Monthly Archives: January 2013

Recovery Drink

Date: January 15, 2013

Author: astottler

Brrr! It was another freezing day here in sunny California! At 4:00 pm, there was still frost at the boathouse from this morning! That is absolutely unheard of here. Crazy! I guess I’ll dive right in to today’s eats!

Before my morning workout, I drank some milk and ate a piece of oat bread (thawed).

The recipe is from Haute Box, and can be found here. I found this recipe on stumbleupon and had been meaning to make it for the longest time. I always wondered what a non-sweet quick bread would be like. The answer? Delicious! Try this! It is soft and moist, yet it still maintains that great bread-y flavor like a normal loaf of bread.

Also, this morning I learned that the dining hall milk really isn’t all that good. It tastes really metal-y. The milk I brought from home was 1000x better. Who knew?

My morning workout was weights. I am starting to like this version of weights a little more. I just need to try and make the most out of my workout. I haven’t really been that sore from these workouts. I want to try to lift a little bit on my own just for my own enjoyment and sanity (Sore? Yes please!) but it is super difficult to find the time. There are certain hours that the gym is completely busy, and I have no hope of getting on a bar. Last quarter my classes started later than most, so I could go when everyone was in class. This quarter, not so much. I guess I just need to try and find a new less busy time. I wonder if I will be sore tomorrow from today. We had 3×50 squats with a bar. I wasn’t sore after 2×40 last time so we shall see. If I’m not, I definitely need to add some weight.

After weights, they provide us with protein shakes (if we want them). People always grab them, so today I decided to try one, with the full intention of drinking a few sips and throwing it away (I had bigger and better plans for my post workout recovery drink!).

My evaluation? It was…weird. Very unnatural. It only had 4g of sugar, yet it was very sweet. Which means fake sugar. And fake sugar almost always has a weird taste. So I tossed it. Yes, I know, very wasteful. I have interesting views on protein shakes. In theory, I like the idea of a homemade (the store bought ones are weird in my opinion) protein shake because it makes me feel like an athlete. On the other hand, I’ve learned from various nutrition experts that we really don’t need that much more protein after a workout, so I usually just drink milk, eat yogurt, or eat my normal meal. However, I am dying to try my new chocolate protein powder. It was literally the only kind I could find without Stevia, just because I really don’t like the flavor of Stevia. It’s not whey protein though, I think it’s hemp and flax. Plus it has added greens for antioxidants or something but I doubt that whatever dried and ground up vegetable will really help me that much. My plans for it? Milk+protein powder+frozen banana+peanut butter. I have a banana I need to freeze too. I’m thinking maybe this Thursday after our hard erg workout.

ANYWAY, back to my day. Normally after weights we have a timed run (roughly 4 miles). It was cancelled today. I planned on doing it anyway, but it was freezing this morning (actually, it was 31) and that is just too cold for me, so I decided to compromise and go on an easy 2 miler. My legs were so numb! My timed runs are going to be so much faster when it warms up! So what was my recovery drink of choice?

Homemade hot chocolate! This is the perfect post workout recovery drink. What’s in it?

Post-Workout Recovery Drink (Chocolate)

Fill a mug with about a cup of milk, and stir in 2 spoonfuls of unsweetened cocoa powder. Microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir well, until cocoa is blended. If not hot enough, microwave for additional time to reach your desired temperature. Then, stir in a spoonful of brown rice syrup, or other glucose source (corn syrup, dextrose). Add honey to taste.

This is definitely not sweet. I added a dash of honey to give it a little sweetness, but not very much. This drink is very basic and easy to make, and contains protein and glucose (see why this is important here) to refuel your body. This doubles as chocolate milk. I used to make a big saucepan of it, and then just refrigerate it to drink on other days. However, today was freezing, and I wanted something hot!

I also snacked on some pistachios.

As I got ready for the day, my exercise high wore off and I realized how tired I was. I didn’t think I’d be able to make it through an OChem lecture without a little help….But here’s the thing. I am definitely not a coffee drinker. I really don’t like it. Call me crazy. It’s certainly an acquired taste, and after a full quarter of 5:45 am practices every morning, I adjusted well enough to it. But it’s been a while. Some people sip their coffee. I prefer the chugging method.

