Last Day Home

Date: December 27, 2012

Author: astottler

If I sound annoyed or angry, it’s because I spent an hour typing up my post and this STUPID blogging site decided to erase the entire thing. And those stupid photos take forever to load.

I can’t believe it is already my last day home! Tomorrow I am leaving for training camp. I’m excited for training camp but physically I know it will be very difficult (we have 3 workouts a day). I am additionally a little bit worried because over the holidays I haven’t worked out as much as I normally do, and I definitely haven’t eaten as well as I normally do, so I haven’t been feeling that well lately. But I guess part of the point of training camp is to kick my butt into gear! Still, I am going to miss being home. It’s amazing, after being home for just a little while, it feels like I never left.

This morning I actually remembered to take a picture of my breakfast for probably the first time!

Well, sort of. I remembered half way through breakfast and ran upstairs to grab my camera. Breakfast was a smoothie with half a banana, frozen mango, cherries, and strawberries, and milk and greek yogurt. Topped with Kind blueberry vanilla granola and a spoonful of peanut butter. What kind of peanut butter do I use?

Trader Joe’s!

This is my favorite peanut butter! I used to use Whole Foods’s brand of unsweetened creamy, but they changed the formula so I had to find a new love. I love my new peanut butter but it is a bit runny and needs to be refrigerated.

After breakfast I headed to the gym to lift weights with my trainer. These workouts are definitely one thing I miss when I’m at school. Here’s today’s workout:

Warm up Cleans

1 hang power clean and 1 hang full clean every minute on the minute for 8 minutes

3 deadlifts with a 3 second pause at the top, but only going to right above the knee

Conditioning (yayy):

10 single arm kettle bell snatches on each arm

15 wall ball throws (throw the ball up at the wall)

250 m row

For time, 5 sets. Rest is between each set, the same amount of time it took to do the set.

This was difficult for me! I was definitely panting at the end, and a little shaky.

After my workout, I went home and made myself lunch. I made a salad with baby kale, lettuce, tofu, avocado, and a bit of leftover egg veggie scramble.

I topped it with Feta Greek Salad Dressing.

On the side, I drank Chai tea (from Teavanna).

For dessert, I enjoyed a slice of leftover French Toast Souffle.

After lunch, my mom and I headed out to Sports Authority to use a gift card I got for Christmas and to stock up on spandex. I love all the bright colors! I must say, I am definitely a Nike girl. 🙂

After that we stopped at the mall, and then I headed back to the gym to go to a Spin class with one of my favorite instructors. That’s another thing I miss when I’m at school! Dinner was cheese souffles with mushrooms and brussels sprouts (I looove brussels sprouts), all from Cooking Light. This has to be one of my all time favorite meals. When asked what I wanted to have for dinner on my last night home, I instantly selected this.

For dessert, I enjoyed another small slice of French Toast Souffle, along with a persimmon.

After dinner, my family settled on the couch to watch TV with our kitties.

This truly is the best.

As a snack while watching TV, a sampled a few new granola/protein bars that I bought at Whole Foods the other day. The winners were the Think Thin German Chocolate Coconut and Chocolate Mint Coconut. SO GOOD.

Overall, it was a really cozy night. As I type this post, I am on the coach wearing a homemade Snuggie (my friend actually MADE a snuggie for me!), though sadly my kitties have left. What better to do on a cold, rainy night?

All I have to do before my trip is pack! I hope everyone had a great day!

How do you feel after the holidays?

Christmas Day

Date: December 26, 2012

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I hope everyone had a terrific Christmas! I had a great day.

I love my Christmas cats! I’ll start with Christmas Eve. I went for a 3 mile run in the morning before heading out to Benihana’s with my family for lunch. This is a Christmas Eve tradition that we do every year. It’s such a fun experience, and the chefs are so amazing.

I wasn’t super hungry due to several big days of eating before Christmas Eve, so I decided to just have a salad and of course their signature fried rice!

