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Dirty Thirty

Date: July 2, 2013

Author: astottler

I finally have a workouts page! Expect more to come. Here’s a prettier version of a workout I already posted. It’s a no-equipment, full body workout that incorporates, jumping, running, and strength. Enjoy!

Forward squat jumps: jump forward (covering distance)

In and out- balance on tailbone, hands on head, and bring your knees in toward your chest while crunching up

Plank dips-plank position on elbows, and lower hips to the ground, then raise up

Cross leg sit up cross- sit with your legs crossed, and then do a sit up, crossing one arm over to touch the ground in front of you

Let me know if you try this! A modification you could do is Filthy Fifteen (15 reps of everything).

21 Days to Change Your Life

Date: July 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First and foremost, I want to apologize for this morning‘s post. After reading it, I realized that every sentence except for one ended in an explanation point. Which was probably kind of annoying to read.

Next order of business…who’s going to the Healthy Living Summit in September? I really, really want to go, and it’s before school starts so it’s plausible. Besides how awesome it would be to meet a ton of bloggers, I feel that as a new blogger, there’s so much I can learn!

I’ve been promising you guys a leg workout for a while, but here’s the thing. I want to make it look pretty. And I really don’t know how. Help? What do you guys use to make those pretty images with your workouts? (I’m looking at you Miranda!) So look out for that workout once I figure out all that.

As for my day, I went to abs class in the morning, and then blogged a bit before heading down to school to log a couple of hours of research. I swear, my car uses SO much gas. I’m NOT down for filling it up more than once a week-that’s just crazy.

I came home to a fabulous lunch of leftovers-Greek seasoned chicken, and tons of salad with a little Greek dressing and red pepper hummus. Perfect!

My afternoon was spent not doing my homework for my Health Psych class…which coincidentally is what I should be doing right now…In my defense, I did read the first chapter, which was about old beliefs about the 4 bodily excretions associated with illness (yum), and more interestingly, different cultural beliefs and attitudes to health and illness. One thing we’ve talked about in class is how important it is to think about the cultural aspect when trying to communicate about health to people.

This evening, I hit up the gym for an awesome spin class by one of my favorite teachers. I actually ran into one of my long lost best friends at the gym as well (she’s pretty busy so texting her is basically a black hole). We chatted some and made plans to figure out when to get together sometime (very concrete, right?). I had to get to the gym early to sign up for the class, and didn’t have any particular plans on what to do in the meantime. All the ergs were full, booo. I hate going to the gym in the evening-it’s so crowded and I can’t get on any of the equipment!

Dinner afterwards was pretty basic.

Salad with Farmer’s market heirloom tomatoes, a veggie scramble with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, and gouda, and squash topped with butter and cinnamon sugar (yumm). I don’t really know my squashes too well…can anyone tell me what type of squash this is? I got it at the Farmer’s market. My guess is either acorn or kabocha?

After eating a snack, I started talking to my mom about health and the brain (LOVE these conversations). It came up that it takes 3 weeks to break a habit. This has been proven in many different respects-my favorite in that if you give up sugar, you stop craving it after 3 weeks. So here’s my challenge-what do you want to change? Now’s the time. Whatever it is, what if it was no longer an issue in 3 weeks? How much happier could you be 3 weeks from now? Maybe you bite your nails. Maybe you procrastinate on dishes (guilty…). Maybe you weigh yourself every day and stress about it. We’re at the half way point of the year-get after it!

What am I doing? I want to break my habit of snacking. I would really like to work on Mindful Eating (my mom bought me a couple of books so I can read more about it). Breaking my snacking habit is a big step for me in this. Specifically, my habit of eating everything in sight after a nap, regardless of whether or not I’m hungry. My goal for eh next 21 days is to eat no snacks. Before anyone gets too crazy on me, I’m not necessarily trying to eat less. I may bulk up a little more on my meals if need be, but the biggest goal is to break the habit.

