WIAW-Yoga FINALLY

Date: May 13, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Wednesday! I finally actually have time for a WIAW post, AND I actually took pictures! Thanks Jenn for hosting!

I am proud to announce, I’m FINALLY out of my food rut. Which equals being out of my blogging rut-phew! Do you ever read blogs that inspire you to eat better? I recently discovered The Oatmeal Artist-the oatmeal is so creative, all I want to do is eat oatmeal, and eat make oatmeal creations of my favorite desserts! I really want to try the banana-mango. I love that idea! To be perfectly honest-I’ve never made baked oatmeal, and I’ve never made stove top oatmeal…I’ve always had instant either with instant hot water, or the microwave! Or overnight oats, of course. So I think that may need to happen!

Ok, on to the ACTUAL food (and exercise).

So…I haven’t been to yoga in FOREVER. Last week, it occurred to me that there is a yoga class after spin in the morning…and I always have an extra hour after spin in the morning before class…so it really made no sense NOT to go! Plus, after softball last night after not so much as picking up a ball since last summer, I was a bit sore!

After spin, I headed over to yoga. As I brought myself into the first down dog of the day, I had that feeling. You know-the revelation of “I’ve been SO stupid.” The entire back of my legs was SO tight, from my hamstring all the way down to my achilles. Then I remembered how I have the tendency to get sort of injured whenever I’m running and I neglect yoga, which is why I think my Achilles tendonitis has flared up so badly lately. I left the class feeling fantastic (and apparently all my yoga muscles have withered away…whoops). When I woke up this morning, my Achilles was so painful I could barely walk and I was expecting it to be “one of those days.” After yoga, it was pretty fine. You better believe I’m going back on Thursday!

And since this is, after all, What I ATE Wednesday, let’s get on with the food!

Breakfast was a current favorite-Whole milk Greek yogurt with berry compote and sunflower seed butter, plus a mango on the side. I have to say, I may be a sort of convert to Whole Milk yogurt. It’s just SO creamy!

Lunch was packed, thanks to my freezer! I thawed out the grilled chicken with mashed butter-sage sweet potatoes last night, and then added some of my precious roasted carrots this morning. It always amazes me how well chicken freezes!

For dessert, I had some dates with unsweetened chocolate (more than just this picture). I credit dates for helping get me out of my food rut. Why have I waited so long to restock them?

Today, it was quite hot out.

I actually didn’t feel the heat TOO much, which I’m taking as a good sign given I’ll be battling the heat and humidity of Washington DC all summer! Anyways, to cool off, I had a raspberry chia kombucha.

And the last of my roasted carrots. It’s always a sad, sad day when I finish them off!

Crossfit today was a bit rough. We worked on cleans as the strength, and then the WOD was the following:

3 rounds:

30 overhead walking lunges

30 wall balls

30 push ups

So, yeah-my shoulders are done.

For dinner, I made a giant salad with all kinds of fun things-carrot/raisin salad, zucchini, chicken, sunflower seeds. I also has a veggie soufflé on the side-I couldn’t find any smaller plates or bowls so I just threw it on top. Classy, as always.

Not necessarily the prettiest, but it got the job done! For dessert, I had some cereal on top of plain Greek yogurt. I ate the top of the yogurt and brought the rest back to my dorm for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Food rut=obliterated! Happy Wednesday!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten this week?

Mother’s Day Fun and Fun-Fun

Date: May 12, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know I’m a day late on the whole Mother’s Day recap-but of course thanks to my amazing mother for being, well, amazing!

On Mother’s Day, I didn’t actually see my mom until dinner. I did have a super fun morning though! My home Crossfit has been organizing Sunday runs, and when they go to one of my favorite places to run, I really can’t pass it up. I’ve never been to this trail before, but it was awesome. It’s paved, with beautiful views. It’s also long enough for me-6 miles each way! And it would be impossible to make a wrong turn…

It was also really fun to run with people-something I hardly ever do! We chatted the whole time, and I probably went a bit faster than I would have otherwise, although it was still a comfortable pace. I did 5 miles.

I haven’t done much (read: any) distance running, and I’m doing Bay to Breakers next weekend, which is 7-8 miles. Bay to Breakers is going to be crazy. If you aren’t familiar with this race…well, I’ll take lots of pictures. Although I doubt they will all be appropriate for the Internet…To give you a sense-the race packet instructions for the bib said “Place bib on your shirt. If you are not wearing a shirt, place it on the from of your shorts.” Yeahhh.

