Got Avocados?

Date: May 20, 2013

Author: astottler

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I feel like the days are just flying by now! Next week is Week 8 of our 10 week quarter. And then…freshman year is over. How crazy is that??

A quick blogging sidenote-my blog currently has basically no recipes and basically no workouts, When school is out (which is fairly soon) I’ll get on posting some more of those things in a more organized manner.

Also, I really want to tell you guys about a complement that I received the other day. I was at a party with some friends and a guy came up to me and complemented me on my weight lifting. This was super awesome; I am so proud of my weight lifting! Best complement ever!

Saturday morning, I was in the mood for a smoothie, but I couldn’t really pass up the guacamole, so I mad a small Mexican salad bowl as well. I was trying to base the smoothie off of my Dark Chocolate Blueberry smoothie, but I kind of failed at that. I didn’t have the protein powder or peanut butter, or really the right amounts of anything. And I added spinach. The flavor wasn’t terrible, but the smoothie just wasn’t cold enough, so maybe it would have been better if I had added ice. Not that it was a bad smoothie or anything, but not my best effort.

After brunch, I did a quick workout before meeting up for coffee with some friends. And by coffee, I mean a mango smoothie. Basically the same thing, right? I didn’t have time to get through everything I had planned, but basically I started with 1k on the rowing machine, then did a leg circuit with single leg squats and single leg deadlifts. I had planned on doing another leg circuit, but I ran out of time. I always overestimate how long things will take, and how much is reasonable to do in one workout. I plan these elaborate long workouts, and usually end up skipping things. I had planned on doing some sprints on the rowing machine later as well, but that didn’t happen.

Next, I did this:

20 Minutes, As Many Rounds As Possible of:

5 Pull ups (I did pull downs on a machine)

10 pushups

15 air squats

I have no idea how many rounds I got through, but each round took less than 1:30. I followed that with a plank circuit.

That afternoon, I went to Half Moon Bay for a retreat with my sorority. We went to the beach briefly, mostly to take pictures. The water was quite cold, and getting even my feet wet was unpleasant, but worth it for the scenery!

And we saw a cat on the way back! Yay!Dinner at retreat was burritos-with plenty of salad of course!As you have seen, throughout the week I received gifts from my Big (a sorority thing). Yesterday was when I got to find out who she was! How did she do the reveal? She held up this shirt:HOW GREAT IS THIS???

Hmm I might just have to wear this for a race…I feel like it expresses me quite well. And yes, thanks to my big, I do have avocados.

We spent to rest of the night doing fun bonding type of activities, and before I knew it, it was time to return to the real world.

I was thinking about doing a run today, but then I remembered there was a power yoga class offered today, and I haven’t had any rest days all week. Since I ended up not going to yoga at all this week, I decided it would be perfect, and it was. My hips are sore from a lot of the leg work I’ve been doing lately, and we focused on that quite a bit. I also saw my Psych professor- she’s an aerobics instructor, and was teaching the class before mine. It’s always so weird to see teachers/professors outside the context of the classroom. After yoga, a nap was in order. I wasn’t all that tired, but I did not get much sleep the last 2 nights, so I knew it was a must. This afternoon and evening has been spent working on a take-home test due tonight-I finished right before writing up this blog post! I did break for dinner around 5:30. My friend wanted to go to Jamba Juice, and since it was hot, I decided that it might be a good way to cool off. I got one of the fruit and veggie smoothies- the tropical one. In this one, I think the only veggies in it are veggie juice, but I actually really like it because it wasn’t as sweet as smoothies blended with fruit juice. After that, this happened:Turkey burger and sweet potato fries. Hey, I got the veggies in my smoothie, right?? As I may have discussed before, we get a certain number of meal plan dollars to use each quarter as part of our meal plan. They work at several different restaurant type places on campus, including this place, which I’ve never actually eaten at before. I have never used up these meal plan dollars. Last quarter, I had a good excuse though (leaving school 4 weeks before the end of school due to illness). This quarter, I all of the sudden realized that I have three weeks left, and over $100 to spend, otherwise they will go to waste. So at dinner, I treated my friend, as well as some other people we happened to meet up with, and chipped away $50 from this mountain of meal plan dollars I need to spend. Yay! I still have a ton, and I am planning on buying some really expensive salads in the near future!

