Coming Home

Date: August 3, 2016

Author: astottler

Hi friends! It’s been a little while. I’m home for all of 3 weeks, and it’s going to be a little bit of a vet school app bootcamp here. I’m struggling a little bit with the flow of my main essay, so I’m hoping this blog post is a nice little warm up to get my creative juices flowing!

Let’s catch up! I’m back in California. But let’s take it back a little bit for some food+fitness+life, shall we?

Tennessee Food

I finally improved the appearance of my new favorite breakfast a little bit. It’s just a sunbutter+blueberry sandwich, soaked in 1 egg white and then baked in tinfoil! Super easy and delicious, and the egg adds a little kick of protein. I ate theses with copious amounts of watermelon.

There was a Wednesday night Farmer’s Market with tamales. I had a delicious sweet potato tamale the week prior and was hoping for another one, but I was on the later so so cheese was my only option. Still delicious! On the side was one of the weirder things I’ve eaten. I sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic on lettuce leaves and then dipped them in guacamole. It was just too much lettuce…

I’m a pretty big fan of Publix now. It was the closest grocery, and had lots of great healthy+GF options. And gourmet yogurt. This and the bananas foster yogurt was delicious!

I had one last honey lavender iced latte at K Brew while finished up the first draft of my essay!

Tennessee Life

On my last day, I got off pretty early. It didn’t take me long to decide what I wanted to do. I went to Ijams one last time for a little hike by the river. I took a slightly different trail than the previous time and explored some different areas.

And then Saturday I was homeward bound. What is crazy? There was literally no line going through security in Knoxville. As in, I was literally the only person.

California

My favorite cookies ever happen to be at one of the places in the SFO terminal. I was hoping the entire 5 hour flight that 1. I would happen to pass it and 2. they would still be open! It turns out, the place was right by where I exited security, so I picked up a spicy cinnamon GF cookie. I think I preferred the non-spicy version I tried previously, but this was the only option.

To be honest, it feels weird being home, especially the first day or two. I feel like I was worlds away, and came back a different person. I had so many new experiences in Tennessee, and I did so much in a short time. To be honest, I’m glad I’ve moved on to new things instead of moped around about how I was going to miss my undergrad. At first, I didn’t feel ready to go to TN so soon after graduating, but I think it was for the better.

Sunday, I dove right back into things. First, I went to a spin class at the local studio. Then, I made amazing banana bread. I used my tried and true recipe, and separated it into two halves: one plain, one with raspberries and chocolate chips.

For dinner that night, I was back to the soup+avocado toast grind. Butternut squash chicken soup.

That evening, I met up with my college roommate for the Panic at the Disco+Weezer concert. I’ve grown particularly obsessed with Panic over the course of the last year, so when I was able to make the concert work given my travel dates, I was excited! Honestly, I could care less about Weezer. I probably haven’t listened to them since middle school, but liked them well enough then.

It was a great show, but we had seats on the lawn so unfortunately we were pretty far back. I haven’t been to many concerts lately, but the concerts I’ve been to I’ve always been able to be closer to the action. Maybe next time!

I enjoyed Weezer as well, and found I knew more songs than I realized.

In terms of workouts, I’ve been going back to my home Crossfit. We tend to do more barbell movements there, and I’m already feeling this morning’s workout! For strength, we did back squats. It was supposed to be 5 sets of 3 at 90%, but since I lost a ton of strength with my foot injury, I did 5×5 at 70%. I’ve squatted some since my injury at the TN Crossfit, but it was pretty low volume. So I’m going to be feeling this. The WOD was also a heavy one: 15 Min AMRAP of 10 hand release push ups and 5 deadlifts, which I did at 155#. While my squats may have gotten weak, my deadlifts have progressed because it was one of the few movements I could do for a while! I made it through almost 12 rounds.

I also went back to teach spin on Tuesday! I’m subbing as much as I can in the few weeks I’m home. I saw a ton of regulars, which was just so fantastic.

Screen Shot 2016-08-02 at 3.49.06 PM

And finally, wrapping up some food for the week.

