Long Runs and Yogurt

Date: July 8, 2013

Author: astottler

Well, it’s Monday. After blogging, I’m going to drive down to school to put in some hours in the lab, and then go to the library to catch up on reading for my Psych class. For that class, we also have an assignment where we choose a health behavior to change. I chose sleep-Im trying to get 8 hours a night. Guess how that’s working out? Yeah.

So let’s talk running. Sunday was my 11 mile run. I have a whole routine down now. Wake up at 6:45, eat breakfast, and leave at 8:30 for a 9:00 run. Since I run by the bay, I have to run early to beat the wind. I had my typical pre-run breakfast.

I felt much more confident going into this run than last week’s 10 mile run. For some reason, 10 miles seems like so much, and anything beyond that basically seems the same. If I could do 10, I could do 11 right? I wanted to pick up the pace a little bit from last week too.

I started off having no trouble with my “goal” pace. I say that in quotes because it’s my ideal pace but not what I was expected to maintain (spoiler-I didn’t maintain it). Immediately, I was feeling better than last week. This could be for a number of reasons. 1. I had logged more miles the week leading up to this run than last weeks. I skipped a longish run last week. 2. I had already done a long run and probably most important-3. I didn’t do a killer leg workout 2 days before, so my legs weren’t sore at all (my arms though were a different story). Moral of the story? Do heavy leg days early in the week. Anyways, the run.

I swear the longest part of the run is the mile or two leading up to the turnaround. And the miles right after the turnaround…I did stop to walk a few steps every few miles to get try and get some feeling back in my toes. Gosh I love my feet. I really shouldn’t complain-my feet behaved much better than expected and much better than last week. I think I was landing with a slightly different part of my foot, so for a good part of the run my big toe was numb, but it didn’t hurt because I wasn’t striking on the nerve I usually hit it on.

I took my goo at the halfway point. It was really disappointing. I tried the Power Bar brand of chocolate and it didn’t taste good. The Cliff bar kind from last week was better, and had a better list of ingredients. I just never got a chance to make it back to the store to pick up another one. Here’s a question for you runners-for a half marathon, do you fuel once or twice? Before training, I was thinking I’d do it at miles 5 and 10, but at this point I feel like by mile 10 I just want to power through until the end.

Here’s the crazy part about this run- my slowest miles were definitely the middle miles, but my fastest was the 11th mile. What?? Like, it was probably a minute faster. Ok…I obviously need to start running the rest faster! It’s funny-I’ve been listening to an audiobook on my long runs, and beforehand, I discovered that only if I hit my “goal” pace would I finish my run before my audiobook ran out. Hey, it’s extra motivation! I ended up running out at the VERY end of my run. Nothing too terrible. So that was that!

Here’s the view of SFO from after my run:

I actually felt better after this run than after the last one, in terms of ability to move. I was stupid though and didn’t wear my compression socks, and my calves were sore already yesterday afternoon. Whoops.
What’s the best thing to do after a run? Go yogurt shopping obviously!

Heaven right there my friends. It’s been too long!
By the time I got home, the post-run-crazy-hunger began setting in. I was sooo salty from my run and my body was craving salt like crazy. After a few handfuls of cheddar popcorn from the Farmer’s Market yesterday, I was ready to break open some yogurt. I tried pineapple Chobani, which I’ve never tried before.

Topped with some gluten free granola from the Farmer’s Market, blackberries, and sunflower seed butter. Perfect!

I spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy. And desperately trying to keep up with the 1000 incoming text messages I was receiving. Bloggers sure are a talkative bunch (but I love them for it). Saturday night I went to dinner with my friend, and when I got back I had 148 texts. I felt so popular-I’ve never gotten that many before! Haha.
Dinner last night was leftovers, plus corn on the cob. At the Farmer’s Market, there was a huge line for a corn vendor. I mean, the line was going around the corner, and no other vendors ever had any type of line. Plus, they weren’t the only ones selling corn. Naturally, the long line made my mom WANT this corn. We ended up walking away with 10 ears. It was really good-but enough to cause a giant line? I don’t know.

On the side was leftover chicken sauteed with white wine, mushrooms, and zucchini. Kettle corn was also consumed. Farmer’s Market seriously have the best kettle corn.

I also was dying for some fro-yo, so I made a little fro-yo sundae.

I topped vanilla frozen yogurt with chocolate sauce, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream. YUM.

