This is How I Eat

Date: January 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Hello! I had my first day of Winter Quarter classes! My schedule is weird this quarter in that I don’t have any classes before noon…

Today I wanted to talk a little about how my eating habits have and will continue to change as a result of my newly diagnosed stomach condition (delayed stomach emptying). My treatment is to eat half meals, instead of full meals. The easiest thing for me to eat is soup, which is why we made a TON of soup over break! I scoured the internet for Crockpot recipes and made my mom a Crockpot cookbook for Christmas, which included lots of soup! The first 2 recipes we made were winners. Tuscan chicken vegetable stew and tomato soup.

This had a bit of tomato paste, but also had fresh rosemary, fennel seeds, and balsamic vinegar. Served with gluten free parmesan toast.

The tomato soup was not ordinary tomato soup! It was full of shred carrots and zucchini, and had parmesan and skim milk stirred in at the end. I topped it with some shaved parmesan, but that wasn’t really necessary.

Today was my first day eating in this new manner at school, so I was a little nervous. Breakfast for me didn’t really change because I always eat something before and after working out.

Preworkout I had a slice of cranberry orange bread. I made this recipe at home over the weekend. I made quite a few substitutions because of my nut and coconut allergies, but it turned out well! I added milk chocolate chips to half and dried cranberries to the other half. Surprisingly, I actually liked the dried cranberry half better! To split the halves, I placed a spatula in the pan while I poured in each side, and then pulled it out. I marked the line with chocolate chips but you can actually see the half mark!

Anyways, before Crossfit I had a piece with dried cranberries. Even though I don’t have class until late, I want to maintain my early schedule and have a productive morning.

Crossfit was tough. Front squats for strength and then this WOD:

EMOM 8 minutes: 5 burpees, 10 Russian kb swings

2 min rest

10 minutes to complete: 30-20-10-30 wall balls, 30 double unders, 15 sit ups

I was cut off in the last set of double unders. Also—side note: I got my Crossfit sweatshirt! It’s actually the coziest thing ever and I’m pumped.

After Crossfit, I had some Fage 2% plain yogurt with cranberry sauce made from leftover cranberries from the bread.

For lunch, we had another new chef and so far I really like him! Since lunch was wraps, he made me a special one on gluten free bread. It was filled with chicken and grilled veggies, topped with hummus. On the side I had apple fennel slaw. I was a little unsure about how much to eat and the size of it. I ended up ditching the gluten free bread (all GF bread is not created equal) and think it may have been a bit more food than I should have had on that day at that time (so complicated). For “dessert” I had 2 slices of dried persimmon.

I had a perfect 40 minute break between classes for a snack so I packed a Raaw Macaw bar (custom made). SO good. My has a date and sunflower butter base, with chocolate chips!

For dinner #1, I tried my best to get a half meal and I think I did pretty well.

A bite of mashed potatoes, a few roasted veggies, maple glazed salmon, and salad with feta. For mini dessert, I had 1/4 of a peppermint bark bar (I proportioned a few desserts so it would be easier to keep track).

FYI, William Sonoma has the BEST peppermint bark.

An hour and a half later, I had dinner #2.

A persimmon with cheddar and doe honey roasted turkey slices. Plus a couple gluten free chocolate covered pretzels.

Overall, I’m proud of how well I did today given the new circumstances. To be honest, I’m a little anxious about sticking to this style of eating. Half meals are very much not the norm for me, so it requires a ton of control. All I can do is focus on the present and take it one (mini) meal at a time!

Full Kauai Vacation Recap

Date: January 3, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Wow. My blog juices have not bee flowing and I couldn’t decide how/if I wanted to do it because the full recap seems so daunting! Luckily, the scenery in Hawaii is pretty nice so my pictures hopefully make up for lack of coherency. I should be asleep right now but I blame jet lag and chocolate for the fact that I’m awake!

Our first stop off the plane was a farmer’s market. I had a chicken taco, and we shared flour less chocolate cake in a jar for dessert.

The fun thing about Kauai is that there are wild chickens EVERYWHERE; they have chickens like we have squirrels.

While there, we stayed at a condo with this view:

Our first full day there I started off the morning with a hot and humid 3 mile run with my dad. Then, we visited a coffee plantation and took a tour, learning about the coffee growing and making process.

