Monthly Archives: April 2013

Do it For Boston

Date: April 16, 2013

Author: astottler

I am deeply saddened by the events that transpired today in Boston. My heart goes out to all the people affected by this tragic and truly senseless act of violence.

Although I don’t know anyone running the marathon, this hit close to home. I feel like I am part of such a community of other healthy living bloggers, and many of them are runners. Just last night I was reading about a woman who had run in several Boston marathons. This could have been any one of us. We should all count our blessings for our good health. It especially pains me that some of the fittest people in the world are affected. Can you even imagine putting all the work into training for a marathon, and then losing your legs? This is a truly horrific tragedy.

I am running a half marathon this summer, and I want to dedicate it to all the victims of the Boston bombings, as well as those whose loved ones were effected, or who had to witness this. I am doing it for Boston.

My Nutrition Philosophy and Why I Can’t Follow It

Date: April 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Today’s post is going to be a little different. Plus, no exciting eats today. But take a moment to appreciate this.

I have like 8 mangos and I’m still thinking it’s not enough. Heehee.

Let’s talk Nutrition. It is a love of mine, although maybe it hasn’t gotten so much love lately. I haven’t really talked about my views on Nutrition much, and I have to say, my own eating certainly doesn’t represent my Nutrition beliefs.

Here are my 2 favorite Nutrition books, and believe me, I’ve read a ton. Now that I have a fairly formed belief system, I find it kind of amusing to read some of the books now. That being said, there is no one ideal diet that works for everyone.

This book a Nutritionist recommended to me. I ordered and read it immediately. Bonus: there is an app with all the recipes. My personal favorite is the granola bars.

Also though, the Chocolate Lush saved me when I was stupid enough watch cupcake wars after getting my wisdom teeth out. It is basically warm, gooey chocolate cake. It was painful, but so, so worth it.

The second is this book:

This is the iBook form, I lent my roommate my hard copy. The author was actually my professor for my Nutrition class Fall quarter, although I had already read the book! This is my all time favorite Nutrition book. It is the most comprehensive and easy to understand, and it is very thorough.

So what have I learned from all this?

Aurora’s Nutrition Philosophy:

1. We really don’t know anything about Nutrition. This is an exaggeration, but there simply isn’t enough data to actually know anything for sure. New studies come out all the time. It is fairly easy to manipulate a study to show the intended result (soda companies fund some studies). We don’t know enough about how the human body works at a more complex level to know, for example, whether you get the same benefits from taking vitamins as from eating them in food. Our knowledge is constantly changing, conveniently for the fad diet companies…

2. If possible, try to have a fat, a carb, and a protein, plus fruit or veggies at every meal.

3. Carbs are absolutely necessary for Post-exercise recovery, not just protein.

4. Sugar….let’s not get me started on it. Let’s just say it is not terribly good for you…

5. Fad diets never work. Crash diets never work. You know how they say if you starve yourself, you will lose muscle weight as well as fat? And fat comes back faster than muscle? I had some first hand experience with that. When I was sick, for a good 2 weeks I hardly ate anything (because I felt terrible). I lost weight, including a ton of muscle. And guess what came back right away? The flab. And now the muscle is finally coming back…

6. Whole grains are better than white ones.

7. Avoid saturated fats (eat healthy fats, especially those Omega-3s).

8. More research needs to be done on Nutrition. This is where I come in 🙂

Random picture because I had a ton of words…have you guys tried this stuff? It’s delish 🙂 I just wish almond milk had more than like 1g of protein…

So why can’t I follow my own Nutrition guidelines?

1. Food tastes good. Oops…

2. Eating nuts makes my skin go crazy…so getting healthy fats in can be more of a challenge. And let’s be honest. I’ve basically been getting strictly Sunflower seed butter as my healthy fats as of late. Mix it up!

3. Grains seems to make me fall asleep….Not sure why, and not sure what grains specifically, or all, but that kind of complicates matters.

4. I may be addicted to sugar, hence avoiding it/not eating too much is a bit of an issue.

5. I swear normally I am better with my nutrition…not sure what happened…

6. Sometimes I try to do too much and it all backfires.

If you guys haven’t noticed, I’ve been seriously searching for my Nutrition as of late…And since you guys haven’t seen any cat photos in a while (I’ve been back less than 2 weeks, so I guess it really can’t have been THAT long…), here you go!

