Learning When to Step Back + Basically Running a Kennel

Date: December 28, 2016

Author: astottler

Hello friends!

I have to say, while Blogmas was a blast, it feels sort of nice to be back in the swing of things with normal posts.

Before we get into the food+fitness+animals (#prevetlife or something), I wanted to talk about one thing that’s been on my mind these past few days.

I love exercise. That’s no secret. And I’m lucky that I happen to love something that is so good for my health. But one thing I’ve struggled with in the past is knowing when to take a step back.

Yeah. Hello, stress fracture.

For years, I always felt like I had to work out every day, more than once often. Otherwise I wouldn’t be “fit.”

Ever since my stress fracture, I’ve exercised significantly less (but still regularly, to be clear). And guess what? I’m fitter than I was before, with all those extra workouts.

I thought I had to be dragging my body through workouts day in and day out; I had to run 3-4 times a week, spin, Crossfit 4 days a week, who knows what else. It was about quantity, not quality. But then I hurt my foot. And I got busy with various internships. I no longer had the free hours in the day to work out that I did in college, and ever since then, my fitness level has improved. Quality over quantity. In St. Louis, I found I didn’t really like doing runs the morning after a hard evening Crossfit workout, so I stopped doing Crossfit the night before. In the past, I would have struggled through the run. But now I decided I didn’t want to feel awful for the run.

This week, I had to convince myself to take a step back. My stress fractured foot is healed, but sometimes it gets a little bit sore, especially when I’m either wearing the wrong shoes, or jumping a lot. After walking around the city in boots on Monday, and then doing lots of box jumps at Crossfit Tuesday, my foot was bothering me a little bit. I didn’t want to step back, but I remembered how much worse it was to have to immobilize my foot for 6 weeks, so it was better to take some time off now than get that far again. I scaled my Crossfit workout this morning to take the jump out of burpees, and instead of my normal Thursday run, I decided to go to a much needed, low impact yoga class, and spend Wednesday off my feet for the most part.

I guess the main point here is, you have to listen to your body, and you don’t have to exercise 12341234 hours a week to be fit.

Back to life.

For some reason I have not been feeling yogurt in the morning, but I went with it because I thought it would go well with my amazing pears (it did). I had Fage 2% with Cinnamon KIND granola and sunbutter.

Tuesday was another packed lunch at the library, but I made it a little more festive by making a salad with pear, leftover turkey, and cranberry goat cheese. Plus crackers.

Persimmon bread was my afternoon snack. Plus some other random things because I’ve been so freaking hungry these past few days. That usually means Crossfit has been especially hard.

I’m not super big on pizza (especially with the whole GF thing), but my parents really like it. We went to a place that had GF crust, and my family and I split a brussels sprouts salad, and then my mom and I split a GF pizza margherita.

I got some ice cream for Christmas dinner that I really liked and wanted to get more of, so we walked to a local Italian grocery after dinner to pick it up. It’s really not exotic; Dreyer’s slow churned frozen yogurt, chocolate vanilla swirl. But I also picked up a couple of GF cookies! Chocolate chip, and chocolate mint.

Wednesday morning I tried Chocolate Cheerios for the first time, pre-workout. I like them! They’re definitely subtle.

Mid-morning, I took the crazy pup out for a walk at a park with some friends. They got to see crazy Chloe: at one point she was just running and jumping around in a circle, which is an interesting sight given I was holding her leash…

I have a problem with her riding in the car right now. She wants to sit on the center console. She does that with my mom which is fine for her, but problematic for me since she’s always really close to shifting gears in my car. On the way home, I tried having her in the front seat and she eventually settled down. Not ideal, but better.

And then began Aurora’s kennel. My parents were out of town for the day/night, so I was on full pet duty. Throughout the day, Chloe has been following me around (but being an angel), sleeping in every room I’m in. It’s actually adorable. I move rooms, and a few minutes later she comes in and settles down near me.