There were 22 types of coffee to sample after the tour. I had a few sips of the caffeinated coffees before retreating to the safety of decaf. I could actually tell the difference between blends! Hawaiian coffee seems to be a little bit lighter than some of the other high quality coffee’s I’ve had (read: less strong). I ordered an iced decaf latte for the full experience.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but we took this trip with my sister’s fiancé’s family, as a joint vacation. Her fiancé and his brother are crazy athletic—they ran down the side of the road from the coffee place to lunch just for fun.

For lunch, I had a basic chicken salad with parmesan and papaya seed dressing.

After lunch we stopped at Auntie Lilikoi for some passion fruit products, and I had a Lilikoi (passionfruit) cheesecake ice cream bar.

Outside we found this family of wild chickens:

Our final stop of the day was Waimea Canyon. It is truly incredible. I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, so I can’t compare, but I can’t imagine anything grander than what I saw.

Dinner was vegetable pho on the way back.

The next day was my little WIAW post.

At this point, the days are blurring together so I’ll just share some noteworthy moments.

Nike Training Club app workout with my father.

Friendly geese.

Homemade dinner: chicken and my new fav salad: papaya, papaya seed dressing, parmesan.

Horseback riding. I had a naughty horse with lots of personality who kept trying to eat the bushes! Highlights of this ride: the scenery, the baby wild hogs, and the kitty in the barn.

We went out for a nice dinner that night with everyone.

Many of us started out with a cocktail. Mine had champagne, lemon, and pineapple puree. This wasn’t mine, but look how pretty!

For my entree I got an avocado salad and split roasted vegetables with my mom. Both were excellent.

There were lots of cool desserts—you can’t really see it here but our chocolate torte is on fire!

New Year’s Eve morning started with a Crossfit workout at Kilauea Crossfit again. It was Fran: 21-15-9 thrusters and pull ups. We started out with PVC Fran to warm up, which is Fran with a PVC pipe (presses in place of pull ups). The strength was back squats, working to a heavy set of 5. I guess I haven’t done that much equating lately because my legs are still sore!

Afterwards, we made a final trip to the beach. I read my book—I have a nice book shaped sunburn on my legs.

For lunch, we stopped at a roadside food truck that advertised local fare. My mom and I split a chicken lau lau (chicken wrap in taro and banana leaves. Normally lau lau is pork, so it was cool to try!

The purple stuff is loin. It’s made from taro leaf. I like to eat it topped with sugar (which is NOT traditional), but they didn’t have any. Normally it is eaten with Lomi Lomi salmon, which is on the right. That’s sort of like salsa or pico de gallo with chunks of salmon added.

For the night, we ordered a bunch of pizzas from the pizza place essentially right outside our door. They had a gluten free crust which was exciting!

After eating, we broke out the fireworks are firecrackers. This was a new to me experience because they were always illegal where I’ve lived.

We then toasted the new year (at 10pm—midnight in CA) with blubbery champagne (the blueberry was super subtle).

January 1st was ROSE BOWL DAY!!!! It was also the day we were leaving which created some complications.We found a sports bar near the airport that supposedly had 9 TVs, and we arrived 10 minutes before kickoff only to find that that sports bar was out of business. Luckily we spotted a cafe across the street with TVs, and they kindly turned on the game for us. A bonus? The food was really good too!

My mom and I both had caprese salads and split the most amazing sweet potato fries.

For dessert, we all shared a flour less chocolate cake.

The game was AMAZING. We started out right away with a touchdown, and before we knew it it was 35-0. Stanford is so freaking underrated so this was fantastic to see. Because no one bothers to watch us, McCaffrey (our insane runningback) didn’t get a much deserved Heisman. Hopefully this dominant performance will give us some more attention!

At halftime, we raced to the airport and got through security as fast as possible. As it turns out, we were able to watch the game from our ESPN apps on our phones will going through security and checking in. Once through, we settled at a restaurant to watch until nearly the end.

SO MUCH STANFORD PRIDE RIGHT NOW. A Rosebowl win to start my Stanford career and a Rosebowl win to end it. Here are some throwbacks from Rosebowl 2013:

Ok, now I ACTUALLY need to go to bed!

No 2015 Reflections

Date: December 31, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I feel like I spend a lot of time reflecting on things and thinking about that past. Maybe it’s because I’m on vacation and have done basically nothing all week, but I feel so far away from reflections right now. Maybe that’s good. I don’t know.

The little goose family that hangs out outside the condo we are staying at.

