Day 1

Date: January 20, 2014

Author: astottler

Well, it begins. My 4 week long project! One day in and I’m feeling excited and ready. And I may or may not already have decided that the first thing I’m going to eat when this is over is froyo…I digress.

In terms of data for this-this morning I took weight and general observations (I’m hoping my foot problems magically disappear-a girl can dream, right?) about how I feel. Tonight, my sister is going to do blood pressure. The blood sugar tests came in time, but the kit didn’t come with the lancets (the things that poke you), so I didn’t do that. Since I still haven’t made it to the store to get them, there’s a good chance I’m just going to prick myself with a (sanitized) needle tomorrow morning so I can get the reading.

A lot of you wanted recipes for this process, so I’m going to go over everything-I did a lot of food prep today and yesterday, so instead of just dumping every recipe on you guys today, I’m going to post recipes/foods as I eat them.

Here’s some of the prep that I did though.

(This will be in more detail tomorrow.)

Yeah…I’m pretty sure we’re set on meat. Which is probably good-whenever I clean up my eating, I start craving meat like crazy! Last night for dinner, my dad grilled Greek seasoned chicken for our salads, so he threw a few extra things on the grill for us! The turkey burgers are pre-seasoned with Italian seasoning (but don’t worry-nothing weird!), plus garlic powder and salt and pepper. The chicken is seasoned with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend. I’m planning on freezing some of this for next week-seasoned and grilled chicken is way better than just plain chicken!

Veggies getting cooked up.

A week of lunches all packed up.

Homemade ketchup from The Fat Chance Cookbook (which was my inspiration for this project).

Pre-workout Energy Balls. This is a recipe I’ll go ahead and post now! I kind of just threw it together-for me, it’s functional more than anything! I need something in my stomach before morning runs, and what I had been eating was Thinkthin Divine bars, which are chocolate coconut. I ended up using coconut flour instead of coconut, which worked out amazingly well, as it completely held these balls together. This recipe is functional more than anything-it may be a bit bland, so feel free to add a little honey, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, etc!

1 banana, heated and mashed

1/2 c rolled oats

1/8 coconut flour

1/2 t vanilla

1 T cocoa powder

2 T chia seeds

Mix well, and roll into balls.

So…I’m sure everyone is curious-what did I eat today?

Homemade cappuccino-my mom really wanted me to try one from her Nespresso! It was good, but not quite the quality of my favorite place!

Breakfast-two sunny side up eggs and blueberries. It occurred to me that I won’t have a chance for some nice eggs in a while-dining hall eggs are much more suspect, and this is way more interesting than hardboiled!

After breakfast and food prep, I headed to the track for a speed/Crossfit style workout. I was disappointed I couldn’t do today’s Crossfit workout-squats are not happening for me right now (although my knee is definitely getting better), so I’m looking at this as an opportunity to really work on other things.

I started with a half mile warm up, and then did 10×200. And then this WOD:

This was originally going to be 4 rounds, but it was taking forever! The lunges are 50 EACH. I broke up the middle parts into 2 sets of 25 lunges, 20 sit ups, 15 push ups, and 10 hollow rocks. I did both back and front lunges (about half and half) to mix it up. My legs were definitely feeling it by the end!

Lunch was quick.

I made my butternut squash soup with cranberry relish, but for the relish, instead of adding sugar, I swapped out about half of the cranberries for one apple so it wouldn’t be quite so tart. Topped with creme fraiche. I also had a few bites of grilled chicken, and a small piece of 100% chocolate.

(This is the cranberry relish.)

I had Chem section today, so I rushed back in time for that. Afterwards, I had a small snack of one of my energy balls and a little sunflower seed butter.

I really like this sunflower seed butter-the only ingredients are sunflower seeds and salt-the other brand I normally buy is lightly sweetened, and their unsweetened type is pretty bad.

I went to a Yogalates class as well today. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but somehow I committed to teaching yoga at one of my sorority recruitment events, and given I’m the most inflexible person ever, that will be interesting. Anyways, I wanted to go to a couple of classes before then. This was mostly Pilates, but I definitely felt the burn!

Here’s dinner-a turkey burger with homemade ketchup (although these turkey burgers are so good I’d actually rather eat them without), lettuce leftover from our ski trip supply, homemade Balsamic dressing, and roasted cauliflower with cumin. I’m not normally a cauliflower person, but I really like it roasted this way! It’s basically just olive oil, cumin seeds, salt, and pepper, in the oven for about 20 minutes. The recipe called for a yogurt sauce-yogurt, a pinch of salt, and fresh mint. I actually might have liked it better just as is, but I think I like the idea of adding mint and yogurt to salads. Also-homemade ketchup+yogurt for a healthy 1000 island? Maybe?

