Frustration-Nothing has Changed, Everything has Changed

Date: March 8, 2015

Author: astottler

It seems every so often I do a nice little heart to heart here on Fitness is Sweet. These are the posts that I hate publishing and find semi-embarassing to look back on but post rashly and later realize they are part of life and evolution and all that.

I actually have a post that seems related now-a directionless post but it’s not very upbeat so it is still sitting in my drafts for another day-can’t have too much of that!

Right now I’m frustrated. Frustrated with myself. Sometimes I miss little freshman me.

(File this picture under things I’ll regret posting.)

It’s interesting to read my old posts. If I was struggling at that time, I can tell. I’m glad I’ve become more secure and confident since then, and ultimately more sane.

On the other hand, I feel like I had better time management then (ok-this was forced by the many hours of rowing…), and I had better study habits. Well, I guess I would say I had fewer other distractions from school and spent less time on the Internet….it really is a black hole. I feel like in some ways I was more put together in aspects of my life-that’s not to say I haven’t matured and changed a lot, things are just…different.

The thing that is currently frustrating me is looking at old pictures and wishing I still looked like that. I’ve gone 2 years without losing the college weight, and then I start to wonder if I never will. It’s frustrating. And I’m tired of overeating or eating junk and feeling crappy.

But then I never seem to get any better about it. I’ll eat healthy and make progress for a while, but like a cycle I revert to the same old habits.

I made some real progress on my Project last year (cutting out processed foods) but that made me so crazy! And it’s interesting to see posts from freshman year where I was definitely eating healthier.

And a big part of me worries that I’m wasting my college years by carrying the extra weight, which honestly is what scares me the most-I want to make the most of my time here!

(I am happy to report that my room is way cleaner than last year at least…)

I guess what I’m saying is I’m frustrated and I don’t know what to do right now. I’m officially in half training mode, so I had plenty of time to think on my 8 mile run. I especially worry that any extra weight just aggravates my foot problems, and my foot wasn’t especially cooperative today.

And eating badly makes me feel bad, physically and mentally. Between stomach issues and eating junk, I’m sick of feeling gross. And I’m sick of the mental fogginess, distraction, and anxiety I get after eating too much junk.

So I guess this post is more of a rant than anything else. I feel like I have about one of these each quarter-over 3 years, some things don’t change, yet I’m somehow a different person.

Authenticity

Date: November 5, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First of all, fair warning that today’s post may be sort of word vomit (ugh I hate that word).

So, I feel like I haven’t been very real on the old blog lately. At this point I probably have a pretty different set of readers as I did 2 years ago, but if you read any of my old posts, the tone is pretty different. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe I’m burned out on blogging. I think a lot of it is I don’t really want to psychoanalyze my eating habits on the internet anymore, because when I go back and read those posts, I feel ridiculous. Maybe I’ve read too many blogs and feel like I’m just adding white noise to the world of blogs. I think healthy living blogs in general have changed a lot in the past 2 years.

(Baby HLBer Aurora)

I also think that somewhere along the way, I lost my passion. I became apathetic. And honestly, I feel sort of lost. I’m having a hard time finding inspiration for something I used to be so passionate about.

(Totally should not have been eating this, totally allergic to it. But baby HLBer Aurora didn’t exactly know this.)

College is a pretty big transition in life. I think I’ve become apathetic about a lot of things. To be honest, I also feel lost without a sport. Softball was my life in middle and high school, and rowing was my life freshman year of college. I honestly feel like food is my only extracurricular and source of fun.

I feel like another reason I’m losing my passion for fitness and nutrition is I feel like I don’t live up to it anymore, if that makes any sense. The more I lose it, the more unhealthy I get, which makes me lose the passion even more. When I read my old posts, it makes me happy yet sad because I feel like I’ve lost a lot of that.

(I don’t miss the freezing cold days on the water though.)

And since we’re being honest here, I guess I’ll talk about the one thing I never talk about but occasionally mention and complain about and then never change anything.

(One of the first food-y things I posted. That smoothie had WAYYY too much mint extract.)

Yeah, gaining weight in college is real. I feel like my eating habits have become apathetic (yeah, totally overusing that word in this post). I’ve gained weight, and I’m not comfortable with myself. To be honest, ever since that happened, I haven’t really felt like myself. And to be even more honest, I feel like living unhealthily is sort of wasting my college years. I feel like this has leaked into other areas of my life. And I really, really want to change, but it seems so impossible and far away.

