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To Row or Not to Row

Date: February 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Happy weekend! Hopefully everyone has been having a good weekend so far. I missed posting yesterday, I had another paper to write last night that was due at noon today, and I had practice all morning so I had to do it last night. Seriously, who assigns a paper to be due at noon on a Saturday? Well, let’s go over 2 days then!

Friday morning began with weights. There are 2 options for times for weights, 6:30 and 8:30. I have class at 10, so I usually go to the 6:30 so I have enough time to completely finish my workout, eat, and shower. As you may know, I haven’t gotten much sleep lately, so Friday morning when I woke up I just was not feeling it. I got ready to go, and was running pretty late so I decided to just go back to bed and go to 8:30 weights. Since it was Friday, I could move around my schedule a bit and go to a 12:15 lecture instead of my normal 10 am lecture, so I didn’t start class until math at 11.

Weights absolutely smoked my hamstrings. We do 2 workouts for 3 weeks. Last Friday’s workout left my hamstrings completely sore up until yesterday. Ohh RDLs how I love you. Yesterday, I did more and heavier RDLs, so this week should be interesting. In theory, I should be getting more used to it, so we’ll see. I’m pretty sore right now, but it’s nothing terrible.

After weights, I made myself a Chocolate Post-workout Recovery Drink.

I didn’t exactly mix in the cocoa powder completely…It’s amazing what 8 little ounces of fluid can do for muscle recovery. I instantly felt 1000x better.

I also enjoyed some frozen cherries.

After my first class, I decided to get a little caffeine, because Chem definitely has a tendency to make me sleepy, and I have been behind on sleep for a while.

I found a little cafe that I had never been to before, and ordered the only coffee drink I recognized (I’m obviously such an expert), and went with an iced latte. Even though it was freezing out.

For those of you that don’t know, my campus is mainly a biking campus. When I got here, I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was maybe 8. Soo the first month was interesting. But now I’ve gotten proficient enough that I can carry a fancy coffee drink while biking! Score! That is definitely the sign of a true college student.

I’m not a big fan of the taste of coffee, but I’m getting more used to it. I also don’t need a lot of caffeine to wake me up, and even though I didn’t finish this drink, I was a little jittery. But here’s the weird thing. I’ve noticed that at some point when I’m drinking a coffee drink, it starts to taste more bitter than normal. And I have the impression that this is the point of my caffeine tolerance. Like if I keep drinking it after it starts to taste more bitter, it will be too much caffeine for me. I’ve noticed this before. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a real thing? Am I a freak of nature?

After class, I took a brief nap. (pshh what coffee?) When I woke up, I enjoyed a piece of banana bread and an apple heated in the microwave with cinnamon.

Banana bread? Where did that come from? I thought my freezer was empty?

Delivery!

My mom brought me some bread to freeze! She had class here, so she brought me this, and my new toy:

A hand vacuum! My dorm has a vacuum, but a) it’s from the 1980s and b) I live in a college freshman dorm. I recently saw what someone used it to clean up. Never again. So now I have this little guy, which works great! I’m going to vacuum way more now!

Anyway, back to the banana bread. My mom used my favorite recipe, which can be found here.

Practice went well. It was interesting because we were short a coxswain (the little person that yells at us and steers the boat) so we had an injured rower cox us. She was actually really good, but I felt really bad for her because she’s really tall and the places where the coxswains sit is tiny! I was definitely cracking up some of the time because she kept forgetting she had a microphone on, and was being projected by speakers in the boat. Especially when she was complaining about some sailors docking their boats on our dock!

After practice, I came back and made one of my favorite meals ever, that conveniently can be made in my dorm room.

Yes, you can make scrambled eggs on a paper plate in the microwave. Saving dishes baby! I cannot fully describe how awesome this meal is. Egg beaters (liquid egg whites), spinach, mozzarella, pesto, and avocado. So delicious.

Followed by cocoa powder and banana! This time without peanut butter though. So sad. More on that later. I ran into the dining hall to grab some veggies for later, and a piece of whole wheat toast. I ended up heating up the veggies with some coconut oil and salt, which was tasty.