Well, that’s all I have for you today. Before I leave you guys those, I want to make a shout out to my friend Elizabeth. She just started a fashion blog, so if you like fashion (or even if not), check it out! It is called Styles by Elizabeth.

Have a great week!

Weekend Recap

Date: April 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Whew, I’m kind of behind on posting. I didn’t post at first because nothing interesting in my life was happening, and then I got busy! So let’s just go through some pictures from the weekend and I’ll talk about my weekend there. Heehee, yogurt bowl. Nothing new here. I really want spin shoes!This is the point in my week where I ran out of yogurt, so my snack was egg beaters and pesto. Hey, you could do worse. Friday evening picnic because 3 of my friends had birthdays that week. Lots of good food and veggies! Including guac…can’t complain.Such a nice evening on the “lake.” 30 years ago there was an actual lake here, but they stopped filling it so it is only full in the winter. There’s still some water though!Saturday morning breakfast finished off my egg beaters, which was more or less the last food I had left in my dorm. Saturday morning also featured a hike with an upperclassman in my sorority. She is a Biology major as well, so we had a great time chatting away. I run this trail all the time (in theory…) but never think to take pics, so here it is! After the hike, I was more than ready for Mexican food Saturday brunch, featuring guacamole!A VERY typical snack for me 🙂The point in my weekend where I stopped caring that I ran out of yogurt and started stealing my roommate’s. It’s ok, I repaid her in chocolate hazelnut butter. Yogurt in a jar definitely rivals oats in a jar. And I’m taking credit for it. What is this? A meal on a non-paper plate? That’s right! I went home yesterday to work out at my gym there and enjoy delicious food. Mashed sage yams, brussels sprouts that are actually cooked, corn on the cob, and barbecue chicken. Plus real fruit!And this guy 🙂

And of course, baking. I’m still unsure about posting the recipe because it was highly experimental. I liked it, but not sure that others would. I majorly modified my favorite pumpkin bread recipe and ended up with what I will call Gluten Free Coconut Pumpkin Pudding Bread.

Last night I lifted weights (my gym at home is SO much nicer), and this morning I went to abs class and did a spin class on my own that I wrote up for myself. SO I guess you could say I did a spin workout, but since I want to be a spin teacher, I designed it in a class format.

Breakfast was a smoothie with milk, spinach, mango, cherries, and strawberries, plus some of my baking experiment from the night before. And lunch and dinner at school consisted of leftovers from home! YUM.Now, I realize this post was really long, so yay if you made it this far! And I promise to be a better blogger and actually post as it happens so it won’t be so bad!

What is your favorite home cooked meal?

Running Musings

Date: April 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Today started off right, with an on-my-own Crossfit workout! I started by working on my cleans and deadlifts for 30 minutes before I moved on to me WOD. I didn’t max out either lift. One thing about lifting on my own is I could easily be getting into bad habits. I’m having a ton of trouble getting my elbows up on the cleans. The WOD was courtesy of Tina’s blog. It consisted of a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 rep of Bear Complex and burpees, with a prescribed weight of 55 pounds. A bear complex is a clean, front squat, push press, back squat, and then back push press. I knew going in the behind the head push press was going to be the limiting factor. I started at 55, but the second round I dropped to 50, and then 45 for the rest of the workout out. I was surprised I got as far as I did with the heavier bar though. It was a little weird because everything felt super light except the back push press, which I was seriously struggling with. Either way, it was an awesome workout, and I will definitely be feeling it in my shoulders tomorrow!

Breakfast was a smoothie with the random fruit the dining hall had out (after waiting for a while). They were out of fruit for a while, and never restocked the frozen fruit. Annoying! My smoothie included strawberries, apple, and soymilk. It was ok.

Today was absolutely beautiful out. Sorry to all you guys who are experiencing snow/rainstorms right now!

I had a quick lunch at the bookstore.

Minus the bread though. I couldn’t afford to fall asleep in Chem (again-ish). The difference I felt between sitting in class today, with no bread in my system, was like night and day between how I felt Monday. I felt amazing and alert. I’ve felt great and happy all day. Maybe it is the weather, or maybe it’s my super clean eating. I don’t know. Either way, yay!