And staying true to the title of this post, here’s this morning’s breakfast-another yogurt bowl.

Stoneyfield vanilla greek yogurt, gluten free granola, a chopped up nectarine from the Farmer’s Market, and a scoop of sunflower seed butter. I really like Stoneyfield-it’s smooth and not super sweet. My biggest issue with the Chobani that I’ve tried is lack of tang, at least for the key lime and pineapple flavors. I feel like those should be at least a little tangy. Maybe the new key lime? I’ve only tried the one in the flip.
Also, I love this new granola. It’s only sweetened with maple syrup, but it’s still not that sweet. It was a great maple-y flavor because of this. Technically, it’ Coconut, Cranberry and Cocoa Nib, although I don’t taste the cocoa as much. No complaints here though! I need to go get ready for the day-have a great Monday!

What is your favorite flavor of yogurt?

21 Days to Change Your Life

Date: July 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

First and foremost, I want to apologize for this morning‘s post. After reading it, I realized that every sentence except for one ended in an explanation point. Which was probably kind of annoying to read.

Next order of business…who’s going to the Healthy Living Summit in September? I really, really want to go, and it’s before school starts so it’s plausible. Besides how awesome it would be to meet a ton of bloggers, I feel that as a new blogger, there’s so much I can learn!

I’ve been promising you guys a leg workout for a while, but here’s the thing. I want to make it look pretty. And I really don’t know how. Help? What do you guys use to make those pretty images with your workouts? (I’m looking at you Miranda!) So look out for that workout once I figure out all that.

As for my day, I went to abs class in the morning, and then blogged a bit before heading down to school to log a couple of hours of research. I swear, my car uses SO much gas. I’m NOT down for filling it up more than once a week-that’s just crazy.

I came home to a fabulous lunch of leftovers-Greek seasoned chicken, and tons of salad with a little Greek dressing and red pepper hummus. Perfect!

My afternoon was spent not doing my homework for my Health Psych class…which coincidentally is what I should be doing right now…In my defense, I did read the first chapter, which was about old beliefs about the 4 bodily excretions associated with illness (yum), and more interestingly, different cultural beliefs and attitudes to health and illness. One thing we’ve talked about in class is how important it is to think about the cultural aspect when trying to communicate about health to people.

This evening, I hit up the gym for an awesome spin class by one of my favorite teachers. I actually ran into one of my long lost best friends at the gym as well (she’s pretty busy so texting her is basically a black hole). We chatted some and made plans to figure out when to get together sometime (very concrete, right?). I had to get to the gym early to sign up for the class, and didn’t have any particular plans on what to do in the meantime. All the ergs were full, booo. I hate going to the gym in the evening-it’s so crowded and I can’t get on any of the equipment!

Dinner afterwards was pretty basic.

Salad with Farmer’s market heirloom tomatoes, a veggie scramble with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, and gouda, and squash topped with butter and cinnamon sugar (yumm). I don’t really know my squashes too well…can anyone tell me what type of squash this is? I got it at the Farmer’s market. My guess is either acorn or kabocha?

After eating a snack, I started talking to my mom about health and the brain (LOVE these conversations). It came up that it takes 3 weeks to break a habit. This has been proven in many different respects-my favorite in that if you give up sugar, you stop craving it after 3 weeks. So here’s my challenge-what do you want to change? Now’s the time. Whatever it is, what if it was no longer an issue in 3 weeks? How much happier could you be 3 weeks from now? Maybe you bite your nails. Maybe you procrastinate on dishes (guilty…). Maybe you weigh yourself every day and stress about it. We’re at the half way point of the year-get after it!

What am I doing? I want to break my habit of snacking. I would really like to work on Mindful Eating (my mom bought me a couple of books so I can read more about it). Breaking my snacking habit is a big step for me in this. Specifically, my habit of eating everything in sight after a nap, regardless of whether or not I’m hungry. My goal for eh next 21 days is to eat no snacks. Before anyone gets too crazy on me, I’m not necessarily trying to eat less. I may bulk up a little more on my meals if need be, but the biggest goal is to break the habit.

Need some help? Try this:

1. Distract yourself. Find another activity to replace whatever habit you are trying to break. At school, I tried to get in the habit of drinking a mug of water immediately upon walking in the door. You can retrain your brain!