Plus some more frozen cherries! After dinner, I cranked out my paper. My paper is on the causes of obesity in the United States, which is a topic that is super interesting to me. I actually found myself getting too excited as I was doing research. So when I write my final research paper on sugar, things are going to get interesting…After cranking out my paper, I went out to find some friends.

This was an incredibly difficult week for me, both emotionally and academically. I began to realize how much time rowing takes up, and I became concerned that I would not be able to keep my grades up if I kept rowing. I finally decided I needed to quit. This was Wednesday night, when it was 12:30, I was doing a hard problem set, and I had an early 2x6k the next morning. Making that decision was really tough emotionally. BUT. I changed my mind. The 2x6k, combined with afternoon off gave me the motivation and energy I needed to keep going, so as of now I plan to continue.

Being the intelligent person that I am, I ended up staying up way later than planned. 4 hours of sleep? Ick. This week was kind of a pyramid for me of sleep, minus Thursday. 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 hours of sleep. Yay. But a 2 hour nap after practice certainly did the trick!

For practice today, I rowed with the lightweights because they needed a few extra people to fill out their boats. Unfortunately, the other open weight girl who was supposed to come as well didn’t get the memo…so we still had a bad number of people. That meant that instead of rowing in a 4, I switched off in a pair. Which gave me 30 minutes on the spin bike to wake up before I had to be on the water, which was fabulous. <I rowed in a pair for the first time, which is 2 rowers, each with one oar. We had buoys to make it more stable, thank goodness. We also had a 30 minute erg piece. I never realized how weird it would feel to go from rowing on the water, straight to stationary rowing. I also realized that if our ergs were later in the day, they would be so much easier for me. That or I'm getting in much better shape, which is possible. Last week, I finally got my heart rate as low as it is supposed to be for our long ergs for the first time!

One nice thing about rowing with the lightweights, is that I was back 2 hours sooner. Our Saturday rows are super inefficient. We got back just as brunch was starting!

mexican salad with loads of avocado, and frozen fruit. Plus this:

x2 with thawed blueberries on top! So good!

After brunch, I took a very nice and much needed nap. This day has been really low key for me. I was planning on lifting today, but I just didn’t feel up to it. I spent most of the afternoon reading. Tonight will be low key as well, I plan on getting some work done. I want to re-watch Sugar: The Bitter Truth for my paper, so maybe I’ll do that tonight. Since I finished my paper already, I feel like I’m really ahead on the weekend!

This afternoon, I decided to check out The Market, which is a mini grocery store on campus that I had not gone to before. It was actually really nice, they had tons of stuff. I got 2 beautiful and huge Fugi apples. In addition, I got several other non-nut containing snack items. And naturally I had to break into them right away.

I actually really liked these! They could definitely be eaten as a healthy alternative to potato chips.

There may or may not be any left…

I wanted to find a low-sugar bar that didn’t have nuts. This one was pretty good, I will most likely use these in the future when I need something on the go. It has 0g of sugar, but it has sugar alcohols. I’m not exactly sure what their metabolism is like, but I think it’s a step up from other artificial sweeteners, and it tastes less weird.

I was feeling adventurous for dinner today, and I wanted to do something different, especially since I really don’t like Saturday nights at my close dining hall. But then I realized I didn’t have a ton of time before my dance rehearsal, so I just ran in quickly and had a super carb heavy, and no terribly satisfying meal (which is especially unfortunate because right after I ate, my sister texted me about going out to dinner with my parents to what was probably a much better place, but I had dance rehearsal plus I already ate).

The pesto pasta today was whole wheat, and so was the garlic bread! I definitely went back for more garlic bread, plus watermelon and some con pops. Also, I actually had to get a new salad because I topped this one with tons of salsa, which turned out to be SUPER spicy, and I couldn’t even eat it!