I had to break out the new sunglasses!

Sorry for the lack of smile. I was in a VERY public place…

I wore them a bit before realizing something was off…

Whoops…

I love these new sunglasses. While I have been known to rock the neon green shades, they simply don’t stay on my face very well…

Exhibit A. (Me and my sis in Santa Barbara 2 years ago! Also note the bash on my shin from box jumps…)

Exhibit B. (End of Senior year.)

Where was I? Outside in the plaza, there was a mariachi band playing.

Also, can I just say there are a lot of tourists this time of year? It’s difficult not to run them over. Meh.

I arrived at Chem early so I sat in the shade of a tree. I overheard some guy talking at the next table about the tons of caterpillars that fall from the tree. “Hmm,” I thought. “I don’t see any caterpillars.”

A minute later a noticed a ton on my backpack. Which led me to believe they could be crawling all over my body. They weren’t, as far as I know…

Snacks after class:

Boring, boring. But delicious. A little while later I went for a run (roughly 4 miles). This was my first time since I was sick doing a double day. Not counting yoga, that is. Mannn was I feeling it. Plus running hasn’t been terribly easy as of late anyways…I guess two-a-days take some getting used to. But it got me to thinking what great shape I was in at the end of last summer, when I ran my 10k. I think I was in the best shape of my life then. Which is probably why I could never PR on my 6k test for crew, I couldn’t really get better. It’s sad how much I’ve lost. I was doing 3-a-days at the end of summer, with some regularity. Mostly because I wanted to do tons of different classes/training sessions, and was training for my 10k on top of that. And a lot because I was bored. I had a lot of time, and nothing else really to do! I would regularly get my butt out of bed super early (5:45 am spin anyone?), go to spin, then go straight from there to do my 10k training run, then straight from there to do my softball conditioning. 3 hours of exercise before 10 o clock! And it wasn’t THAT big of a deal. Just to be clear, I am not recommending doing this!

At the beginning of the year, before crew started, I regularly ran the Dish, which is a roughly 5 mile run from my dorm, with 2 miles of straight uphill. I ran this 2 or 3 times a week, because I had nothing better to do (still wasn’t comfortable with the gym/didn’t know the best time to go). Now the thought of doing this run seems impossible. My run was really a great time to reflect on how much I have lost though. But at the same, all the more motivation to get super fit again! On a similar note, if avoiding bread/grains (and possibly dairy) makes me feel this awesome, then I need to just stick with it! It wasn’t really hard, minus the momentary craving for pancakes at breakfast…but I guess the knowledge that it will put me to sleep is enough to deter me…

Post-run, hot and sweaty picture. Since so so many of you guys post them, I figured I might as well jump on the bandwagon…

Snacks before yoga.

Dinner should have been awesome and ended up being not very good. I thawed a sweet potato (I roasted them at home so they would get that nice flavor),, which was good, but put it in my salad, which was a bad decision. Bad decision #2 was putting in zucchini and carrots which turned out to be seasoned in a sweet way. Ick. The thought of that seasoning…I don’t know why but I really dislike it.

I went back for more chicken and veggies, so get that weird taste out of my mouth….

And since it’s prom season, throwback to my proms!

Junior prom:

I curled my hair. It doesn’t hold a curl.

End of the night (don’t ask):

Straight…

So Senior year I curled my hair and didn’t put hairspray in because I figured, I’d rather have straight hair at the end of the night than straight, stiff hair.

Basically straight already!

How were your proms? What do you think about while running?