As you may notice, the portion size is pretty small. I dumped an entire pack of instant coffee into a small amount of heated unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I figure if I don’t like it anyway, might as well make it go down faster. It also doesn’t take a lot of coffee to wake me up since I hardly ever drink it. Normally I would only have half a cup at most, but the instant coffee isn’t very strong. Some may suggest, oh, why don’t you add sweetener to you coffee? You’d probably like it better. Well, you, I almost certainly would like it better. But I still won’t like it, so why waste the sugar? Ok, enough on my coffee tangent. It got the job done.

Lunch was a salad with cheese, strawberries, and apple, a cold brussels sprout and tomato salad (so good!), a few carrots, teriyaki chicken, plus a bean and grain mixture. I tried to hit all my main food groups: cooked veggies (more available nutrients), raw veggies (slows digestion), protein, slow digesting carbs (the beans), and healthy fat (olive oil in the salad dressing). I’m trying to be better about this! I also had a few pieces of fruit.

After an afternoon of classes, I ate and apple and then headed out to the water to enjoy a freezing practice. Seriously. I had 4 layers on my arms, plus insulated spandex pants. The problem was, as my body started warming up, the temperature kept dropping. I had so many layers on I could barely move! Finally towards the end I dropped my outer jacket, but still! I hope it warms up soon! These have definitely been multiple jacket days.

For dinner, I brought my leftover half avocado to the dining hall and added it on top of this salad:

Greens, tomato, olives, mushrooms, and italian dressing. I also had a little of the prepared salad, which was spinach and onions in a sweet-ish dressing. The dining hall is pretty dependable in always having decent grilled chicken, but the line takes forever, and it was just too long today for me to deal with, so I topped my salad with Thai barbecue chicken. It’s fattier, but definitely faster! I also had a piece of a breadstick because they looked amazing, and polenta. Dessert? Half a whole wheat english muffin.

This no sugar challenge hasn’t actually been all that hard for me. I’ve gone off sugar a few times before, and now this is by far the easiest it has been. Normally the cravings are terrible for the first 3 or 4 days, and here I am on day 3! Partly, I’m not at home where there is a ridiculous amount of sweets, but I think this blog definitely has helped! When I know sweets aren’t even an option, I don’t really think about eating them. WHen people offer me sweets, I just say no without thinking twice. I am confident I can finish out this challenge! Who’s with me?

I really need to go to bed early tonight. I am seriously dreading tomorrow morning. And it really is my fault. I have to leave at 5:45 to do my morning erg (it’s an on my own erg) because I want to finish it in time to make a 7 am spin class. This is really one of the only times I can go to spin in the week, so I want to make it. The problem? We also have a 30 minute run (SO COLD. But still better than the treadmill…), so I get to get my butt out of bed super early, then erg, spin, and run. Yayy. Hopefully you guys can get a good night’s sleep for me!

How do you feel about morning workouts?

Challenge Day 2

Date: January 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone’s weekends were fabulous! I personally had a great day. Why? I got see to my kitties again!

That’s Charlie! He’s the biggest sweetie! He purred in my bed all night! For some reason last night I kept thinking about vanilla protein powder…I must have had a strange dream!

A sleepy purring cat led to my 3rd nap in as many days. Because who can stay awake with all that going on?

As I was packing up my stuff to go back to school, he became even purrier. He’s trying to convince me to stay!

And of course the playful kitty, Lilly.

Ok, now on to the good stuff! Last night I had dinner with one of my high school friends. It was really nice to catch up and introduce her to everyone here!

Mixed greens salad, green beans, curry cauliflower, lentils, and a little bit of thai chicken. The cauliflower was actually really good! Normally I find cauliflower too boring or bland! I also had a few pieces of melon and a slice of cinnamon raisin bread with smart balance. That stuff is actually going to save my on my no sugar challenge! The bread is sooo good and definitely not sugary! After dinner and introducing my friend to my dorm, I went home to visit my kitties. At home, I snacked on pita chips with peanut butter and blueberries, as well as artichoke dip. I had really wanted to try eating popcorn with Nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. Why? I had just listened to a Nutrition Diva podcast on nutritional yeast, and it recommended putting it on popcorn as a healthy cheesy alternative. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any popcorn! How is that possible? We even had nutritional yeast! Ah well. You can’t win them all. At home, I caught up on Castle (love that show!).

What shows do you watch? Any suggestions? I love mysteries, but I also love How I Met Your Mother.

After a night of purry cat and protein powder filled dreams, I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Breakfast?

Whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and butter and an egg, which I made in the microwave. If it isn’t obvious enough by its square shape. Plus tons of blueberries and raspberries. Yum! I also had a little bit of shredded wheat cereal to eat with peanut butter and berries. I love the combo of peanut butter and blueberries on bread because it reminds me of healthy pb and j. I used to be completely obsessed with pb and j. I would have it every singe day. Ohh how times have changed. After breakfast, I headed to my home gym for a Spin class with one of my favorite instructors. I did a quick set of abs on a Bosu ball beforehand. The class was awesome, as usual. After class, I rolled my legs out a little with a pipe, and then did a quick 20 minute piece on the rowing machine. (For future reference, I’m going to refer to the rowing machine as an erg, for those of you unfamiliar with the term. I’m getting tired of writing out ‘rowing machine’!) I’ve felt better about my erg pieces lately. For the last month or so I don’t think I’ve been using my legs as much, and instead, I’ve been pulling more with my arms. The last couple of times I’ve really focusing on feeling the burn in my legs though, and my times (pace) are returning more to normal. As it turns out, pulling with your arms creates a lot less power.

For lunch, I snacked on some barbecue baked potato chips from Trader Joe’s.

I haven’t had chips in the longest time, and these were seriously addicting!

For lunch I made myself a smoothie and a salad.

Now it may not be normal to top a smoothie with peanut butter, but it’s seriously delicious, and you should all try it. Like now. My smoothie included frozen cherries, blackberries, mango, and banana, plus greek yogurt and milk. My salad was pretty basic. Lettuce and garlic roasted almond, with Trader Joe’s Spicy Peanut dressing. This salad is 1000x better with avocado (because what really isn’t better with avocado?), but there was no avocado at home because I stole them all for school (all mine! hee hee). At the end of my meal, the peanut butter jar was almost empty, so I naturally had to take care of it. I heated up some frozen blueberries until they were warm, juicy, and delicious, and added them to the jar. Yum! After lunch, I had a minor sugar craving. Not exactly a sugar craving, but more like a feeling that I needed dessert after my meal. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen, seeing as I’m doing a 30 day sugar challenge! Instead, I enjoyed some Ghiradelli baker’s chocolate with nuts and dried fruit. For those of you that are unfamiliar with baker’s chocolate, it is just unsweetened chocolate used for cooking. Warning: this is not for everyone. I happen to love super dark chocolate, so this ends up being delicious to me. Especially with some salted cashews. Which we did not have. Oh well. Still good. After lunch I did some work, then bid goodbye to my cats (wow, I already sound like a crazy cat lady) and headed back to school in time for dinner. The best part about dinner? I managed to snag some bananas on my way out. Score! It’s the little things in life guys. Dinner was predictable for a Sunday night. Meals on weekends are generally pretty predictable.

A spring roll, whole wheat mushroom pot stickers, a shrimp dumpling, and brown rice, topped with sweet and sour sauce. For some reason there never is any soy sauce…Plus a baby salad on the side. Dessert? I really should put that in quotes.

Fruit plus half of a buttered english muffin.

So, today I was pondering my nutrition. I know a ton about nutrition, but I haven’t really applied it much lately. For the most part, I am eating fairly healthy foods, but I don’t think I am optimizing the ratios. One fantastic thing about this blog is it makes it insanely easy to reflect on my nutrition. A picture is worth 1000 words, right?

I’ve been thinking about my goals for rowing. Obviously, I want to get faster. And let’s be honest, all those Christmas cookies didn’t help this! Nutrition is such a powerful tool when it comes to improving. So what are my goals for the week? First, of course, is my no sugar challenge. This takes precedence over any thing else. At all. Second, I want to work on optimizing my nutrition for performance. How? Well, I’m going to get into a little bit of what I learned in my nutrition class last quarter. Disclaimer: I am not a registered dietician, and I am certainly not telling anyone to cut out carbs!