I had a lot more salad than this afterwards-it just wouldn’t fit! And then I ended with an orange. It turns out the oranges from last week’s CSA boxes are blood oranges!

So….how was today? I ate well. I didn’t miss anything. But I’m tired. I’m definitely low on sleep from ski trip, and without my usual daily shots of sugar, I’m feeling it a bit more. After section, I had to keep reminding myself that I was not hungry, I was tired. So yeah. Sleep would be good. Lack of sleep probably does lead me to eat worse things in general. However, I’m not looking at a TON of sleep in the near future-at least not tomorrow. I still have a million things to do today and I can’t sleep in tomorrow because I have to train quidditch. So we shall see…

But in terms of food-I feel really good! I felt happy today (until the tiredness hit), and I’m excited about this. Everything is pretty much already laid out for me to eat the rest of the week, so I don’t anticipate too many problems. I’m confidant that I won’t cheat on this, because I’m much more committed than just saying “I’m not eating sugar for a while.” I’m taking data and trying to prove a point, so I’m not giving myself the option to not make it through. Plus, with all this delicious food, it shouldn’t be an issue!

What else do you want me to touch on with this project?

WIAW-Where’s My Protein??

Date: January 14, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! As per usual, I will be linking up with the fabulous Jenn for What I Ate Wednesday!

My morning started bright and early. I quickly gobbled up my raspberry goat yogurt overnight oats, before heading to the gym to train quidditch.

The weight lifting went well-some people had to come early because they had to leave early, and the barbells were full when we started lifting, so I had to improvise a bit-everything worked out in the end! I also taught them correct rowing form, as they requested a rowing component for this workout. For those curious, here’s the workout I took them through.

Warm Up: Dynamic Stretching and Leg Swings

4 sets of 6 push presses

3 rounds:

6 bent over row

6 kneeling press

12 lunge jumps

20 calf raises 3 ways (toes forward, toes in , toes out)

1 min plank

Then-conditioning:

1 partner rows 500m while the other does oblique crunches-2 times through so everyone rows 500m two times

They shouldn’t be as sore as last week’s leg focused workout, but everyone was feeling by the end!
The best part? We finished just in time for me to grab a cappuccino before running to class. Which is probably why I felt so good all day!

Lunch was a mish-mash of things. I’m well stocked on veggies right now…and that’s about it. I didn’t make it to the dining hall the night before to steal things for lunch, so I was caught without any protein. In the end, I decided to try out my new blender bottle, and a packet of vanilla chai protein drink mixed with almond milk.

Also on the menu were blueberries, asparagus with Italian herbs, and butternut squash with cinnamon and a touch of honey. I have to say-this meal was a little lack luster because the butternut squash wasn’t quite seasoned enough, and asparagus is hard to eat out of a bag. Without a knife. With tough ends. And…i really didn’t like the protein drink. At all. When will I learn? It was kind of bland and the predominant taste that came across for me was fake sugar. I only made it through about a third of it! But I was SO full from all the veggies, so I guess it evened out!

I had class until 5 today, which meant I had to go to Crossfit later-at 6:30. For a pre-workout snack I enjoyed a Square bar, as well as a small tangerine from our CSA box and a handful of garlic roasted pumpkin seeds.

Crossfit was deceptively difficult. For strength, we worked on heavy snatches. The WOD was a 16 minute timed workout-3 rounds of 10 overhead squats and 150 jump ropes, followed by a ladder of 25m shuttle run and 1,2,3,4… burpees. It was a leg burner!

By the time I finally made it back to the dining hall, a lot of the food was gone. Since I was running kind of low on protein, I wanted to make that a main part of my meal. Guess what they didn’t have? Literally the only protein source was a couple of leftover hard boiled eggs, so I added one to my salad.

Salad, cabbage, polenta with mushrooms, and roasted potatoes with ketchup.

And I guess this counts as protein?

I’m feeling pretty good about this quarter. I have a couple of classes that I need to work my butt off for, but I also have Human Nutrition, which is basically the best thing ever. You know a huge difference from last quarter? I actually have friends in all my classes now. In the past I felt like I was always doing my own thing, but now I pretty much have someone to sit with and chat with in all my classes-yay for new friends!

It’s difficult to explain, but I feel like I’m finally coming into myself this quarter. (Of course that’s easy to say in week 2…) I’ve tried new things that I thought I’d love, without giving it a second thought that they were new or I wouldn’t know people (Mariachi and weight lifting.) I also finally feel like a leader. Teaching weight lifting to quidditch has made it apparent how knowledgable I really am. And practicing for spin like crazy makes me feel like I really can lead a class. I’m at the point in my life where I feel like I can inspire people, I can make changes is people’s lives, and I can make a difference in the world. I feel like I can do anything! One thing I signed up for on a whim that I’m SUPER excited about is the Bay Area Childhood Obesity Conference. It’s really cool-there are speakers, as well as break out groups where the participants get to discuss things.