Need some help? Try this:

1. Distract yourself. Find another activity to replace whatever habit you are trying to break. At school, I tried to get in the habit of drinking a mug of water immediately upon walking in the door. You can retrain your brain!

You can be a psychologist! Classical conditioning (think Pavlov’s dog) is when people (or animals) associate a certain stimulus with a reward. For instance, Pavlov’s dogs associated a bell with food, so whenever the bell was rung, the dogs eventually began drooling. Retrain yourself! For me at school, the moment I walked into my dorm room, I wanted a snack. The environment was my stimulus, my bell. Out think yourself! Build a new habit and condition yourself to it, through repeated exposure. For my goal, maybe going in the kitchen will start making my thirsty if I drink a glass of water every time I walk in.

3. Avoidance-avoid any stimuli that might lead to the habit. If I normally snack in the afternoon, I could try going to the library (to finally to my homework) during the time I normally spend munching away.

4. Support and attention- tell people around you what your goal is. If you bite your nails and are trying to break that habit, you might not even realize what you’re doing until someone else points it out.

Good luck and Happy July!

What would you do to change your life in 21 days?

MIMM-Summertime!

Date: July 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Marvelous in my Monday! I wasn’t planning on posting this morning, but I feel there is so much marvelousness to be celebrated! Thank you Katie for hosting, especially right after giving birth to a beautiful baby boy! Congrats!

Marvelous is…

Seeing 3 cats on my long run the other day. They live in the rocks by the water-they are all spayed/neutered and someone feeds them daily, even though they’re strays.

Marvelous is…

We’re days away from a holiday! Yay!<

Marvelous is…

My half is about a month away, and I kind of feel ready!

Marvelous is…

Compression socks. No explanation necessary. <

Marvelous is…

My research schedule this summer is totally flexible, so I never have to miss a workout or hit rush hour!

Marvelous is…

My Health Psychology professor is a spin teacher…whose class I’ve taken! It took me the entire class to figure out where I recognized her from!

Marvelous is…

A COLLEGE healthy living conference in the works! YAY! I’ll keep everyone updated on that!

Marvelous is…

Summer fruit.

Also, as far as my summer shape up, I FINALLY figured out a goal for the week!

Make a REALISTIC workout and meal plan for the week. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I HATE wasting food. HATE. A meal plan helps avoid tossing old food and overbuying.

2. I tend to make unrealistic plans. Like HOURS of exercise a day; I often don’t think through how long things actually take. I’m more of a “Ooo this looks fun I should do it!” type of person. Which can lead to burn out, or general laziness. (I mean if I skip one thing, I might as well skip everything<- bad mindset). I also have never been able to stick with a meal plan. Like not ever, not one day. So it’s a new challenge-but if that plan is unreasonable, there’s no way I can stick to it!

And with that, have a Marvelous week!

Letting the Pace Go

Date: June 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! I’ve been meaning to blog since Friday…and I really have to good excuse. I’ll try to do a fairly quick recap of the past few days, and promise the next posts will have more/better content!.

Friday I had been planning on going to early Spin, but I went to bed too late and decided I would never be able to stay awake at my research job if I went. First, I ate this delicious breakfast:

The last of my vanilla yogurt, gluten free vanilla crunch cereal, raspberries, and sunflower seed butter.

Then, it was off to school for research. While this may sound glamorous, I assure you it is not. My job is doing a ton of spreadsheet stuff and examining photos of mice carcasses. I actually don’t really mind (although Friday was my first day of doing real stuff). The building I’m working in is attached to the hospital, so I decided to check out the hospital cafeteria for lunch. IT IS SO NICE. It was ridiculous. A salad bar (with chia seeds!), sandwich bar, hot food, pastries, everything! I went with the salad bar.

And they even had a new to me flavor of Kevita! It was way overpriced though. And ended in an embarrassing situation- breaking on the floor of Sports Authority while I was shopping for workout pants. On the plus side, it was mostly gone!

