What Happened?

Date: February 4, 2016

Author: astottler

I promise this post is not nearly as deep as the title implies.

I go through phases with blogging. Sometimes I’m not feeling it, because I’m too busy with life. Other times, I feel like such a bad blogger! I expect in the next year or so blogging may pick up a bit more because I will be going through some significant life changes (i.e. graduating). I sometimes feel that I don’t have that much to say, or contribute, but at the same time I miss the typical daily posts. I feel like there are fewer and fewer of those around these days. Maybe everyone is feeling the same way, but to be quite honest, those are my favorite to read!

In the theme of being a bad blogger, I seem to have lost my special blogging talent: the picture taking reflex. In the past, I would whip out my phone and snag a picture before anyone knew what had happened (myself included). I came to write this post today, and realized that the only picture I had was of breakfast. The same breakfast as yesterday.

I <3 this breakfast. It takes me back to sophomore year when I first started eating this, but it’s been a while! Yes, I’m at that point of my college career where I get nostalgia from something as basic as breakfast.

That being said, sophomore year was ROUGH. This came up on my timehop this morning. So, so real.

Today I had a Cosmology midterm, which I think (hope) went pretty well. Naturally I celebrated by raiding the fridge and watching an episode of Monk. I seriously love that show, and it somehow feels comforting to watch it again all these years later. In the fridge, I found a GF grilled cheese with my name on it (literally written on it), so I heated up half of that, and had a few dates and an orange. I’m really trying to incorporate more produce into my life as my stomach feels better.

In terms of workouts, I went to Crossfit this morning. We did mostly upper body things—max pull ups in 2 minutes, max hand release push ups in 2 min, max toes to bar in 2 minutes, and max burpees in 2 minutes. That was followed by some rowing repeats. Rowing is still my jam, and I can still claim that after hundreds of hours on an erg freshman year.

Before dinner, I went for a 3 mile run. My legs were a bit heavy but I hit my goal pace fairly easily, which is a good sign for my 5k on Sunday! That being said, I think my body is ready for some low key days leading up to Sunday!

Since this post was lacking in pictures, I do have some things to share that I’ve actually bothered to photograph (but haven’t bothered to post).

I’m currently in love with tortilla pizzas.

Mexican chicken, beans, and avocado over lettuce with a tortilla on the side.

The pup was spayed this week. She’s had a rough time so far, but seems to be feeling a little better! Although I haven’t seen her yet, I am getting regular updates!

This was the gluten free vanilla blueberry cake from our dinner on Friday. Lots of this was consumed over the weekend.

That’s all for now—back to work!

Freaking Out

Date: October 1, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So, I’ve been freaking out a lot lately.

First, I freaked out over pumpkins. And of course pumpkin products. And while I’m mentioning that, I tried a pumpkin Oreo! It was ok. It didn’t really taste pumpkin-y to me but it wasn’t bad. It tasted like cinnamon graham crackers.

Then, I freaked out over this box my roommate brought in.

Yep, it’s the start of persimmon season! OMG. These are still very early but some are ripe now likely due to the drought. You guys. These are amazing. My roommate lives in farm country and brought back a ton last winter. I probably ate 4 a day. Obsessed.

Now, I’m freaking out over post-season baseball. The game is still going so I don’t want to jinx anything but GO GIANTS! I’m watching alone in my dorm lounge and I screamed so loudly when the grand slam was hit! I’m seriously so happy right now. Fingers crossed this game keeps going well. I’m a huge Giant’s fan and one of my summer highlights was seeing the Giants play in DC.

(AHHHH ANOTHER BASE HIT AND RUN AS I WRITE THIS!!!)

In other news, it’s October! Yay! I’m also obsessed with fall/holidays. My friends and I are thinking of throwing a Halloween party and I’M SO EXCITED! (Sensing a theme here?)

It’s also officially time to bring out the candy bowl.

