Vegas Bound! Food+Fitness Highlights

Date: July 18, 2017

Author: astottler

Guess what? I’m off to Vegas today! I’m going to the IDEA World Fitness conference. I went 2 years ago, and it was an absolute blast. I had a great time and learned so much! Naturally, I again signed up for tons of cycling sessions. I am also going a day early to get Schwinn certified. I am currently certified through Spinning, but I am going to let that expire this year. I feel like Schwinn is more the future of indoor cycling, and I was having a lot of difficulty finding continuing education classes for Spinning. I am going to be in Vegas for almost a full week. My sister is coming one night, so it should be a lot of fun! But may also be the death of me. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I wanted to highlight some food and fitness from the past week!

Fitness highlights include doing Fran at Crossfit (21-15-9 thrusters and pull ups) and beating my time by 45 seconds. I’m not sure when I did it last; I feel like maybe in St. Louis this fall? Or even at home more recently? Either way, I’m happy with the progress!

A bigger highlight is squatting at Crossfit, and seeing the #gains. Before really focusing on squatting, on my own doing a program and at Crossfit, I struggled to get 3 at 185#. Today, I was doing max reps at 195#, and I got 5! What??? That is absolutely crazy. The heaviest I’ve squatted in 2 years is 190#. I got really strong a couple of summers ago, and then dislocated my shoulder the week before testing a one rep max, and then couldn’t hold agar for months. So this is huge. I REALLY want to test a 1 rep max. My current all time 1 rep max is from 3 years ago, and it’s 205. If I can hit 5 at 195, then I sure as heck should get a higher max. This has been so rewarding!

One last highlight was softball this week. I’m going to be obnoxious and brag for a minute. I went 4-5 with 2 HRs, in my first 2 at bats. After I hit a double my third time up, the other team played with 5 outfielders (normally there are 4 for slow pitch.) So that was fun! My team won the game too!

Ok, onto the food. I’ve been wanting to do a full day of eating, but I never got the time to write it up, so we’ll just go through a few things.

A different breakfast?? Nectarine, fig, and sunbutter on GF toast with blueberries.

Mid-morning snack. I actually like this brand of protein bar, but for some reason I’ve only been eating them bits and pieces at a time. I had a piece of this to try, and a piece of the white chocolate raspberry flavor.

Cheeseburger salad with some cheddar GF cracker type things that are actually super delicious.

GF cookie for lunch dessert.

Bar pre-softball and post bridesmaid dress try on (!!).

Avocado smash with green beans.

Flapjacked cookies that are super ugly because apparently I didn’t cook them long enough. Still delicious.

This is my favorite breakfast because chocolate, but I try not to have it every day. Plus delicious CSA nectarine.

Work lunch of leftover zucchini lasagna with crackers. I really, really liked zucchini noodle lasagna. This may need to become a recipe for vet school!

Still loving these salted caramel mini protein bars from Costco.

Quick and easy dinner post-late night at work. If we’re being real, this is likely going to make up a large part of my diet in vet school. Egg and cheese on toast, side salad with aged balsamic, goat cheese, and dried cranberries.

More flapjacked cookies. So delicious.

Very, very much needed protein smoothie post-195# squats and a ridiculous Crossfit WOD. 5 rounds of 50 overhead lunges and 21 burpees. YUCK. This was chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, milk, and banana. This is my current favorite protein smoothie. I should probably add it to the recipe page…

Mid-morning I met up with my college roomie at the shopping center by campus. Naturally, we got our veggie juices on.

Mine was the left: romaine/carrot/ginger/apple/etc.

We didn’t buy much, but we walked around and chatted for hours. We stopped for lunch at the new Tossed Greens.

I got a salad with nectarines, plums, parmesan, and sunflower seeds, and a side of herbed grilled corn. YUM. Everything was so flavorful, especially the veggie sides!

After more walking around, we stopped for froyo at Pinkberry before parting ways. I got blueberry muffin with M&Ms.

Then, I headed home in time to go to the Giants game! I went with my friend for her birthday, but my parents also happened to have tickets that day so I rode up with them.

It started out warmish and absolutely beautiful, but quickly turned cold! We were FREEZING.

For my meal, I got a cha cha bowl: rice, beans, chicken, and a pineapple zucchini slaw, plus BBQ sauce.

Despite the loss, it was a fun evening, and it was great to be able to celebrate with my friend on her birthday!

This morning (Tuesday), I did a quick gym workout on my own to get my squats in before I leave this afternoon. I did back squats, then a little bench and a quick circuit of push ups, pistols, and dips. I finished with a Blogilates abs video. I’m actually going to one of her workouts as part of the conference, so I figured I might as well prepare!