What is she doing?

Ohhh cats.

What is your Nutrition Philosophy?

Running Musings

Date: April 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Today started off right, with an on-my-own Crossfit workout! I started by working on my cleans and deadlifts for 30 minutes before I moved on to me WOD. I didn’t max out either lift. One thing about lifting on my own is I could easily be getting into bad habits. I’m having a ton of trouble getting my elbows up on the cleans. The WOD was courtesy of Tina’s blog. It consisted of a 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 rep of Bear Complex and burpees, with a prescribed weight of 55 pounds. A bear complex is a clean, front squat, push press, back squat, and then back push press. I knew going in the behind the head push press was going to be the limiting factor. I started at 55, but the second round I dropped to 50, and then 45 for the rest of the workout out. I was surprised I got as far as I did with the heavier bar though. It was a little weird because everything felt super light except the back push press, which I was seriously struggling with. Either way, it was an awesome workout, and I will definitely be feeling it in my shoulders tomorrow!

Breakfast was a smoothie with the random fruit the dining hall had out (after waiting for a while). They were out of fruit for a while, and never restocked the frozen fruit. Annoying! My smoothie included strawberries, apple, and soymilk. It was ok.

Today was absolutely beautiful out. Sorry to all you guys who are experiencing snow/rainstorms right now!

I had a quick lunch at the bookstore.

Minus the bread though. I couldn’t afford to fall asleep in Chem (again-ish). The difference I felt between sitting in class today, with no bread in my system, was like night and day between how I felt Monday. I felt amazing and alert. I’ve felt great and happy all day. Maybe it is the weather, or maybe it’s my super clean eating. I don’t know. Either way, yay!

I had to break out the new sunglasses!

Sorry for the lack of smile. I was in a VERY public place…

I wore them a bit before realizing something was off…

Whoops…

I love these new sunglasses. While I have been known to rock the neon green shades, they simply don’t stay on my face very well…

Exhibit A. (Me and my sis in Santa Barbara 2 years ago! Also note the bash on my shin from box jumps…)

Exhibit B. (End of Senior year.)

Where was I? Outside in the plaza, there was a mariachi band playing.

Also, can I just say there are a lot of tourists this time of year? It’s difficult not to run them over. Meh.

I arrived at Chem early so I sat in the shade of a tree. I overheard some guy talking at the next table about the tons of caterpillars that fall from the tree. “Hmm,” I thought. “I don’t see any caterpillars.”

A minute later a noticed a ton on my backpack. Which led me to believe they could be crawling all over my body. They weren’t, as far as I know…

Snacks after class:

Boring, boring. But delicious. A little while later I went for a run (roughly 4 miles). This was my first time since I was sick doing a double day. Not counting yoga, that is. Mannn was I feeling it. Plus running hasn’t been terribly easy as of late anyways…I guess two-a-days take some getting used to. But it got me to thinking what great shape I was in at the end of last summer, when I ran my 10k. I think I was in the best shape of my life then. Which is probably why I could never PR on my 6k test for crew, I couldn’t really get better. It’s sad how much I’ve lost. I was doing 3-a-days at the end of summer, with some regularity. Mostly because I wanted to do tons of different classes/training sessions, and was training for my 10k on top of that. And a lot because I was bored. I had a lot of time, and nothing else really to do! I would regularly get my butt out of bed super early (5:45 am spin anyone?), go to spin, then go straight from there to do my 10k training run, then straight from there to do my softball conditioning. 3 hours of exercise before 10 o clock! And it wasn’t THAT big of a deal. Just to be clear, I am not recommending doing this!

At the beginning of the year, before crew started, I regularly ran the Dish, which is a roughly 5 mile run from my dorm, with 2 miles of straight uphill. I ran this 2 or 3 times a week, because I had nothing better to do (still wasn’t comfortable with the gym/didn’t know the best time to go). Now the thought of doing this run seems impossible. My run was really a great time to reflect on how much I have lost though. But at the same, all the more motivation to get super fit again! On a similar note, if avoiding bread/grains (and possibly dairy) makes me feel this awesome, then I need to just stick with it! It wasn’t really hard, minus the momentary craving for pancakes at breakfast…but I guess the knowledge that it will put me to sleep is enough to deter me…

Post-run, hot and sweaty picture. Since so so many of you guys post them, I figured I might as well jump on the bandwagon…

Snacks before yoga.