After my run, I returned to campus for brunch, in the form of a veggie panini, eggs, and fruit. The panini was a bit plain/sparsely filled, so I ended up putting the eggs inside and eating it as a breakfast sandwich-so good!

I spent the afternoon doing things not worth mentioning-although I did order new Crossfit shoes, which I’m excited about! The soles of my old ones are getting pretty bare!

That evening, I drove to my hometown (that’s 3 trips this weekend, if you’re keeping track) for dinner at a nice restaurant. Being the total foodie that I am, and totally failing blogger, I of course have food pictures, but no people pictures, or any of the picture frames (with pictures) I gave my mom. Typical.

For my meal, I had red snapper over garlic mashed potatoes and spinach. I realized that although I’ve had this dish many times in the past, I’ve never actually had it at the restaurant-we’ve done take out from there mostly recently! I also had a side of brussels sprouts.

It was a fun night!

I have more excitement to share with you guys today. I played softball! And IT WAS AWESOME. And I again have meaning in my life. I haven’t actually touched a ball since the end of summer season, but at this point in my life it’s instinct. I only got a couple of hits, and my timing is still a bit off at the plate (instinct is fast pitch and this is slow pitch!), but it was just fabulous. Another thing that surprised me was how strong I was. I was not expecting to feel like that. I mean, I was in the worst shape of my life at the beginning of last summer (thanks mono), but it was incredible! Even more shocking, I felt very quick and fast. I had so much energy and was just bouncing around. It was great. I need to study super hard for my Bio midterm next Monday because the test is 7-9 and the game is at 8:50…clearly, priorities! Now, I’m super motivated to find a softball league this summer in DC. Plus, it’s a great way to meet people.

I have to say, I’m so happy with everything right now. I have just had a great couple of days-seeing family, Crossfit friends, running with people, SOFTBALL…so much love!

Do you like running solo or with people?

Weekend Part 1: Fancy Mexican Food and Breakfast

Date: May 11, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! (Happy Monday? Is that even a thing?) I’m actually going to discuss my weekend in 2 parts because I’m a bad blogger and haven’t posted.

Friday morning started out with a track workout. I did 10x400m, which is a classic that I haven’t done in a while. Then-breakfast! I had a yogurt bowl with plain Greek yogurt, berry compote (frozen berries boiled down), and sunflower seed butter. For my birthday, I received a shipment of my favorite kind of sunflower seed butter, MaraNatha, which I cannot find anywhere! So that has made my little yogurt bowls all the more enjoyable!

After class on Friday I headed to Whole Foods to pick up some things for the weekend. Guys. I found the holy grail of all cheeses. GOAT Brie. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had to be mine. And it was FABULOUS. My friends and I keep talking about how we need to have a cheese tasting party, and this may have to be my contribution!

Also at Whole Foods, I picked up lunch of Greek salad with chicken and a blueberry muffin.

That evening was a highlight for me. We had a dinner for my hall in my dorm, and we went to a fancy Mexican place, Reposado. We started with huac (what’s new?) and I think it was the best I’ve ever had. It was insanely creamy, and not too citrusy. I think there must have been cheese in there. YUM.

For my meal, I went with Tortilla soup and a side of sweet, creamy corn. Both were excellent. I would definitely recommend this place!

And of course dessert was a must. I had warm banana upside down cake, served with sea salt caramel ice cream. I have to say, the ice cream definitely stole the show here! SO good.

After dinner, I rushed back to campus to begin a wild Friday night.

My school put on an event where they subsidized Build a Bear knock offs, so my friends and I signed up to do it. I’m clearly quite the party animal!

I then stayed up much later than I should have given my wake up call the next morning. Healthy living tip: sleep. Sleep is important and you all should do it.

Saturday was my mom’s birthday, so my sister and I drove up to surprise her with breakfast. I was in charge of fruit, while my sister made lattes with her fancy raw, local, organic milk, as well as lemon truffle latkes. My sister has a Jewish boyfriend, so she has learned a thing or two about latke making!

We hung around a while, and I may or may not have taken advantage of the opportunity of an oven and roasted up some carrots. Since my slicing capabilities are not the best, I decided to try baby carrots and see how they turned out. The verdict? Maybe not quite as good but still much better than nothing!

The rest of my day was spent with my rear end planted firmly to my chair, working on a paper due at midnight. Yes, on a Saturday.

Dinner was some chicken, butternut squash, and vegetable soup, along with cheese and crackers.