I had a breakfast of a flapjacked muffin and a massive nectarine.

This next week is going to be an absolute blast, and definitely a whirlwind. Of course, you know I’ll be back here to blog my experiences! I think I’m also going to try and do a full day of eating for one of the conference days. I also had a lot of fun packing all the real people outfits because all I have worn lately has been scrubs/workout clothes.

See ya from Vegas!

Party Hopping+Realities of Veterinary Medicine

Date: July 17, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good! A mix of work and fun.

Saturday morning I finally tried the pancakes I’ve been meaning to make forever. I just mixed up my flapjacked apple cinnamon muffin and instead of microwaving it, I cooked it on the stovetop in pancake form. It was pretty good! I needed more maple syrup though.

Plus honeydew balls.

I ended up eating lunch super early—like 11—just because of how my schedule worked out. I had literally no food except veggies in the house so this was definitely one of the weirder lunches I’ve had.

Lots of GF crackers plus a weird salad: lettuce+guacamole+egg whites+American cheese+ketchup. I brought liquid egg whites and cooked them at work, so at least it wasn’t cold. Definitely one of the weirder meals, but honestly not bad! And I’m so glad I packed egg whites at the last minute, because I really needed protein!

It was a surprisingly rough day at work.

My foot/leg got peed on very early, and I can’t exactly change my shoes. It ended up being a pretty busy day, and I got super beat up. I got kicked/scratched really badly by a couple of big dogs (mainly one) and now I have the nastiest bruises. I truly love what I do, but I hope anyone interested in getting into the field knows what it’s really like! You work long hours, you get every bodily fluid imaginable on you, you get beat up. Yes, there are puppies and kittens, but there are also wild feral cats, 100 pound dogs to control, very dirty butts to clean. The “it’s just puppies and kittens” moment always comes to me when I’m holding animals as they vomit up whatever they shouldn’t have eaten. It is a glamorous job I do, folks. But I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.

I ended up staying almost an hour late, and I was DEATHLY hungry by the time I got off. Like, I can’t remember the last time I was this painfully hungry. I raced home for food+multiple baseball games I wanted to watch, and changed all my nasty clothes while my mom helped me get food quickly since 1. dying and 2. I had to go back in half an hour later.

Open faced turkey and havarti sandwich with apple slices, broiled, and zucchini noodles. Plus the crackers I shoved in my face while getting that ready.

I had just enough time to catch most of the part of the games I cared about, and eat a well-deserved cupcake! This is my last one from my Davis announcement. It felt appropriate, because it was my last day of work before vet school!

Sunday was a fairly busy day. It seemed like EVERYONE wanted to see me in a 2 day span, so I did what I could to see as many people as possible!

I started the morning with a casual 3 mile run.

And then I cleaned myself up to go see my sister! She wanted us to taste a few dark beers and ciders to decide which one to have at her wedding.

I actually packed my own lunch because she was making authentic Italian pizza and #gluten. I did try a bite and it was amazing. I think next time it would be worth an actual piece.

My salad was actually delicious, partly because I used scissors to make it a chopped salad. I’m loving guacamole as dressing right now, and the chopped-ness made it much easier to mix the guac on. I used fresh deli turkey, American cheese (I got an organic brand and it’s delicious), lettuce, guac, and a little ketchup for extra flavor. Don’t judge, ketchup is my jam.

I left my sister’s place a little bit early to hop over to a birthday party in a local park. I was told to bring Chloe, and she’s always a handful. Well, today especially. My friend brought her pup, and they were doing super well together at first. They’ve met once before, and did pretty well.

^The above picture is not her trying to bite the puppy, it’s her reaching back to lick my friend’s face.

Chloe was great at first, and then really, really bad. I think I mentioned this before, but she’s been really bad with other dogs lately. We think she may have had an incident while boarding, when we were not around. Even while boarding, in playgroup, she’s been different. She used to be the clique leader and play a ton, and now she’ll walk around a little and then sit on the foot of the person monitoring. She barks like crazy at dogs when she doesn’t see them coming. Well, that happened a few times while we were hanging out at the park. I think it was especially bad because we were sitting down and she felt territorial. Then, she started acting aggressively towards the puppy. I don’t think she would actually hurt the puppy, but she would not stop barking. I’ve truly never seen her like that. Needless to say, she had to be picked up. That is not acceptable behavior. I’m not sure what exactly caused the change, but we 100% are going to work on it.

I snuck out of the birthday party a little early and grabbed a quick dinner at home before the next event.

Teriyaki tacos minus the tortilla+salad with cilantro dressing.

Flax brownie Halo Top sundae.