In other, other news, who celebrated National Coffee Day? I started Tuesday morning with a beautiful latte (and proceeded to be on the edge of over caffeinated. I have zero tolerance now.)

And then that evening, my sister and I had a coffee date and took advantage of free coffee (in honor of National Coffee Day). I most definitely got decaf.

In terms of food, breakfasts have been yogurt bowls. This one had plain yogurt, maple sunflower seed butter (from the Farmer’s Market), and blueberries.

I also made it to the dining hall for lunch yesterday, and had a panini and salad.

And then today, I had class straight through lunch so in the afternoon, I stopped by a cafe and picked up a turkey, cranberry, and brie sandwich.

And my first pumpkin product of fall (I think). This appeared to be a pumpkin and carrot muffin.

In terms of fitness, yesterday evening was Crossfit, where we worked on cleans, and then did the following WOD:

15 minute AMRAP:

5 db push press

5 front squat (I used 95#)

200m run

12 pull ups

Then, this morning I was up bright and early for 7am Crossfit because it looked like a good workout and there was no way I was missing the game this evening for Crossfit.

The conditioning portion was 3 rds:

400m run

21 wall balls

18 push press

15 sit ups

It was a great way to start the day!

In terms of life, I can’t promise how much I’ll be blogging in the near future. I’m taking computer science this quarter for the first time, and it’s quite time intensive. Or more specifically, after coding for 4 hours straight hours, the last thing I want to do is spend more time on the computer. It’s bad. Once I’m working on something, I literally cannot stop. I dragged myself away last night after 4 straight hours to go to Crossfit, and when I got up I could barely see straight! I think this past assignment took me 12 hours. And that’s only the first assignment. Soo we shall see.

Also, my race was supposed to be this weekend. While seeing the emails makes me a little sad, I don’t regret the decision at all. My feet feel 1000x better and I have made plans that should make up for it!

Have you taken CS? Any advice?

Who’s excited for October? Baseball team you’re rooting for?

WIAW-College Year 3

Date: September 23, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! How crazy is it that I started this little blog when I was a freshman and now I’m a junior? Craziness. I should do a throwback WIAW at some point to compare the years. But for today, we’re doing WIAW with this week’s food!

First of all, I want to give a little update on my plantar fasciitis. It’s been 4 days now with no running and my feet are feeling sooo much better. Yesterday, I felt like they had returned to their normal pain levels and the outside of my foot wasn’t really hurting, but today they actually felt good. I think there were a number of factors that went into the improvement. Not running was a big one, but I think also returning to a normal routine with my normal shoes also helped. Plus, I’ve tried to cut back on sugar lately because I was hoping that would help reduce inflammation-I know it’s a long shot but I wanted to try everything! So maybe it helped. I’ve also been wearing the night brace which means I wake up feeling better. I can tell I’m getting better flexibility in my ankle/achilles as a result as well.

Ok-onto the food!

In terms of breakfasts, yogurt bowls have been the name of the game. The first one was plain yogurt with canned peaches and sun butter. I’m really loving that the nut-free dining hall nearby has sun butter!

Yogurt bowl #2 was back in my room and was plain yogurt (whole milk, non-greek) with sun butter, raspberries, and a drizzle of brown rice syrup.

In terms of other food, I packed some lunches from home before I left.

Each one contains grilled chicken, cumin roasted yellow cauliflower, and brown butter sage mashed sweet potatoes.

As I have said before, the dining hall closest to me now is the best one on campus. The food actually has flavor, which is pretty revolutionary. For one meal, I had a mediterranean salad with grilled chicken and some cream of spinach.

The cream of spinach was so, so delicious.

I also tried the dining hall’s most famous dish-Death by Chocolate.

Honestly, I wasn’t a big fan. It was a little too much for me. It was super rich chocolate cake covered in fudge, and it’s fairly dark chocolate.