Carbohydrates are fuel. Glucose, in particular, is used by the muscles in our bodies, as well as by the brain. It’s possible to survive without carbohydrates, such as with the Atkins diet, but it’s not ideal, as it sends a body into a state of ketosis, which I’m not going to get into right now. Anyway, we really need carbs to fuel exercise, but we need them even more to fuel our brains. Muscles can store glucose, but the brain cannot. For this reason, a reasonably frequent supply (as in, roughly every meal) of glucose is beneficial. However, what happens if you ingest a ton of glucose at once? The cells that process glucose and turn it into energy can only process a certain amount per minute. In addition, carbohydrates store 4x their weight in water (ever felt bloated after a huge plate of pasta? this is why). So, if these glucose processing cells were to take in the huge load of carbohydrate that has been ingested, the cell would swell with water and most likely burst. To protect themselves from this, these cells will shut down and not take in sugar to process if the load of sugar coming in is too large. As a result, the glucose cannot be processed and turned into energy, and instead will converted into triglycerides, or fat. In addition, this effect takes some time to go away. After a carb heavy meal, your body may crave more carbs later on, because the carbs you ingested were not used as fuel. Does this sound familiar? After a huge carb heavy meal, you are hungry and crave carbs later in the day? However, depending on the carb load or amount of time since the carb load, the cells may still be in this state and unable to take in glucose. So this really is a lose-lose.

So as a person eats carbohydrates, the said person is fueling her body. As a person continues to eat carbohydrates, at some point, the person will stop fueling the body and in turn, shut down the process of fueling the body. See the problem here? Carbohydrates are important to refuel from exercise, or to eat for energy, but after a point, too many will actually not fuel muscles. So if I am trying to recover from a hard workout, I don’t want to overload on glucose, and therefore not refuel my muscles at all. So what is this magic point? It’s different for everyone. And unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no great way to tell when one is at this point. However, the body can process glucose much faster after exercise, which is why it is important to eat as soon as possible after exercise. After an intense workout, the first 5 minutes are important because that is when the glucose processing is the fastest. See why I love Biochem?

So what is the best thing to do? Eat slow digesting carbs. Or better yet, eat some veggies with your carbs. Raw vegetables significantly slow the digestion of carbs, which will slow the rate of glucose entering the cells. In terms of carbs that digest more slowly on their own, beans digest slowly. Coarse grains digest slowly as well. the course the grain, the slower the digestion rate. For example, steel cut oats digest more slowly than whole wheat bread. European style bread is a great course-grain bread (plus it’s delicious!) However, the raw vegetables digest the most slowly of all, so that is the best option. With slow digesting carbs, you can fuel your brain and body for hours after eating.

Don’t like this idea? Another option is try eating more frequent and smaller portions of carbohydrates. For example, split your sandwich into 2 meals, early and late lunch.

If I sound completely crazy to you, and you don’t buy any of this, I swear it’s straight from my class, so don’t shoot the messenger. Want more? Check out this website. http://www.drclydewilson.com/

I bought the nutrition books, and they are the best and most inclusive of the nutrition books I’ve read. I highly recommend them if you are interested in learning more!

Wow, that was a long tangent! So if you’re still with me after all that Biochem, how does this relate to me and my performance? I’m pretty sure I’ve been overloading on the carbs lately. I believe my professor recommended a serving of carbs the size or your palm for each salad you eat. So my goal for this week is to stick to that and see what happens!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into the world of Biochemistry! I had a ton of fun reviewing what I learned last quarter. That was by far my favorite class I have ever taken. Have you ever loved something so much you have wanted to cry? That was actually me in that class. No joke. That class more than confirmed that I know what the heck I want to do with my life. Especially sugar metabolism, that’s my favorite! 🙂

How much do you want to learn about nutrition? Do you want me to go more into Biochem topics and metabolism?

Feedback would be much appreciated!

Challenge Accepted

Date: January 13, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! I’m posting a little earlier today because I’m going out to dinner with my friend, then heading home to visit my cats, so I’m not sure how much opportunity I’ll have later to post. I just deleted all the pictures of my meals on my phone so if someone happens to look through my pictures, they won’t know just how food crazy I am.

This morning, I had practice at 7:30. Well, sort of. I wasn’t on the water yet again, because the awkward number of people we had. Instead, I got to have the pleasure of timing all the boats. I got about 4 seconds of action in the more than 3 hours that the boats were on the water and it was FREEZING. Luckily, I had good enough sense to grab my iPod halfway through to listen to nutrition podcasts, but at least I had some time for reflection.

Before practice, here’s what I ate:

A thawed quinoa breakfast bake and an orange. I got the recipe for the bake from Whole Foods. You can find it here. It’s still good 6 months later!

After freezing through practice, I had a cinnamon raisin bagel because my coach brought bagels for the team. It was a really good bagel, nice and chewy! As soon as we got back, I rushed to brunch (it was almost 1 at this point) even though I had just eaten a bagel because Saturday brunches are probably my favorite meal of the week. Why? One reason. AVOCADO. Saturday brunches have Mexican food, and included in that is mashed up avocado. SO GOOD.