Then, I drove down to Palo Alto for birthday party #2 with my college friends. My friend’s new place is in the weirdest location. I had to park at the bottom of a hill and then hike 5-10 minutes straight up in the middle of nowhere. I think it was like 400-500 feet elevation gain, which was kind of crazy.

Oh, and here’s a bruise update. This picture does not do it justice, from the knee up I am about half black and blue on both legs.

It was really nice to see these people; it had been a few months! Plus, someone brought gluten free cookies. I was super dehydrated by the end of the night though. I sat outside in the park all day in 100 degree temperatures, and I was too busy dealing with my little brat to drink much water. I ended up getting to bed at a reasonable hour, which is a priority right now because the next week actually is going to kill me. All good things though. More on that tomorrow!

Cheeseburger Salad

Date: July 11, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Here’s another quick and easy recipe idea for you guys! This one is a great one for me because I feel a lot more comfortable cooking ground meat than pieces of meat.

I’m a fan of lettuce wrapped turkey burgers as it is, so I thought this could be a fun new way to get my burger fix! My mom was quite skeptical of this dinner idea to start, but ended up loving it!

This was so easy to make, I was able to sip on home brew and get everything together before the MLB All-Star game started.

The dressing is a healthy, greek yogurt based thousand island that impressed us all. One part ketchup, one part 2% plain Greek yogurt. Then season with garlic powder, onion powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss the salad with dressing, lettuce, tomatoes, and whatever you favorite burger toppings are!

I sautéed lean ground turkey with a ton of spices: salt and pepper, garlic and herb Mrs. Dash, a chicken seasoning blend, onion powder, and garlic powder. Basically, choose your favorite spices such that the turkey actually tastes like something! Then, just place the turkey on top of the veggies, and top with cheese of choice. I’m definitely an American cheese on burger girl, and I found an actually really nice organic American cheese.

We served our salads with roasted corn rolled in garlic powder and grated parmesan.

Yum!

Also, if you’re too lazy to make dressing, this is also super delicious with pre-made guacamole as dressing.

For dessert, I made a brownie sundae with a warm flax brownie, vanilla Halo Top, fudge sauce, and whipped cream.

Happy eating!

How do you like your burgers?

Squat Program Success+Week in Meals

Date: July 11, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I wanted to first talk about my squat program: the rundown of what I did+the progress I made. Then, we’ll go through some meals from this week. First, a quick Monday highlight: my parents, friend, and I went to a San Jose Giants (Giants’ A affiliate) to see Bumgarner pitch a rehab start, and it was a blast!

We got watermelon wheat beers and barbecue—chicken sandwich+coleslaw for me!

It was so much fun! I love baseball. Bumgarner did super well (1 UER), much better than last week’s start which was 9 runs in 4 innings…

I finished the night with chocolate vanilla swirl froyo with sprinkles.

Now, onto my squat program!

Here’s what I did, first. Listed as reps, then percentages at those reps, and then what weight I used.

1: 10-10-8 @ 70-75-80%, 135-145-155#

2. 8-8-6 @ 75-80-85%, 145-155-165#

3. 6-6-4 @ 80-85-90%, 155-165-175#

4. 4-4-2 @ 85-90-95%, 165-175-185#

I did a day of squatting with Crossfit (just whatever was programmed) plus one additional day of the above rep scheme a week. 1=week 1, 2=week 2, etc. Each week, I was building weight while decreasing reps. At the beginning of my program, at Crossfit we did max reps at 95%, which was 185# for me. I got 3, with the 3rd being a failed fail (I tried to fail but then got it up). Well, when I did the last day of my squat program last week, I shocked by how not terribly my 2 reps at 185# came up. Then, at Crossfit on Monday I had to do max reps at 185# again, but this time I got 7. What?? That’s such a big increase over the course of a month! This squat program has been a lot of fun, and seeing strength increases like that makes it even more worthwhile. I’m planning on doing another cycle of the same thing, but with 5# higher each week.

And then, as promised, I have lots of food to share! Pop back in tomorrow for a new Quick and Easy recipe as well!

Breakfasts

Leftover red, white, and blue banana bread with milk and a nectarine post-workout, pre-work.

Flapjacked muffin with delicious nectarine. CA summer at its finest.

Microwave banana custard with a dab of sunbutter. I literally have not had this in years, but I was craving something protein-rich for breakfast so I went for it. Yum!

Lunches

Nectarine, grilled chicken, and creamy goat cheese salad with a side of GF crackers.

Grilled chicken, blueberry, and burrata salad with rice cakes.

Date and nectarine salad with goat cheese, light champagne vinaigrette, and a side of BBQ rice cakes.

Same thing, but with white nectarine instead of yellow!