Another thing I’ve been making is chocolate milk for post workout. Well, technically it’s hot chocolate. I got some really good quality whole milk from my favorite local dairy at Whole Foods. It even comes in a bottle. Butttt it’s non-homogenized, which means the fat isn’t really mixed in. In other words, it’s full of chunks of fat. It really freaks me out. I have to drink it hot to really mix it all up. My chocolate post-workout drink is milk, cocoa powder, and brown rice syrup!

But hot, it’s so delicious! Although I may have consumed enough cocoa powder to make me a bit jumpy.

What kind of milk do you buy?

WIAW-“If She’s Laughing it Can’t Be Good”

Date: February 4, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I’m actually especially happy this Wednesday because by some miracle, I don’t have the 2 problem sets I normally have this week, OR a lab report. Which means my week basically ended after today’s midterm. In terms of the midterm-it didn’t make me physically ill, so I’ll take that as at least a decent sign! And as always, I’m linking up for What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks to Jenn for hosting this weekly party!

Guys. I just want to say, I’m doing something crazy right now. Laundry. Go me! I had to push it until midterms were over, so now I have no excuses. And no underwear. Needless to say, it’s time! I’m just doing a single load though because that’s all I can force myself to fold in one night. Who needs darks, am I right??

But let’s talk about some food. And fitness.

Yesterday morning I did a track workout-10x400m repeats. Nothing crazy. I may have eaten a bit too much the day before and felt kind of sick during them, so I didn’t push them like crazy.

Breakfast was amazing, and a new favorite. Full fat, super high quality Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter, and berry compote (frozen berries reduced down on the stove). Amazing. Just like PB&J!

I’m going to run through the food from the last couple of days in no particular order-I had some snack days, and not everything was captured or necessarily a full meal!

Brussels sprouts with butter and parmesan, and an apple. Yeah, doing tupperware dishes is on my post-midterm to-do list as well…

Cheese and crackers, and a blood orange. We got fancy cheese at our marathon Whole Foods expedition, and they certainly have not disappointed. These two are manchego and goat gouda. And crackers never tasted so good-for the last 2 weeks, the only snacks I had very sweet things, like fruit, yogurt, and nut butter!

More brussels, more parmesan. Eaten cold. In retrospect, they probably would have been better hot…

But the microwave was in use-I’ve been dying to try making oat pancakes for the longest time! And all I have is a microwave…

It’s kind of hard to evaluate how they turned out. They might have been really awesome on a griddle. Or with the oats actually ground up. The flavor was fine-lots of vanilla and slightly sweet! Oooo I bet they would have been awesome in a waffle maker…

In the microwave, they just didn’t quite solidify. The recipe was half a cup of extra thick rolled oats, half a cup of unsweetened apple sauce, an egg, vanilla, and a pinch of baking powder. I’ll have to try these again at home sometime! (Or sneak my batter into the dining hall…hmm).

I roasted some blueberries in the microwave for topping, plus some whipped butter.

Because sometimes you just want pancakes for dinner! I also bet these would have been even better with maple syrup-the butter kind of got to me for some reason! Mmmm or nut butter…moral of the story-microwave pancakes are hard to do!

Last night, I ended up going to the gym pretty late-as in, 10:30pm. I did an hour long spin workout-instead of a set playlist, I plugged in an hour long race playlist and just rode whatever felt right. As a spinner, I think these types of rides are especially important-figuring out what works with what, and just enjoying riding on my own an kicking my own butt. The only late night workouts I’ve done have been spin, and I actually really like it-I feel like I get extra adrenaline!

This morning, I was up bright and early to train quidditch. I always forget how much I enjoy it! And torturing them. We did a new conditioning today-and when I was explaining it, someone remarked “If she’s this happy, this can’t be good!” It was great-we really took it to the next level today with a tabata of thrusters and push ups. It’s amazing how fast these exercises get difficult when doing tabatas! My sister’s boyfriend was evening failing on the push ups by the end-and he regularly does push ups with her sitting on his back! Major success in my book 🙂 I think I’m going to do their leg workout myself this weekend. I haven’t actually done the full sequence, and I’m craving more intense workouts right now.