After wearing the same workout pants for workouts 3 days in a row, my mother decided that I needed to buy more workout pants. No complaints here! The highlight was a new pair of my favorite workout pants, but with a hot pink waistband, instead of yellow.

Since I missed spin that morning, I decided to lift before my run. I did a leg workout, which I will post soon. I’m planning on creating a workout page shortly! I mostly make my own weights workouts, and for some reason I feel like I shouldn’t post them, which is silly. So that will change! After lifting, I ran 3 miles on very rubbery legs. Ehh it felt good to lift again so I can’t complain (well, actually I can complain…).

Dinner was a delicious greek salad with a touch of Greek dressing, but topped with hummus.

I also had some watermelon…and a friend!

I love this picture because I was simply trying to take a picture of watermelon-Billy just happens to love watermelon!

Saturday morning before Crossfit I made some very ugly pancakes-they tasted just fine though! I mixed up a banana, egg whites, vanilla, chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, and a dash of almond milk.

Post Crossfit I made a smoothie inspired by Beth– pineapple, mango, and pineapple coconut water. Thick, delicious, and totally hit the spot!

After lunch, my family saw The Internship. My sister even joined us since she was in the area! Overall, I wasn’t a big fan of the movie. However, if you want a taste of where I live (Silicon Valley), this was pretty much spot-on! We couldn’t help but laugh when the characters ran in on broomsticks for quidditch, as my sister is the captain of our school’s quidditch team. Spot-on!

We went to The Melt, a grilled cheese place for dinner. I opted for sweet corn soup, which tasted exactly like those corn cakes at Mexican restaurants. And, we were right next to a frozen yogurt place, so no complaining here!

I went half ‘healthy’ and half ‘unhealthy.’ Plain with fruit on one side, butter pecan/chocolate with heath and brownies on the other. Yumm.

As I’m sure you’re all well aware as I’ve been sort of freaking out about it all week, Sunday was my 10 mile run, which is farther than I had ever run before.

I ate my typical pre-run breakfast:

I was up in time to beat the heat/wind (I ran by the bay, so the wind is a bigger issue than the heat!).

I’ve been wanting to keep up a particular pace, but my dad advised me to just worry about the distance, and not the pace. So I let go of that ideal pace, and in turn, the run went really well!

I really loved this trail-it was along the bay, but it took me through different areas so it was more interesting. I took a Gu for the first time at mile 5, the turn around point. I couldn’t imagine running while eating, so I walked while I took it. I was a big fan-it was Cliff chocolate, and only had a few, very recognizable ingredients. It was a little weird though because it was like eating straight chocolate syrup…during a run…

I also was annoyed at having to carry a water bottle. I ended up dumping half of it right away so it wouldn’t be so much weight. I tossed it around Mile 6-7 when it was empty, which was the plan. I didn’t really think through the fact that that was the only water I had with me though…I was so thirsty by the time I got home!

Overall, the run went really well. I enjoyed myself more at a slightly slower pace. I figure I can push the pace more with the adrenaline of the race, but if not, that’s fine too. This is my first half, and I’m still running longer than ever before!

Recovering with my compression socks:

And my beloved PVC pipe- my hard core ‘foam roller.’ Love it!

Let’s just say that sore legs from weights on Friday+10 miles=can’t move.

And some more scenes from the day-Farmer’s market!

Also, 2 more things.

1. A healthy living COLLEGE conference is in the works! SO EXCITED.

2. Thanks for all your input on self-hosting! I’m still on the fence, but I’m leaning towards taking the plunge. I need to look into it a little more though!

What’s the farthest you’ve run? Are you in college? How do you fuel during long runs?

Self Hosting?

Date: June 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Wow, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve done a normal post…you know, one where at the end of the day I sit down and recap my day?

Well, here are a few eats from yesterday. Lunch was a baked yam, along with a salad consisting of Spicy Avocado hummus and a hard boiled egg. So simple, yet so delicious!

Yesterday was also my first day of my Healthy Psychology class. It really got me thinking about the definition of health…but that is a post for another day! We’re sticking to normal, shallow posting today!

