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That’s okay Crossfit, I didn’t really want to be able to walk anyway.

Date: November 7, 2014
Author: astottler
Categories: Uncategorized

First of all, you guys are seriously amazing. Your comments on my last couple of posts seriously made my day!

Second of all-I guess this makes the first post on my ‘journey’?

My morning began with a trip to the gym. I’m teaching spin this weekend, and my playlist was pretty terrible, so I had to make some adjustments. It was 1000x better afterwards! Phew! I want to practice it one more time before teaching though. I also did some abs (because I never do them) and calf raises because I’m hoping strengthening my calves will help my plantar fasciitis. Hopefully.

Normally I would do a dining hall breakfast but it was already closed so I had a banana and sun butter in my room, followed by a persimmon.

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I ended up only having one class today, which was unexpected. My lab was postponed due to a gas leak in the building, so I gained 4 hours in the afternoon.

For lunch, I went to the dining hall with my friend.

Clam chowder (surprisingly good), salad, kabocha, and a small slice of super thin crust pizza.

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I also had 1.5 small cookies.

My afternoon wasn’t nearly as productive as it should have been, but such is life. For a snack, I munched on some sweet potato tortilla chips-seriously, these are good! I also had a pomegranate.

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My roommate brought these back from her farm (right??) and it was so good! That being said, if you want an exercise in mindful eating…this thing was so difficult to eat! And my desk looked like a murder scene afterwards.

After studying for chem, I went to Crossfit. We usually have one class a week that is just strength, which was what today was. Before I get into that, let me just say that today is the first day since MONDAY that I’ve been able to walk like a somewhat normal person. Apparently we started this new program that includes high reps of squats. I don’t think I’ve ever done a set of 10 weighted squats. My gosh. That was Monday night. I went in again Tuesday morning where we proceeded to do 120 wall balls and 50 air squats. Yeah. I’m still sore, and I’m hoping today doesn’t make me unable to walk tomorrow. I love weights…but man.

Today was…more squats. Yay? It went better than I was expecting. We did sets of 8, which wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. We also did 5 minutes of rowing, stiff leg deadlifts, and planks. So a pretty low key day.

For dinner, I made some wraps in my room. Turkey, garlic and herb laughing cow, spinach, and red pepper on a whole wheat tortilla.

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I downloaded a Blogilates meal plan a while ago, and while I never really followed it, I’m a fan of these guys. They are easy dorm food, super filling, and I’m already dreaming up variations.

After dinner, I was still hungry and craving something sweet so I thawed out a couple of frozen pumpkin muffins.

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These probably weren’t the best choice. What I really want is to make some pumpkin bread. I have a fantastic healthy recipe, but I’d need to go home to do it because I have no ingredients here. I also desperately need something for before morning Crossfit, which I’ve been going to more. Back in the day when I used to do morning weights, I always had banana bread or some type of quick bread and it worked great. I just don’t really have many carb sources in my room right now, and I always get so light headed so that needs to change!

Overall thoughts? Not bad, definitely areas for improvement. And now I’m off to do more work! Yippee.

The Post I Never Thought I’d Write

Date: November 6, 2014
Author: astottler
Categories: Uncategorized

Well, this is a post I never thought I’d write, just because it makes me uncomfortable. But after thinking it over, I’m happy with my decision.

I’m going to get serious about losing the college weight, and I’m going to document it all on the blog.

I hate to use the blog as accountability, but aside from the fact content has been lacking lately, I think this is something a lot of people can relate to. Pretty much everyone gains weight in college.

So what does that mean for the blog? Honestly, it won’t change that much, and it won’t be something I’m always discussing. But it’ll be there.

(Please note that these pictures don’t really match the content. I just have pictures without words, and words without pictures.)

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(Greek salad)

So what am I going to do?

Well, for starters, nothing crazy. No specific diet-no paleo, no Whole-30, no vegan (not that there is anything wrong with those, but I’ve found they don’t work for me).

Just portion control. Moderation. And yes, I’m going to do the dreaded “calorie counting.” Or at least “estimating.” Here are a few areas I think I can improve and focus on:

-portion control (it’s easy to just glop stuff on a plate)

-fewer sweets (this does not mean NO sweets though!)

(-increased activity) <-I’m pretty active so we’ll see about this.

Given I am pretty active, I don’t trust generic calorie calculators that tell me how much I should eat. Instead, I’m going to track calories in and calories burned in exercise for a little while to calculate where I should be for moderate weight loss. <-But also because I’m a nerd and like and trust math. So it will be a learning process that will take some adjustment.

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(Pumpkin bread pudding from TJ’s with homemade rum sauce)

While I have a specific weight goal in mind, I will not be posting it for several reasons. Besides that fact that I don’t want that on the Internet, I don’t want comparison. I also don’t know if that goal will change-it may not be reasonable if I’ve put on a lot of muscle weight, so it is not a hard and fast goal at all.

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(Why are dining hall sweet potato fries so good?)

And I’m not in any hurry. If it takes 3 months, great. If it takes a year, great. It is what it is.

I know this may not be the post anyone was expecting after my last one, but this feels right. And exciting. I’m ready, and I hope you all will follow me on this journey!