When my roommate came, she brought a ton of AMAZING peaches! They don’t last a long time because they’re perfectly ripe, so we’ve been eating them like crazy. No problem for me! I had a peach+nectarine for breakfast the other day, with a side of banana bread.

Yesterday I had a cappuccino with a really delicious cranberry oat bar to fuel an essay brainstorming session.

And finally, the best thing.

We made Brazilian Cheese Bread! I got the idea from Alison. It’s made with tapioca flour and cheese, and is naturally gluten free. I used this recipe. They came out beautifully, and it was a super fast recipe!

We served them alongside Grilled Peach and Goat cheese salad, which was amazing with the fresh summer peaches.

What have you been up to??

Taper Eats

Date: September 5, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guys, we’re officially 2 days away from race day! In terms of workouts, I’m taking it easy. Wednesday was my last run and my last Crossfit. Thursday I planned to do a short run but opted to rest my feet instead so I did absolutely nothing. This morning I went to spin and ran 1 mile to get my legs moving, but tomorrow is another full rest day!

The good news is in terms of running, I feel ready. I still haven’t picked a goal pace so that’s sort of a problem. The bad news is my plantar fasciitis has been flaring this past week and it hasn’t warmed up in my runs like it always did before-I think it’s because it’s not 90 degrees here…

Since I’ve been tapering, I’ve had plenty of time to dream up dinner/lunch ideas. I ever did some more experimental baking! (And then the subsequent eating of course.) So here are some of my “taper week” eats!

Leftover chicken with ketchup, plus roasted carrots and cumin roasted cauliflower. I love the color of the yellow cauliflower! Next time I’m getting purple!

Pumpkin Noosa (yogurt). It’s good-I think it’s a Target exclusive though! Also good-Coconut Noosa.

Cheesy Garlic and Herb Brussels Sprouts-Garlic and Herb Laughing Cow, Maple Apple Sausage (chicken), and shaved brussels sprouts. I also love that this is a super easy dorm meal!

Cinnamon laughing cow+baked (ok, microwaved) peaches. So delicious. Next time I think I’d sauté them together on the stove.

A sandwich from the popular local sandwich shop-turkey and avocado! Plus roasted carrots.

I actually did another little baking experiment-and it came out amazingly well! Like-eat half a loaf in one day well. I’m carb loading, right? Recipe should be up tomorrow.

Oh my gosh. I found this puppy at the local Farmer’s Market-it’s every bit as good as it sounds. I also picked up some maple cinnamon pumpkin seed butter. There’s a stand at the local Farmer’s Market with all kinds of amazing nut and seed butters. I also tried a S’mores sunflower seed butter which was AMAZING but more dessert-y than I was looking for at the time. I’m crossing my fingers that in the coming months a pumpkin spice sunflower seed butter will pop up…

Post-spin chocolate protein smoothie this morning. Man, I forgot how delicious these were! I used frozen banana, Chocolate Designer Whey, cocoa powder, milk, and a handful of spinach.

And lunch today-leftover chicken and leftover cumin roasted cauliflower, plus some spoonfuls of the above sunflower seed butter. Yum!

How do you eat during taper?

WIAW-A Taste for Coffee

Date: August 27, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Phew. I am pooped right now! I have to wake up in 6 hours, but I really couldn’t miss out on the What I Ate Wednesday party-hosted by Jenn! This seriously does make Wednesday so much more fun!

First, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your comments on yesterday’s post. It was really interesting to hear all your perspectives!

Today was a really relaxing day. Kind of. I’m trying to cure my social media addiction before school starts, as well as soak in the last bits of summer. Therefore, I’m trying to spend more time outside and ditch the technology a little more. Yesterday I felt like I was in a computer-induced fog all day. When I spend too much time with my technology, time passes in a blur and I don’t really experience anything!

Anyways, I started my morning by waking up before my alarm (yay!) and heading to the gym for my first ever tempo run! I was a little nervous. Which was actually really silly-the run was only 3 miles, the splits being 10, 8:30, 10. And I know I can run 3 8:00 miles…so not sure why I was worried. I then spent the rest of the time before yoga doing some of my all time favorite lifts-back lunges off a step and single leg RDLs.

