Accidental Throwback Thursday

Date: August 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Hello! I’ve been trying to post for a while, but my internet connection at home just was not having it!

Since this post was supposed to go up yesterday, this becomes accidental throwback Thursday!

And what, my friends, are we throwing it back to?

Last year’s Giant’s Race!My sister and I ran the 10k last year. What’s this? Yeah, um. I won my division last year! What? How did THAT happen?

Well, I’m super proud of that! To be fair, my age group isn’t huge. But I’ll take it! Next year I’m considering doing the 10k again…and training to win. We shall see!

Back to the important stuff…food and exercise.

Yesterday morning was an early spin class. Yes, I get up at 5:10am in the summer for my own pleasure. Yes, I’m a college student. Yes, those are oxymorons.

My calf continues to feel better, especially after spin. I refueled with a chocolate protein smoothie, with 1/2 cup less almond milk than usual. Plus a small slice of toast with sunflower seed butter.Yesterday morning I took my dog out to the park to participate in his favorite activity ever-soccer. He goes absolutely crazy for soccer balls. I wish I had gotten a picture of him, but I left my phone in the car so it wouldn’t get slobbery. It’s funny, he got mistaken for a puppy again. This happens regularly! Umm no, he’s almost 12?

Before class I whipped up a quick lunch of leftover spinach quiche. After class, I hustled over to Crossfit. It was a little close-I hate rush hour traffic! The WOD was 7 rounds of 100m run, 5 toes to bar, 10 deadlifts (115), and 10 overhead squats with a 25 pound weight. I Rxed the weight, but did knees to elbows. It took me about 17:00-on the slower side. I wasn’t going to really push my calf on the run! (And *knock on wood* it’s feeling good as new!)

I made myself a little snack plate, plus the leftovers from that morning’s smoothie.

Trader Joe’s spinach and kale bites-not bad but they shouldn’t be microwaved (not that they have microwave directions…) They heated super unevenly! But tasty other than that!

Plus crunchamame, peas, and half a mango. It was perfect!

Sadly, I did not get enough sleep last night. I had to get up early this morning for the kitten nursery, and I had to stay up to sign up for fall classes….and the system failed. Grrr. I can’t believe I’m already signing up for classes though! Where has the time gone?

-Granted, I still have almost 2 months of summer….

Also, please tell me how much I’m going to hate myself this quarter-here’s the current schedule plan: Chem, Chem lab, Physics, Physics lab, Bio, a unit of labwork.

Ughh not even one fun class in there….

And since I love you all, here are some pictures from the kitten nursery this morning; we got 5 new litters of really little kittens! I had to syringe-feed a litter and I came home covered in cat food….sacrifices people!I love this.

After changing out of my cat food caked clothes, I made myself a fruit bowl topped with sunflower seed butter.

And one last thing-how cool is this? At the lab I work at, I had to take pictures of printer cartridges to be returned because they were defective….3D printer cartridges! The “ink” that was leaking everywhere was wax and plastic. Crazy.

What was/is your favorite subject in school?

WIAW-The I Didn’t Forget Edition

Date: July 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I still can’t believe I forgot about WIAW last week. Let’s just say I was more than ready to go with it this week! As always, a huge thanks to Jenn for hosting 🙂

I began my morning with an early spin class. My calf was sore after Sunday’s run, but after spin class I walked away feeling 1000x better. In an attempt to get a head start on the day, I walked over to Starbucks for a strawberry smoothie and some reading for Psych. Sadly, my productivity was short lived. After about an hour of work, a nap was beginning to feel really necessary. 6 hours of sleep a night is not enough for me! Since it’s summer and I didn’t have to go in to the lab, I saw no problems with a nap.

Sometimes simpler is better-lunch was a plate of snack items- carrots with laughing cow, celery(one stalk with sunflower seed butter, one without), and a Chobani flip. I’m obsessed with the coconut yogurt; I can’t find any of the new flavors anywhere around here though!

I finished the meal with something sweet. A dark chocolate square and a mango log. I picked up a bag of mango logs at a fruit and garlic stand on the way back from San Luis Obispo. We passed through Gilroy, which is the garlic capitol of the world! You can even smell the garlic as you drive by; it’s crazy! The mango log is basically dried fruit ground up in log form and wrapped in coconut. Probably with some sugar added somewhere along the line. They’re DELICIOUS.

I spent the afternoon attempting to catch up on work for my Psych class with my little homework helper.

Please note the previously black shirt-I swear that cat sheds like no other.