This pretty much sums up my morning-coffee and chemistry.

Lots of yogurt. Lots of sunflower seed butter. Lots of berries. Perfection.

Semi-homemade guacamole with carrots and the following crackers. For the guac, I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

Dinner after Crossfit tonight was a different one. We finally put some of our Whole Foods goods to use.

Roasted carrots.

And the crowning achievement-sushi bowls! My roommate suggested we try making sushi, and I suggested we just be lazy and throw it all into a bowl.

We threw some short grain brown rice in the rice cooker, and then mixed it with some rice vinegar for that sushi rice flavor. Plus some Nori (seaweed), toasted sesame seeds, steamed kale, avocado, cabbage, coconut amines, and tuna. The tuna was really good-we got some in a jar marinated with herbs and olive oil. I’m no usually a tuna person (I’ve lived with cats way too long to not associate it with cat food) but this was flavorful in all the right ways! Major win in my books! Plus-leftovers!

Also-I’m starting to really fall in love with running. Which is fabulous. My race was great. Aside from the result, it actually was fairly enjoyable. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up until the last .5 miles, which was a huge improvement from my previous 5k where I felt really sick pretty much as soon as I took off…

But the biggest reason? I’m starting to feel fast again. I’m starting to feel like myself again. I’m freaking excited for tomorrow morning’s tempo run. I’m doing hill sprints later in the afternoon-can’t wait for those. I want to do sprints. I want to be fast.

These last few months of running (aka my whole “official” running career) have been sort of tough-I’ve improved so much, and definitely done distance I never imagined before, but the few extra pounds from my freshman year put a HUGE dent on my speed. Plus, my feet kind of hated me. To be honest, I credit my project for helping me find my love of running again-due to some miracle, my feet are cooperating and I cannot wait for my next long run. And to be honest, losing some weight is definitely helping. Heck, maybe that’s even why my feet are improving. But I have the desire to run-as an athlete, as a racer. I also think that with these continued diet changes, I could make leaps and bounds with my speed, which is exciting. Post-project, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. But for now, I’m going to roll with it.

(I really like this picture but I couldn’t come up with an excuse to include it…so here?)

What is your favorite pancake topping?

WIAW- A Healthier Vacation

Date: September 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello, hello! I’m back from Maui, just in time to celebrate What I Ate Wednesday. Thanks to Jenn for hosting, although I’m sure she’s super busy with her adorable new baby!

This post will cover the last couple of days of vacation plus Tuesday. First, I wanted to talk a little bit about being healthy on this vacation. My family’s vacations are often centered around food. And in Hawaii, with so many delicious things around-how could it not be? To be honest, I was a little nervous leading up to the vacation about staying reasonably healthy. The last time I went to Hawaii was almost 4 years ago. I remember getting back from that trip and being 10 pounds heavier than I left. I was not aware that was possible. While I may be a tad flabbier than I left, it certainly is nothing significant, and I returned feeling healthy and strong. So what changed?

1. I didn’t go crazy on desserts. Last time, I remember eating so many chocolate covered macadamia nuts that I felt sooo sick. While sure, I ate more sweets than normal, I didn’t really gorge at any one time. With the exception of a very large piece of chocolate cake that left me feeling off for 2 days after…

2. I split meals. Restaurant portions are often huge (especially at touristy places). Before the trip, my mom and I agreed to split things and it worked out perfectly. We didn’t split a couple of times and both agreed afterwards that we should have.

3. I exercised. I continued to follow my half marathon training plan, so I ended up running 4 times on my 10 day trip. I also visited a few local Crossfit boxes- in Lahaina, Upcountry Maui, and Kihei. Some of my favorite days of the trip were the days I got a tough Crossfit workout in, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. On one of my no-workout days, I was feeling really sluggish. I busted out a quick 5 minute workout, and I felt like a different person.