You can be a psychologist! Classical conditioning (think Pavlov’s dog) is when people (or animals) associate a certain stimulus with a reward. For instance, Pavlov’s dogs associated a bell with food, so whenever the bell was rung, the dogs eventually began drooling. Retrain yourself! For me at school, the moment I walked into my dorm room, I wanted a snack. The environment was my stimulus, my bell. Out think yourself! Build a new habit and condition yourself to it, through repeated exposure. For my goal, maybe going in the kitchen will start making my thirsty if I drink a glass of water every time I walk in.

3. Avoidance-avoid any stimuli that might lead to the habit. If I normally snack in the afternoon, I could try going to the library (to finally to my homework) during the time I normally spend munching away.

4. Support and attention- tell people around you what your goal is. If you bite your nails and are trying to break that habit, you might not even realize what you’re doing until someone else points it out.

Good luck and Happy July!

What would you do to change your life in 21 days?

Letting the Pace Go

Date: June 30, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey everyone! I’ve been meaning to blog since Friday…and I really have to good excuse. I’ll try to do a fairly quick recap of the past few days, and promise the next posts will have more/better content!.

Friday I had been planning on going to early Spin, but I went to bed too late and decided I would never be able to stay awake at my research job if I went. First, I ate this delicious breakfast:

The last of my vanilla yogurt, gluten free vanilla crunch cereal, raspberries, and sunflower seed butter.

Then, it was off to school for research. While this may sound glamorous, I assure you it is not. My job is doing a ton of spreadsheet stuff and examining photos of mice carcasses. I actually don’t really mind (although Friday was my first day of doing real stuff). The building I’m working in is attached to the hospital, so I decided to check out the hospital cafeteria for lunch. IT IS SO NICE. It was ridiculous. A salad bar (with chia seeds!), sandwich bar, hot food, pastries, everything! I went with the salad bar.

And they even had a new to me flavor of Kevita! It was way overpriced though. And ended in an embarrassing situation- breaking on the floor of Sports Authority while I was shopping for workout pants. On the plus side, it was mostly gone!

After wearing the same workout pants for workouts 3 days in a row, my mother decided that I needed to buy more workout pants. No complaints here! The highlight was a new pair of my favorite workout pants, but with a hot pink waistband, instead of yellow.

Since I missed spin that morning, I decided to lift before my run. I did a leg workout, which I will post soon. I’m planning on creating a workout page shortly! I mostly make my own weights workouts, and for some reason I feel like I shouldn’t post them, which is silly. So that will change! After lifting, I ran 3 miles on very rubbery legs. Ehh it felt good to lift again so I can’t complain (well, actually I can complain…).

Dinner was a delicious greek salad with a touch of Greek dressing, but topped with hummus.

I also had some watermelon…and a friend!

I love this picture because I was simply trying to take a picture of watermelon-Billy just happens to love watermelon!

Saturday morning before Crossfit I made some very ugly pancakes-they tasted just fine though! I mixed up a banana, egg whites, vanilla, chocolate protein powder, cocoa powder, and a dash of almond milk.

Post Crossfit I made a smoothie inspired by Beth– pineapple, mango, and pineapple coconut water. Thick, delicious, and totally hit the spot!

After lunch, my family saw The Internship. My sister even joined us since she was in the area! Overall, I wasn’t a big fan of the movie. However, if you want a taste of where I live (Silicon Valley), this was pretty much spot-on! We couldn’t help but laugh when the characters ran in on broomsticks for quidditch, as my sister is the captain of our school’s quidditch team. Spot-on!

We went to The Melt, a grilled cheese place for dinner. I opted for sweet corn soup, which tasted exactly like those corn cakes at Mexican restaurants. And, we were right next to a frozen yogurt place, so no complaining here!

I went half ‘healthy’ and half ‘unhealthy.’ Plain with fruit on one side, butter pecan/chocolate with heath and brownies on the other. Yumm.

As I’m sure you’re all well aware as I’ve been sort of freaking out about it all week, Sunday was my 10 mile run, which is farther than I had ever run before.

I ate my typical pre-run breakfast:

I was up in time to beat the heat/wind (I ran by the bay, so the wind is a bigger issue than the heat!).

I’ve been wanting to keep up a particular pace, but my dad advised me to just worry about the distance, and not the pace. So I let go of that ideal pace, and in turn, the run went really well!