Catered Mexican food at my dad’s company picnic. I made a salad out of lettuce with fajita chicken, black beans, salsa, rice, tons of guac, and a tortilla.

Snacks

Brown rice cake with creamy goat cheese and raspberry jam.

A new to me NuGo bar. The pomegranate was actually crazy good! It was a little more interesting than just chocolate (below), but that one was good too.

I like these bars because they’re coated in chocolate, so naturally they’re delicious.

The usual.

I’m liking this new work smoothie: 2/3c milk, half a flapjacked vanilla smoothie mix, 1/2c frozen mango. Loving the vanilla mango flavor combo!

This morning I did a treadmill workout followed by a yoga class. I did a half mile warm up, then 8 rounds of 2 min push at 7:00 pace, 1 minute recover. I only had Cheerios beforehand, so I set myself up in Starbucks with an iced decaf latte and a snack to work on stuff for school, and this blog!

Dinners

A delicious summer dinner: leftover chicken with BBQ sauce, sautéed zucchini noodles seasoned with a sundried tomato seasoning blend, and an artichoke served with a mayo-balsamic vinaigrette dipping sauce.

Post-yoga Wednesday night, I suggested we just pop into Whole Foods for dinner. I had an enchilada over salad, plus some rice and some grilled veggies.

A lazy Friday night dinner at home: takeout from the counter with more zucchini noodles. My mom and I split my signature custom burger: chicken with garlic aoili, gruyere (they messed up and put goat cheese instead), tomato, mixed greens, and of course, avocado, on a GF bun.

Desserts

Chocolate chip orange cranberry bread with chocolate Halo Top.

Flax brownies (actually really tasty) with vanilla Halo Top, whipped cream, and sprinkles.

And finally: my beer! I finally tried my chocolate milk stout that I brewed and it is absolutely amazing. REALLY amazing. Possibly better than the St. Louis version, possibly one of the best beers I’ve ever had. I am very impressed and surprised with myself!

Have a great week!

Monterey Beer Festival Weekend

Date: July 10, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello, hello! I hope everyone is having a fantastic Monday thus far. I wanted to share my weekend adventures: The Monterey Beer Festival! This was my birthday gift from my sister, so Saturday my whole family drove down to Monterey to drink some beer!

I started my morning with a Luna bar, nectarine, and 8am spin class.

After getting my workout in, I had a bag of rice cakes before hitting the road!

It took us a little over 2 hours to get to Monterey, with a fair bit of traffic.

Naturally, we dove right in for a sample as soon as we got there.

^Figueroa Mountain’s lager. One of the best of the day!

And then it was time for food! My mom and I split a corn on the cob and a chicken taco platter.

Then, it was time for beer! This festival was crazy crowded, and a lot of the lines were SUPER long.

(I realize Monterey is spelled wrong but I can’t edit snapchat, whoops!)

^Black lager!

After spending a whole lot of time waiting, we decided to just go for the shorter lines and skip the bigger ones (or any with only IPA). There were all sorts of things; everything from IPA to lager to stout to cider to apricot wheat to ginger beer.

^Raspberry ginger beer

^Fav of the day: Dustbowl Vanilla Blonde Ale!

^Good lager, but even better because they had a pup!

It was a fun day! They had a live band, which was fun! I will say though that it was super crowded, and a lot of places ran out of beer, some within the first hour. But the weather was beautiful, and the beer was (mostly) flowing, so who am I to complain?

We basically closed the place at 4:30 (an hour before the technical end) and then checked into our Air BnB to nap (at least I did) before heading downtown for dinner.

I was super hungry by dinnertime thanks to most of my calorie consumption for the day being beer. I split a salad with my mom, and then had roasted chicken with roasted potatoes and green beans.

My dad ordered some ice cream for dessert, which we naturally stole bites of: chocolate, passionfruit, and maple bacon.

Sunday morning, we slept in and then my sister, her fiancé, and I went for a short run pre-brunch.

I think we were all more than ready for food by our 11am brunch reservation. I shared a warm goat cheese, beet, and mango salad.

And for my main course, I got an absolutely delicious creamy polenta, poached egg, and queso fresco dish.

Naturally we had to stop at one of the many fruit and veggie stands on the way home. Avocados, 10 for $1? Sign me up! (They were small, but still!)

Road trip snacks:

Pre-dinner snacks:

I wasn’t crazy hungry for dinner, so I just had a massive artichoke and a sweet potato stuffed with cheese.

Dessert was birthday cake Halo Top with a flax brownie.

After dinner, I had to run into work for half an hour to do a treatment on a kitty (I volunteered), and then after, we made toaster oven s’mores with gf graham cracker.

It was a fun weekend! And I cannot believe it, but this is my last week of work at the vet!