In addition, I’m starting to think about what to eat during the project. For breakfast, I’m thinking high quality yogurt with homemade sunflower seed butter, and homemade mixed berry compote? (No added sugar of course-just berries!) Or maybe overnight oats with a higher quality grain than instant oatmeal? Like quinoa? Or is that weird?

One of the biggest question marks right now is dinners-should I try to cook them myself? Make do with dining hall fare, but being very careful? Lots of planning to do!

Do you have any good whole food recipes that are quick and easy? Please link them up!

Salsa-ing Around All Day

Date: January 13, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! WHEW. I swear this is the first free minute I’ve had all day-I’ve been running around like crazy since 7am!

The morning began by teaching weight lifting to quidditch. The only bad thing was that right now we have 2 days they can come, and only 3 people showed up today, which means tomorrow may be kinda crazy. The focus today was upper body and core-the main lift was push presses. I doubt they’ll be as sore as last week! I also taught them forrest rowing form for the conditioning portion of the workout.

After that, I rushed out to squeeze in a run. Fun fact-I’ve never actually done a tempo run before! It’s been on the schedule but it just never happened. I was planning on a 4 mile loop, with 2 miles at 8:00 in the middle. However, things don’t always go as planned. My legs felt heavy at the start, and when I tried to speed it up after the first mile, it just wasn’t happening. I ended up up waiting about .8 miles more when it was completely flat/slightly downhill (instead of slightly uphill) and just do a mile of tempo, since it is my first tempo run, after all. I was able to hold pace and felt pretty good! Things don’t always go as planned, but we have to adjust! My pace was so much better on the part after the tempo run though-interesting. While my heels felt pretty good, the ball of my foot went numb and hurt and it kind of felt like I had bricks attached to my feet….

By the time I got back, I had zero time. Breakfast was prepared the night before-yay for overnight oats!

I made them with raspberry goat milk yogurt-it’s interesting, I could really taste the goat-y-ness. (In a good way-it had that creamy tang of goat cheese.)

And then rushed to class. With zero time-nothing like being late to class to motivate you to bike insanely fast!

Straight after class, I ate my packed lunch and got some studying in.

Yay for leftovers! Leftover egg salad, leftover cucumbers and whipped cream cheese. Our mayonnaise that we made the egg salad with is actually super fancy-it’s “spooning” mayonnaise. I’m pretty sure someone would have to pay me a whole lot of money to convince me to eat mayonnaise with a spoon-but we had to get it because my roommate is allergic to canola oil, and the non-canola oil options were limited.

I also thawed out some more mashed sweet potatoes, and added them at lunchtime.

Then it was off to class-and immediately after class I had to rush to my home gym to do one last spin workout on their bikes-the bikes at school are a little weird and I wanted to practice my playlist at least once on them before I cancel my gym membership. If you’re keeping count, that’s 4 times I’ve practiced this same playlist in the last week. 4 hours of spin, plus biking a ton (an especially large amount thanks to a broken car), after not biking around for a few weeks means my rear end is pretty much shot.

And I have to say, while I didn’t hate it the last time, I definitely liked the playlist more the first time!

After Spin, my car’s engine sounded weird and the check engine light came back on-so it looks like I’m going to be without a car for the second time in as many weeks!

Back in my room, I threw together a super fast dinner from the fridge-more leftover egg salad, plus tomato soup with tons of cheddar.

Plus a Cocoa Coconut bar for dessert(/protein?).

Everything was consumed super fast-then I had to tune my violin. It was remarkably not terrible after sitting in a closet for 3 years! But I wanted the embarrassment of how out of tune it was to be in the safety of my dorm room, not in front of a whole bunch of musicians.

Mariachi was super fun! I’m definitely rusty on the violin, but it wasn’t terrible. It was kind of frustrating because the difficulty of the songs I used to play was much higher than this music, yet my fingers/brain connection is just not there yet! The whole class is conducted in Spanish-another thing it’s been a couple of years since I’ve done! While I didn’t understand everything, I understood enough, and I’m really excited to be speaking it again.

And that brings us to now-the few minutes I have before going to my sorority meeting. While it was a packed day, it was also a good one. And while I could definitely use more sleep, I’m managing.

One thing there was a question about, which I totally forgot to mention-my project will begin next Monday. I want to to plan/prepare/shop. And I need to look into buying blood glucose tests, and if that’s reasonable, or how much I can actually tell from that.

Have a great week everybody!

Crazy days-love them or hate them?