Final(s)ly Done.

Date: March 20, 2014

Author: astottler

I’m done with finals! Woooo! I’ve spent the last 2 hours since finishing eating froyo and a cupcake, watching the Crossfit 14.4 announcement, and online shopping for food/fitness things. Spring break is amazing 🙂

So…I ran on Monday and was kinda sore from that. But on TUESDAY, I did a stupid little 10 minute abs video (find it here). It was THAT bad at the time…but oomph. The next morning? All through my sides, from my shoulders down to my hips-PAIN. I’m STILL suffering considerably! My hips especially when I lift my legs-biking around campus has not been fun. Rarely do I regret a workout-only when I’m stupid sore. This may be one of those times. I love being sore, but it can definitely get annoying!

This morning, the workout we did at Crossfit was killer, and my legs are still aching a little bit. It was 500m ALL OUT row followed by 30 wall balls, then rest, then 500m row and 30 pull ups, rest, and 500m row and 30 burpees.

And then proceeded to spend the day studying for Chem. Merp.

Here are some photo highlights:

Yesterday’s lunch-I took this back from the dining hall the night before. Eating fish out of a ziplock bag is kind of weird…also, when I eat healthier, I tend to crave meat a lot. Is that weird?

Testing out the new kicks-I’m finally coming around! I will probably wear my old shoes for my half, and then retire them at the Tough Mudder.

I have awesome friends-these are 100% homemade, from scratch croissants. They were SO amazing!

I really do appreciate that our dining hall sometimes has Brussels sprouts. Really, I do. But it would be fabulous if there were actually chewable. Or cut-able. They were like rocks!

Breakfast after Crossfit-finals means chocolate chip pancakes.

Lunch while studying.

Starbucks salad. I’m actually really impressed by their salads!

Post finals celebration. 100% necessary. There are brownie chunks and blueberries hiding under there!

And a red velvet cupcake my roomie brought me! She took an English final on Moby Dick, and they gave them cupcakes but she can’t eat gluten! It was SO good 🙂

I wish I had more enlightening things to say today, but I just really need a nap. I’m SO excited to to 14.4 at my home Crossfit tomorrow though!

WIAW-Finals Week!

Date: March 18, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! I’m finally done with 2 of my finals, so my schedule has opened up a bit so I have time to blog! I’ve been so far behind on sharing food pics with you guys! Good thing it’s What I Ate Wednesday!

I promise I’ve actually been eating things besides chocolate chip cookies lately!

A burrito bowl with salmon.

A whole wheat pancake with Greek yogurt and fruit.

Giant containers of vegetable soup.

On Friday, I baked Hamentaschen, a traditional Jewish cookie made on Purim, to sell and donate the proceeds to charities my sorority supports. They’re basically jam cookies, and they came out really well!

I definitely bought a couple on Sunday! So delicious! And they revived my Bio-slaughtered brain in the middle of my studying marathon.

Cottage cheese with sunflower seed butter and berries.

x2.

Since Friday was Pi day (3.14), I made my own contribution to the cause in the form of a mini-sort of pie.

The “crust” was sunflower seed butter, banana, oats, and vanilla. Which is a delicious combo!

Topped with berry compote:

I actually wasn’t a fan of the combo, and opted to separate the berries and the “crust.”

Friday night I went a bit overboard at the Whole Foods hot/salad bar and made a massive plate. At least I thought to get a box to take some home!

This salad was insanely epic. It included all kinds of delicious veggies-shredded beets, cauliflower, marinated mushrooms, a bit of guacamole. I topped it with some apple cider vinegar and olive oil. And on the very top is Chicken Masala and a lentil dish. SO delicious.

Another study snack.

Brunch-a salad with beans, rice, and salsa plus a biscuit.

Lunch from the Grad school cafeteria while studying. I decided to go somewhere different to study for a change! This salad had an apple cider vinaigrette, and included egg, artichoke hearts, cauliflower, roasted sweet potatoes, and golden raisins.

Another burrito bowl dinner tonight, plus brussels sprouts and mushroom gratin on the side. The bowl was beans, fresh salsa, mango salsa, cheese, corn, and TONS of salmon. I think there were like 2 fishes worth of salmon in there! The gratin was SO good. I may need to recreate this sometime at home!

And now we’re all caught up!

What’s your favorite way to eat brussels sprouts?

I Didn’t Sign Up for This

Date: March 18, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guess who ran 14 miles today?

This girl.

Guess who had zero intention of running 14 miles today?

Uhhh…yeah.

Guess who tried a new route on her long run and TOTALLY missed the major turnoff?

Ummm…are we seeing a trend here?

But let’s back up.

I want to start by saying Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I celebrated by eating almost exclusively green food. No, really. It was totally by accident-and I clearly don’t have much in my fridge!