Getting to Know Me

Date: March 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! How was your St. Patrick’s Day? Lots of green food I hope! I began my morning by going to the Farmer’s market with my class (our end of quarter field trip). We bought all kinds of delicious, university paid for food. Gotta love this school! Of course the Farmer’s market had all kinds of wonderful things. They had the most amazing looking avocados, although I didn’t buy any. I will definitely have to go back more this spring! After getting back on campus, we had a feast. It was awesome. I cannot wait for peach season though. I sampled all kinds of citrus, which was great, and I enjoyed it, but nothing compares to fresh peaches and nectarines. Dinner was quite festive last night. My mom made corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots. Since I don’t eat red meat, I had some rotisserie chicken. Corned beef is one of the only red meat products I miss. Also, I don’t know why my family only eats cabbage once a year; we all love it!I topped my chicken with pesto. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do that just because it is green. HOWEVER. Notice that little red sauce in the upper right corner? Guess what that is? Homemade ketchup! I LOVE ketchup, and I eat it with a lot of types of meat. So if I want to do any type of Whole30, I need some ketchup without sugar, which is nonexistent at the store. I used this recipe from Spoonful of Sugar Free. I love Alex’s blog; I am always looking for delicious recipes without sugar! I liked this recipe, and my dad loved it. In the future, I might try it with a little less vinegar, just to see what it is like. It’s a winner though!

After dinner I made a smoothie.Banana, coconut milk, cocoa powder, and a touch (and I mean a touch) or mint extract. I learned my lesson! it was just enough mint to not really taste minty, but to be refreshing. I’ll take it!

Before I get to anything from today, I just wanted to address some blog issues. I wanted to apologize for the slightly (ok sometimes a lot) depressing/negative nature of my posts as of late. This whole sickness thing can get me pretty down, but I swear I’m normally a super happy person! I want this blog to be a fun place, without negativity. And this blog will become a fitness blog again soon, I promise! I’m planning on some normal exercise this week, and boy, I cannot wait! I also wanted to clarify why I’m going to attempt a semi-Whole30. I figure it is a good way to get more nutritious foods into my diet, which is super important for me to get to feeling 100% faster. Plus, my liver function is kind of off so reducing sugar is pretty important! Also, I think it will be a fun way to try new recipes and experiment with new flavors. Although eating Paleo is generally pretty meaty, and things should get interesting when my vegetarian sister comes home! The current plan is to try this strict Paleo thing for 5 days, and then reevaluate this Friday night where I want to go from there. And given the possibility of a gluten sensitivity, I don’t need anything else putting me to sleep! With that in mind, here’s today’s lunch (brunch?).Leftover chicken, potatoes, cabbage, and carrots. Plus mashed avocado and mango salsa for the chicken. The avocado took some of the kick out of the salsa, which was a relief! I also ate a mango, which I WAS planning on photographing….

Ok, now to the meat of the post. I’m sure a lot of you guys have been seeing stuff about the Liebster Award going around, and since Brittany gave me a shout out, I figured I’d take this opportunity to let you guys get to know me a bit better. I mean, I talk a lot about my life, but not really about myself. I’ve never really done any surveys or anything, so hey, why not!

Random Facts About Me

1. I love to read, but I seriously cannot read any books during the school year. It’s fine for a few chapters, but as soon as the book gets exciting, I CANNOT put it down. Note: Reading an entire book on your phone in a day is a bad idea. You will likely walk around in a daze and squint a lot.

2. I really want to study abroad, probably in Chile. I loved studying Spanish in high school (and I love Spanish music), so it would be awesome to improve my Spanish. Plus, they have penguins. And who doesn’t love penguins?

3. I love avocados. I sprouted 2 avocados pits almost a year ago (my babies are growing up!) and now I have 2 beautiful avocado plants!They’re much bigger now, but I don’t really have any recent pictures. And they’re not too photogenic right now. After much stress (as any concerned parent would feel), I learned that in cooler climates avocados drop their leaves in winter. PHEW. But they are my babies and they live in my dorm, weather permitting (one wasn’t getting enough sun inside).

4. I hate talking about myself. Hence why I probably have not done any surveys yet. But I have a blog….hmmm….

5. One of the main reasons I wanted my own healthy living blog was because the whole community seemed so awesome, and I wanted to be part of it.

6. My dad reads every single one of my posts, usually right when I post it. WHich begs the question, how often does he check…?

7. I am the hugest Giants fan. I watched about half the playoffs last year on my phone between classes. #dedication

8.I love celebrating holidays and going all out. I love traditions. And I am dying to do a Turkey Trot.

9. That being said, I take Thanksgiving very seriously, and try to do everything to maximize food intake (morning run, tapering meals in the days up to, wearing expandable clothes).

