Day in the Life: Winter 2019 (Second Year Vet Student)

Date: February 27, 2019

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

5:20am: Alarm goes off

Jackson is always super snuggly in the mornings.

I get ready to teach spin and eat a handful of Cheerios.

5:50am: Out the door

I have to get there early to set up.

6:15am: Class begins! It’s a surprisingly big class for early morning, during midterms, in a huge rainstorm.

7:00am: Class ends and I clean up. I always mix this electrolyte powder into 16 ounces of water and drink it right away because I really struggle with hydration after these morning classes.

7:20: Return home and make breakfast. I have some of my current favorite crackers and a protein smoothie with Chocolate Quest protein, a frozen banana, cocoa powder, and soy milk.

Animals have no rules in this house.

After breakfast, I pack my lunch for the day…with plenty of kitty help.

Again, no rules….

Then I get ready for class.

Right before leaving, I have a couple squares of 100% chocolate for a little caffeine boost.

8:45: Out the door!

9-9:50: Lecture on large animal viruses that are reportable to the USDA (meaning they’re serious enough the government wants to monitor them).

10-10:45: Group work on a group problem set. We actually have a full 2 hours allotted for this, but we finished pretty quickly! I decide to run home and take a nap with the extra time. I also get a spin sub request for that evening, and I accept. I like subbing evenings because I have a lot of friends that like to come to my classes but don’t like the early ones.

11: Crawl into bed with my nap buddy.

11:30: I didn’t actually sleep but I feel a little refreshed so I start typing up this blog post.

12: Lunch that I packed earlier, but since I’m home I get to watch an episode of Parks and Rec.

More veggie chips and a salad with chicken, pear, and blueberry chèvre. I also have a piece of dark chocolate.

I then studied a little bit with some kitty help.

(Which turned into kitty playtime.)

12:40: Leave for class again.

1-3: We had a group problem based learning session with a faculty member. The class we’re in right now is Infectious Disease, so the case was related to that.

3: Return home and eat a snack.

I study for a little bit, and then it’s time for spin round 2!

4:50: Leave for spin.

Yes, that’s the same shirt. Yes, I had to do a quick load of laundry at lunch.

5:15: Teach class! It was an awesome turnout, with a ton of my classmates! Vet students come to my classes a lot, especially when they’re not quite so early!

6:15: Return home and restart hydrating! I do another electrolyte packet, but I mix it with sparkling water. Fun fact: it fizzed like crazy and overflowed, so maybe not the best idea. Delicious though! Last time I taught a double day I rehydrated with beer and that was not the best idea I’ve ever had.

While I cook (i.e. throw together a fast and easy dinner), I snack on some carrot sticks and sauerkraut (not together).

6:35: Finally sit down and eat dinner. This is what I lovingly refer to as my Southern Taco salad, or the least authentic taco salad. When I was in Nashville, I ordered a taco salad at a Mexican restaurant and it seemed to be neither taco nor a salad; it was mainly meat and cheese! I made a queso-chicken type of deal with Bolthouse Salsa Ranch, shredded rotisserie chicken, and Mexican cheese, all heated up. I put that on top of lettuce with salsa and guacamole. Not authentic Mexican, but I like it!

I recently got Hulu, and lately I’ve been loving The Resident! I watched an episode with dinner. I consider my TV episode with dinner a non-negotiable, no matter how busy I get.

For dessert, I mixed vanilla Halo Top with a GF toffee cookie and caramel sauce. I mixed up the whole pint, but took a serving and froze the rest.

8:00: Finish up typing up this post. I need to spend some time studying for a test tomorrow so I’m going to sign off here. I might have a light snack later, but I think I’m more focused on hydrating for now. I’ll probably go to bed around 10!

Day in the Life: Fall 2018 (Second Year Vet Student)

Date: November 6, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know, I’ve been a bad blogger. But I did want to squeeze in a day in the life post, so here it is!

5:30am: Kittens don’t understand the time change and start wrestling on my bed.