So what is this dance rehearsal for? Did I suddenly decide to become a dancer? Hah. No. For crew, the freshman have to do a performance in front of basically every athlete as my school, and it’s a fundraiser. I have to do a line dance, and the Hoedown Throw Down from the Hannah Montana movie. I am no dancer. This is so difficult! I have absolutely no grace or coordination! And the performance is in just over a week!

Ok, so today was Day 2 with no nuts. And I think a few days with slightly reduced nuts. It’s so hard! I need to find new things to top oatmeal, or my banana mixture. I’m getting some unsweetened coconut, so hopefully that will do the trick! I could go for some tropical banana oats! My other idea was apple cinnamon banana oats. Or stirring blueberries into banana oats. I really like the base of banana though. Another thing I have to worry about is actually getting some healthy fats in my diet without nuts. I am hopefully getting some chia seeds soon as well. I actually really like chia seeds and the crunch they give! Especially in granola bars! So how is the whole no nuts thing going? I’m pretty sure my skin is clearing up, which is both good and bad, because it means that I am most likely allergic, and should eat significantly fewer nuts, but at the same time, my skin should be better. So we shall see. I was going to talk about another topic today, but seeing as this post is already super long, I’ll save it for tomorrow. Here is a little teaser: Real Food!

What do top your oats with? What is your favorite source of healthy fat?

Surprise, Surprise

Date: February 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So, yeahh I didn’t exactly post yesterday. I was SUPER busy. Workout starting at 6:30, then straight to class until 3, yoga at 5, meeting up with a friend at 7, dorm community building activity 8-10, math problem set, preparing a presentation…yeah that was my day yesterday! But first let us go through the eats.

First things first, after I posted the other day, one of my dorm mates came to my room and gave me this:

It’s called a “slutty brownie.” It is cookie on the bottom, brownie on top, and oreo in the middle. It was super good! He made them the other day and borrowed my tinfoil, so he brought me one the other night. He even warmed it and everything! I may need to start lending out my tinfoil more often!

Ok, Wednesday morning! I believe I ate the other half of my Apple Cinnamon Blueberry bread (last piece!) and milk pre-workout. I am in serious need of making more bread, I only have one piece of zucchini bread left, and that’s it!

After my row+spin, I headed to breakfast with a smoothie and intentions of laying off the nuts.

Fail. (By the way, that is toast with cream cheese and egg white!)

Aaaand double fail. But it was delicious! That right there is my attempt to make half a waffle…never works. Here it is with heated up frozen blueberries!

Yummmm.

And I definitely ended up eating more nuts later that day in the form of a granola bar for snack (and then one after dinner), and I think also a banana with nut butter.

I had zero time for dinner, and ended up eating it at the beginning of my dorm event. I heated up some butternut squash soup that my mom delivered to me earlier this week, along with spinach and mushrooms. Topped with avocado!

Wednesday was not the best night….Let’s just say I had a ton of difficult work.

Thursday morning I was up bright and early (again) for my 2x6k hard erg workout. Before was zucchini bread. I ended up PRing on this workout, which was awesome! And on 5 hours of sleep too! Afterwards, I felt entitled to a treat. this feeling of entitlement is never a good thing. The plan was to add a chocolate muffin to breakfast.

Half a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and egg whites, and half a raisin bagel. Plus fruit. There were not any chocolate muffins, so I went with a cranberry orange.

Plus part of a broken up whole wheat pancake with butter. Do you ever have days when you feel like you are a bottomless pit after a tough workout? Yeah, that was me today. So add another half pancake, half muffin, and half bagel. Plus some much needed coffee.

But gahh talk about carb overload! I definitely wasn’t feeling so hot, and this probably led to worse eating later on in the day. Example A: Lunch. Let’s be honest. This was a tough week. I felt I deserved something. I went to a cafe to study after math and before my next class, and I decided that although I wasn’t super tired (yay coffee), maybe some more caffeine would be a good idea. I decided to treat myself to a chai tea latte. And one other thing. If you are a healthy eater, look away. If you have ever considered thinking about eating healthy, look away.