Dinner should have been awesome and ended up being not very good. I thawed a sweet potato (I roasted them at home so they would get that nice flavor),, which was good, but put it in my salad, which was a bad decision. Bad decision #2 was putting in zucchini and carrots which turned out to be seasoned in a sweet way. Ick. The thought of that seasoning…I don’t know why but I really dislike it.

I went back for more chicken and veggies, so get that weird taste out of my mouth….

And since it’s prom season, throwback to my proms!

Junior prom:

I curled my hair. It doesn’t hold a curl.

End of the night (don’t ask):

Straight…

So Senior year I curled my hair and didn’t put hairspray in because I figured, I’d rather have straight hair at the end of the night than straight, stiff hair.

Basically straight already!

How were your proms? What do you think about while running?

Yogurt Overload (Again)

Date: April 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! It’s Tuesdayyy. Gah I have to much reading this week. This morning I was up bright and early for a morning spin class. I wasn’t sure how hard the class would be, so going in I planned to kick my own butt. I don’t know if I was kicking by own butt or if the class actually was fairly difficult, but I was dripping sweat in the first 10 minutes. ALways a good sign.

For breakfast I made a delicious protein shake, and tried my new chocolate protein powder, which is Whole Foods brand, and actually quite delicious.

Also in the smoothie was cocoa powder, soy milk, a handful of spinach, a banana, ice, and a few frozen blueberries. If you guys like dark chocolate smoothies, dry added in some frozen blueberries. The subtly fruity flavor gives the impression of dark chocolate, which is my favorite. Also pictured is a hard boiled egg and fruit.

Naturally, I was running late for my 9 am, so I had to bike-sprint to class. After an entire spin class, my butt was burning! Whew. Today was another super windy day. I swear I was constantly biking into the wind. It has a much greater effect than you would think…On the plus side, my soaking hair was completely dry by the time I got to class…

Lunch was a delicious salad that included avocado, chicken, gouda, tomato, and asparagus. Yum!

After my last class was a snack, which I actually photographed today.

My mom texted me today: “US mango consumption has gone up 30% in recent years. Is it you?”

Yes. Yes it is me.

Also for snack:

After doing Psych homework, I took a nap. I definitely haven’t gotten enough sleep these past few days. But here’s the thing about naps. I cannot nap and then not eat a ton when I wake up. I don’t understand it. But it is unfortunate. So there went the afternoon run….

Kefir with peanut butter cereal and sunflower seed butter. And since the kefir bottles are teeny tiny, I had some of this:

With half a slice of zucchini bread and more sunflower butter.

But with a full stomach came the decision to skip yoga. The thought of yoga with a full tummy was enough to make me change my plans. Plus I have quite a bit of work anyways…And since I ate that all around dinnertime, it’s whatever. But I hate when my eating gets in the way of exercise. That is when I have a problem. Plus I think I’ve been going a little overboard on the sunflower butter and yogurt lately, because I’ve been feeling a little gross after eating it (my guess is large quantities of sunflower seed butter…).

Just a heads up, my eating habits are going to be a tad different for a few days. I have rush coming up this weekend, and let’s be honest. Sororities girls will judge each other based on their bodies. To avoid unnecessary bloat and fluid storage, I am going to avoid dairy and carbs for a few days so I look my tip top. Plus I should be avoiding grains anyways since they put me to sleep…So we’ll see how that goes. I can never seem to actually stick to these things…

So since it’s Tuesday, here’s an update on Operation: Get Healthy. It’s…eh. Workouts have been pretty good (until today) although I can never seem to get that afternoon run in. Eating hasn’t been good….Too much. Too much sugar. Way too much snacking. Snacking has definitely been my downfall, as today is evidence of. I really want to get back into running. (Also I keep thinking today is Wednesday…) My goal for this coming week is to run a little EVERY DAY. Now, before anyone gets crazy on me telling me how that isn’t a good idea, let me clarify. I mean at least just a bit every day. Like 5 minutes if it isn’t my main workout. I just want to get back in the habit, get back into running shape, and get faster. I think part of the reason I keep putting off running is that it is the place my out of shape-ness shows the most. I just feel so heavy. Yuck. I guess I don’t want to face myself…But hey, it won’t get better if I don’t try, right?