I had a lazy day. In the afternoon, I did a little baking. I made marble bread by making half persimmon bread, half chocolate banana bread. It came out really well!

I do enjoy spending one on one time with Chloe. She’s honestly much better behaved with just me, and it’s good to have some pup-sister bonding. We went for a nice long walk before dinner. It’s the end of December and despite the 30-something degree mornings, I can’t complain about the fact that I can wear shorts and walk Chloe outside (ignore the fact I was wearing 2 jackets). And this area is so darn beautiful.

With my family gone, I had the opportunity to crank up the heat. I swear, my mom and I have totally different internal body temperatures. This morning, both kitties were huddled under the blanket for warmth. I clearly wasn’t cranking it up enough though, because Lilly was camped out on the heat vent.

I cooked myself up a simple but delicious dinner. Scrambled eggs with high quality cheese is always delicious. I used cheese leftover from our wine and wine night, and paired my protein with some olive-fig tapenade, avocado toast, and leftover Christmas green beans that I added truffle salt to.

Chloe and I planted ourselves in front of the TV with a movie, and I enjoyed another bowl of ice cream and a cookie half.

The other part of my kennel duties came later than evening when I had to take care of our little visiting kitty. He’s almost 19, which is crazy. We’ve taken care of him before, so he’s staying with us for a week. He moves amazingly well for such a senior kitty, and he’s a big sweetie. He, however, wasn’t a fan of taking his pill. I got it in him eventually, but he was a master at somehow spitting it out and gave me a run for my money!

And with that, I’m signing off!

This is It, This is the End

Date: June 9, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well guys, I made it. (Assuming I didn’t fail my final class that I’m still waiting for a grade in!)

All the work of my undergraduate career, is over, and now all that’s left to do is walk the stage (NOT in a boot!)

My weekend was full of studying. I spent all day Friday working on a take home test, and then devoted Saturday and Sunday to studying for my Human Behavior final.

I took a break on Saturday for a spin class and an acai bowl. This was my first time trying hemp seeds, and I liked them in this context a lot but can’t imagine any other way I’d eat them.

Sunday, my advisor had all the senior pre-vets at her house for a goodbye lunch. Every year, she has her seniors paint her a tile. Guess which is mine? (The sheep.)

Monday I took my final exam of undergrad. Then finished my take home test that night.

Tuesday morning, I did a workout of bench presses, pull ups, and rows, and then I went to physical therapy for my foot for the first time. Honestly, it was a little rough after.

And from there, I went and turned in my take home final. And thus ends my Stanford career.

Lunch on Tuesday was super delicious: salmon lettuce wraps. Our chef makes the BEST salmon.

After lunch, I drove to my home-area to run some errands. First up, I picked up cupcakes for the end of the year party I was throwing that night.

From my FAVORITE cupcake place ever. These are GF, and I customized the flavors a bit by swapping the icing on the dulce de leche and chocolate cupcakes. BEST decision. Chocolate cake with dulce de leche icing, and vice versa.

After that, I made the mistake of heading to the mall to look for a dress for some of the week’s festivities. That was far more walking/standing time than my foot was ready for, and I was dying and grumpy by the time I left the mall. I don’t know if it’s stress fracture pain, weakness pain, or not walking in a month pain, but it was rough.

That evening, I went to a spin class (and took it easy of course), before heading back to the house to prepare for the party.

The part was really low key. I mostly wanted an excuse to eat cupcakes and see all of my favorite people one last time! I tried to get a picture with everyone, but ended up failing in that respect.

Check it out: no boot!

It was great to chat with my favorite people!

Later that night, there was a Stanford tradition that I’ve never done before. Apparently a giant group of people move around campus on the last day of finals. My foot wasn’t loving me, so I wasn’t sure how making it across campus was going to work, but my friends are legitimately the best. And the strongest. They literally took turns carrying my crippled butt most of the way across campus. Love them!

We met up with the group near the main quad, right as it was heading to the final stop, a big fountain. I have never seen anything like i in my life.