That’s right, giant apple fritter right there! I figured I should probably get something real as well, so I got some type of dish with lentils and meat substitute.The Med school cafes are so nice! But don’t worry, I was unable to eat the whole fritter. It wasn’t as fatty as some are sometimes. And yes, it was quite tasty. I didn’t feel quite as gross as I was expecting at that point, considering the large amount of sugar and carbs I had consumed already. Somehow, I have yet to experience the caffeine/sugar crash. After class, I went back to my dorm. And stayed there. Why? NO PRACTICE TODAY. Our coach gave us the afternoon off. Why? No clue. But apparently it hasn’t happened in 2 years. So I’m not going to question it. So, so far in this day, you may have noticed something. That’s right, no nuts! HOWEVER. As I’m sure you guys all know, eating lots of sugary carbs leads to more cravings for sugary carbs…ok so maybe that doesn’t relate directly to nuts, but I had a sweet tooth, ok?

Banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter. So naturally I had to have some nut butter and jelly crackers as well…

Let’s just say I am not proud of my eating habits today. But hey, at least I’m honest with you guys, right?

Dinner tonight was actually pretty exciting. Indian food! At my local dining hall! That never happens!

And then OF COURSE it was dessert time (are you seeing a trend here?). I opted for a taste of cheesecake. (In the dining hall? What is this?) And some vanilla frozen yogurt with crushed oreos and corn pops. Ok, here’s the thing. I REALLY like corn pops. I probably haven’t had them in 10 years. But when I used to go on family vacations when I was little, my sister and I would get to pick out “vacation cereal,” which was the one time we could get whatever sugar-laden cereal our hearts desired. I almost always chose corn pops.

Anyways, I was reminded today why I really shouldn’t eat so much sugar. I CAN’T CONCENTRATE. Which is part of why I am posting right now. Whenever I eat a lot of sugar, my ability to focus is basically nonexistent. Which is going to lead me in to No Sugar Challenge #2: The Quest to Manage My Time Better by Not Eating Sugary Foods and Therefore Have Some Capability of Focus. Let’s just say that my time is very constrained right now, so I’ll take anything I can get. But this challenge is a bit harder than last time. Why? Because I can’t eat nuts! Wahhh. :'(

I don’t know if you could tell by this post that I’m completely all over the place right now. That’s what the sweet stuff does to me! I suppose I should set a length of time for my sugar challenge. Any suggestions? Maybe 2 weeks? That’s what I lasted last time. Should I shoot for 3? 3 is my PR. Hee hee. As if this were an exercise…Ok I have obviously had too much sugar, so I am going to calm down now and report back tomorrow after a hopefully low sugar and nut free Friday! Have a great week everybody!

Do you have weird reactions to sugar? Any ideas on a timeline for my challenge #2? Any tips for replacing my beloved peanut butter?

Regular Posting

Date: February 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Here I am, posting regularly again! Yay! My morning today began with half a piece of blueberry apple cinnamon bread, and some milk. I debated a lot with myself for when I should do my morning workout…I considered trying to make a spin class, which would require that I am done with my erg by 7. The problem with this is it means I am depending on the gym where I erg to be open early, like it was when I did this before (which was lucky!) because my ergs definitely take longer than an hour. In the end, I decided not to torture myself by getting up so early, and to just do the prescribed workout.

After my erg pieces, I got in a good 30 minute run. I explored a part of campus I didn’t even know existed, which is always fun! The only thing: I began my first erg piece at 6:45, and finished my run at 8:45, so I was hungry!

I’m trying to up my veggie intake, so I went to the dining hall that I know has spinach out at breakfast. Here, we have a piece of whole wheat toast, half with cream cheese, half with turkey, plus spinach, a slice of tomato, and scrambled egg whites. I was planning on just making this with hardboiled eggs, but the concept of peeling eggs seemed so…difficult. And there were the egg whites just asking to be taken. So it worked out. Plus melon. And half a blueberry muffin.