However, after a long day of writing and reading intense neuroscience journal articles, I was able to apply some of my newly learned knowledge in one of my friend and my typical late night sugar rants. I love connecting knowledge and applying it elsewhere! The sum of it was that we’re all addicted to sugar, and a lot of the problem isn’t the dopaminergic pathways, but the glutamatergic pathways. Yayy big words! Basically that means that the reason the addiction sustains is not that we feel so much pleasure from the sweet stuff, but that the addiction is caused by environmental cues triggering the urge for sugar. This is believed the main pathway for relapse and the later stages of addiction, according to the research I did for my paper. This is interesting because I’ve experienced this some when I’ve tried to avoid sugar for a while-certain cues definitely set me off! I guess to overcome addiction it helps to understand it!

And there’s part 1 of my weekend! I’ll be back with a Mother’s Day recap tomorrow, but for now-sleep+homework!

What did you do for Mother’s Day?

Literally the Best Thing Ever

Date: May 8, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’m sorry I haven’t posted hardly at all lately! I’ve been busy/I haven’t been feeling my blogging mojo lately, but I thought I’d share some pictures, including the BEST THING EVER. As in best. And thing. Ever.

My sombrero and I live for Cinco de Mayo.

Check. It. Out. OMG. A tortilla chip sombrero filled with huac! (Like from Despicable Me 2). My sister is the best person ever. This was WAY too awesome, and pretty much all of my life’s dreams have been fulfilled.

Plus other food from my hall’s little Cinco de Mayo party! (I got to DJ thanks to my extensive collection of Spanish music. LOVE.)

And I’m just going to hit you guys with some other pictures from this week. One highlight includes microwave caramel! We microwaved honey, butter, and coconut cream, stirred occasionally, topped with seas salt, and let it cool! It was a bit more of the toffee side so we need to cook it less next time!

Just a couple of other noteworthy topics: I think the reason I hated chia pudding before was that I didn’t cover/seal it very well so it tasted too much like fridge. That or it just tastes way better when made with coconut milk! Also I made a fail of a chocolate mint smoothie this morning-I used fresh mint leaves, cocoa powder, and banana like last time, but I left out the chocolate protein powder, which was apparently a necessary component, so the flavors majorly clashed!

Do you ever lose your blogging mojo?

MIMM-Birthday Recap!

Date: May 5, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! I’m currently blogging over lunch. I wanted to do this post last night but I didn’t get the chance!

As you may or may not know, Saturday was my birthday! To be honest, birthdays have seemed like a less big deal lately but it was still a great one!

Celebrations (in my mind at least) started Friday night at 11 when one of our RAs sent out an email about free Cream (which are super fancy/tasty ice cream sandwiches). My friend and I sprinted over, and I snagged an M and M with vanilla ice cream! SO good!

I ended up staying up until midnight on a stakeout for assassins. Sadly, I was killed in plain sight while on said stakeout. Which is fine-the people still left standing are insanely into the game!

On the morning I my birthday, I went to Crossfit to complete the Filthy 50. it was hard-but for some reason my lower calves have been INSANELY sore the past 2 days-like much sorer than they should be!

After Crossfit, I cleaned myself up and headed out to work at a food festival my sorority was putting on for charity. Of course, I had some food.

Thai Food:

And chocolate cake!

Then, that evening, I went out to dinner with one of my best friends from high school. Foodwise, we split some sweet potato fries, and I had a quinoa veggie bowl. Picturewise, we forgot to take many pictures besides via snapchat.

After dinner, we walked over to little diner-type of restaurant for dessert. We shared a warm chocolate chip cookie with ice cream, and a slice of blueberry pie.

I love this caption:

She also got me this fantastic pillow:

The rest of the evening was spent at a sorority event!

Sunday, I went for a 15ish mile bike ride. It was super windy, but I never had to get off my bike to walk up the giant hills so that was a good thing! When I was going down a very steep hill though, I was very aware of how my brake has recently been failing…so that added a little extra adrenaline!

That evening, I celebrated my birthday with my family. We went to a local Tapas restaurant and enjoyed lots of delicious food!

The tapas:

Guac-always guac.

And the main course: wild mushroom paella.

With full bellies, it was off to my sister’s apartment for cake!

The cake was homemade Devil’s Food with vanilla buttercream!

I got a lot of food for my birthday! My mom gave me FOUR jars of my favorite sun butter, which I can’t find anywhere! I also got meals for this week, which I’m pretty excited about!

The best sight ever:

And today’s lunch:

Overall, it was a fabulous birthday! The present my sister gave me is especially epic-if you follow me on twitter or instagram you may have seen it, but if not I will wait until tomorrow to post about it-until it is in its full glory!

I hope you all had Marvelous weekends as well!