I walked out of yoga feeling fantastic and totally at peace. It wasn’t quite lunch time, so I stopped into Peet’s for a cappuccino. Yes, I actually chose to drink coffee without desperately needing it! This is probably my favorite cappuccino-the milk foam was so smooth! It’s all about the milk foam with me 🙂

I wish they sold extra small coffees though. I can never finish it-I was a low caffeine tolerance, and a high caffeine awareness. I was sad I couldn’t finish this, but realized my heart would be racing if I had tried. Sad. You better believe I cherry picked all the milk foam though!

To say I developed a taste for coffee is an exaggeration. I’ve developed a taste for cappuccinos….Which could become an expensive habit….

After sipping my drink and reading in the sunshine, I stopped by Whole Foods for some protein bars for my trip (I have quite a few training runs while on vacation, and vacation food before a training run=bad idea) as well as lunch from the hot bar. I had some lackluster Chinese vegetables, a chicken potsticker, avocado and kale salad, and sweet potato polenta. I wish I had skipped the Chinese food though-the kale salad stole the show. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t like the citrusy salad, but it was perfectly light and summery.

I couldn’t find ThinkThin Divine bars (which are chocolate and coconut), so I had the taste for chocolate and coconut. I happened upon these bars-they’re also gluten free!

They fit into my sugar standards for a granola bar (only 8 grams!) as well, so I was sold. These far exceeded my expectations-they tasted just like fresh coconut! The perfect sweet finish to my meal.

Confession: I wanted to sit outside of Whole Foods to eat, but I opted to sit inside because my pictures would look bad outside. #bloggerproblems

I then sat outside on a bench to read some more. This was my view. Isn’t this a cute little neighborhood?

Later in the day, I changed into shorts for a walk with my audiobook.

So here’s a question-did I purposefully match my outfit perfectly or are those the only colors I own?? I’ll let you guess the answer to that one.

I’ve been really enjoying these walks lately-I like my book!

Afterwards, it was time for a snack before a possible softball doubleheader.

I had a delicious farmer’s market nectarine, carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow, and one of these guys.

I’ve fallen in love with the peanut butter flavor in the past, but the cranberry orange was just as good. If you see these guys- BUY THEM.

My softball game went well-it’s the playoffs, so we play until we lose. We won both games tonight, and were pretty hungry afterwards. My sister, her boyfriend, and my mom and I all went out for Bermese food in downtown Palo Alto.

You know you’re underdressed when the waiters pull out your chairs for you and place a cloth napkin on your lap…whoops.

The food was delicious though!

We were right next to a gelato place…Let’s just say it’s taking a little time to wrap my head around eliminating sugar for good. In good time my friends.

But for now-caramel chocolate and creme brulee FTW.

And since this is supposed to be What I ATE Wednesday, not what I DID, here are some more fun things from the past few days.

Ask and you shall receive-the recipe for banana chocolate chip custard is here.

I’ve been loving my snack plates lately-this one is an Asian pear from the farmer’s market, a fig, and carrots with White Cheddar Laughing Cow. This is my first time trying the flavor, and I must say-I’m a fan!

Dinner last night was a good one as well-Asian Lettuce Cups from the Cooking Light app, served with steamed snap peas and garlic and herb brown rice and quinoa.

And lastly-one of my favorite meals from the week. We bought green onion pancakes from the farmer’s market (seeing the theme here?), and served them with a fig and goat cheese salad (with leftover chicken).

As you may have noticed, I’ve been kind of obsessed with figs this summer.

And I’ll leave you with that. Have a great day!

Do you like Farmer’s Markets? Favorite find? Do you ever unplug for a day? Are you addicted to social media?

WIAW-Summertime Loving

Date: August 20, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! That means-you guessed it-another edition of What I Ate Wednesday, hosted by the lovely Jenn.

By the way, did you guys see her chocolate chip banana bread recipe? It looks AMAZING! I was going to make it but was short a ripe banana, and my dad may have killed me if I made it ~~and ate it all~~ while he was out of town.

But now onto what I actually DID eat!

Saturday lunch-leftovers. Sloppy joe meat (with turkey) in a lettuce leaf, plus leftover sweet potato wedges.