6:05: I finally get up.

I get ready for morning Crossfit and eat some Cheerios.

I was up earlier than I needed to be so I had plenty of time to snuggle kitties.

6:45am: Leave for Crossfit.

7:00: Crossfit. For strength, the rest of the class did cleans and I did snatches. My wrist has been feeling a ton better but cleans are going to be the last thing I’m able to do. The WOD was a long one.

100 sit ups

400m run

75 push ups

400m run

50 box jumps

400m run

Oof. I did push ups on a box because I am not strong enough and it’s easier only wrist! We ended up finishing class a few minutes late, and then I hit really bad traffic going back, so I was fairly flustered and rushed when I got back!

8:20: Arrive home.

8:25: Sit down to breakfast. I did a 9 mile race this past Sunday, and ever since then I have been so hungry! I was starving and had a few bites of chicken from soup that I made the other night because I knew my breakfast wouldn’t hold me over. This hunger will be a theme of the day, haha! Breakfast is cottage cheese with an apple from my Apple Hill weekend (where I did the race) with sunbutter.

8:45: Leave for class, more or less on time. We have lab today so I’m in scrubs, so thankfully getting ready is pretty quick!

9:00: First class of the day! We just started Reproduction, so I’ll spare you guys pictures.

After my first class, I actually ate a full size 3 Musketeers bar. Someone put out a big box of giant candy bars and I haven’t eaten a full sized candy bar in years, plus I was quickly burning through my breakfast so I just went for it. I only intended to have half but ate the whole thing and don’t regret that at all. I was expecting to feel sick afterwards, but again, my metabolism has been on fire since the race so I was more than hungry at lunch, after another couple of lectures!

12:00: Lunch at home. The handyman was supposed to come and I had a big gap between classes so I went home. On the menu was a big salad with persimmon, deli turkey (I recently started buying nitrite free deli turkey), cranberry goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette.

I also had a square of dark chocolate.

I watched an episode of Parks and Rec while eating. I don’t love it yet, but I’m still giving it a chance, and I needed a shorter show.

12:30: Study! With a side of wrestling kitties.

Marie’s current obsession is to climb on my shoulder and bite my hair.

Which usually quickly progresses to this:

1:45: I’m hungry (again) so I have my afternoon snack.

2:20: Take a short study break to start typing up this post.

2:35: Leave for lab.

3-4:30: Anatomy lab! Today is male reproduction.

4:30: Out of lab a little bit early, but it’s already getting dark!

4:45: Arrive home. I’m hungry (shocker) so I pick some veggies out of the soup I made.

Then it’s study time with the two babies!

5:45: Leave for soccer! We have a vet school team in the intramural league. Today’s game was against the 3rd year vet students and we sadly lost in penalty kicks! I still had fun and my ankle is not thrilled with me.

7:30: Finally sit down to dinner with an episode of Netflix ( I just started Riverdale). No matter how busy I get, I consider my Netlfix and dinner time sacred! On the menu is a stir fry of sorts. I microwaved some frozen stir fry veggies and then sautéed up tofu and spaghetti squash (Kind of weird, but sort of like chow mien!) with GF teriyaki sauce and served that on top of my veggies!

For dessert, I had a mini sunbutter cup and a GF snickerdoodle.

8:00: Have a few more Cheerios while icing my ankle.

8:20: Pick out an old spin playlist to teach tomorrow for Sunrise Cycle at 6:15am! I have actually a million old playlists to choose from. I teach 3 classes a week so I definitely don’t make a new playlist each time, but I have so many from years of cycling that no one will ever hear repeats!

8:25-8:30: Finish up this blog post. Before bed I’m going to try to squeeze in a little bit more studying or work on some emails, but on nights before I teach early morning spin, I try to be in bed reading a book and getting sleepy at 9, and asleep before 10!