My first final today was at 8:30, so I started my day my making a spinach, egg white, and cheese scramble in my dorm room.

Then, I picked up a cappuccino on the way to the exam.

During dead and finals week, the cappuccinos have been prettier. It’s definitely a trade off though because it makes the milk foam pretty bitter!

I got to my exam super early to top off my studying.

My only comment about the exam is that 3 hour exams are very long and I get very thirsty. And the worst thing ever is getting stuck on a renal system and urine secretion problem during this time!

I was able to get out a bit early in time to eat lunch before my next exam. My lunch ended up greener than planned-I discovered this morning that my salsa was moldy!

Sweet potato, egg whites, and spinach. Plus a slice of marble cake to celebrate the end of my Bio class of the quarter! I spent SO much time studying for this exam the last few days!

After my Nutrition final, I made the decision to to Sunday’s long run. I was still feeling pretty good, and I wasn’t super excited by tonight’s Crossfit workout, so I figured, why not? I knew I’d need more fuel though! It was-you guessed it-more egg whites with spinach and cheese, plus a kiwi!

In theory, today’s run was 12 miles. I was super excited-I had an interesting new route mapped out! I even joked to my roommate about getting lost…and then guess who missed their turn…the road was a big smaller one that expected (which I found on the way back…). And I didn’t bother to check my maps on my phone until mile 7…when there was literally nowhere to go except back where I came from! I guess I could have still taken my turn on the way back, but I didn’t really need to do 16 miles today!

Want to know the crazy part though? Check out my half marathon split.

That’s only a couple of seconds off of my first half marathon-and I wasn’t really trying! And it’s crazy to think how bad I felt after that. I couldn’t move the next day. Immediately, my legs were in so much pain. The last mile was horrible. Granted, this time I did stop the clock to stretch/be really lost, but still! It’s amazing how far I’ve come since then! This is one reason why I may PR my half coming up without trying-I’ve just gotten so much faster! I’m not sure if I WANT to PR though-I really just want to enjoy the race more than anything else.

I think today’s run is really a testament to the training. In last week’s 11 miler, I felt like I was dying the last few miles. Today? I wasn’t even pushing the pace until the last mile, and on the way back I was easily under 10:00. (It was uphill out, and slight downhill back). More amazing? I was under 10:00 on the 14th mile. I was planning on just waling it, which I did some, but mostly I decided that since I felt ok still, and it was faster, it was worth it to run it.

To recover from my longer than expected run, I immediately put on my holiday appropriate socks.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that part of the reason I wanted to do my long run today was to wear these socks…

I definitely refueled well. I went to the local burger place, with full intention of getting a turkey or chicken burger, but this caught my eye and I decided I needed it NOW.

An egg salad wrap-and hey, it was green!

I also tried the Cherry Vanilla smoothie. When the nutritionist talked to my sorority, she highlighted this particular smoothie because tart cherry juice is supposed to aid in muscle recovery. The smoothie had vanilla greek yogurt, tart cherry juice, cherries, and strawberries. It was delicious!

This was the perfect post-run recovery meal! But boy oh boy am I ready for bed! 14 miles plus 2 finals?? I’m totally crazy!

Reunited At Last

Date: December 14, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

That’s right. I’m officially reunited with this guy.

Even better, I’m DONE with this quarter! Let’s back up a bit, shall we?

Thursday involved intense studying. And persimmons and sparkly pants. You know it’s finals week when your study snacks degenerate into this:

I have absolutely no regrets about that cookie. It was delicious and much needed. And it left me studying in a cafe with Christmas music playing. That was a good life choice.

I fueled my late night studying with the remains of my fridge-tofu, brown rice/quinoa, green beans, and a salad.

In general, my eating habits weren’t the greatest during finals week, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to get through it. I super intense studied from 7pm to 1am when my brain shut off. I set my alarm for 6am to go over some things I didn’t get a chnace to the night before.

I think I need to start setting multiple alarms for the days when I’ve severely sleep deprived-my alarm went off as planned, but in the process of turning it off, I feel asleep and dropped my phone. Whoops. Luckily I woke up 20 minutes later and had plenty of time, but probably not a good thing to happen.

So, I got coffee and headed off to my last exam-Bio at 8:30am. It was LONG. The test itself was 35 pages, and we had 3 hours which was a bit of a time crunch. You know how your legs are shaking after a tough workout? My brain was legitimately shaking. To celebrate/revive myself, I went to a nearby cafe for something delicious.

Hot chocolate-SO good. I’ve been sort of dreaming about good hot chocolate for a while. And perfect for a quaking brain.

And quiche. Post run food? Try post marathon exam food! Best thing ever. I then proceeded to kill time such that I would end up running out of time to pack everything up, and therefore I have to go back this morning. I cleaned out some things-I won’t share the grisly details, and went to the gym for a quick workout. I took it easy yesterday, and today is a full day off in preparation for the Santa Run 5k tomorrow!