I normally make my Mexican food into a salad, as I did today. I figured I probably needed some veggies and protein to round out my meal anyway! At the end of my meal I wanted something sweet so instead of a waffle, I reached for a piece of whole wheat bread with blueberry cream cheese and peanut butter.

After some work on a group project, I was ready for my second nap in 2 days. I may not have gone to bed as early as I should have last night. When I woke up, I had the hugest mug brownie craving. I tried healthy mug brownie take 2, this time with a different proportion of ingredients. I added less yogurt and more brownie mix, and it tasted more like the real thing.

Probably because it was more like the real thing. Ugh. After that, I decided that the best way to use the brownie mix in a healthy way was to get it the heck out of my room. After all, it’s been open in my room for over a month, and I had picked quite a few of the chocolate chips out, and let’s be honest. Way too dangerous. Plus, if I want brownies, I’m better off baking a full batch and sharing them because they’re way better when made for real. However, I decided to get the last few chocolate chips out, and discover that brownie mix+plain greek yogurt+cocoa powder=deliciousness. After that, I had a few frozen cherries to get some decent food in my system. I decided to forgo my workout for today and just do it tomorrow because brownie+rowing machine would not be a good combination. This led my to the main topic of today’s post. I spent some time today exploring other food blogs, and I came across a post on fitcupcaker about a 30 day no sugar challenge. I’ve done a few no-sugar challenges, and my biggest success was 3 weeks. Ever since the holidays, I’ve been indulging in my sweet tooth a little bit too often, so I decided this was a great time to do the challenge. I counted out the days on my calendar, and it ends on my sister’s birthday, which is perfect because I can enjoy cake on her birthday to celebrate my (hopefully) achievement (well, and her birthday). One thing I love about challenges like this is that they inspire creativity. If I have a sweet craving, I have the challenge to find a healthier way to satisfy it. (Hint: 2 great ways: nut butter and baked apples). I’ve never blogged about a no sugar challenge, and I’m super excited to start. Hopefully the encouragement will help me, and hopefully I can inspire you! And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to do some posts on sugar during this time, as it is one of my absolute favorite topics in science. Want some inspiration? One of my favorite videos: Sugar:The Bitter Truth, by Dr. Robert Lustig. Enjoy! My motivation? Dr. Lustig’s new book, “Fat Chance.” I absolutely cannot wait to read it!

Would you ever do a no sugar challenge?

Happy Friday!

What was my first thing on the agenda after classes today? A 2 hour nap! It was glorious.

I was up bright (well no, it wasn’t actually light out yet) and early for weights. Beforehand, I had some Sweet Potato bread that I pulled out of the freezer the night before to thaw. I think I made this sometime in the fall. Ohh modern conveniences. You can find the recipe I used here. I stumbled across it on Healthy Food For Living a while ago, and I’ve made it a couple of times. This time, I reduced the white sugar to 1/4 c honey instead and it turned out great! I love low sugar recipes!

I drank some milk to go with this.

I enjoyed weights this morning a little more than last time. I think the workout was shorter, so I actually had time to finish without being super rushed through. We did power cleans today, which I was excited about. The trainer instantly knew I had done them before. 🙂 However, I had a minor embarrassment when I went to add more weight to the bar. I’m used to adding 25 lbs to each side and easily be able to do the exercise, but here, the plates are in kilograms. Which I forgot. And I added 25 kilograms to each side. I realized as soon as I picked the bar up, so it’s not like I actually tried to clean it, but still embarrassing. Other than that, the workout went well. After weights, we do a timed run of a loop of the campus. I finished in 36:16, slower than last time. My legs were more burned out last time, but I think I had more difficulty today because it was about 34 degrees out (according to weather.com) and I had a lot of trouble loosening up my muscles. Plus, I ran the loop the other direction than I normally do. It shouldn’t really make a difference, but who knows.