It was decent. My favorite muffins the dining hall has are the chocolate chunk and the orange cranberry. Way too dangerous. This muffin had me thinking about my absolute favorite way to eat blueberry muffins. So here it is: yes, made from a mix, with fresh blueberries, topped with course sugar, hot from the oven, and preferably in bread form (less bottom crust!). Are you drooling yet? I am. Now THAT my friends, is dangerous. Speaking of quickbreads, I am in serious need of some baking. I have all of 2.5 pieces of bread left in my freezer. I’ve been eating it more for snacks lately, and it kind of disappeared. The only problem is, it is impossible to make anything at school that I plan to freeze, unless I make a ton of it because everyone can smell it and wants some. Plus I don’t have a TON of ingredients…One thing that worked for me to make here is pumpkin bread, which makes 2 loaves, so I have a loaf to distract everyone while I run my loaf up to my room. I really want to make this, but I only have 1 can of pumpkin, and the recipe calls for a little bit more than that. Hmmm but I do have a couple of sweet potatoes…maybe that could work? In theory I have ingredients for banana bread, if I didn’t eat all my bananas so darn fast! I’ll have to grab a bunch if I plan to do that. I guess I could wake up early (hah, earlier) one day and bake before anyone is awake! Not sure if it is worth it though.

Back to my day. I enjoyed a fabulous and much needed 2 hour nap. And like clockwork, I woke up wanting food, so I ate a granola bar, and quickly made the executive decision to hold off on cutting back nuts until tomorrow. Why? I was planning on a granola bar for an afternoon snack as well, plus I needed to pack some food for after practice and before my midterm, and I could not think of a single nonperishable thing I could pack that did not involve nuts or nut butter. So starting tomorrow, life is going to get difficult.

So these granola bars? A delivery from my mom! I didn’t take any pictures before, so right as I started this post, I ran to snap a picture. These guys are frozen, I finished the ones I kept out.

If you are interested, here is a bad picture of the recipe.

I like that brown rice syrup is the main sweetener in these. I guess these could be a decent replacement for my quickbread as preworkout fuel, but I don’t like eating fat (nuts) before a morning workout.

Ok, on to lunch!

Sweet potato bisque, Greek salad, tofu, and fruit. I later got some salmon which I ate in place of the tofu, because the tofu wasn’t my favorite, and I didn’t see the salmon earlier! I also had a slice of cinnamon toast and a small piece of chocolate cake.

For snack before practice, I finished the last of my Sweet Potato bread.

Plus another granola bar and half a banana with peanut butter (left over from making my dinner). Yeahhh lots of nuts.

At practice today, I wasn’t in a boat and had to cross train on land, which today meant spinning. I really don’t mind this. I love Spin, and the water was pretty rough today anyway. I did a few ab exercises after spinning, and I was juuust a little bit sweaty….I think this is cool (ok and maybe gross), but check out my mat that I was lying down on the to abs:

I was wearing an old softball t-shirt with a number on the back, and it made a sweat pattern! Can you guess what number I was? Well, at least I thought it was awesome.

I ate a peanut butter and banana sandwich with celery on the drive back, but we ended up getting back pretty early today, so I stopped by my local dining hall really quickly because there was a Lunar New Year celebration with special food. Unfortunately, all of the really good and unique food had RIDICULOUS lines, and I was pretty short on time, so I just had some noodles and salad.

On the way out the lines were shorter so I grabbed a chicken bun. In the corner there is some green tea ice cream. It is kind of a big deal when the dining hall has real ice cream because no one here ever gets it. Except, one dining hall is required to always have 3 flavors of ice cream. It has something to do with a condition the donors put when they donated money for it. It’s sooo far away though, so I’ve only been to that dining hall like twice ever. I also had some small candies. Then it was off to my math final! I think it went pretty well. I’m really hoping to do well in this class because I took a similar class in high school. It was so cold biking back though! I don’t think I’ve ever biked that fast back before!

Ok, I am off to do work!

Do you guys have any suggestions for fun posts? Or requests? Let me know!

