want a warm, homey bread that is still wholesome, I would recommend giving this a try! It has a pretty basic flavor, and I think it could be the base for a lot of different things-I have big plans for this come winter! Feel free to jazz it up by added dried cherries or chocolate chips.

Cherry Vanilla Bread

Ingredients:

2 well ripened bananas

1.5 cups of frozen cherries, thawed and ground in a blender or food processor

1 large egg or 2 egg whites

2 tablespoons oil (I used avocado)

1/3 c milk

1/8 c honey (or more to taste, recipe actually calls for 1/3 to 1/2 c sugar)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon (can omit-this gives it a warm flavor)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1.5 c whole wheat pastry flour

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350

Mash bananas.

Add all ingredients except flour and mix well

Blend in flour, stir until moistened

Pour into 4×8 loaf pan, I recommend lining it in tinfoil

Bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center is clean.

Enjoy!

And because I have to share this picture:

California Niçoise Salad

Date: August 28, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! Here I am, posting another day in a row! GO ME. I have on day of work left! I really do love my job, but it will be nice to have some time off to prepare for what is sure to be a crazy year. I also have a recipe/salad idea for you all today!

My morning today started with a 3 mile run on the hills around my neighborhood. It’s good for me because I’m currently training for the Nike Women’s Half in SF which is hilly. Did I ever mention I was doing that? Well, I’m officially in training mode now. The run went well-I’m getting much stronger on the hills (my first few runs this summer were ugly).

I started work at 8am today, so everything occurred rather early.

Breakfast was a new to me yogurt that I’ve been meaning to try for a while-sweet potato! I liked it-the flavor was subtle and it wasn’t very sweet at all. I topped it with sun butter and had a few dates from the farmer’s market on the side.

Today at work my position was room nurse, which means I get to room the clients and discuss what is going on with their pets. It’s a lot of fun to interact with the ‘parents’ but the position can get a little slow when there are not a ton of appointments. Around 10:30, I broke for a quick snack and ate the Vans gluten free crackers I packed in my lunch.

Lunchtime was at 12:30, and I chatted with my coworkers while enjoying my typical salad.

I also ate a piece of blueberry banana bread that I pulled out of the freezer.

Then, at around 3 I had a small piece of ice cream cake. On the last Friday of every lunch at work, we celebrate the birthdays from the month with the treats of their birthday people’s choices!

After work, I wanted to go to Crossfit, but I got out of work a few minutes late and couldn’t make the earlier class. I was a little hungry and already ate my snack for the day (oops) so I stopped by CVS to pick up a bar. It was just ok, and I didn’t love the ingredient list, but given my nut restrictions it was the best option I could find.

Crossfit was a fun one! My of my favorite types of workouts-short and heavy. As a warm up we did zig zag agility drills, which were a lot of fun and a great way to mix it up! The strength portion was 5 sets of 5 presses, at 55, 60,70, 80, and 85 percent.

The WOD I was looking forward to-7 minute AMRAP:

5 push ups

5 front squats (I used 105#)

7 knees to elbow

I got through 4 rounds plus 10 reps.

My shoulders are weak and creaky. I’m terrible at push ups for some reason and most WODs I choose to do them on my knees. This was few enough reps though that I was able to grunt out chest to ground, elbows in, real push ups. In terms of the creakiness, I can’t really do multiple days of overhead work without my shoulders being cranky, and I think it’s because I’ve gotten weak and stiff. I started going to yoga again, and I’m really hoping that helps things out! Yoga is so great for shoulder strength!

Dinner was a salad I dreamed up on the plane back from New York, and it came together beautifully. I suppose I’ll call it the California Niçoise?

(Side note-I learned last week that to get accented letters on a Mac you press down on the character and hold….I took Spanish for 5 years without this knowledge….)

This salad is fun because it’s full of all kinds of flavors and textures-my favorite way to eat a salad.

California Niçoise

(Note that this is not given in terms of exact quantities.)

-2 grilled chicken breasts, marinated in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper

-roasted asparagus

-roasted red potatoes (I used creamer potatoes) in olive oil, salt, and pepper

-truffle goat cheese (you could use regular goat cheese)

-a sprinkle of truffle salt on top of all of that

For the dressing (adapted from Cooking Light)
3 T red wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 T minced shallots
1 T fresh chopped parsley
1 t Dijon mustard
1/8 t salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 garlic clove, crushed

The process is simple-whip up the dressing, and then toss everything with the exception of the goat cheese, which is crumbled on top. Yum!