Green Juice?

Date: April 9, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! My morning today started off differently than usual…No morning workout for me! I had soccer practice/tryouts this afternoon, and given I’m not in my tip-top shape, I shouldn’t push it. I woke up an hour before my alarm. It’s interesting, it is so much easier to go to bed later and get up later, while sleeping the same amount. For example, I went to bed at about 1, and set my alarm for 9. But I woke up before 8. Hey, I’m not complaining!

For breakfast, I tried vanilla Chobani for the first time.

Expiration date on my birthday! Most of the yogurts in my fridge have that date too. 🙂

To be honest, I was not impressed. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t get all the hype about Chobani. It didn’t seem any different than any other yogurt.

This is probably my favorite, but it hasn’t been stocked at the last few stores that I went too. I also like the Icelandic yogurt. Yesterday, I also bought some goat milk yogurt, so that should be interesting to try.

I was planning on eating my yogurt plain, but I ended up topping it with banana and sunflower butter.

See that on the side? That green juice? I don’t know why I was under the impression that I would like it. It tastes very…green. I got like 3 different types (although one is way fruitier, thank goodness). Yeah. I poured myself like half a cup an had to chug it, shivering the whole time. And that one was supposed to be “sweet.” I should have gotten a different type that had ginger and like 20 grams more sugar. I was debating between the two. *Shudder* I don’t think I will be able to finish it. Are you guys green juice fans? Any tips?

Between classes, I ventured down into a basement of one of the buildings to try a new to me cafe. I’ve always seen signs but never checked it out. I will definitely go back. There were lots of good sounding sandwiches, although I was lazy and just picked up a prepackaged one.

I haven’t had egg salad in forever! And it was good. 🙂 I avoided about half the bread. More on that in a minute…

They also had the most amazing selection of baked goods. But not just baked goods, my favorite type of baked goods: quick breads/cakes. Marble cake. Pumpkin Bread. Banana bread. Everything! I ended up settling on an oat carrot-some type of veggie-bread. It was delicious, and not too sweet!

A while ago I talked about how I think I might have some type of problem with gluten. Or blood sugar. Which in theory is why I’m attempting to avoid grains. I’m not sure if I’ve been avoiding them better lately, or if I just haven’t had to sit through class after eating them, so I kind of just figured it would be fine. Well…About an hour after lunch, I was sitting in class and all of a sudden I could not keep my eyes open! I wasn’t tired at all that day until that moment. And my mind kept blending the chemistry in lecture with various parts of my life and it was very confusing, and I was struggling so hard to keep my eyes open. This went on for about half an hour, and then it passed. This is the same experience I’ve had in the past; all of the sudden I CANNOT keep my eyes open, but eventually it passes and is ok near the end of class. This is definitely not right. I should probably go get that checked out so I know what the actual cause is, not just my theories. And while I’m at it, and can get my “nut allergies” checked out as well…I feel like I have been a hot mess lately with food, because these issues have appeared out of nowhere in the past year.

After classes were done for the day, I snacked on a mango and a raw chocolate quinoa bar, which was surprisingly delicious. I will definitely be getting that again. Here’s a last-minute decision picture. Sorry!

After sitting around my dorm and chatting a bit, I headed off to practice with the club soccer team. All of the girls were so nice and welcoming! It was pretty tiring, but no undoable. I doubt I’ll be asked back though, because they play at a much higher level than me, which I knew going in (especially since I haven’t played in 4 years…whoops).

It was a lot of fun though. Afterwards I realized I have a nice little blister going on my foot. I guess you don’t notice those things when you’re going hard!

Dinner was boring. Why, oh why does my dining hall insist on steaming plain steamed cauliflower so often? Chicken, rice, greens, cauliflower, and FRUIT. So thirsty!

Not the best meal but it got the job done. For a little treat I mixed up some soft serve with milk for a makeshift milkshake, which was refreshing. Some cocoa puffs may also have been involved. 🙂

I’m considering tagging along with the running club, which is basically a ton of runners meeting up and running different trails. Once again, given my current shape, I’m probably way out of my league, but I guess I seem to be getting in over my head a lot lately. We shall see.

Overall, not a bad day. Super windy though. I absolutely hate the wind, it is so annoying! Spin classes start tomorrow!

So, tell me: Green juice. Love it or hate it?