Catching Up

Date: February 5, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guys, I am SO SORRY I haven’t posted in such a long time! I was pretty busy this weekend! Juggling rowing and school is…difficult. But I think I’m getting better at managing everything. How have you all been? Any good eats? I guess today will just be another flood of pictures. I definitely haven’t documented everything I’ve eaten. Especially not the sweet things…He he…

Ok, here it goes!

Veggie chili! Plus I love that the dining hall has had soybeans lately!

Mushroom barley soup from Whole Foods

Banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter 🙂

Brunch= best meal of the week. Gotta love that avocado! Plus now they have crepes…those seem to have gone unpictured…both days.

One of my first times getting pasta (it’s not whole wheat so it usually isn’t a priority for me). I mostly picked the chicken out and ate it with my salad though!

I have to add, this day also included some very delicious pumpkin cake made by my roommate.

I LOVE BISCUITS. It’s dangerous. And they’re so cute, right? By the way, peanut butter update! The dining hall now has natural peanut butter! So I don’t have to carry my own around!

Super Bowl food! But not really…GAH such a frustrating game though!

And that brings us back to today! I have to be honest…I’ve been indulging quite a bit since I stopped my no sugar challenge. Cereal with chocolate milk and peanut butter is a big one for me…plus some cookies, some frozen yogurt…and of course my roommate’s cake! But hey, it was hot out of the oven! Before I recap on today, I’ll go through a few non-food things from the last few days.

Friday morning was weights. We did single leg RDLs as well as regular RDLs, but we actually did the regular ones at a decent weight. Here’s the thing about RDLs. My hamstrings are ALWAYS sore after doing them, no matter how many or few reps, or how much or little weight is on the bar. It’s Monday. I’m still fairly sore. And here’s the thing. My bed is at a kind of awkward height, because my dresser is under my bed. So normally to get in bed I have to get a nice little running start and jump in. Sooo with tight hamstrings? Let’s just say I haven’t always been clearing it lately!

Saturday morning practice was actually really fun. I got to row with some of the other walk-ons who went to the lightweight rowing team. I also had my other coach from fall coach us. I think I would be happier on the lightweight team, just because I like their workouts better and I wouldn’t be the shortest one…Oh well. Maybe next year.

Later Saturday afternoon, I lifted weights on my own, and did one of my no-fail workouts from the fall. This workout I did a couple of times with my trainer before I left for college, but last fall I did it like…every other week. At the beginning, I would be sooo sore, but I did it enough that by the end of fall I wasn’t sore at all. Here it is:

I always write my workouts on whiteboards, and then take a picture and set it as my phone background. What’s nice about doing this workout a lot, is that it is already on my phone, and I have already made adjustments to it to accommodate the weight room at the gym here better.

I was expecting to be fairly weak on the squats, and therefore be super sore from them. But this workout surprised me! My legs weren’t too bad. I’m sore, but not terribly so. What shocked me most though was that the pushups destroyed my arms! These aren’t ordinary pushups. You keep your elbows at your sides and slowly lower your chest to the ground, and then back up. I usually have to come back up on my knees after a few reps. My arms were dead! And now, so sore! That was a surprise!

So how many of you watched the Super Bowl? I sure did! After a bit of stress over how to turn the TV on downstairs, I got it going just in time for kickoff! I must say, I wasn’t impressed by the commercials. I liked the Oreo one, and the one with all the adorable baby animals. Some of them were just plain weird though.

Ok, now that I’m caught up, on to today!

Weights this morning, so Blueberry Apple Cinnamon bread beforehand!

I still haven’t come close to my maximum weight for squats, but I’m always scared to go too heavy in new situations. I’m still up there with most of the girls though. I don’t know why, but I haven’t squatted the same weights as the strongest girls on the team, even though I know I could handle it.

I went for a quick jog afterwards. As in maybe 1.5 miles. I had wanted to do more, but I had some last minute work to do. Breakfast was a new one for me.