Dessert was also sort of epic. It was a Cooking Light recipe from the latest edition-Hasselback Apples. They’re basically apples sliced hasselback style and then roasted, topped with an oat, butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar mixture, and then broiled. Words cannot describe how amazing these were!

And since my picture truly doesn’t do it justice, here’s the shot from Cooking Light.

I highly recommend giving these a try!

Nectarine and Date Salad with Feta

Date: July 8, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone’s week is going well! Today, I’m sharing a recipe with you all which basically what I’ve been having for lunch every day at work, so stick around until the end of the post!

I started work at 7am today, so a quick breakfast was in order. Cherries+polenta+Luna bar. I probably eat too many bars, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I currently have a healthy alternative baking in the oven which is a total experiment so we’ll see how that turns out!

I didn’t get to have lunch until 1:30, so I was pretty ravenous and tired by then! Lunch was a salad with dates, nectarines, chicken, and feta (recipe at the bottom).

Plus Mary’s crackers.

I’m trying not to get froyo at work more than once a week, but since I was so hungry, I had a small cup with blueberries.

After working the rest of the afternoon, I had a quick snack before Crossfit. A random bar I found that didn’t haven anything I’m allergic to (i.e. nuts-which nearly every bar has), a banana, and a couple of pieces of these freeze dried apple/raspberry balls.

Crossfit was good, but my hip has been bothering me lately when I squat for some reason, so I’m trying to be gentle to it. I worked on power snatches (not landing in a full squat), and did very shallow overhead squats in the WOD which was 12 minutes of overhead squats, push press, and push ups on the minute with an increasing rep scheme. Not a crazy intense one, but I got a good shoulder burn!

Dinner was a few Cooking Light recipes from the Cooking Light app. The app is so convenient-they even make meal pairings with main dishes and sides, and it’s easy to scroll through different recipes based on their principle component (like poultry). Today, we had BBQ chicken which I ate over a piece of gluten free bread, coleslaw, and mashed sweet potatoes with sage and browned butter.

For a little something sweet after dinner, I had a little sunflower seed butter and raspberry jam on gluten free bread.

Now-recipe time!

Date Nectarine Salad

Ingredients:

For the salad:

8-10 oz grilled chicken breast, chopped

1/2 c feta

2-3 nectarines, chopped

about 15 pitted dates, chopped

3 large handfuls of lettuce

For the dressing (adapted from Cooking Light)
3 T white wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 T minced shallots
1 T fresh chopped parsley
1 t Dijon mustard
1/8 t salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 garlic clove, crushed

Mix up the dressing, and then toss it all together!

Serves 3

On the Third Day of Christmas, My True Love Gave to Me…

Date: November 30, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

3 new recipes!

2 workouts

1 family

I know recipes are few and far between around here, so for my blogiversary I took to the kitchen and got to work!

Here are last year’s. Note-the double chocolate banana bread is possibly the best recipe I’ve created.

Another note-I’m currently blogging from Starbucks because our Internet has been down since Wednesday, so I apologize for not responding to comments!

Last year’s recipes were all banana/bread based. This year, I made some roasted veggies!

Garlic Roasted Broccoli

3 T olive oil

1 lb broccoli

1/4 c nutritional yeast

1 T garlic paste or 3 cloves of garlic, crushed

salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Toss all ingredients together.

3. Roast until broccoli is tender and starts to brown, about 30 minutes.

Guys. This was good. Like, I wish I had more pictures but we ate it straight from the pan good. The garlic and nutritional yeast makes it almost creamy. The best part? I still have another pound of broccoli I can roast!

Cheesy Roasted Cauliflower

1 head of cauliflower

about 2 T olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 cup ground parmesan

1/2 cup grated gruyere or cheese of your choice

1. Preheat oven to 425.

2. Toss together olive oil, salt and pepper.

3. Roast for 35-40 minutes, or until almost tender.

4. Remove from oven and toss with cheeses. Return and roast another 5-10 minutes, until the cauliflower is golden and the cheese is melted.

This is super versatile-use any cheese of your choice, but I loved the flavor of the gruyere!

Basic Roasted Asparagus

I feel like I’m almost cheating with this one, but it’s something my family makes on a regular basis so I thought I’d share!

1 bunch of asparagus

2 T olive oil

a few sprinkles garlic powder

salt and pepper to taste

1. On a cookie sheet, toss all ingredients together.

2. Broil in the oven for 7-8 minutes.