My Message, My Platform

Date: September 11, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

WOW it’s been a while. Things got busy. Nashville adventures. Moving back with my kitty. Starting school. Then, when I finally got settled, I sprained my wrist pretty badly (I jammed a 125# barbell into it doing cleans.) It was bad enough to merit a thankfully negative x-ray, but writing and typing were a struggle so I was not going to use my limited typing ability to write a blog post. In the meantime, I learned about the kidney. My wrist is healing. Last week I could hold things for the first time and pulled a 205# deadlift (heaviest since my back issues of the spring). Today I put a (light) barbell overhead for the first time. The body and its ability to heal really is an amazing thing.Despite not being able to do Crossfit much, I got some good workouts in. I thought my hiatus from blogging would end with a workout post. Or a post about all the new ideas I have for zucchini (stay tuned). But instead, I have some things I’ve been thinking about the past couple of days that I figured are worth sharing.I’m going to intersperse some fun pictures from the last few months while I type this up.

Chloe has been staying with me this week. It’s been a blast. I feel like I’m honestly the best version of myself with her, forcibly. I studied on the first day of the block because I needed to bring her to school to give my roommate’s dog some peace last night. I try to socialize with other people and dogs with her (we organized a friend walk today). I can’t just sit around and waste time on my computer because she will whine and bark. When she does sleep, I feel a lot of pressure/motivation to get work done because I know it is transient. I spend minimal time on my phone because she likes to bark when I’m on my phone.

I have to use my time wisely so I have enough free time to walk her. 2 hours a day. So I’m more active. But those walks. They’re some of my favorite things. I put in a podcast and we go. There are a couple of podcasts I listen to that used to be fitness based and now they’re fitness/social media business/personal development based. They are both inspiring and cause me to think deeply. The things on my mind this week are how to be the best version of myself, and my message and platform. There’s a lot of focus on social media influencers and building their platforms. How to do it. What they want to do with their platform and following. Don’t get me wrong; I have no intention of being a social media influencer or even presence. But I realized, I do have a platform.

And no, I actually don’t mean this blog. My dreams of being a star blogger are far behind me. Honestly most of the time I feel like this blog is a journal for myself (and a medium for cute pet photos). My platform is Cycling Instructor. After taking last year off of teaching spin, I was really missing it and managed to get a job teaching spin at the rec center at my school. Honestly, the university environment is my favorite setting to teach in. You get a huge variety in students.I love seeing their transformations; and I don’t mean physical transformations. Mental transformations. Confidence transformations.

I was thinking really hard about my message. First and foremost, I want my classes to always be a positive environment. I will never, EVER say “Do this to burn XYZ ‘unhealthy food.'” No. Nonono. That’s not why we’re there. I was thinking about my own story. What sports and fitness did for me. Sure, being active and healthy is important. But you know what fitness and sports taught me? Strength. Hard work. Discipline. Power. You put in the work, you feel changes. You push yourself past what you thought you could do, and then learn what you’re capable of.

I truly believed I gained so much confidence from this. And I’ve seen it happen in my students. I remember one older gentleman specifically. His first class, he tentatively came up to me for help with bike setup, in the back of the class. By the end of the quarter, he was crushing it at the front of the class. His whole demeanor was different. It is my job to push people to their limits, past what they believe they’re capable of. That being said, it’s a fine line. I want my students to learn to respect their bodies and listen to their bodies. If something is off on that day, do what you can. But know when that’s really the case and not when it’s an excuse. That room is their space. Their space to work through their sh** and grow. I remember the summer before I started vet school, I went to IDEA World in Vegas and was cycling 3 hours a day, taught by the best instructors out there. At the time, I was really nervous about what vet school would bring. And as I was biking my little heart out, I realized this: “I can do hard things.” And I knew I would be okay in school.

And that’s my message. I really think now that I have a truly defined message, it will make me a better instructor because I have an added purpose. It’s kind of like I’m using the same principles that social media influencers do to grow a following, but for me to “grow a following” and hopefully a community in my class. I’ve said it before, but I truly believe that humans connect best through stories (why else would we read blogs about a random person’s life) and that’s an element I want to bring to my classes. Personal connection. Sharing my message and my heart through stories. Getting the most out of my students and getting the most out of myself. Because we can all do hard things.