ANOTHER fruit bowl. I’m kind of obsessed with these. The best ones include bananas and peaches. WIth or without peaches though, there needs to be a tangier component than just banana-like berries or even apple in a pinch. Topped with crunchy sunflower seed butter for some healthy fats.

I also tried a new chobani flip-vanilla with corn flakes, honey oats, and praline pecans.

I paired it with a slice of veggie pizza and broccoli. My overall opinion? A little boring. And corn flakes+yogurt are not a great combination, just because they got super soggy.

Since over the weekend I was still on my no sugar challenge, when my parents broke out the peanut butter cups, I decided to make my own no sugar version. I heated up unsweetened chocolate and coconut butter (unsweetened chocolate is really hard), and then filled mini muffin cups first with the chocolate, then sunflower seed butter, and then topped with chocolate again. I also added a touch of sea salt to the top-to make them gourmet of course! I wouldn’t recommend using no sweetener if you aren’t use to the taste of unsweetened chocolate, but this would work just as well with dark chocolate.

One thing I love about summer is going to Farmer’s markets. I love tasting all the fruit-especially peaches. White peaches or nectarines are by far my favorite! However, fruit is not the only amazing foodie find at Farmer’s markets. Have any of you ever gotten kettle corn there? It’s the best kettle corn ever. When you get it, it’s so hot and crisp. What better to munch on while browsing the produce?

I do love my fresh produce though too. Some highlights-white raspberries and butternut squash hummus! I love topping salads with hummus, and I prefer less sharp hummus for this. Butternut squash worked just perfectly!

Also from the Farmer’s market-artichokes and corn. I also had a grilled portabello mushroom, but sadly we could not find any at the Farmer’s market.

Also-a side note: I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I haven’t posted many pictures of my breakfasts lately. That just means they’ve been super boring and/or really quick and early in the morning. For example-this morning I grabbed a Thinkthin bar before Crossfit. And as much as I’m sure everyone wants to see the same picture every other morning….

So far this week my workouts have been good ones. Monday was my first run of half marathon training 2.0. It took me about 3 hours to get going…but hey, I still did it. I realized I haven’t A) done that run in my newer shoes and B) done that run since the beginning of my first half marathon training. I did a 3 mile run in my neighborhood. It’s pretty hilly, so it was great practice for the hills of SF. It’s a run I’ve done a million times throughout high school. I did it once, at the very beginning of my training, and was DYING. I was in pretty awful shape at the beginning of my training-after recovering from Mono a month or so prior, I never really got back into running shape. Well, the run was sooo much easier. It’s good to know the 10 weeks of training I put into for my first half helped me be in better shape.

Confession: the whole time I was climbing the big hill I was think “I’m scaling this hill, just like Spiderman.” #facepalm

I refueled afterwards with an iced chai tea latte. A weak iced chai tea latte-because who has time for something to ACTUALLY brew fully?

When I make my chai tea lattes, I brew the tea directly into the almond milk, which I heat up. Since I’m adding ice, I find it gets too watery if I brew it in water and then add milk.

Aaaaand one last piece of deliciousness to leave you with. Remember how I said I wanted to bake Jenn’s chocolate chip banana bread but was a banana short? Well, I wasn’t just going to let a good banana go to waste. Or a good craving for chocolate chip banana bread to go to waste. Instead, I whipped up a concoction that turned out to be a pretty awesome banana chocolate chip custard. So let’s go with that.

I don’t have the exact recipe. But there’s only one solution to that-I’ll have to make it again and measure it out! I kind of just poured and mashed, but I used 1 banana, liquid egg whites, a dash of salt and baking powder, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.

Have a great day everybody! I’m sorry this post was a bit disjointed-I was a bit behind on food posts so I kind of just threw it all out there. I’ll leave you with some kitty love.

I really wanted to take a selfie with him-because I’m cool and take selfies with my cat…but I didn’t get quite that angelic facial expression…

Do you love microwave cooking as much as I do? What’s the best way to train for a hilly race? Favorite summer produce? Anyone else take selfies with their cats? Please?

Legs Don’t Fail Me!

Date: July 25, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’ve been meaning to post the last few days, but things keep coming up! I can’t believe I forgot about WIAW! Who am I??