So instead of reflecting on the past, I will be focusing on the future. Because to be honest? This next year is going to bring more adventure than the past 3 combined. In 2016 I will: graduate from college (hopefully—yesterday I had a scare that I wouldn’t have enough units but all looks good now), apply to vet school, hopefully have a summer internship, and hopefully move to DC for my gap year and live as a real adult for a bit before returning to school.

As I get older, the years pass by faster and faster. I’ve seen all kinds of New Year’s memes flying around the past few days and the one that struck me the most was that 2016 is like a blank notebook with 366 pages. This struck me. Each day counts. How often is it that we write off days as “waste days” and start over the next day, the next week? Well. In 2016, there will be no wasted, lost days. Because the only thing scarier than the passage of time is the loss of time. And I’m kind of over that. Which brings me to New Year’s resolution #1.

This blog has…changed…in the past year or so. It’s no secret it has fallen a bit by the wayside, the posting is less frequent, I’m not always into what I’m saying. I’ve questioned whether it is something to maintain or let go. So despite all this, resolution #1 is going to be counter to the trend. My resolution is to keep track of each day. Every single day. Because #nolostdays. Not necessarily blogging but making each day count. I hope that will be reflected on the blog.

And now for resolution #2. It’s a little bit more of a typical resolution, and maybe it’s sort of lofty but I think it’s achievable.

A few weeks ago, my roommate and I sat down and wrote out some life goals. Since apparently I’m not that creative or deep, many of mine are actually fitness related. I’m a simple girl. Some of them are basic and related to health. My resolution is to complete 3 of these goals next year. Here are some of them to choose from:

sub 2:00 (probably not this year…)
sub 24:00 5k (not this one either…)
6:50 mile (maaaaybe)
teach at a spin specific studio (I love teaching at gyms but I think it would be fun to try)
do a pull up (there is possibly hope here)
complete a cow exam (as a veterinarian)
birth an animal
fix my skin (I think I’m actually getting close!)
100% heal my stomach (I hope this year…)
find the perfect dress for me
play an electric violin
be more focused
cure my sweet tooth with science (nerd)

So the goal is to complete 3 of these! Some of them are definitely longer term, but I think I have a decent chance with fixing my skin (I feel like I am constantly having allergic reactions/gross skin otherwise). Maybe doing a pull up? I was close before my shoulder but it seems doable. Not sure about the others though.

On that note, enjoy your New Years! We have fireworks which is pretty cool because I’ve never shot them off before because they’re illegal where I live at home. I will do a recap of my vacation when I get home most likely thanks to slowww wifi that makes uploading pictures super frustrating.

What are you doing/what did you do for New Years?

WIAW-Kauai

Date: December 29, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Greetings from Kauai! I’m here for the week with my family so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to dive back into WIAW.

This is from Monday! I began the morning with a short 2 mile run to get the blood flowing. This is mostly so I am not a grumpy mess with my family. I got it in before my family woke up thanks to jet lag!

For breakfast, I had a few taro chips for some carbs (hah) plus a couple of pieces of dried mango.

The main course was plain greek yogurt with sun butter and fresh passion fruit.

Plus fresh Maui Gold pineapple!

The morning was then spent at the beach. It was a beautiful day, after a lot of rain the past couple of days! I read my book, and then fooled around with a volleyball with my sister and future in-laws a little bit.

From the beach, we stopped at Chicken in a Barrel and had delicious freshly smoked chicken. With brown rice and coleslaw.

For dessert, I stopped at a roadside fruit stand for a chocolate dipped frozen banana with toffee.

Next on the agenda was dropping into a Crossfit class at Kilauea Crossfit.

Everyone was super friendly and welcoming! For the workout, we worked up to a heavy set of 5 strict presses. The WOD was Open 13.4: 7 minute AMRAP of 3 clean and jerks, 3 toes to bar, 6 clean and jerks, 6 toes to bar, 9, 12, etc. I chose 75# for the clean and jerks and just did knee raises. It was a good one, and a day later I am definitely feeling it! I finished the round of 12 + 1. We finished with some core work.

On the way home I picked up some dried papaya at the grocery store and snacked on some of that.

I also snacked on some local goat cheese and crackers before heading over to dinner with my future in-laws.

They grilled chicken and made some rice and veggies, and we brought a salad with goat cheese and dried cranberries, plus a pie.

As I just mentioned, we brought a pie for dessert. It was guava chiffon.

After dinner back at our condo, my parents and I shared some pineapple cider.