I also spent some time reading blogs-please tell me I’m not the only one who gets hungry from reading food blogs?? So being the healthy living blogger that I am, I whipped up a protein cake. I would post the recipe, but it wasn’t exactly a winner. I should have added cocoa powder, which I forgot to do. The “cake” (and I’m using this term loosely here) was made up of protein powder, egg whites, a splash of almond milk, a splash of apple sauce, and some chocolate chips. Like I said, this wasn’t a winner. However, chocolate chips can right a lot of wrongs, so I didn’t mind. I think in the future, I’d prefer more of a sweet scramble kind of deal with no protein powder, banana, and chocolate chips.

Before dinner, I went to Crossfit. I got new Crossfit shoes at the Reebok outlet last weekend, and I was more than ready to try them out!They were awesome! The shoes I had been wearing were worn out and not great for weight lifting because they weren’t so flat. I used to lift weights in flatter shoes which coincidentally were terrible for running. These guys are the best of both worlds!

Lots of Olympic Lifting happening today! Our strength portion was snatches, which I’ve found a new love for. Not gonna lie, I like showing off juuuust a little. Plus, the movement feels so smooth.

The WOD was Elizabeth-my first of the girls!

Cleans and ring dips for 21 reps, 15 reps, and 9 reps. I didn’t Rx this. This is my first time doing cleans at Crossfit, so although I can clean 95 pounds, it had been a little while since I’d done them, and when I lifted weights in the past, I always did fewer reps. I went with 85 pounds for the cleans, which was just about right. I broke up each round into roughly 5s (putting the bar down and resting a little every 5 reps). I also didn’t Rx ring dips. Anything strictly upper body is pretty awful for me. I used a band, and I didn’t do them on rings, I just did regular dips. Well, with those modifications, I finished in 7:43! And my clean muscles will be sore tomorrow…

When I first started lifting weights with my trainer (3 years ago), I only heard him say the names of the lifts, I never saw them written out. I thought “cleans” were actually “clings.” Haha!

When I arrived home, dinner was waiting for me. We had corn and potato chowder with added rotisserie chicken and finished with cheddar cheese and green onions. On the side-asparagus and garlic aioli for dipping.

Not a bad day of eats! I wanted to show a few more pictures to you guys. Here’s my lunch from yesterday:This little guys LOVES meat. I was making turkey wraps, and he would not leave me alone! He kept trying to eat the food off my plate, trying to eat the turkey out of my hand, trying to eat it out of the container. And of course, when he wants something all he does is purr, act super sweet, and forcefully try to push his head into my food. It was so hard to get this picture-I almost had to sacrifice my lunch for the sake of a good picture. The things I do for you guys…

Also, check out this tan line from my hike the other day. Fun fact-I also have a tan line from the strap of the bag I was wearing during the hike. Nice. You know what else is sad? I have a sunscreen tan line. On my face. Only it’s worse than that-I have a tan line from rubbing the sunscreen off the edges of my face with sweat when I run. In other words, I have pale blotches on my cheeks. At first I thought some face product was messing with my skin. Nope.

On another positive note, I’m getting so psyched for my half marathon on Sunday! I’m feeling much better about my calf, although I’m not sure I’ll run at all before the race and risk it tightening up again. We’ll see!

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

What did you eat this week? Highlights? Details?

MIMM-The Great Outdoors!

Date: July 29, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I haven’t done a Marvelous in My Monday in a longggg time, but it seemed like the perfect way to tie in some highlights of my weekend, and some awesome scenery. Thanks so much to Katie!

Marvelous is….

An AWESOME hike on Saturday. At least in my opinion.

(And Marvelous is forgetting to bring a sweatshirt and having to buy a new one!)

This is the hike where I learned that 2.8 miles with 700 feet of elevation is a lot. And my parents didn’t really appreciate my underestimation. As in, they were about to kill me.

The hike began innocently enough-overlooking a small beach. Then, there was even a nice paved trail.

Our hike was a loop of a few different trails pieced together, none of which were marked. We had some difficulty finding where the next leg connected.

And then began the ascent.

This picture is back when my mom only KIND OF wanted to kill me.

The views were amazing though!

I definitely misjudged how steep and how high this would be.

Little did we know that the uphill was the easy part-the hike finished with an extremely steep downhill. We had to sidestep down the hill the whole ways, and I fell flat on my rear end once. Despite a little dirt, we emerged unscathed. I had a great time, my parents were glad it was over, and we ate delicious food after. What could be more marvelous?

Marvelous is…

WAFFLES. I’m in love. Although before a run? Ehh not so much.