And I feel emotional even writing this post because it saddens me how much I’ve changed since coming to college. I feel like I just care less about things in general, and that’s no way to live your life. I was going to do a whole post about how I feel like I lost my Type-A-ness and how that’s a bad thing but I guess that will come up here too. So I don’t know what this means for me. I’m not sure what to do. Maybe if I start being more authentic on here that will help reignite that spark, but I also don’t want to be ashamed or embarrassed by anything that the whole world can see. So that’s where I am right now.

(My gosh I love cats though.)

At a Crossroads

Date: May 17, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s currently Friday night at 1am, but I can’t sleep because my room is 1000 degrees and I have ice cream running through my veins (not a decision I regret though). I’m sitting outside (much cooler) watching drunk people slowly trickle back from one of the wilder parties of the year. I wasn’t feeling it-I spent my night with my only friends I need:

Kidding. All jokes aside though, I’ve never actually had Ben and Jerry’s, so my roommate and I decided to fix that! But today’s recap is for another post. I have a slightly more serious (how serious am I ever? Let’s be real here) post for tonight. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and reflecting. I guess this past month or so I’ve been feeling a bit of blogging identity crisis. What’s the point of what I’m posting? Is it interesting? Deceptive? (I hope not). Who am I writing to? Who am I trying to please?

In this post, I’m going to attempt to piece my thoughts together in a way that makes sense, as much as possible.

Tonight, I spent some time reading through some really old posts from another blogger-one that inspired me to blog wayyy back when.

Additionally, my blogging was slacking for a bit there, thanks to my so-called food rut.

I guess here’s what it comes down to. When I’m eating junk and feeling bad, it’s hard for me to be passionate about the things I care about and love and find SO incredibly interesting-nutrition, metabolism, etc. It’s something I truly am passionate about, but when I’m not following my own advice, it’s hard to find that spark.

I feel like my blog has really more fallen into what I tend to call it, a food and fitness blog, versus a healthy living blog. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it ends up turning into lazy posts where I throw up pictures of my food and say “This is what I ate.” Don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic for me to look back on. But what value is in that content? A lot of what I’ve been eating hasn’t been particularly healthy, so who am I hoping to inspire?

On the other hand, I find myself not talking about my exercise and fitness-just brushing it off. Even though, as a food and FITNESS blog, this could be a big thing. And it’s a big part of who I am that gets neglected quite a bit! But here’s where I run into trouble-and as I’ll probably elaborate on in a minute, maybe the source of my blog rut-I’ve been worrying too much about what people will think. Will they say I’m exercising too much? But here’s the thing. Everyone is different. My exercise routine is balanced, and I look forward to most of my workouts. Crossfit is fun. I pick and choose the workouts I go to based on what I would find the most fun. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t go. Also, I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I’m in good shape. But I tend to be self conscious about the fact that I usually run in the morning, and then do Crossfit in the evening. So I don’t discuss these things. But I really should! It shouldn’t bother me what people think because I know what works for me. I love running, and training for races, and I love Cross-training. So be it.

And onto the topic of caring what others think…I’ve ALWAYS wanted Fitness is Sweet to be a positive place. I don’t want to be negative in my posts. And there’s one topic I absolutely hate talking about, but I’m going to talk about today. This is a weird one though-I’m not worried so much as to what others will think, but rather what future me will think. I cringe at all those past-Aurora posts freaking out over this or that, and all those random “a-ha” moments (OMG I need to eat Paleo! OMG I need to avoid gluten! UGH.)

So this post is probably not one I’m going to look back and love, but it is what it is. Because the one topic I HATE talking about is weight. But hey, why not talk about it then?

I’m in college. It’s spring quarter. Nutrition seems to once again have gone by the wayside. So here I am, up a few pounds. And running SLOW (priorities, right?). And as much as I HATE discussing this, here we are. Because as much as I preach a healthy lifestyle, I never really did figure it out. I never returned to my pre-college weight, which drives me crazy, and I never returned to my pre-college eating. I’m active, which is fantastic, but my eating habits clearly leave a bit to be desired. Sure, I eat my vegetables, but a lot of sweets and snacks never make it to the blog. I guess I’m at a crossroads because I’m ready to really dig into this issue, but not too sure where to start because after all this time I’m still not there!

I feel like the extra pounds are really holding me back, in terms of my confidence and my athletic capabilities-I really want to PR my half this fall!

This past week, I’ve been trying to focus on staying calm and mindful, which helps but is still hard to stick with!