There was a giant boat that someone made and was carrying, with music. #stanford

I was so glad to be bootless and able to hang out in the fountain for a bit, taking it all in.

It was one of those days/nights that make me so grateful for my school, and all the amazing friends I’ve met. I really want to try and keep up to date on blogging this week, because I know I want to be able to look back on it, and I also want to share some of the Stanford traditions.

More fun/food/fitness to come soon!

#Bootlife Workouts

Date: June 3, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello friends! I’m enjoying my first full day without the boot. Lots of secondary pain in the foot though still from wearing a boot for 4 weeks. I’m trying to take it easy and slow. My calf/ankle/achilles is already sore.

I’m currently slogging through a take home test (yes, still). I predicted it would take me about 14 hours, and I think I’m 7-8 in? I spent all day today working on it. I don’t know what it is about studying days, but I feel like I always eat way too much when I’m just doing work. I spent most of the day out of the house, so I fueled more appropriately, but man, I am so full now!

Here was my morning in meals: Preworkout: blueberry zucchini bread. Sort of regret sharing it with friends because now it’s gone.

Breakfast: yogurt+nectarine+KIND raspberry granola. I added a bit of sunbutter post-picture.

Lunch: cornbread with honey+split pea soup, courtesy of my freezer stash.

Snack: Bobo’s Oat bar, lemon poppyseed.

I don’t have a dinner picture, but the main course was chipotle tofu, a salad, green beans, and avocado toast. Lots of snacks were consumed between then and now.

As I was doing my workout this morning, I thought it would be a good idea to share what my workout routine has been since this injury, because I’ve kind of settled into a groove. As I said before, I’m not planning on changing anything/adding anything until I start PT. This week was different because Murph on Monday, but I’ll share my typical schedule. And a GIANT disclaimer: I am not a doctor, physical therapist, trainer, or anyone remotely qualified to inform you as to what you should do while healing from a stress fracture. This is what worked for me, and everyone is different. Whether or not every single one of these movements was 100% smart may be questionable, but the boot is off and here we are. I probably could have done less spin, but I needed it to stay sane/I was not giving up my last few classes of teaching. WIht that disclaimer, here was my rough schedule:

Monday:

4×4 deadlifts (keeping my weight on my heels, off the bad part of my foot) at a slow tempo going down. I was able to get more work out of a lighter weight this way (I didn’t want to do anything crazy for my foot), and it was more controlled.

4×8 RDLs or good mornings

4×8 single arm kneeling DB press, alternated with 10 tricep dips

Tuesday: Usually Crossfit. For the past few weeks, we’ve been doing bench press on Tuesdays, and the WOD has been pretty similar and easily modifiable for me. It usually ended up being a combo of assault bike+pull ups+push ups.

Wednesday AM: Weights (The odds any of these names are correct are about 0.)

4 sets: 10 both arm seated cable rows/ 8 seated DB press both arms

indefinite sets (usually 25ish minutes) alternating sets of 10 on the machine where you sit and pull your legs apart, and the machine where you sit and push your legs together

a few sets of abs

PM: teach spin, in the saddle only

Thursday: Go to Crossfit and do some work on my own. This varied a little bit more, but usually involved 15-20 minutes on the assault bike, and mainly pull up work. Usually negatives.

Friday: Usually ab/pilates videos (Blogilates)

Sat/Sun: One of the two, spin class (in saddle only) at a local spin studio

Sometimes in the afternoons, I would do a Blogilates abs video. I was lazy this week an that didn’t happen though, haha.

These workouts kept me sane, and I actually had fun doing different things. My abs and arms are noticeably stronger, and I think this was strength work my sort of gimpy shoulder could use anyways. Now I just have to maintain my pull up strength/get strict pull ups!

….and now it’s back to my take home test. Meh.

