One Thing at a Time

Date: March 9, 2015

Author: astottler

Thank you guys for your comments on yesterday’s post! I especially loved Elsie‘s-she suggested I try one small change at a time.

I’ve decided to do a small focus each week, and try to have the weeks build on each other.

This week’s focus? Healthy and properly portioned breakfasts and lunches. That may not sound like a “small challenge” but because I often pack my lunch, there is actually less to it than it seems! So far today went well!

Pre-Crossfit: 1 piece of banana bread.

Crossfit was good-I’m not a fan of Daylight Savings Time though. Waking up that early felt especially awful! The strength portion was:

5×65% back squats

5 pull ups

Alternate those two every minute on the minute for 14 minutes.

I actually really enjoyed the WOD today. I brought running shoes, which made the 400m run feel 1000x better!

3 rounds:

20 box jumps (20′)

20 push press (63#)

400m run

I think I finished in just over 16 minutes?

Breakfast was back at the dining hall-eggs+an apple with sunflower seed butter.

Per my healthy portions, I ended up not finishing this because I was too full.

Between classes, I ate my packed lunch of salad with hummus and hard boiled egg. You can’t see the hummus very well in this picture because I put the hummus at the bottom-it’s less messy when it doesn’t get all over the top!

Plus a fruit bar for something sweet.

Since I had lunch pretty early due to my class schedule, I snacked on some edamame crackers from Trader Joe’s later in the afternoon.

So-I think I achieved my goal for the day! Healthy breakfast+lunch.

I also thought it would be fun to take progress pictures in the ridiculous outfit I wore in the picture from yesterday’s post. So if you want to see those pictures, you better hope I make some progress because they look ridiculous. I’m too old for this…

And now I’m off to research cow lactation.

Do you ever set goals for yourself?

WIAW and Sunshine

Date: January 13, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! I’m going to link up to WIAW today because I have lots of unshared food pictures!

Before we get into that-on the fitness front, I’ve sort of switched around my schedule. In the past, I tended to run in the mornings versus do Crossfit in the evenings. The problem with that is when I do Crossfit in the evenings, it’s really difficult to make it back in time for dinner before the dining hall closes! Plus my evening motivation to make it to Crossfit is too low! That being said, I’m officially in 5k training mode with (hopefully) lots of speed work coming up!

In terms of actual workouts, I went to one last spin class at the gym from home (it’s halfway between home and school so it’s not outrageous to go once) before my membership ended. Of course, it was fantastic.

Monday morning we tested our 1 rep back back squats for a final time during the squat cycle we’ve been doing. Mine was sort of meh, sort of improved. I improved 5# from my 1 rep max at the beginning of the cycle, but I was still 10 lbs below my all time 1 rep max (205#). It was meh because 195# felt easy, but I kept missing 200#. Back squats are frustrating because the second you give in, you’re not making the lift!

After back squats I had the pleasure of doing and AMRAP of I believe it was Crossfit Open 14.4 last year? The Open workout at the time was probably the worst Crossfit workout I’ve done. 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 thrusters and over the bar burpees. Thank goodness, we did a 12 minute AMRAP, which meant I didn’t make it all the way down the ladder! But now my squatting muscles are scorched.

Tuesday’s Crossfit workout was lighter. I went to the 6am class since I have 9am class on Tuesdays. We did hang power cleans for strength and kettle bell snatches, wall balls, and 400m runs for the WOD. Then, after spending hours in the library, I went for a 3 mile tempo run (5k training!). I have a ways to go…but I kept my tempo pace pretty closely. It’s a good start! Ok-food time!

I went to a yoga class last Thursday and went to Eric’s deli-cafe afterwards for dinner with my parents to discuss pre-vet stuff. I had half a turkey and avocado sandwich, and a house salad.