I didn’t get any pictures of breakfast because I went straight from my run, but I had a smoothie with banana, blueberries, peaches, mango, and strawberries. Plus milk and plain yogurt. One thing I love about smoothies is that I can make a different kind each day, and it almost always turns out well. My smoothies entirely depend on the fruit available at the dining hall, so that is kind of important. I topped it with a bit of peanut butter. On the side, I enjoyed half a whole wheat english muffin topped with cream cheese and scrambled eggs. Also, the dining hall had interesting fruit today. Kumquats and fresh blueberries. I had to get a few kumquats because, well, it’s KUMQUATS in the DINING HALL. I made the mistake again (I did this on Monday too) of sitting down to eat immediately after my run. The problem? My knees tightened up and I couldn’t walk very well for a minute after standing up. This is probably bad for me. I definitely don’t want any knee problems when I’m older. After breakfast I rolled out the muscles around my knees my a PVC pipe. It felt amazing. Lately, I’ve only rolled out with foam rollers because they are what is available at the gym/practice, but they don’t do a lot for me in comparison to the pipe.

Today was sooo cold. I wore 2 jackets, plus gloves. As it turns out, my hands get so cold when I bike, so gloves are a must. I was really tired today. I could barely keep my eyes open for half of my Chem class, but halfway through I got my second wind and powered through that plus Math. Then, lunchtime!

Mixed greens salad with tomato and mozzarella, apricot glazed chicken, brown rice pilaf, and a stuffed portabella mushroom. I love that the rice pilaf is made with brown rice. Everything was delicious. The chicken was the best I’ve had in a while. It was moist and flavorful. The mushroom was awesome as well. I’m not exactly sure what it was stuffed with.

I was super tempted to grab dessert, but luckily I got distracted by a text from my friend. When I finished texting, my craving was gone.

After lunch, I went back to my room for and amazing and much needed nap. For some reason, whenever I wake up, either in the morning or from a nap, my first instinct is to eat. Interesting. I had a granola bar.

As well as frozen cherries, and the tail end of my oatmeal and crackers with peanut butter. Today, again, I dressed for practice with the mission of not getting cold. Well, once again, I succeeded, because I wasn’t on the water. We were missing a few people today because they had dorm ski trips, so there weren’t enough people to make up my boat. Instead, I got to row on a rowing machine inside. My workout was 2×20 minutes on the rowing machine, and then 30 minutes on a spin bike. I was actually happy to be on the rowing machine. I had a couple of technique things I wanted to work on, and I wanted to work on putting more power in my legs, so this was the perfect opportunity to do just that. I was satisfied with my workout. Unfortunately, I was not prepared to work out inside. I didn’t have my iPod, but luckily I did have my phone which I was able to blast (well, as loud as an iPhone can blast). I’ve learned that I can’t listen to music on long rows. I just get too bored. Instead, I listen to health podcasts. Lately, I’ve been on a series called Nutrition Diva’s Quick and Dirty Tips. I really like it because it consists of 5-8 minute long segments, each about a different nutrition topic. The variety keeps it interesting.

The only thing about my workout was, well, remember how I dressed to survive a blizzard? That was what I got to work out in. I had my warm spandex pants, plus 2 long sleeves. I ditched one of the long sleeves, but still, I couldn’t exactly work out in my underwear. The experience kind of reminded me about a part in Seabiscuit (my team read this over break) that describes what the jockeys have to go through to make weight. They used to pile on warm clothes and run around a track to sweat the weight off. Yep, that was me right there. I didn’t feel super heated, but I was sweating buckets.

Tonight, I started my initiative of making more dinners in my room. Almost all the ingredients I had on hand, and the rest I took back from the dining hall yesterday.

I had an egg scramble with egg beaters that I had on hand, spinach and mozzarella from the dining hall, avocado which I had on hand (I get my hands on it anytime I have an opportunity), and pesto, which my roommate got from Costco a little while ago. On the side was a sweet potato.

Pesto is awesome! You can add it to almost anything and it will make it better!

This meal was entirely made in the microwave. Most of the ingredients are staples. There is no reason not to make a healthy meal when it is this easy! I challenge you to come up with one thing you can’t cook in the microwave! Well, I don’t know about meat, but hey, it might work!