Adventures in #bootlife

Date: May 22, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Having a stress fracture at the end of my senior year of college stinks, but I decided to not let it affect my life! (Minus the whole no running/walking/most exercise thing but minor details…)

I’m trying to have SOME fun with it (as seen here). I’m thinking of it almost like Flat Stanley (did anyone else do that? For classes, one student would get him for a week and take him on adventures, taking photos of the adventures). So this week, where did boot go?

Thursday, I rounded up a big group and friends and went to Senior night, a night out for the seniors to get together.

Friday, we (the boot and I) went to a sorority mixer. Since #prevet, I suggested an animal theme and somehow that actually went through. Not complaining.

It was a fun night, spent with lots of friends!

Then, Saturday was the perfect day. It was so much fun. Despite a late night, I was up pretty early as per usual and decided to head to Crossfit, since the WOD was reasonably foot-modifiable. My workout ended up being 5 rounds, 2 min rest between rounds, of the following:

2 min assault bike

15 strict pul ups (I used a band for the strict, but worked in some no banded kipping. I can now string 5 kipping together, and pre-injury it was only 3!)

1 min assault bike

10 ring rows

10 strict press

It felt good to get moving, and I fell those pull ups now!

Since I sometimes call this a food and fitness blog, not just #bootlife and #stressfracture, here was my lunch:

GF avocado toast, leftover dill salmon (our chef makes the best salmon ever), greens with Italian dressing, and apple/beet/dijon salad.

Then, the main event! My friend somehow managed to convince his professor to let him use his beach house for the day/night! A group of us made the hourish drive, but with good conversation, it flew by!

This is the view from the window.

First stop was the beach! Luckily there was a nice path leading down to the beach. After a minor sand incident last week, this time I came prepared. I brought a drawstring (this is key) garbage bag to put over the boot to keep the sand out.

Worked like a charm! As a we were walking along the beach, a big wave came up to knee height, but my boot stayed dry!

Despite rain earlier in the day, the weather was perfect. The beach house even had a private beach! We also had no cell signal or Wifi, which was a strange yet refreshing experience.

We spent about 2 hours hanging out at the beach before heading inside to make dinner.

My main task was chopping up and sautéing the peppers and asparagus.

As well as pan-frying the chicken. I actually surprised myself by how much I actually am capable of cooking, and how much I actually know about things. Maybe it’s comparative! When cooking with 3 boys, sometimes you have to be the voice of reason.

For example, we bought some wine to go with dinner, and I pointed out we didn’t bring a corkscrew. They immediately thought we should just hit the top of the bottle off. I suggested we check the fully stocked kitchen for a corkscrew. Guess what? We found one! Haha!

For dinner, we had chicken (which I made with olive oil and garlic salt), gluten free spaghetti with marinara and the veggies I made, corn, and tortellini with pesto.

I seriously cannot get enough of this view.

It was honestly such an amazing day. I ended up driving back around sunset that night instead of staying because I had an early morning. These people have been my friends since freshman year, and I don’t see them nearly enough. It was the perfect senior spring day.

Sunday was another great day. My dorm did a wine tasting trip to Napa! The bus left at 9am, and we arrived at the first winery at 11.

Our first stop was V. Sattui. We had some time to walk around before our tour. They have a really nice deli, with delicious cheeses!

A winery tour in a boot was one of the more challenging things I’ve done, I have to admit.

Cat sighting!

Thankfully, we got to sit down for the tasting.

My favorite was the Sauvignon Blanc. I am not a red wine girl, I have to admit.

After our tasting, we had lunch at the winery. I had a turkey sandwich on lettuce.

The highlight was dessert for sure though. It was creme brûlée, served cold. I’m not always a huge fan of creme brûlée, but this was delicious. It was a little eggier than a lot of creme brûlées, and seemed less fatty, which I liked a lot more! It also had strong vanilla bean flavor.

Stop #2 was Robert Mondavi, one of the big founding wineries in Napa.

I actually liked this tour a lot more. The tour guide was funny, and very informative. In addition, we got to see more of the process.

Our tasting took place in the barrel room!