My mom got me a couple of these protein boxes. They’re pretty similar to the ones at Starbucks, but sun butter instead of peanut butter! Good and easy. I had 2 meals of this on Friday. We don’t have to mention the fact that I didn’t have a single vegetable…

Saturday morning, I had to drive a ways to get gas. Long story short, my car is SUPER picky with the gas it will take and the check engine light was on and the engine was shuddering so I topped it off with “better” gas. Anyways, Whole Foods was close so I stopped in for brunch. Maple french toast casserole and chilaquiles were the highlights here!

Mexican dinner at the dining hall! But more importantly-GUAC! I made myself a salad.

Salad I picked up from Whole Foods.

Dining hall dinner-BBQ chicken on salad, and cheese and broccoli mini-casserole.

Dining hall breakfast-eggs and roasted veggies! I LOVE when they have those!

Cappuccino because I woke up before 5:30am and I’m a college student. However, I’ve gotten a lot of coffee lately and I’ve been generally over caffeinated so there’s that. I get to my 9am and announce to my friend that I got coffee. Her response? “I can tell.”

Lunch courtesy of my freezer. Balsamic roasted brussels sprouts, grilled chicken, and mashed sweet potatoes.

My favorite morning glory bread from a little cafe on campus.

A greek salad with chicken, roasted carrots, and sweet potato fries. This is pretty much my ideal dining hall dinner right here.

And lastly? The weather here lately has been insane. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to be here.

What is your ideal meal?

First Day of The Quarter

Date: January 6, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Tuesday! I’m currently blogging while sipping a cappuccino before my 9am.

Here’s an obligatory first day of class selfie. It was cold-hence the layers!

I started my morning yesterday with Crossfit. I was thrown back into our squat program on a good day-the weights were fairly light still! The workout kind of stunk. Unless you’re into burpee box jumps.

15 min AMRAP:

10 dumbbell snatches

8 burpee box jumps

6 toes to bar

I think I got 5 rounds? With toes to bar scaled.

It was 37 degrees. Fantastic. Luckily I only had ice on my back windshield.

Since I don’t like lifting weights on an empty stomach, I had some cranberry bread beforehand.

Then I had whole milk and roasted carrots after. I think that equals a wholesome breakfast if you add them, right?

My first class of the day is Physics, and it was fine. Lunch was grilled chicken, brown butter sage sweet potato, and cumin roasted cauliflower.

Then Physics lab. Most of my classes are Tuesday/Thursday at this point which is kind of weird! So today is a bigger day.

After class, I went straight to the gym to practice my spin playlist. It was good…except I had to nix 3 songs because that had one curse word. And there were no clean versions. This is why I have to practice the playlist ahead of time!

The afternoon was spent enjoying Netflix one last time before the quarter picks up.

Dinner-back at the dining hall. Salmon with capers, roasted sweet potatoes, and a really bland Southwest Caesar salad. For some reason, all the salads have no flavor. Oh well-2/3 of the meal was good!

I also enjoyed some Christmas chocolate while catching up with everyone. Here’s a question-do you guys all have a ton of holiday chocolate? My family does, but when I was talking about this to my friend from Tennessee, she had no idea what I was talking about. I guess it’s not a thing there to give your neighbors and relatives lots of candy and or presents? How about you guys?

In terms of life and classes this quarter….it’s looking busy. I’m currently enrolled in 19 units, but that may change, I’m on my sorority’s executive board, and I will likely be volunteering a lot.So we shall see how it goes!

Holiday goodies-do you have tons like my family does?

Squats on Squats

Date: November 16, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well, I think our new squat program is working. After the first day, I couldn’t walk the rest of the week and I did not understand how this was going to work. Well, I’ve been way less sore each time since then. I missed the squats on Thursday, so I did them on my own Saturday morning. The final set called for 8 reps at 80% of your max. I honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to do it. But guess what-I did it! And it was fine. It even felt easier than 6 reps at 80% the week before. I guess that shows what a dedicated program will do!

So guys…will you excuse the photo dump if I include lots of delicious food photos, and promise a real post tomorrow?

Ok. Let’s roll with it.

Post-speed work breakfast.

My favorite ever quick bread. Long referred to as “mystery bread” on my blog, its true identity is morning glory bread. SO amazing. Fun fact: the green is from a chemical reaction between the sunflower seeds and baking soda.