Dinner after class was also quite delicious. I had an enchilada chicken salad from PaleOMG. A salad with two of my favorite foods in the world? Sign me up! (avocados and mangoes, if you didn’t figure out what they were).

Then, today was another fairly early morning at the kitten nursery! My favorite litter is still there, but they’re gotten much bigger! They’ll be moving into foster care soon as now they’re some of the oldest in the nursery! I wish I had a good photo of them, but they’re not too keen on sitting still. Since they are older and have more energy, they are quite the handful. Especially considering they were a handful 2 weeks ago when they were much younger. I was taking care of them when I realized one of them was looking up at my with the most adorable green-blue eyes. What I didn’t realize was that he was calculating…he jumped right up onto my shoulder! In other kitten nursery news, one of the younger kittens fell asleep in my arms. CUTEST. THING. EVER. I need to get some pictures of the younger kittens for you guys!

After my shift, I headed straight to a bike trail. In theory, I was supposed to do a 5 mile training run for my half, and then ride my newly fixed bike. I wasn’t really feeling the run yet though (spoiler: the run never happened), so I decided to do the bike ride first. This trail is seriously so pretty, and perfect for biking or for my long runs. I already have Sunday’s run all planned out. I wished I had my phone, as the views of the bay were gorgeous. It was such a nice and clear day, so there was a good view of San Francisco.

This trail connects to the place I ran last week, so I wanted to see how long the whole stretch was. I didn’t actually go all the way to the end, but it’s pretty long.

I ended up at 19 miles. Oh how I wish these stats were for a run and not a bike ride! I think my ideal biking distance is between 10 and 15 miles. At the end it just seemed long and I wasn’t enjoying myself as much. Plus, the wind really picked up by the end. Since it’s along the bay, it gets pretty crazy, so I have to get my long runs in on the early side. I refueled from my ride with a chai tea latte, made with almond milk and mint leaves.

And a delicious bowl of leftovers! Leftover enchilada chicken, mashed avocado, mango, and leftover spaghetti squash (because why not?).

Plus some leftover frozen birthday cake!

(And a leftover photo!)

I spent the afternoon napping, snacking, and thinking about my future fitness goals and eating plans/philosophies. Yeahh still working on that…

On a related note, my workouts haven’t really been getting done lately. And I miss lifting weights SO much but it’s hard to fit into my running schedule because I would like to not start out my 10 mile run in pain. Because I know I will sure as heck end it with my legs in pain! I think I’m also suffering from the gym not being a 4 minute bike ride away. And from lack of a schedule. I don’t really want to try and lift when the gym is super busy either. Problems…Either way, I guess I’ll shift my focus more to weights after my half.

Since I had a slow pitch softball game tonight and I snacked all afternoon, I attempted a light dinner (although the leftover apple and sunflower seed butter may have unseeded this).

An EXTREMELY open faced sandwich. You know, as in no bread at all. Spinach, mustard/mayo, almond milk cheese, onions, turkey, and apple, all heated up in the microwave (because I was too lazy to put it in the oven).

The game went well, and was fun once again. I went 3 for 4, and my team won. I rolled my ankle again, which really stinks because a) I wasn’t even doing anything and b) it was just starting to be mostly better! Darn it. The ankle doesn’t bother me running, but I have a feeling that 10 miles in enough to find any weakness in my legs. 10 miles seems so intimidating, and I’m kind of terrified. I feel like once I have 10 under my belt, 11, 12, and 13.1 are all basically the same. (I feel like I’m horribly wrong about this!) I guess only time will tell!

I also wanted to ask you guys about self-hosting. I want to make “Fitness is Sweet” shirts to wear during my half (yayy shameless self-promotion) but I’m ready to be done with the “.wordpress.com.” I could either buy the domain through wordpress, or get self hosted. Any advice? I feel like being self hosted makes sense at some point in the future of this blog, but I’m not really sure how it will affect things. Thoughts???