Marvelous is…

A run! A glorious run! I found a bike trail near where we were staying in San Luis Obispo that was a 5 mile loop. Since hurting my calf, the most I had run was 1.5 miles before I had to back off due to pain in my injured calf. It’s been getting much better though, so the plan was to try and complete the whole 5 miles, of course backing off if it began to hurt. I’m happy to report that I completed the entire run, which almost no pain. It may have hurt a TINY bit in the last .5-1 mile but nothing crazy.

However, it did kind of tighten up a few hours later after icing and sitting in the car for hours. But what are you gonna do, right?
Marvelous is…
My first half marathon in less than a week! I’m so excited-I have my playlist ready and my clothing picked out. After running 5 miles, I feel much better about running 13.1 after my calf injury, especially since it should only get better from here. I’ve determined from this past run that running the race will be fine, but I’ll probably be a mess post-race with my calf. As in, I think I won’t injury it but it will be sore after the race, which I guess is normal. But hey, I’ll take it!
Have a great Monday everyone!
What’s Marvelous in YOUR Monday?

Moving Forward

Date: July 28, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Than you all so much for your kind comments in response to my last post. It really means a lot to me-I had no idea what to expect and I was really nervous about posting. Not many bloggers discuss weight gain, but I think it’s something that should be discussed as well.

What I’m piecing together from my thoughts and your comments is this message: healthy living is a state of mind and a passion, but not necessarily a body type. Everyone has their ups and downs, and there is no one-size-fits-all blogger.

But like the title of the last post, I’m ready to own it. With all that in mind, I wanted to briefly touch on my plans moving forward. I want to do something about the extra weight in a purely HEALTHY manner. The main things I am going to focus on are more produce (fruits and veggies), less sugar, and portion control. This WILL NOT become a weight loss blog-I probably won’t discuss this a ton in the future (unless you guys ask about it). I’ll of course keep you updated on my life, but I don’t want to focus on that in the blog so I can continue to give you all the quality programming you’ve come to know and love (kidding).

And on to a much more fun topic-my weekend!

Friday afternoon my family drove down to San Luis Obispo, about a 4 hour drive south. For some reason, most of the hotels were booked up this weekend. The hotel we stayed at was the 12th one my dad tried! It was really nice, and also cozy.

Upon arriving, the first priority was dinner. We passed the Apple Farm Restaurant on the way to our hotel, which boasted of farmer’s market fresh food. And amazing pastries-I was sold! Another bonus-it was a 2 minute walk from our hotel.

I was in the mood for farm-fresh veggies so I ordered the veggie melt, and subbed a side salad for the fries. I also added avocado to the sandwich-which totally made the sandwich! I wish I could say I like eggplant…but to be honest, I don’t know how to eat it! When I bit in to the sandwich, the whole piece came out!

As luck would have it, my family for some reason or another was discussing potato pancakes on the drive up, so they were a must when we discovered them on the menu. Plus, house-made apple sauce!

And yes, despite my whole beginning of this post, it was vacation and they did boast amazing sounding desserts, so we ordered a few things to try. My choice was a chocolate zucchini bundt cake, because hey-zucchini=healthy, right? We also ordered an eclair, and a mini apricot pineapple pie. Everything was delicious.

PS-like my shirt? “I’m only half crazy: 13.1”

After dinner, we decided to walk off our large meal by exploring downtown San Luis Obispo. We bit off a bit more than we could chew-the walk turned out to be pretty long! Luckily, a free trolley was kind enough to pick us up- “The Old SLO Trolley.” We got a kick out of the name, but slow it was not!

Upon arriving downtown, the first priority for me was to buy a sweatshirt. Somehow I managed to forget one…luckily I found a cute one that I wore the rest of the trip, and will definitely wear in the future.

We wandered into a candy and soda store with every type of candy bar imaginable, and a million…interesting…sodas.

The next morning, we awoke on the early side to make it to a morning tour of Hearst Castle. Mr. Hearst was one of the founders of newspapers as we know them today, and had a huge news empire. He build a castle on the top of a hill overlooking the coast where we would relax and host famous or interesting guests.

Check out this view! It’s no wonder he loved this place!

We went on a tour of the part of the house the guests would visit. Every night guests would be expected to attend a cocktail party, followed by dinner and a movie.

The grounds were beautiful. He modeled the castle after several architectural styles from Europe.

I really enjoyed this visit. It transformed me back to a different era. I’ve always thought that if I could live in any other time period, i’d want to live in the 1920s. Everything was so…elegant (this from a girl who wears exclusively exercise clothes..). Plus, the views were amazing! There was so much history there.