WIAW and How Do You Approach the Holidays?

Date: November 23, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

We’re coming right up on the holiday season. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re either interested in your health and fitness, or you’re my parents.

For those interested in health, the holidays can be a tumultuous time. There are conflicting tensions between the desire to maintain physical health while still enjoying holiday foods and festivities.

I knew in the past this has been an issue for me. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the holidays. I love the traditions, the food, the special events. But I also value my health. In the past, this tension would make me crazy, anxious, and angry around the holidays. I was always trying to avoid sugar, resist the goodies. But I would be miserable and feel like I was missing out. And I would inevitably give in and eat all the foods anyways, eat a ton of them, and feel terrible.

By the time the actual day of Christmas rolled around, I would be a mess. And every year around the holidays I would gain weight.

Last year was the first holiday season in many years that this didn’t happen. It was partly because I was still so sick then with my chronic stomach issue. I physically couldn’t go crazy eating things without my body turning on me. But that changed my perspective, because I appreciated what I could and did eat more. I think that experience, plus some maturity and changes in values, has shifted how I look at food and the holidays. That being said, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on how to stay “healthy” throughout the holidays. (Note the quotations).

Don’t think of it as “surviving the holidays.” Think about “enjoying the holidays.” I know it’s easier said than done, but the holidays are not about dieting and resisting delicious food, they’re about family, traditions, and joy.
Similarly, I really don’t recommend trying to avoid all the holidays foods. In my experience, that leaves me miserable and craving them even more. Life’s too short to not enjoy eggnog, or a Christmas morning mimosa, or your Grandma’s special homemade pie. Letting go of that restrictive mentality isn’t easy, but it’s freeing.
Trust your body. Don’t stress the changes. Here’s the deal. No one is going to wake up every single day weighing precisely the same amount. So many factors go into play. We see these stats everywhere: “Americans gain an average of 5 pounds every holiday season.” Here’s the deal. I guarantee that is not 5 pounds of pure fat. Carbohydrates hold 4x their weight in water. If you eat a lot of sugar or bread products over the holidays, your body will retain water. But guess what? That will disappear when you return to your normal routine. I finally started trusting my body. If I eat a big, delicious meal and lots of sugar, I realize that I might gain some weight but I don’t freak out because a) it’s not that serious and b) I trust that when things return to normal my body will too.

All those were more ways to mentally approach the holidays. While I definitely preach enjoying everything, I also want to make it a priority this holiday season to still feel good so I can fully enjoy everything. So I do want to talk about some ways to do that as well.

Maintain your normal routine as much as possible when not at events. Go to holiday parties on the weekends, have a good time, and enjoy good food, but eating cake and cookies at a party on the weekend doesn’t mean you have to say “screw it” and eat junk all week. Stick to your normal workouts, eat your normal meals. I guarantee you will feel better.
Make some healthy holiday treats. Some healthy swaps you won’t even notice. If you’re making gingerbread, why not look for a lower sugar recipe? If you’re making your own treats, why not make some healthier ones to have on hand? I personally plan on making some healthier treats that I don’t feel bad about enjoying on a regular basis. That way I never feel like I’m missing out on anything (And check back here for some recipes!)
Get physical. No matter what I’m eating, I always feel 100x better when I get some exercise in.
Start some new fit traditions. One of my favorite traditions that my family and I started doing was the Santa Run. It’s a 5k that finished at Christmas in the Park, a little Christmas village in downtown San Jose. It gets us in the holiday spirit! Last year on Christmas day, my family started our morning with a dog walk/run along the bay, followed by festive drinks, and it was an absolutely beautiful morning. Plus, Chloe got to join in! Take a night walk to look at lights (especially if you live in CA like I do and it’s not freezing!) Not every holiday tradition has to revolve around food.