And more beautiful Napa scenery:

These past few days have been amazing. it’s hard to go back to reality, especially with only 7 days left of class in my undergraduate career! I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I think part of that is the uncertainty of next year. But let’s not even touch that topic with a 10 foot pole!

What did you do this weekend?

A Lesson in “Vincibility”

Date: May 14, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

This post is one that has been on my mind for almost 2 weeks now. And to be honest, it probably would have sounded a bit different had I written it then. Now, I’ve come to terms with my injury. But let’s work through this anyway.

So, I have a stress fracture. I’ve never broken a bone in my life (minus a fractured pinkie but that’s a story for another day). I’ve had a plethora of foot problems, but nothing like a stress fracture.

Sometime near the end of last quarter I believe, I noticed that my foot was hurting on and off. It didn’t feel serious at all. I remember walking around Seattle and being a little concerned that it was bothering my walking. I remember running the Hellyer 5k and thinking it was odd that my foot was hurting a bit, but I thought it was because it was cold and I wasn’t warmed up.

Honestly, the pain was pretty minor and I thought it was a bruise or a sprain or something.

Fast forward to the Cherry Blossom race. My foot was hurting for the first several miles and suddenly I had the feeling: “I wonder if this is a stress fracture.” I don’t know why I had that intuition, but quickly forgot about it because it wasn’t bothering me much.

I kept going along my life. One week it was a slight annoyance but I was still doing everything, the next I couldn’t walk. I truly believed I had a stress fracture then, and made an appointment immediately for an x-ray. I don’t know why I was so sure I had a stress fracture, but I guess the body knows! I knew almost nothing about stress fractures prior.

Then cue a frustrating process of waiting days for an MRI without further instructions (an x-ray doesn’t really show stress fractures, it just suggests where they might be, unless they are super severe, I believe). My x-ray was Tuesday, I couldn’t get an MRI until Friday, and I got nothing but radio silence from my doctor in terms of the results of the MRI. Meanwhile, I limped around for over a week while I waited, in quite a bit of pain. Finally, after no response to my calls or messages, I just made an appointment so I would have to be seen! The MRI showed a clear stress fracture in my second metatarsal, and I FINALLY got a boot. This makes me pretty angry that I had to wait a week for it, because it felt so much better with the boot, and that is a week I could have been healing! I was given the sentence: 6-8 weeks in a boot, an x-ray in 4 weeks to see how it is healing.

This could also be a little lesson in self advocacy. That’s something I’m general not good at, but felt I did pretty well with here. I went in the first time and essentially said, I think this is a stress fracture, I want an x-ray, and then despite lack of response I went in again to get answers.

That’s the story, but that’s not the point of this post.

I know teenagers are known for thinking they are invincible. Honestly, I never felt that way. I was almost always healthy, and never had serious injuries, but I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t take risks, I just lived my life, as it was, and that was healthy. I did what I wanted, which I was reasonable about, and my body never really rebelled.

College has been a big fat lesson in “vincibility.” No, I’m not invincible. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m no longer a teenager and am entering the older, more delicate stage (yes, I realize I am still very young but it’s relative) of my life, but man. I’ve never had a serious injury before in my life (minus stitches), and within the past year I’ve had 2. I’ve been the sickest of my life once (mono), and chronically ill fairly significantly another time. I’ve been to more doctors in the past 4 years than ever before.

The shoulder in the fall was sort of a freak accident type of deal, rather than an overload/overuse type of injury, but still. I keep joking to my friends, since my birthday was last week, “I’m 22 now. I’m so old, my bones are already falling apart!” But honestly, sometimes it feels that way. What’s most concerning and puzzling to me is how this injury happened. I was training for a 10 mile race, on top of Crossfit and teaching spin, but that’s nothing I hadn’t done before. I’ve done 6 half marathons, why now? And now I’m forced to take a step back and think about what went wrong, and what the future looks like. The most important thing for me is to make sure I heal properly, and don’t re-injure it. Honestly, I don’t really care about not running right now. I see people running and think, “huh.” The drive to heal is so much stronger than my love of running.