And at the same time I want to make myself healthier, I also want to have healthier content. I want to show delicious, nutritious meals, not just thrown together pictures of froyo and muffins.

However, I firmly believe that a negative attitude and negative relationship with food is never going to help with weight loss, so there is going to be none of that here. Which is why I have zero regrets about that Ben and Jerry’s-it was delicious! And it’s over, and I don’t regret it. I don’t plan on eating it every night forever, but it is what it is.

So I guess the summary of this long and super rambling post is that I’m going to take better care of my health and also work on improving my blog content-but I also think the two go hand in hand!

So if you made it this far, thank you! I know this post will probably make me cringe later, but I also think it is important. As bloggers, it’s easy to paint a healthy glow on everything, but we’re not always as healthy as we make ourselves seem to be! That’s very important to remember!

What makes you uncomfortable?

Moving Forward

Date: July 28, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Than you all so much for your kind comments in response to my last post. It really means a lot to me-I had no idea what to expect and I was really nervous about posting. Not many bloggers discuss weight gain, but I think it’s something that should be discussed as well.

What I’m piecing together from my thoughts and your comments is this message: healthy living is a state of mind and a passion, but not necessarily a body type. Everyone has their ups and downs, and there is no one-size-fits-all blogger.

But like the title of the last post, I’m ready to own it. With all that in mind, I wanted to briefly touch on my plans moving forward. I want to do something about the extra weight in a purely HEALTHY manner. The main things I am going to focus on are more produce (fruits and veggies), less sugar, and portion control. This WILL NOT become a weight loss blog-I probably won’t discuss this a ton in the future (unless you guys ask about it). I’ll of course keep you updated on my life, but I don’t want to focus on that in the blog so I can continue to give you all the quality programming you’ve come to know and love (kidding).

And on to a much more fun topic-my weekend!

Friday afternoon my family drove down to San Luis Obispo, about a 4 hour drive south. For some reason, most of the hotels were booked up this weekend. The hotel we stayed at was the 12th one my dad tried! It was really nice, and also cozy.

Upon arriving, the first priority was dinner. We passed the Apple Farm Restaurant on the way to our hotel, which boasted of farmer’s market fresh food. And amazing pastries-I was sold! Another bonus-it was a 2 minute walk from our hotel.

I was in the mood for farm-fresh veggies so I ordered the veggie melt, and subbed a side salad for the fries. I also added avocado to the sandwich-which totally made the sandwich! I wish I could say I like eggplant…but to be honest, I don’t know how to eat it! When I bit in to the sandwich, the whole piece came out!

As luck would have it, my family for some reason or another was discussing potato pancakes on the drive up, so they were a must when we discovered them on the menu. Plus, house-made apple sauce!

And yes, despite my whole beginning of this post, it was vacation and they did boast amazing sounding desserts, so we ordered a few things to try. My choice was a chocolate zucchini bundt cake, because hey-zucchini=healthy, right? We also ordered an eclair, and a mini apricot pineapple pie. Everything was delicious.

PS-like my shirt? “I’m only half crazy: 13.1”

After dinner, we decided to walk off our large meal by exploring downtown San Luis Obispo. We bit off a bit more than we could chew-the walk turned out to be pretty long! Luckily, a free trolley was kind enough to pick us up- “The Old SLO Trolley.” We got a kick out of the name, but slow it was not!

Upon arriving downtown, the first priority for me was to buy a sweatshirt. Somehow I managed to forget one…luckily I found a cute one that I wore the rest of the trip, and will definitely wear in the future.

We wandered into a candy and soda store with every type of candy bar imaginable, and a million…interesting…sodas.

The next morning, we awoke on the early side to make it to a morning tour of Hearst Castle. Mr. Hearst was one of the founders of newspapers as we know them today, and had a huge news empire. He build a castle on the top of a hill overlooking the coast where we would relax and host famous or interesting guests.

Check out this view! It’s no wonder he loved this place!

We went on a tour of the part of the house the guests would visit. Every night guests would be expected to attend a cocktail party, followed by dinner and a movie.

The grounds were beautiful. He modeled the castle after several architectural styles from Europe.

I really enjoyed this visit. It transformed me back to a different era. I’ve always thought that if I could live in any other time period, i’d want to live in the 1920s. Everything was so…elegant (this from a girl who wears exclusively exercise clothes..). Plus, the views were amazing! There was so much history there.