So, my nutrition professor from last quarter (whose class I sat in last Thursday) told us that this was the healthiest breakfast ever. Although the walnuts are my touch. So what the heck is that?? Raw instant steel cut oats, nonfat plain greek yogurt, and semi-thawed blueberries. My evaluation? I could have done without the oats. I really don’t like textures in my yogurt (flaxseed in yogurt is the worst), so this wasn’t great for me. I’ve learned to like granola in yogurt though, so maybe I could try baking up the steel cut oats with brown rice syrup or something and making it into granola. The idea behind raw steel cut oats is that they digest more slowly.

Ok guys, I have some big(ish) news. I had a great/horrible revelation after breakfast. I think I may have a nut allergy. What?? Let me explain. My friend has a nut allergy that causes her face to break out when she eats too many nuts. She was texting me today saying that her face was breaking out because she ate too many nuts. So here’s the thing. I’ve never had skin problems hardly at all before, and then in the middle of the summer, my face started breaking out like crazy. I really thought it was an allergic reaction, and I had a feeling it was to nuts, but I couldn’t figure out what nut, because I wasn’t eating any new type of nut. It finally occurred to me today that where I went wrong was in looking at the type of nut, not the quantity! Whenever I would cut a certain nut out of my diet, I would simply replace it with another type of nut. And the timing makes sense. I started eating more nuts than ever before this summer, and let’s be honest, I eat a crazy amount of peanut butter. Sooo I need to severely reduce my nut intake. So for the next couple of weeks, I can’t have more than a serving of nuts per day, because I need to test this out. So why is this partially good? Because it means there is hope for my skin to be normal again! Which is super exciting! I was telling this story to my friend, and she told me, “Aww you won’t be peanut butter girl anymore (referring to my habit of bringing peanut butter to the dining hall).” I told her, “No, I’ll just be less peanut butter girl!”

So that is where I stand. I need to monitor my nut intake carefully.

Guess what everyone? I have to learn several dances for crew. Which would not be a big deal if I had any coordination or ability to dance at all. However, I have no coordination or ability to dance at all. And here’s the thing. I actually have to be good because I have to preform this in front of tons of people, including basically every athlete at my school. Awesome. And I have a week….Wish me luck!

Oh, I have one more picture for today!

Hiding under all that lettuce is a piece of potato and collard greens. On top of that mess of lettuce is brown rice, Thai barbecue chicken, and yellow curry sauce. This dish is something that the dining hall has almost every night. It was every night at the beginning of the year. The first week, I loved it and had it multiple times. And then….it was still there. Every. Single. Night. I think I’ve had it all of once since the first week. But today I was just not up for waiting in the grilled chicken line, so I went with this! I also had a slice of buttered cinnamon raisin toast.

Well, that’s my day! I have to go study for a math midterm that I have tomorrow! You know what is bad? In the time since I last posted, WordPress changed its whole look. I swear I haven’t been gone that long! I promise to be better!

Do you have any food allergies? How did you find out?

Sweet Day

Date: February 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. I thought that my no sugar recap had some ideas that should be shared, so I left it up an extra day in the hopes that more people would see it. Well, this leads ironically to my next topic…I ended my no sugar challenge. I had some cake yesterday, and more stuff today. I want to get back to eating healthy, but no challenge. Just to clarify my comments on not wanting sugary foods yesterday, I want to be clear that I like sugar. I have a huge sweet tooth, so I’m inevitably going to eat sweets. What I don’t like is all the hidden sugar. If I’m going to eat something bad for me, I want to at least enjoy it!

Ok, back to more normal posting. Today started out well. Why? 2 words: PR and gear. We had our tough erg this morning. It has 4 different pieces, each different distances, and each all out. I went slower on the first 2 (slower than last time), and PRed on the second 2, including a 5k, for an overall PR. It felt really good! I was a little discouraged by the first 2 pieces, but during the 3rd, I decided I was GOING to PR. To be fair, this is only the second time I’ve done it. But still.

And second: GEAR! It’s a really big deal for athletes to have gear. Today I got a t-shirt for the Director’s Cup, and Nike running shorts with my school’s name! SO EXCITED. Plus, the weather was absolutely beautiful! Onto my eats! I’ll just post a few shots from yesterday to catch up.