A lot of times of Christmas Eve we go to a movie after this, and then at night go for a drive to see Christmas lights, but this year we decided to mix it up. We didn’t feel exactly in the Christmas spirit yet partly because things were so different ( I wasn’t home until about a week before Christmas), so we decided to take Bart up to the city to see the giant Christmas tree and walk around the giant mall there.

And ok, we may have ulterior motives…kittens in the window of Macy’s! One of them looked and acted exactly like one of my cats, Mary!

It’s so sad that so many kittens up for adoption are black. I don’t understand why. I love black cats! My family has had black cats for as long as I can remember. They do tend to have a little extra attitude, but that only makes them all the more lovable.

Once inside the mall, we walked around and soaked in the Christmas cheer. I was really excited because I got one of those 20 minute massages from a kiosk in the mall. It was fabulous. My right shoulder is way tighter than my left. I’m not sure if this is a result of always being on the same side of the boat while rowing, or leftover issues from being a softball pitcher for so long. (For the record, I never had any shoulder injuries but my shoulder was rotated slightly forward because pitching built up the muscles so much on the front of my shoulder.)

On our way back out, we stopped at a cream puff place where we split an eggnog cream puff and a peppermint chocolate cream puff. SO GOOD.

Back at home, I prepared breakfast for Christmas morning: French Toast Souffle.

I used cinnamon bread which we picked up from Whole Foods. This cinnamon bread is amazing, especially with a little butter and cinnamon sugar, so I thought it would work perfectly in place of challah.

On Christmas morning, all I had to do was stick it in the oven. So easy!

Ate alongside Harry and David pears.

With syrup of course! (not pictured)

After stockings and breakfast, we headed out to eat dinner with my grandparents at their favorite restaurant, and returned home to open presents and enjoy a quiet night in front of the TV with kitties. It was a nice day.

What holiday traditions do you have?

Progress

Date: December 19, 2012

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone!

I’m finally home for the holidays! I want to take this time off to make some serious progress on this blog. And enjoy time with my little helper….

I’m so excited to be home with my pets again (and family). I’m hoping to really figure out blogging over my break. I’m also enjoying a lot of down time after a busy quarter.

One thing I missed when I was at school was food freedom. There were certain things I couldn’t really have at school, since I had no way to make them for myself. It’s so nice to see some type of food on another blog and just make it! It’s definitely something I took for granted before I left.

Breakfast this morning was an egg and veggie scramble with mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, bruschetta, and cheddar, topped with avocado. Sadly, I did not get a picture. I am getting a little better about taking pictures of my food, but it is going to take some getting used to. Just to keep this fun I’ll share a couple of shots from the past week.

Asparagus soup with homemade whole wheat bread in the bread maker. Topped with Smart Balance. SO good.

Christmas cookies! (Sorry for the poor picture quality.) Have you ever made Spritz cookies? My family makes them every year. They are made with a cookie press, and they have a slightly almondy flavor. Plus, they’re so much fun to decorate! We tried the chocolate variation for the first time this year. They were good, but not really that different than the regular kind. My favorite ones are the green cookies though.

Ok, when getting out the toppings for our cookies, I came across these in the pantry.

When I tried them, I knew I had to share them with you guys! They are basically broken bits of Trader Joe’s regular peppermint bark and they are so good! It’s a great way to satisfy ones sweet tooth with something small.

As far as workouts go, I haven’t posted much about them in the past. Yesterday was 80 minutes on the rowing machine, my longest row yet! I’m trying to work my way up to be ready for the season. I followed that my 20 minutes of abs. This morning I lifted weights with a trainer at my gym. I love coming back to my gym at home. Everything is so familiar and comfortable, and much less crowded than the gym at school. I also miss all my classes and instructors at the gym! I’m pumped to return to a spin class tonight!

Hope all is well for everyone!

Do you have a favorite type of Christmas cookie?