After the tour, I had my first ever Starbucks coffee. I can’t believe I’ve never gotten coffee there before! I ordered a cappuccino, and I enjoyed it. Then, my family set out on a hike. I’ll go more into that tomorrow, but here’s a hint-my mom was just about ready to kill me.

We then went to the restaurant I had been looking forward to all trip-The Natural Cafe. My family ate there a few years ago when we stopped for dinner on the way down to Santa Barbara, and I had fond memories of it. I ordered a veggies stuffed potato, and a half salad with cranberries, walnuts, and avocado in a lemon herb vinaigrette. Both were superb. I need more potatoes in my life! I want to recreate this at home.

These are my eats from the day. For dessert, we found a little ice cream sandwich shop where you could create your own ice cream sandwich. The ice cream was frozen into perfect little disks that perfectly fit the cookies. I went with birthday cake ice cream and an oatmeal cookie and a fudge cookie. YUM.

Today we headed home-in terrible traffic I might add! We made a few stops, the first being for ice for my calf post-run and lunch, the next at a fruit and garlic stand at the side of the road, and the last at a huge outlet mall. I picked up some new kicks-Crossfit shoes from the Reebok outlet! They had a good deal on shoes, and my workout shoes are a) not optimum for weight lifting and b) a year old and have seen better days. I can’t wait to try them out! I love outlets!

What did you do this weekend?

Own It

Date: July 26, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok guys, I’m super nervous to write this post. It’s going to be pretty honest, and I’m scared. But I do feel like I need to be honest with you guys. Bear with me, as I’m not 100% sure as to the direction of this post.

I want to start out by discussing Amanda’s post. She talks about fears related to “impostor syndrome”-the concern that one feels as if he/she is faking what he/she is doing, and will be found out. She discusses the fears that her flaws will be found out.

Wow.

I can definitely relate to this, especially as a “healthy living” blogger. I definitely feel like I’m being hypocritical. I don’t feel as fit as I should be to consider myself a decent healthy living blogger. So here it is. I’m owning it.

How can I promote healthy habits when in the time since starting this blog, I’ve gained a lot of weight? Just to be clear-the gain has nothing to do with blogging. Circumstances in my life have changed and things have happened (hellooo mono).

Have you noticed I’ve hardly posted any recent pictures? Why? To be perfectly honest, I’m embarrassed. And scared. I don’t want to lose my validity as a blogger because of my body. Because I don’t exactly feel like it’s my body. It doesn’t represent me and my interests. Just because I’m not 100% healthy does not mean that I want to be, or that I care any less about my health.

I’m still extremely active. I just haven’t found the right balance in a while. And I HATEHATEHATE talking about weight on my blog because it makes me uncomfortable, but I have to own it. And maybe that’s the first step to finding a solution.

And again, to be honest, this is part of why I haven’t looked into getting a spin certification too closely. I feel like I don’t look the part. But you now what? That’s just stupid. If I have a passion, I should pursue it. I’m still fit and muscular. I just have a little more body fat than normal. Since we’re being honest.

And since we’re being super honest, let’s go into why I need to find peace with myself and get the excess off.

I’d be lying if I said my freshman year wasn’t hard. But before I go complaining, I don’t want to make it seem like I didn’t have a great year. I really did, I loved the new experiences and new people. But I made it harder than it needed to be.

Because here’s the thing about being a health-obsessed and fit person. Gaining weight sucks. I mean it sucks for anyone, but it made me feel so powerless. After overeating something, I would panic. I would wonder why I couldn’t control myself. I would wish for the body I had a few months before. And when you have a decent sized course load, those moments are especially bad. I would have times where all I could do was just stare at my computer screen, or frantically scour the internet for a solution. Or map out my eating, my future plans, anything I thought would help. It made schoolwork almost impossible. (I would like to clarify though-it’s not like I failed all my classes. A lot of this time came out of my sleep.)

Part of this panic/sadness was the result of sugar/carb crash. I always felt like sugar messed with my hormones and made me crazy. And when gaining weight, I was eating a lot of sugar. That my friends is recipe for disaster.

I decided to share this with you guys because I had a similar panic experience the other day and realized it hadn’t happened in a while. I’m eating way better than a few months ago, but I did quite a bit of damage on the scale (and yes, I know the number isn’t everything) with bad eating habits early on. I also realized that I need to get to a place where I’m happy and comfortable, and in control before school starts so I can do well in my classes with no distractions. Hopefully my grand admission will help kick my butt in gear to get to where I need to be. So here I am, owning it.