Those are my thoughts for how to approach the holidays. Trust your body, and just think about trying to feel your best to enjoy the season. Again, it’s not that serious.

On that note, let’s finally dive into WIAW, Jenn‘s baby! Now that I’m home, my food is a little bit more interesting so I want to share it more!

WIAWbutton

Pre-Workout:

My new favorite pre-workout food is Cheerios. I don’t even know what time zone I’m on right now, but I had plenty of time before morning Crossfit to eat! I had a bowl of pumpkin spice Cheerios. (We ordered a few boxes online from Target because they were getting hard to find!)

Workout:

I did some technique work on snatches. I used 65# for a complex of a power snatch, overhead squat, and full snatch. Then we worked on bar muscles ups (LOL). I practiced some turnovers (assisted) and worked on negative pull ups. The WOD was a 7 min AMRAP of 5 power cleans and 10 toes to bar. I have toes to bar, but the coach and me do knees to elbow instead so I could really focus on getting into a good position that should later help me string together toes to bar. It was a lot more shoulder intensive the way he had me doing them! I used 85 for the cleans.

Breakfast:

I had the same breakfast most days in St. Louis and I’m finally sick of it. I discovered some chocolate KIND granola in the pantry, so I centered my breakfast on that. I made a yogurt with with Fage 2% a little bit of maple syrup, and cocoa powder. Topped with granola and crunchy Sunbutter. I had jumbo blueberries on the side.

Lunch:

I had more leftover lemon chicken rice soup, with added spinach. I also seasoned it with thyme lemon bay sea salt, and topped it with feta. On the side are leftover roasted shaved brussels with truffle salt.

Snack:

I had another sea salt chocolate bar from 88 Acres (more info here) as well as a Medjol date, since it had been so long since I had one strangely enough. So good!

I also nibbled on some Cranberry Orange bread while cutting up some slices for the freezer.

Dinner Part 1:

I volunteered to sub a 7:30pm spin class this evening which is a super awkward time for me, especially since I’m still sort of on St. Louis time. I decided to eat a light dinner pretty early.

Trader Joe’s GF cornbread with a little whipped butter.

And a small bowl of butternut squash and chicken soup.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to come to a spin class that late, the week of Thanksgiving. Since it’s at the university, most people are gone for break. Luckily, I had a few people, and had a blast! It’s different teaching here, and it’s good to be back.

The rest of the evening didn’t go as planned. I drive an older car, and it can be pretty finicky. I had a lot of issues with the engine when I first started driving it a few years ago, but since then it has been fine. It didn’t appreciate not being driven too much while I was gone, it turns out. It took a while to start driving there, and when I got in to drive home after spin, the engine started shaking like crazy and then just died. Thereby stranding me 25 minutes from home. The worst thing was I was able to get out of my parking spot before it died, so I was directly blocking in a few cars. I called Triple A to get it towed, and my mom came and picked me up. Thankfully the process was relatively painless all things considered, and I’m grateful I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot and it didn’t die on the highway. That being said, I don’t have a good feeling about what may be wrong with it.

When my mom and I drove off around 9:30, we were both on the exact same wavelength: froyo. When I had mono freshman year of college, I ate mass quantities of froyo so I still remembered more or less what places were open until 10! We stopped at Yumi Yogurt, which is pretty big in my area. I got a butterscotch flavor burst with mini m&ms. Sadly, aesthetics were sacrificed in favor of more toppings but this was delicious, and the perfect post-workout refuel!

While it’s never fun watching your car get towed, I’m thankful the situation wasn’t worse. A

And on that note….

How do you approach the holidays?

Guess What?

Date: August 28, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I have some weekend fun as well as some news to share! Let’s get into it, shall we?

Overall, my weekend was a good mix of fun, active, and relaxing. It’s SO nice to not have so much going on right now. There was lots of this involved:

Friday at the zoo I was outside for 5 hours in crazy humid heat, so I was looking forward to a night of air conditioning, netflix, and kitties!