What’s interesting is how drastically different this day of food was from even a week ago when I was home during break. At home, I’ve been eating a lot of soup and small meals. This is partly because my stomach condition isn’t flaring at all now, but I definitely need to tread carefully while I’m here!

What do you eat on vacation?

Christmas 2015

Date: December 25, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a fantastic day. Our Christmas this year was a bit unconventional, as we celebrated and did many of our Christmas traditions with my sister and grandma a week earlier.

Christmas Eve began on an active note—12 Days of Christmas at Crossfit!

12 days of Christmas operates just like the song. You start with the exercise at 1 and do one rep. Then you go to the next exercise and do 2 reps of that, and one rep of the first exercise. And so on. I love festive workouts! I finished in around 30 minutes. And the best news? Earlier this week was the first time in 3 months that I have done snatches—the first time since my shoulder injury. On Monday, I used the training bar and worked up to 30 pounds, but I used 45 for the workout! Partly this was fine because these were power snatches so I did not have to squat down, which is easier on my shoulder.

To refuel, I heated up some chocolate soy milk and added mint extract and whipped cream.

Next, my friend who is cat sitting for me next week came over and brought her “kittens.” I can’t believe how much they’ve grown!

After lunch, we decided to pay a visit to the Humane Society to visit the kitties. We saw the kitty my sister is thinking about adopting soon as well.

We then saw the movie Sisters. Overall I liked it! There were some jokes that fell flat to me though. After the movie, we headed to Whole Foods for dinner and ingredients for the following day. For dinner I had some veggies and mashed potatoes. Since I’m not supposed to eat big meals thanks to my stomach, I wanted to break up Christmas dinner and have my potatoes early!

The evening was spent at home with festive red champagne.

We were up fairly early on Christmas morning. I ate a Luna bar for breakfast first thing because we were planning on going for a run/walk around 9am.

We then opened stockings. It was Chloe’s first Christmas and she seemed to enjoy what she got!

After breakfast and stockings, we drove out to the bay on quite the chilly morning. About 39 when we got up! I wore my Santa Run shirt for the occasion.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning, and so clear after the past few days of rain. We could see all the way to San Francisco!

I ran 3 miles at a hair under a 9:00 pace, which was the goal!

On the way home, we stopped at Starbucks for some festive drinks. I had a holiday spice flat white. To be honest, I wasn’t a fan because it was slightly sweet and I don’t like sweet+coffee. For anyone else though, I’d probably recommend it because it wasn’t crazy sweet like some of their other drinks!

Once home, we opened presents!

Lunch for me was Whole Foods Butternut Squash posole with cheddar and truffle salt (because why not?).

Then, it was time to start making dessert! We were lacking dessert ideas for a while, but I wanted to actually make something special. What I came up with was a modification of a chocolate silk pie. I used this recipe for the chocolate silk portion. The center is essentially just silken tofu and chocolate, which was perfect because I didn’t want something too heavy.

I started with a gluten free chocolate cookie crust and spread chocolate fudge sauce on the base.

Then, I made the tofu base, but I blended in fresh mint and a touch of mint extract.

Finally, I topped it with homemade whipped cream plus a crushed candy cane decoration.

Christmas dinner was definitely unconventional. As we all well now, I’m on a soup kick and I can’t tolerate big meals so I lead the effort to make Christmas dinner in soup form. We used a basic chicken veggie soup recipe, but substituted Whole Foods precooked turkey for the chicken. Side note: the Whole Foods turkey is quite possibly the BEST turkey I have ever had. We also mixed in a truffle gravy seasoning mix for added flavor. For the “stuffing,” I made croutons by slicing up gluten free bread, spreading it with Earth Balance garlic and herb, and toasting it in the oven. Cranberry sauce was served on the side!

We all agreed that the soup turned out quite well, and were satisfied with this twist on a traditional Christmas meal.

And finally: dessert is served!

Overall, it was an awesome and low key day! I would also say this is definitely our healthiest Christmas ever!

I want to add one thing. While I’m all for enjoying yourself with foods over the holidays, I do want to mention that thanks to my stomach issues and new diagnosis, I’ve had to be very careful with what I eat, and as a result, I was much healthier throughout the holidays. It was actually wonderful. I still enjoyed some treats, but overall I felt SO much better. Having soup for Christmas was perfect! I also love that my family supports me so much in the way in which I eat. Right now especially, I know it is not easy and I really do try to be as easy going as possible about it, but the reality is that because of everything, it is an issue. So thank you! (Because I know they are reading this :))

Merry Christmas!