Before we get to the deliciousness, let’s talk fitness and the status of my calf. I’ve been going to physical therapy all week, and I think it’s definitely helping. My physical therapist is great-my dad is friends with him since my dad has all kinds of things wrong with him. I’m getting the whole 9 yards-calf exercises, stretching, ultrasound, laser treatment, electrocution. Ok maybe they don’t actually call it electrocution, but what would you call getting electricity pumped into your leg?

Wednesday was another spin class. It’s one way for me to keep up my cardiovascular fitness. My spin teacher actually just tore her calf muscle, and she can’t exercise at all for like 6 weeks, so I shared miseries with her. After spin, I tested my calf by doing a lap around the parking lot with almost no pain.

This morning was the real test though. I wanted to run 2 miles, so I went to the track. That way, if I had to stop, the farthest away I’d be from the starting point was 200 meters! To be honest, I was expecting running to be painful. And it wasn’t. Thank goodness! At least not for the first mile. My calf started hurting a little bit after that, so I called it quits after a mile and a half. I didn’t want to push it-that’s what race day is for!

All I could think of today-legs don’t fail me now!Not after all this work!

Then tonight at Crossfit, I felt no pain and was able to do everything, which I am ecstatic about. I ran 1400 meters total during Crossfit, so my total mileage for the day was almost 3.

So the verdict? I’ll be fine by race day. It starts hurting when it gets tired so the next step is rebuilding strength. I’ll be good to go for race day, but the rate of healing will determine how ugly the race and aftermath is. I can’t help but think I jinxed myself by ordering this shirt:

So the plan? Crossfit tomorrow morning. If it still feels ok, I’m going to try for 1.5 miles. Then, I’ll try another 1.5 in the evening. I want to get the mileage in, but having recovery time will really help. Of course I’ll back off if I feel pain. My family and I are going to San Luis Obispo this weekend, so Saturday we have a hike planned. I found a great route for my run on Sunday. It’s a 5 mile loop, which I’ll attempt to run, but walk as necessary.

Ok, enough of that. On to the food!

I had a great salad from Cooking Light the other day- an Avocado Cobb salad! The dressing was made with creamy avocados, and the salad included chicken breast, hard boiled egg, avocado, goat cheese (it called for bleu but that freaks my mom out), and tomatoes. It called for bacon, but I don’t eat it and the only bacon we had was gray…so we subbed chicken sausage, which was actually quite delicious!

Wednesday night I went to the Giant’s game. They lost, booo. But that doesn’t take away from the delicious food offerings at the San Francisco ballpark!

For dinner, a Cha-cha bowl. It’s rice, black beans, and chicken breast topped with a veggie slaw (with pineapple!). They were able to make mine without rice and with extra veggies-yum!

We also enjoyed some unpictured garlic fries-I mean it is a ballgame, right?

And no AT&T park visit is complete without a Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae. If that doesn’t taste like San Francisco, I don’t know what does.

And of course a windy selfie. Only in SF would you bundle up to go to a mid-summer baseball game. I broke out the leg warmers and uggs, sweatshirt, fleece Northface, and a blanket. Brrrr.

Sadly, all the ballpark food (ok, probably mostly the fries and sundae) left me with a stomachache today. I decided that I need to make more of an effort to base my meals off of fruit and veggies, so I decided a bowl of assorted fruit and sunflower seed butter would do the trick for breakfast.

Here’s an obligatory kitten nursery photo. The kittens are doing much better! They were all pretty healthy and VERY energetic. One little guy thought it would be the most fun thing in the world to constantly, out of nowhere, leap from the table onto my shoulder, which is a bit of a problem since we’re technically still on quarantine.

This evening, I went to a local farmer’s market downtown. I didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I thought you nut butter fans out there would appreciate this vendor:Maybe I’ll have to try butterscotch sunflower seed butter! I wish my face didn’t hate nuts…Last year I got my dad chocolate bacon peanut butter.

I also got some beautifully delicious figs. I love figs but they’re always super pricey at the grocery store.

And another highlight?

Mini pies. Sweet potato and lemon strawberry. They were just perfect, and not too sweet.

I’ll leave you guys with that! Have a great Friday!