Just a few comments: my smoothie definitely didn’t hold me over like my French Toast Microwave Bakes normally do, so I was starving after class and ended up having a huge snack. Plus, have I mentioned that whenever I nap, I wake up with a huge urge to eat? And then I start shoving food i my mouth in a half asleep, dazed state. So yeahh. I’m pretty sure that huge snack set me up for worse eating later, and ultimately the cake that broke the camel’s back. If you haven’t noticed, I have a weakness for chocolate cake…Another note: those banana chews are so weird! I don’t know what to think of them. They only have 1 ingredient, bananas. I ate them with that super smooth almond butter. Maybe I’ve been eating them because I ran out of bananas…the dining halls haven’t had bananas lately, which is actually pretty frustrating….

Ok, on to today! 2 granola balls before my workout. After:

Protein smoothie! This wasn’t a great one. No bananas 🙁 I made my typical berry smoothie with blackberries and watermelon, which would have been good until I added vanilla protein powder, which was just weird. So to fix that I added cocoa powder. Not bad, but not great. And then, since I deserved it, this:

3/4 of a whole wheat waffle (I tried to make half. Ehh go figure). Plus thawed frozen blueberries, peanut butter, and butter on top. Yum! Although I must admit, the whole wheat batter isn’t as good as the regular. It occurred to me the other day that I could whip up my own batter and bring it to the dining hall. But that might be a little odd, even for me. That brings me to the next point: BIG NEWS! The dining hall may be getting more natural peanut butter! I saw them scooping it into the container today, and it was a different type! It was even the kind that had to be stirred! I tried to read the label, but the lady was looking at me strangely. But it only had 1g of sugar, so it’s likely that there is no added sugar.

Class and then lunch. Yeahh lunch was where my sugar challenge really went downhill…

But first! Salad with a black bean burger, carrots, and brown rice pilaf. Nothing wrong with that. Buttt then I had some other things. Unpictured. Cinnamon raisin toast with smart balance to start. That was delicious but the dining halls have started stocking a different brand of cinnamon raisin bread, which I don’t like as much. Then a scone…and some small cookie bars.

After class, my sweet tooth was still raging so I ate a Chocolate Mint Thinkthin bar, and brought back the good ol’ mug brownie.

Practice today I was on land because we had an odd number of people. I actually don’t mint being on land. It gives me some freedom in my workout. And let’s be honest, rowing at steady state for over an hour on the water can get a bit…repetitive. Instead, I Spun, did some abs, and worked on some erging technique, which was much needed. I did a lot of legs only work because I know I’ll gain a lot of speed when I start using my legs again. I think I made some good progress!

Dinner was rushed, but it was what is currently my favorite meal!

Liquid egg whites with spinach, cheese (cheddar this time), pesto, and avocado. Bonus: I learned I can microwave egg on a plate! Anything to save dishes. After a rushed dinner, I headed out to my mom’s nutrition class. My mom is taking a couple of adult classes on campus, and she has the same professor I had last quarter for my nutrition class. I thought a brush up on my nutrition wouldn’t hurt. It was fun, but I liked how he taught my class better.

When I returned to my dorm, I decided to make brownies. Why? I decided I was better off making brownies with my open bag of mix and sharing them with my dorm (and eating some of course) than if I had an open bag, and therefore unlimited access to mug brownies. While the brownies were in the oven, my dorm decided to have a s’mores night. Soo needless to say I’m a little sugared out! I really should go to sleep soon because I have a morning workout, but I don’t want to be farther behind on this blog, plus I need to burn off a little of this sugar first.

Needless to say they were well enjoyed! I don’t care what anyone says. being popular in college is easy. Just bake something! As you can see above, some people obviously like the middle! I personally like a little of both the middle and the edge. Most things I don’t like the edge of though.

Ok, I really need to rest up for tomorrow. I’ve been having some nutrition thoughts lately though, so I think tomorrow might be a good time to talk about that!