Speaking of things made in the microwave, I believe I’ve mentioned before that you can make brownies in the microwave with brownie mix plus the add ins (eggs, canola oil, water). This was a very dangerous discovery, considering I have a Costco pack of Ghiradelli brownie mix in my dorm room (it was left over from a class project). I was craving something warm, chocolatey, and cakey after dinner. However, I usually feel pretty gross after eating a whole mug brownie. I thought to myself, there has to be a way of making this healthier. I may have mentioned this before, but one time I tried to make a freeform healthy chocolate brownie by throwing ingredients in a mug and microwaving them. Healthy, it was. And it certainly tasted healthy….to say the least. Well, this time I decided to use the brownie mix as a base. I started by mashing up half a banana and microwaving it until it was nice and soft. I stirred that up with some plain greek yogurt, cocoa powder, egg whites, and some of the brownie mix. Not a ton of the brownie mix though. Then, I stirred in some pieces of my 99% chocolate (because I may have picked out some of the chocolate chips from the mix a while back…), and popped it in the microwave with my fingers crossed.

The result?

It was good but not spectacular. It was more of a protein-y souffle, and it wasn’t that sweet (which was probably good). It had a very strong dark chocolate flavor, which was amplified by the addition of greek yogurt. I ended up eating it with some peanut butter, and it was tasty. The good news? I didn’t feel super sugared out or gross after! So I guess it truly was healthy!

Ok, that’s enough from me tonight. Time to go be social like all the other college students without a blog to maintain!

My Secret Dream

Date: January 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Can you believe it is already Thursday? I don’t seem to have any concept of days this week, with my new schedule and everything. There are definitely some kinks to be worked out. In case you’re wondering how my little sugar experiment went, I slept really, really well last night, and felt much more alert and awake during the day. It’s funny what an effect a little sugar can have on your body, in ways you would never think of.

This morning, I survived my tough workout, stomach contents and all! It was tough but doable. The goal times my coach gave me really helped me pace myself, yet push myself at the same time. The workout was on the rowing machine, 250m, 2500m, 750m, and 5000m, all a basically max effort. I didn’t eat much beforehand, just a few bites of leftover banana oatmeal. This was about right given the workout. Afterwards, I was ready for a real meal! Some people don’t feel like eating after a hard workout, but I’m always driven toward food. Even if I don’t feel well, it is like my body knows that food will replenish me.

Here’s breakfast:

A peach-watermelon smoothie. Hey, I have to go with what is available to me, right? And it was good too! This year I learned that watermelon can make an awesome addition to a smoothie. Another smoothie I like that I haven’t made in a while is blackberry-watermelon. Yum! I added some peanut butter to top my smoothie as well. On the plate is a chocolate chip pancake, plus half a whole wheat english muffin with a bit of cream cheese and scrambled eggs with mozzarella and green onions. I also went back for another chocolate chip pancake because, well, I deserved it after that workout!

For lunch, I went to a sustainability event that had food. It was basically to raise awareness of the sustainability efforts that go into the dining here. There was even a bike powered blender!

Some type of turkey sandwich on ciabatta (I ate it open faced because it was too dry otherwise), a salad with apples and cranberries, and yogurt with granola and fruit. The yogurt was so good; it reminded me of frozen yogurt! I had to grab an actual serving of it.

What a beautiful parfait! I forgot how good pineapple is in yogurt!

After lunch, I headed to my Animal Behavior class (which I absolutely love), which is soooo far away. I also realized that wind really does play a big role when one is biking. I felt like I wasn’t moving at all as I rode into it!

After class, I snacked on frozen cherries and a protein bar from the other day. Frozen fruit is such a good snack, especially since I have a full freezer! I also had a handful of trail mix from the other day.

I got super bundled up for practice, as it was super cold out! I decided to make it my goal to not be cold during practice. I had 2 long sleeves plus 2 sweatshirts! Well, I wasn’t cold; practice was cancelled due to excessively windy conditions. This has never happened before. We have rowed in all kinds of weather, including rainstorms, so it must have been pretty crazy out for it to merit canceling practice. Instead, we had 75 minutes of cross training assigned. I convinced myself to do 20 minutes of it on the rowing machine, even though I had a tough workout this morning, just to break up the monotony. We aren’t allowed many options besides spinning, rowing, and running, and I have to run tomorrow anyway. One thing I miss with this new schedule is having freedom in my workouts. I miss lifting weights in the way I am used to doing it, and I miss circuit and ab workouts. The problem is, I don’t have the time or energy for them with everything else I have to do. But I do love rowing, so it’s a tradeoff. I was thinking about going to a spin class today, but I couldn’t get the timing to work out with the specifics of our assigned workout, so I decided to make a pumping spin class of my own. I love spin classes, and I have a secret dream of one day becoming a spin instructor. I have no idea how to do that though. Maybe something to look into this summer? Anyway, here’s a rough outline of the workout I made myself. The numbers indicate the number of songs for each section (make an awesome playlist like I did!):

2 warm up

3 hill

2 downhill

3 flat road

4 hill

1 downhill

2 flat road

1 cool down

It was a good workout, and pretty fun too. I was definitely working hard! After I finished my workout, I went to the dining hall for dinner.