10. Last year I gave myself frostbite on my foot. In the middle of spring. In California. Apparently I left the ice on a LITTLE too long. I’ll spare you guys the pictures (you’re welcome). It was really embarrassing to not be able to practice (softball) because of this. In 70 degree weather.

11. Hair is my 4th greatest fear. All my friends know this. I absolutely CANNOT STAND those hairs that seems to be left everywhere from shedding. This is possibly the worst part about living in a dorm. Black hairs in the shower (shiver).

Questions that I am stealing from Brittany:

1. What’s your favorite movie of all time?

I haven’t really seen too many movies lately, so I have no idea what modern-ish movie. I mainly watch TV shows (detective ones mostly!), so I’m going to take the Disney cop-out and say Aristocats. Or Sleeping Beauty (hello, Princess Aurora!).

2. What do you do as soon as you walk in the door after work/school?

In theory, this should be take a nap. But let’s be honest. It’s all about the food.

3. Do you put your toothbrush in a drawer or in a toothbrush holder?

A drawer. But I don’t know that I like this situation. It doesn’t seem very sanitary….(I guess I forgot to mention that I’m a bit of a germophobe!)

4. What vegetable do you love? Hate?

I love brussels sprouts. And avocados. And sweet potatoes. I find it amazing that a lot of people didn’t have veggies that they hated. Don’t get me wrong, I love veggies. But I hate cucumbers. And green peppers. I’m coming around on red peppers, but it will be a while before they fall into the “love” category.

5. What is your favorite go- to outfit for a saturday?

Definitely shorts and a T-shirt. Let’s be honest. I’m not going anywhere interesting.

6. Whats your favorite workout?

Weight lifting. By far. I cannot wait to get started again!

7. What does your Tupperwear drawer look like?

At home, in theory it is organized, but more realistically, an avalanche. At school? Yeesh. Let’s just say I’m not great about doing dishes regularly. I’ve learned about some interesting specimen as a result….

8. If you had to chose one thing you could not live without, what would that be?

Definitely cats. And yet I don’t have them at school….

9. What’s your favorite thing to order while eating out?

Anything with avocado

10. What is the temperature outside when you are the happiest?

Probably 70-80. I’m the biggest wimp in the cold, but I can handle heat pretty well. I always thought my internal body temperature has changed as the result of frying my brains out at softball fields in the summer for however many years (117 in Las Vegas, seriously??).

11. If you could pick anywhere in the world to be right now, where would that be and what would you be doing?

I would be in Chile watching the penguins.

As for the nominations…I feel like a ton of them have already been going around, and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how many followers people have and I would hate to offend anyone! SO let’s have this post be just for fun!

Tell me something about yourself!

Getting There

Date: March 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok I SWEAR I’ve been meaning to post for a really long time! Sunday was spent completely writing a 10 page paper that was due that afternoon. And then things kept coming up when I wanted to post (i.e. I was tired). And I promise I ACTUALLY have lots of food pictures to share with you guys! Yes, I’ve finally been able to eat fairly normally! After taking medication that brings down the swelling in my organs (liver and spleen) I’ve lost almost 10 lbs. It’s no wonder I’ve had zero space in my stomach these past weeks!

These are Teriyaki chicken tacos from a local Mexican place, Coyote Cafe. They are so good! They have pineapple on top and I’ve gotten them every time for years!

Here is a beautiful Vitamix smoothie with strawberries, pineapple, peaches, and mango. Not too shabby! I absolutely love this blender!

And here is the rest of this beautiful meal: leftover frittata.

Lunch that day was macaroni and cheese (this is Sunday, still playing catch up!). Plus steamed veggies. I swear I have not been able to get enough mac n cheese these past few weeks. It was one of the first things my stomach tolerated, and it feels amazing on a sore throat. Anyone with a sore throat: eat mac n cheese! Lunch was followed by a bit of a treat: trying the new froyo place in town, Menchie’s!