I really loved this trail-it was along the bay, but it took me through different areas so it was more interesting. I took a Gu for the first time at mile 5, the turn around point. I couldn’t imagine running while eating, so I walked while I took it. I was a big fan-it was Cliff chocolate, and only had a few, very recognizable ingredients. It was a little weird though because it was like eating straight chocolate syrup…during a run…

I also was annoyed at having to carry a water bottle. I ended up dumping half of it right away so it wouldn’t be so much weight. I tossed it around Mile 6-7 when it was empty, which was the plan. I didn’t really think through the fact that that was the only water I had with me though…I was so thirsty by the time I got home!

Overall, the run went really well. I enjoyed myself more at a slightly slower pace. I figure I can push the pace more with the adrenaline of the race, but if not, that’s fine too. This is my first half, and I’m still running longer than ever before!

Recovering with my compression socks:

And my beloved PVC pipe- my hard core ‘foam roller.’ Love it!

Let’s just say that sore legs from weights on Friday+10 miles=can’t move.

And some more scenes from the day-Farmer’s market!

Also, 2 more things.

1. A healthy living COLLEGE conference is in the works! SO EXCITED.

2. Thanks for all your input on self-hosting! I’m still on the fence, but I’m leaning towards taking the plunge. I need to look into it a little more though!

What’s the farthest you’ve run? Are you in college? How do you fuel during long runs?

Whole30?

Date: March 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How’s everyone doing this fine weekend? Any fun plans for St. Patrick’s Day? Lot’s of green food for me!

Now without further ado, let’s launch into this post!Yesterday’s breakfast. Peanut butter on toast. Notice: that really isn’t that much peanut butter. Well, as it turns out, laying off nuts for a while seems to make my nut sensitivities stronger. Anyone have experience with this? A couple of hours after this meal I noticed a series of lumps on my face. How crazy is that? I think I need to try to maintain a constant yet small nut intake.

The only other semi-interesting eat from yesterday is the oatmeal I had at dinner. I knew I was having major sugar cravings, and if I didn’t try to deal with them in at least a semi healthful way, things were going to go down hill in a hurry! My solution? Chocolate oatmeal!

I made my typical Banana Oatmeal with a few changes. I was too lazy to add the eggs, and I added vanilla, a touch of brown sugar, and cocoa powder. Then, for fun, I stirred in some semi-sweet chocolate chips.

That night however, I got to thinking. I’m going to be home for 2 more weeks, which means access to all kinds of food at any time of day (or night). I could envision my eating habits going downhill fast, and that just isn’t a good way to recover quickly. I’v read about the Whole30 before, and I think adopting a cleaner way of eating is a great idea. (If you don’t know Whole30 cuts out grains, dairy, legumes, sugar, and peanuts). It doesn’t make sense for me to do EXACTLY the Whole30 (Easter…hehe), but using some of those eating guidelines could be a great idea. So I went into the next day with a day of Whole30 ahead of me. I grabbed some fruit at breakfast because I wasn’t super hungry, but I whipped up a nice egg scramble for lunch with tons of veggies and avocado.Snach was another piece of fruit. I also went to Whole Foods, looking for some Whole30 compliant eats. And wow. It made me so angry. I read sooo many labels. There was hardly anything I could eat on Whole30. And this is Whole Foods! If I can’t find things there, where can I find them?? There is added sugar in absolutely everything! Out of all the soup in the store, only 1 type was Whole30 compliant. I mean I understand the goal is to eat REAL food, as in “make it yourself” food, but still! For dinner, we picked up a Rotisserie chicken and prepared hot Brocculini. I also grabbed some fresh mango salsa (which was spicy!).I’m so excited it is starting to be mango season again! Manilla mangos (the small yellow ones) are possibly my favorite fruit ever, and I eat them almost constantly when they’re in season! We got some from Costco the other day, and they were on sale at Whole Foods!

One thing about cutting out grains….my sweet cravings go away, because I’m more focused on how I miss bread. I broke down last night and had a bite of macaroni and cheese. So after a trial day, I think I can really make this thing work for me, but with some degree of compromise. I may allow small quantities of dairy, and I won’t beat myself up over a bite of grains, or a special occasion (read: today’s field trip and feast at the Farmer’s Market), but I want to try to maintain the principles as much as possible. This could be the focus and project I need for this break. I really don’t want to compromise on sugar though, but I have gummy vitamins that have sugar. And let’s be honest. I am SO DONE with any type of swallowing pills after being sick for so long, so I’m kind of on the fence about this. Anybody have any thoughts on this new way of eating? I felt pretty good last night, and I really think I can make this work for me.

Any fun plans for St. Patrick’s Day?