I have to realize that I’m breakable. I have to be smart. I have to take care of myself. In college, that’s something that’s really easy to forget. In the health realm, you can’t never sleep, chug caffeine, eat junk, and expect to stay healthy. It’s not sustainable. When you have fewer restrictions on what you can and can’t do, it’s easy to make the fun decision instead of the long-term, self-care decision.

And this is where the post takes a bit of a turn from where it would have gone had I written it 2 weeks ago.

First, I think I should say that if the Cherry Blossom race was the cause of it (which I’m sure it was definitely not the sole cause), then honestly, worth it. That was an awesome experience, and probably a once in a lifetime type of deal.

Before I even went into my doctor’s appointment, I had gone through the various stages of grief and acceptance about my injury, assuming it was a stress fracture. I spent the first week gimping around (before the boot), wishing I could run. When I was given my 6-8 week sentence, I was crushed. Very little in terms of exercise (my doctor’s advice in this realm is some anger for another day), and the knowledge that I’d be graduating in this boot. You graduate from college once (well, sort of), and I would get to walk the stage in a boot. ( I shouldn’t use the conditional here: to be clear, I WILL get to walk the stage in a boot.)

The first couple of days with the boot were a little difficult. Stairs. Biking. It rained the first day I had it and had to bike to 4 classes.

But after a few days? Honestly, it basically doesn’t affect my life, or what matters. Biking is fine now. I can handle going down stairs (I can’t bend my ankle in the boot). Granted, my method is a bit high risk, high payoff, but I have yet to have issues!

I’m very mobile. I’m teaching modified spin. I go to my classes. I can still workout (more in a moment). I can go out with my friends and have a good time. I can enjoy all the graduation festivities. The only thing it really affects right now is my squirrel observations, because I have to hike up a hill and that’s just not pretty.

More on that picture in an upcoming post!

My foot needs to heal, and I’ve accepted that. I’m taking it easy, but I’m not letting the boot take over my life. Sidenote: it’s also been a fantastic distraction that I’m graduation in 3 weeks…wait what??

In terms of workouts, I’m surprisingly having a bit of fun with them. I’m being forced to be creative, and do a lot of things I normally do. Running is out, about 70% of Crossfit is out, and spinning isn’t exactly recommended, so I’m limiting it (but it does feel fine on my foot). So what am I doing?

I’ve been doing some weightlifting with deadlifts. These are the only weight lifting movement I’ll do standing, and they are ok only because all my weight stays on my heels. (And I don’t go very heavy.) I’ve been playing around with some of the weight machines at the gym, which I NEVER have used, and have found some fun things. I’ve been going to my Crossfit gym a few days, sometimes to ride the assault bikes, because the way my foot is positioned, they’re a little bit less sketchy on my foot. I’ve been working on pull ups. I’m consistent with my ability to kip, but my goal is to get a strict pull up by the time the boot comes off. Plus, I’ve been doing the pull ups in the boot, which has a little weight to it, so when it comes off I expect to shoot right up! I already feel stronger with my pull ups after 2 weeks of working on them. I’m actually pretty close to a strict, so here’s to more hard work!

I’ve also been doing a crazy amount of abs. These are 100% safe, no risk for my feet, so I’ve been doing some basic ab workouts I’ve done in the past, plus some Blogilates videos. My core is already way stronger! The fun thing about abs is you improve so quickly! I also plan on doing some of non-abs Blogilates videos. I did a killer butt one the other day and am feeling it. So basically I’m going to have killer abs by the end of this injury, right? That’s how it works?

Basically, despite things, I’m in a pretty good place. This is my new normal. Ever since getting the boot, my foot basically hasn’t hurt (not that I’ve tried walking on it.) The biggest struggle is the secondary pain the boot causes in the other parts of my foot, and trying to not get a stress fracture in my good foot, because it sometimes hurts too.

Here’s to health, and here’s to the future!