Sidenote: This post will include an embarrassing amount of frozen yogurt (sorry I’m not sorry!). This is salted caramel and devil’s food. My evaluation? Eh. I should have gotten the pistachio. I was trying to recreate my salted caramel experience from WIldberry, but this just wasn’t it. It was a bit bitter. And the devil’s food was ok, although I thought it was a bit bland, but it was sugar free, so afterwards I noticed a kind of weird taste. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I spent the rest of my Sunday cranking out my paper. This whole time I’ve been sick, I told myself that when my fever broke, I’d make chocolate chip cookies. And Sunday was close enough, and I was so ready to bake after finishing my paper (which ironically is about how sugar is hurting our country….). I made the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag. Best recipe ever! Has anyone seen the Friends episode where Monica and Phoebe bake like 30 batches of cookies to try to recreate Phoebe’s grandma’s recipe, and then it turns out to be the Nestle Tollhouse recipe? Yeahh I’ve been watching that show a bit too much lately (I’m almost done with all the seasons…). Anyway, the cookies turned out great!

Let’s just say I never really make the effort to actually put them in nice balls….For some reason, everytime my mom makes this recipe, the cookies totally flatten out and run together. It is so weird that this didn’t happen to me! I also only made a half batch because a whole batch makes 5 dozen, and well, there are 3 of us.

In my opinion, there is one thing that must happen with chocolate chip cookies (and most cookies in general). They need salted butter. They have sooo much more flavor with salted butter! It’s the best!

So what was dinner Sunday night? An awesome dip from Cooking Light! My mom made it for my softball team party a year ago and we just couldn’t get enough! It is a mushroom artichoke dip, and is awesome with whole grain pita chips.

So good!

Yesterday I had class in the afternoon, and decided to stay on campus afterwards to clean up my dorm and get things squared away for break. Technically this is dead week, and next week is finals, but I don’t have any finals and I just have class up until Thursday, so I have a long break. Plus I had to meet up for a group project. After walking around campus a bit, and walking up and down stairs a few times, I suddenly realized I felt like I was going to pass out. It’s weird. I feel fine, but it’s the little things. Like apparently being on campus and living life for an hour and a half is enough to merit a nap. Luckily I have a bed there! It was so nice to see all my friends though! I definitely missed them! My mom had a class on campus that ended at 9:15, so she picked me up after her class, and I may or may not have demanded froyo. It’s embarrassing, the Internet search history on my phone is mostly frozen yogurt places. There’s a great place on campus, Fraiche, that is open pretty late, and is one of those healthy, organic places. I have come to seriously love tart froyo.

Plus mango and blue berry! Yay! So yes, after that day I basically fell into bed! I would have posted this morning but I had a project to work on. I can’t believe this was only yesterday!

Since we have extra dip, I’ve been thinking up creative ways to use it. Yesterday, I stirred some into my leftover mac n cheese (leftover mac n cheese is always so dry!), and this morning, I put it in scrambled eggs. That was certainly a delicious idea!

Tea and fruit on the side!

Lunch was quick on the way out the door. I’m realizing I’ve never posted this recipe before! I might need to make it its own post! It’s my all time favorite smoothie! Peanut butter banana!

Since this post is so long and the recipe is at the bottom, I’ll do a separate post for the recipe page, but I don’t want to leave you guys hanging, so here’s what this is: 1/2 cup milk, 1 frozen banana, a large spoonful of peanut butter. That’s it! It’s super creamy and delicious, and the more you blend it, the fluffier it gets! I haven’t had this in forever!

In class today, we skyped in with the guy who wrote our textbook, and gave presentations to him. How cool is that?

After class was a treat. My sister is sick and needed a prescription filled, so my mom offered to pick it up. Aaaand it just so happens my new favorite froyo place is right next to the drugstore, soooo….It’s not like I had a choice.

Salted caramel pretzel, chocolate, and brownie on top. YUM. Plus some tart with pineapple on the side, because I rally wanted to try it and YOWZA it was good! I might get that next time!

After that, my mom and I went to Costco, which I always love. It’s so fun to look at large quantities of stuff! Plus, is there really anything they don’t sell? And of course, the free samples!

Dinner was chili and broccoli. The turkey chili was topped with cheddar and avocado. Plus chips for dipping!

And let’s just say those cookies are as good as gone. 😉

And guess what? I am officially off medication! Hard to imagine I was taking 30 pills a day a week ago!

Have a great night everybody!

What is your favorite type of frozen yogurt?