4. Eat a healthy breakfast. On vacation, we generally buy food to eat in our room. I was really excited for all the tropical fruit. A healthy breakfast helps you feel good going into your day. Example A: my tropical yogurt bowl-plain yogurt, mango, banana, passion fruit, sunflower seed butter.

I came home feeling pretty strong. Before I get into a ton of delicious food, I wanted to talk a little about the last Crossfit I visited- Crossfit Kihei. I had heard from another Crossfitter that they weren’t very friendly. Well…that was kind of right. Myabe they don’t get as many visitors-I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly comfortable the whole time, in contrast to the other Crossfits where I felt like part of the team. The coach was really uninvolved, and there was no group warm up. Plus, for the WOD, I Rxed it when I really shouldn’t have. It was 50 snatched with squats mixed in. No one else Rxed it and I ended up finished wayyy after everyone else, which was a little embarrassing as I was just a visitor. It was a good workout though so I can’t complain. My shoulders really are feeling it today.

Ok-food time!

Vacation food:

Turkey sandwich which I got for the avocado-plus it has cranberry sauce-how fun!

Ice cream! I regretted this choice. I don’t like coffee…and this didn’t have quite enough fudge. Oh well-you live and you learn!

Salad with bleu cheese and asian pear.

DELICIOUS dinner-macadamia crusted Mahi Mahi with pineapple salsa, jasmine rice, and veggies. My dad and I split this, and they were kind enough to serve it on separate plates.

Lilikoi (passion fruit) cream pie.

Chocolate cream pie. Sooo funny story. When my family ordered these desserts to share, my dad asked the waiter for 2 forks…for himself. And yes, he did use both. My family takes our dessert seriously.

Airplane food. You know you’re a blogger when your first instinct is to snap a shot before eating, even on a plane. There were a few pieces of lettuce under there for garnish-you better believe I ate those-vegetables are vegetables!

Aaand that leads us back to today. This morning I ate my typical pre-run breakfast-a ThinkThin bar plus fruit, and ran 8 miles. I would be so much faster if my foot wouldn’t act up! Regardless, I didn’t worry too much about pace. PRing this race will be hard since it’s a very hilly course (Nike Women’s in SF). This weekends long run is 10 miles. And that will be my last flat long run. I have a very hellish run planned for the 11 miler. Anyone from around Palo Alto knows the Dish trail-yeah, that will be smack in the center of my 11 miles. Kill me now….

I went to Whole Foods for lunch and groceries.

I’m in love with Probiotics.

Chicken, avocado and kale salad, chinese chicken salad, and a few fried plantains. I’m starting a mini Whole30 a week from Friday (I’m doing 7 days), and I want to try to ease myself into it. I’ve been thinking about it, and the list of things I wouldn’t want to give up to eat more Paleo is shrinking. Hummus for salads. Goat cheese. Laughing cow. Gummy vitamins. Run fuel. That’s about it. In the future, I may be sort of Paleoish. The big thing for me is watching the grains and sugar I eat since my blood sugar seems to like to crash.

I also couldn’t resist trying these since I love dark chocolate. They’re good!

For dinner, we made Greek salads topped with spicy avocado hummus and a runny egg.

I also got another kind of hummus to try, which I ate with cucumbers. It’s really interesting and different!

And dessert was some of the pineapple we brought back from Maui. So good.

A couple of random other things- I got new shoes to replace my walking around/general workout shoes. My old ones were blue and neon green. The new models are blue and pink. I don’t know about the pink though…What do you think? I might get neon green laces. That way I can accidentally match still since all my clothes seem to be neon green and blue.

And lastly-my haul of Crossfit shirts from my trip! I swear, all I bought on the trip were 3 t-shirts but my suitcase was waaaay more full. Huh.

And I’ll leave you with that! Have a great day!

How do you approach vacation? Has anyone done a Whole30? Tips?

What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Coffee-yay or nay?