Plus, I wanted to be well rested for Saturday morning! I had a spin teaching audition at a local studio. I wasn’t sure if I was going to try and teach while I’m here, but when I looked around for some classes to go to, I found that the studio was looking for instructors. Perfect! Saturday morning I taught a class as my audition, and I got the job! It was a blast, and even though it hasn’t really been that long, it was great to be teaching again (it’s been <2 weeks…).

I’ve always wanted to teach at an actual boutique spin studio, and I have my own weekly class+subbing. One adjustment though is that the classes are an hour long, and I’ve actually only taught 45 minute classes. I had to pace myself a little bit there! I was pretty beat and hungry after the 9:30 class, so I found the nearest Starbucks in hopes they had my favorite chocolate smoothie. Not all Starbucks have the chocolate banana protein smoothies, but they’re delicious! I got it with some cheddar chickpea chip things for carbs.

Afterwards, I cleaned myself up and relaxed for a few hours before braving the heat at the Festival of Nations, one of the best festivals (and free!) in St. Louis every year. It’s a really cool international festival in Tower Park, and there’s food from every country pretty much that you can buy, plus music and crafts. I went with my roommate and her friends who are all Brazilian, and we arrived just in time to see the Brazilian band play.

I got Brazilian food, of course. I don’t remember the name of the dish, but I got chicken over rice with cashew gravy, collard greens, and some type of yuca based side.

As you might recall, it’s still unclear if I’m minority allergic to cashews or not, so maybe this will be a good test!

We stayed at the festival for quite a while, and then the lightning began. No rain though!

We all headed home to clean up a little bit before going out to dinner and drinks somewhere in the Tower Grove area, I believe. I’m REALLY trying to figure out what all the neighborhoods are!

Sunday morning, I was up pretty early to go back to the spin studio to take another instructor’s class. I’m trying to drop in to a few classes to get a sense for the different instructor’s styles. It was a fantastic class, and I found myself working VERY hard! Lots of time in the saddle, which I tend to love.

After class, I went back to Starbucks for another chocolate smoothie. It’s the perfect thing after a workout, during that awkward 10:30am between meal times hour.

I actually felt like today was a day I was almost constantly eating. After dealing with my rental car stuff, I came home for what I guess I would call lunch? I kind of pieced together what I wanted+what I felt I needed. I had a little appetizer of spinach and cheese. Why not, right? Plus frozen grapes.

And then had a chocolate chunk flapjacked muffin. I’m a big fan of these, especially now that I discovered when you undercook them slightly, they taste like lava cake!

Then, a little later I had half of a big Bobo’s Oat bar, in Cinnamon Raisin.

I spent the afternoon doing little things around the house (like laundry) before deciding I should at least get out a little bit. I decided to grab my book and check out another coffee shop on my list. Today’s choice was Rise Coffee House in the Grove area.

It had a nice atmosphere. It had the feel of a good quality coffee shop, but less hipster than Blueprint.

Of course, I had my standard drink, a decaf cappuccino. I’m trying to stay consistent for my first pass through the list to be as objective as possible. Plus, that is by far my favorite drink!

The verdict? It was good! It was not quite as deep and complex of a flavor as Blueprint, but I could tell it was quality. I would say I liked Blueprint more, but if you want a less strong flavor, you might like this better!

Finally, it was time for dinner. I made an omelette with goat gouda, italian herbs, and spinach, and served it with sunbutter and jam on toast and a salad with goat cheese, craisins, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Other snacks for the night included a Yasso sea salt caramel bar, and one of these new Target finds, a chocolate chip granola bar. It’s simple, but delicious! For some reason, the flavor reminds me of a donut!

And that’s a wrap! I have a pretty active day planned tomorrow. I’m making my triumphant return to Crossfit post-busted hand (it’s definitely still quite limiting but I think the workout should be doable), and then in the evening I think I’m going to drop in on the spin class I will eventually be taking over!

What is your favorite ethnicity of food?