After the tour, I had my first ever Starbucks coffee. I can’t believe I’ve never gotten coffee there before! I ordered a cappuccino, and I enjoyed it. Then, my family set out on a hike. I’ll go more into that tomorrow, but here’s a hint-my mom was just about ready to kill me.

We then went to the restaurant I had been looking forward to all trip-The Natural Cafe. My family ate there a few years ago when we stopped for dinner on the way down to Santa Barbara, and I had fond memories of it. I ordered a veggies stuffed potato, and a half salad with cranberries, walnuts, and avocado in a lemon herb vinaigrette. Both were superb. I need more potatoes in my life! I want to recreate this at home.

These are my eats from the day. For dessert, we found a little ice cream sandwich shop where you could create your own ice cream sandwich. The ice cream was frozen into perfect little disks that perfectly fit the cookies. I went with birthday cake ice cream and an oatmeal cookie and a fudge cookie. YUM.

Today we headed home-in terrible traffic I might add! We made a few stops, the first being for ice for my calf post-run and lunch, the next at a fruit and garlic stand at the side of the road, and the last at a huge outlet mall. I picked up some new kicks-Crossfit shoes from the Reebok outlet! They had a good deal on shoes, and my workout shoes are a) not optimum for weight lifting and b) a year old and have seen better days. I can’t wait to try them out! I love outlets!

What did you do this weekend?

Own It

Date: July 26, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Ok guys, I’m super nervous to write this post. It’s going to be pretty honest, and I’m scared. But I do feel like I need to be honest with you guys. Bear with me, as I’m not 100% sure as to the direction of this post.

I want to start out by discussing Amanda’s post. She talks about fears related to “impostor syndrome”-the concern that one feels as if he/she is faking what he/she is doing, and will be found out. She discusses the fears that her flaws will be found out.

Wow.

I can definitely relate to this, especially as a “healthy living” blogger. I definitely feel like I’m being hypocritical. I don’t feel as fit as I should be to consider myself a decent healthy living blogger. So here it is. I’m owning it.

How can I promote healthy habits when in the time since starting this blog, I’ve gained a lot of weight? Just to be clear-the gain has nothing to do with blogging. Circumstances in my life have changed and things have happened (hellooo mono).

Have you noticed I’ve hardly posted any recent pictures? Why? To be perfectly honest, I’m embarrassed. And scared. I don’t want to lose my validity as a blogger because of my body. Because I don’t exactly feel like it’s my body. It doesn’t represent me and my interests. Just because I’m not 100% healthy does not mean that I want to be, or that I care any less about my health.

I’m still extremely active. I just haven’t found the right balance in a while. And I HATEHATEHATE talking about weight on my blog because it makes me uncomfortable, but I have to own it. And maybe that’s the first step to finding a solution.

And again, to be honest, this is part of why I haven’t looked into getting a spin certification too closely. I feel like I don’t look the part. But you now what? That’s just stupid. If I have a passion, I should pursue it. I’m still fit and muscular. I just have a little more body fat than normal. Since we’re being honest.

And since we’re being super honest, let’s go into why I need to find peace with myself and get the excess off.

I’d be lying if I said my freshman year wasn’t hard. But before I go complaining, I don’t want to make it seem like I didn’t have a great year. I really did, I loved the new experiences and new people. But I made it harder than it needed to be.

Because here’s the thing about being a health-obsessed and fit person. Gaining weight sucks. I mean it sucks for anyone, but it made me feel so powerless. After overeating something, I would panic. I would wonder why I couldn’t control myself. I would wish for the body I had a few months before. And when you have a decent sized course load, those moments are especially bad. I would have times where all I could do was just stare at my computer screen, or frantically scour the internet for a solution. Or map out my eating, my future plans, anything I thought would help. It made schoolwork almost impossible. (I would like to clarify though-it’s not like I failed all my classes. A lot of this time came out of my sleep.)

Part of this panic/sadness was the result of sugar/carb crash. I always felt like sugar messed with my hormones and made me crazy. And when gaining weight, I was eating a lot of sugar. That my friends is recipe for disaster.

I decided to share this with you guys because I had a similar panic experience the other day and realized it hadn’t happened in a while. I’m eating way better than a few months ago, but I did quite a bit of damage on the scale (and yes, I know the number isn’t everything) with bad eating habits early on. I also realized that I need to get to a place where I’m happy and comfortable, and in control before school starts so I can do well in my classes with no distractions. Hopefully my grand admission will help kick my butt in gear to get to where I need to be. So here I am, owning it.