Saturday morning we had brunch with the resident fellows at my dorm. (The RFs are a family that lives in a house connected to the dorm and they are sort of in charge of us.) They made crepes that I filled with lemon juice, whipped cream, and berries, plus a slice of pumpkin bread.

I finally, FINALLY made it out to my favorite ice cream place this quarter. It was amazing, as was expected.

Today (Sunday) I went home. My family went out to lunch at Whole Foods to sample their Thanksgiving fare. We don’t normally make Thanksgiving dinner ourselves, but this year we are. While I definitely want to make our own sides, I don’t think we have any need to roast our own turkey.

Another part of going home is working on CS homework. If Charlie is on top of my homework, that means I don’t have to do it-right?

My little doggy-so tired!

For dinner, we tried a couple of new recipes. The first was roasted cauliflower from Ina Garten’s cookbook. It had panko and parmesan-It was delicious!

We also made goat cheese and broccoli soufflés. Seriously-souffles aren’t too hard to make! And so beautiful too.

Sadly, the soufflé didn’t have quite as much flavor as I would have liked.

And that’s all I have for today! Have a great week-we’re almost to Thanksgiving!

Back into Back to Back Running

Date: October 28, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy midway-through-the-week! How are you all doing? I’m not doing so great. I feel like someone lunched me in the stomach after that last baseball game….Let’s hope we can rally for game 7! The worst part is I have a midterm right through the end of the game…I’m going to be a mess.

There’s a topic I’m thinking about writing, but that’s for another day. I thought I’d go over some workouts as of late! Let’s take it back about a week, shall we?

Wednesday: 5 mile run. Supposed to be 6 but I was running late! Whoops.

Thursday: 45 minute Soul Cycle class. It kills me that I have no way of going to spin regularly. Once the World Series is over, I should be able to fit more spinning in, at least on my own.

Friday: Track workout! It has been months and months and months since my last one. I started out with my favorite-10x400m. I didn’t kill myself on the pace or anything, but I have a lot of work to do! I followed that up with 200 sit ups because I never do abs. Whoops.

Saturday: Rest!

Sunday: 6 mile run. Longest run post-injury-induced running break! It was pretty uneventful, but my pace was a little bit better! I’m loving this fall weather too. I want to make 6 miles my standard distance for now. I found a perfect turnaround point, so I don’t have to always run with my watch, which is more relaxing.

Monday: 4 mile run. Nothing crazy, just the basic campus loop. This was a big deal though because this is the first time I’ve done back to back runs. It only worked because I took really good care of my feet on Sunday-ice and Advil, plus my night braces! Those things help so much!

Also-Crossfit. We worked on push press and pull ups for the strength portion. The WOD was a 20 minute AMRAP of the follow:

400m run (I wore my running shoes instead of Crossfit shoes and my feet thanked me)

20 wall balls

10 burpees

I finished 4 rounds plus a run, and my hips are feeling it today! One thing I will say though-as much as I hate burpees, all the workouts we’ve done lately have been…50 burpees. Straight. So 10 feels like a breeze!

Tuesday: Morning Crossfit. I love the morning classes but with the cold weather rapidly approaching, my morning days are numbered. I’m not about lifting weights in 29 degrees. Ugh.

For strength, we did power cleans. We did sets of 2, every minute on the minute for 10 minutes, and added 5# every minute. I started at 80 with the goal of working up to 120….yeah there’s definitely something wrong with my math there! I ended up failing fantastically on the second rep at 125# and totally wiping out. Fun fact-if you fall over backwards on your butt on an Olympic lifting platform with enough force, you slide pretty far. I felt ridiculous, but I’m pretty sure no one saw me totally fall.

The WOD was much less eventful!

5 rds:

350 m row(yeah, weird number)

6 thrusters

8 hang power cleans

10 burpees

I ended up using 75#. I tried to use 65, but was promptly told to add weight. Whoops.

And that just about wraps it up! Have a great Wednesday!