Mixed greens with olives, corn, and a few pieces of zucchini, topped with champagne vinaigrette. I also had grilled chicken, brown rice, and some type of white beans. Plus ketchup on the side!

For dessert I had a bowl of cocoa puffs with peanut butter and chocolate milk. I just can’t lay off the chocolate peanut butter!

After dinner I went to a career fair where I sampled half of a chocolate chip cookie and half of an oatmeal raisin cookie. Fun fact: I don’t really like the chocolate chip cookies here. In fact, I am not a big fan of chocolate chip cookies unless they’re homemade (not that I don’t still eat them). I really like the oatmeal raisin cookies at the dining hall. They’re not as spiced, and are pretty vanilla-y. Yum! When I returned to my dorm, I could tell my sweet tooth was still running rampant. In an effort to limit the damage, I had my last Special K peanut butter chocolate granola bar from training camp, plus a piece of chocolate. I think that did the trick well enough.

I want to briefly touch on the nature of this blog. One thing I really want to maintain in this blog is positiveness. Many of the blogs I ready are super enthusiastic and positive, and I want to maintain that in this blog. Sure, life may not always be perfect, but a negative attitude doesn’t help anyone. It is really easy to type up a rant and post it, without thinking about the impact. I’m not saying I want to be dishonest with you guys, not at all. I’m saying I want to truly be positive. I am in general a very positive person, but everyone gets angry at themselves sometimes. I definitely don’t want this blog to be a place where all I do is complain, because let’s be honest, my life is pretty freaking great.

All that being said, I don’t feel like what I am eating fully fits into the definition of a healthy lifestyle. After all, I love nutrition, and I want to share that knowledge with you guys, but I also what that knowledge to be reflected in my meals. The best way to teach is through example, right? I am truly going to work hard to maintain my healthy ways, and improve in areas that need work. For example, I want to make a better effort to remember to take my vitamins. (Ok, maybe that’s not totally related but I needed to remind myself of that.)

Ok, now that all that seriousness is out of the way, guess what I saw tonight? A cat. I’ve seen this one a few times, but never so close to my dorm. I was walking back to my dorm when I heard meowing. Naturally, my ears perked up. This cat is such a sweetie. I felt so bad because it was FREEZING out. And I know I shouldn’t take it into my room because it probably has a home, and maybe that’s not something I should spring on my roommate, but I was definitely tempted.

This picture is from last time, when it was actually light out. Have I mentioned I love cats?

A girl on my team hates cats, which in her case I can actually understand. Apparently she had a pet mouse that she brought to school for show and tell, and there was a class cat there, and well, you can infer the rest…

Before I leave here today, I want to end with something super interesting I learned in animal behavior today. Apparently, it is impossible to teach an animal to do something 100% of the time, because the animals’ brains are essentially programmed to check if anything has changed. The only way to get an animal to display a certain behavior 100% of the time is if when training the animal, after the animal has learned that it will get a reward for the behavior, only give the animal a reward intermittently. For example, if training a dog to bring you the newspaper, at first you give the dog a treat every time it brings the newspaper until it has learned this behavior, and then only give the dog a treat some of the time when it brings the newspaper. Although the relation to health may not be immediately apparent, bear with me, I promise I’ll make sense. Animals are more likely to do a command if instead of getting a small reward every time, they get a huge reward occasionally. Now this may be a stretch, but I’m going to connect his to the studies that have shown that mice who are restricted from sugar for a period gorge on sugar when they are exposed to it again, as opposed to the mice who have constant access to sugar who don’t do this. So why am I bringing this up? It directly relates to addiction, or more relevant to health, food addiction. We really are not that different from animals, so we can connect these behaviors to ourselves. The very nature of these behaviors is the underlying cause (ok, this is definitely an exaggeration) of binge eating. A huge reward some of the time, and nothing the rest of the time? Does this sound anything like binge eating to you? It’s so interesting the way our brains work, and the effects they have on our behaviors. If that connection doesn’t make sense to you, I’m probably making a big stretch, but that seemed like an “aha” moment at the time for me.

Happy eating!