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I’ve been doing #plankaday this month. I was at the track at the beginning of the month and had a little time to kill, so I decided to try it and have realized this is an easy way to build some desperately needed core strength. I got up to 5:00 yesterday! To be fair, the amount I can go varies based on the workout I’ve just done, and an easy 30 minutes on the spin bike was going to leave me with fresh abs. Last year when I was rowing, some of my friends asked if I could do a 10 minute plank. I got bored after 7:00 and stopped. Rower abs are no joke!

Then, I rushed home to be ready in time for my dad’s company Christmas party. I managed to sneak some food photos, because how often do I eat fancy food?

Salad with candied walnuts, apple, and gorgonzola dressing.

Sole and mashed potatoes with asparagus.

Chocolate cake.

Everything was so good, and it was nice to have an occasion to dress up for.

Here’s our tree with a side of dog! I think it looks especially good this year. This is probably the best tree we’ve ever gotten; it’s incredibly fresh and full. Seriously guy-Whole Foods has awesome trees, and about half of what you’d pay at a lot!

This morning I woke up, full of breakfast possibilities. I couldn’t decide what to make, so I ended up having exactly what I could have eaten at school-chocolae banana bread and a persimmon.

I’m really excited to eat delicious, high quality food. It’s amazing how much more satisfying it is! I’m also starting a detailed food log. Something has been bothering my stomach, and I would love to pinpoint it before I go back to school. Some theories-sugar, grains, coconut, snacks, large quantities of protein bars…so we shall see!

Have a great weekend everyone!

WIAW and I’m a Weather Confused California Girl

Date: December 10, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well, one final down, two to go! It’s definitely crunch time over here-which is why I’m OH so happy to take a break to celebrate What I Ate Wednesday. Thanks Jenn!

Before I get into it, thank you all so much for your kind comments on my blogiversary post! They melted my heart and brightened my day inside the dark library.

Also-if you haven’t there’s still plenty of time to enter my giveaway!

Since I have been doing 12 Days of Christmas, I haven’t gotten a chance to post a lot of my recent eats! Hint: there have been lots of persimmons. I think my record is 6 in one day? Although to be fair, two of them were babies.

Why I was motivated to take this picture, I have no idea.

It’s been cold here in California. Ok, everyone else, feel free to laugh. I’m a wimp and take my bundling up seriously. Why be cold when you can wear 6 layers?

This morning I went to morning Crossfit-the low was 26 I believe, and I thought for sure my car wouldn’t start, since it was in the 40s the night before and it didn’t sound good. Luckily though, it did, and I only had to worry about cleaning off copious amounts of ice from my windshield, and not trying to find someone to jump my car! I really need an ice scraper though-I was lucky to have a towel with me-otherwise it would have been my fingers (I’ve done that before..ouch).

Also, our Crossfit box is literally freezing. It was colder in than out, and it was below freezing out so…

And the worst part? The bars are like ICE. Yuck. Anyways, by the time I returned and got coffee, I found myself craving a dining hall breakfast (what? who am I?) and since this was the second day in a row I wanted that, I decided to go for it.

A whole wheat english muffin with one side butter and (some) jam, and the other cream cheese, egg, and spinach. With a side of unripe pineapple! I also had a whole wheat pancake with butter and jam.

Ok, the real reason I tend to avoid the dining hall is because they often have the most delicious blueberry muffins (one of my major weaknesses), and I know eating 5,000 muffins before a final probably isn’t the best idea…

My lunch was a turkey sandwich made open faced:

Plus an extremely delicious piece of mystery bread that it’s been way too long since I’ve had.

I got them at a little cafe and settled in to relax after a morning of studying before my final. I didn’t bring headphones, and didn’t want to strain my brain my reading anything, so I eavesdropped for about an hour. Totally normal, right?

After my exam, I decided to actually go to the dining hall! To be fair, I complain about how boring dining hall food is, but it’s also because I almost always go to the same dining hall-I don’t seem to get back from Crossfit/other workouts before all the other ones close. Example-yesterday I finished Crossfit and tried to catch the tail end of a different dining hall’s hours. They had no food left!

But I finally got what I wanted today, since my exam ended earlier:

A burrito bowl with salmon. I’ve been craving Mexican food so much since listening to a book on tape during my workout yesterday-they went to Mexico and were eating tacos (keep in mind, I was listening to this at 7am and wanted tacos…).

And you better believe that I’m going to get dessert if I just took a final!

Chocolate soft serve, chocolate chips, marshmallows, jam, and cereal. I was SO tempted to add peanut butter-I made a ton of chocolate/peanut buttery soft serve cups of deliciousness last year, but I refrained for the sake of my face and skin.

Ok, so what have you missed on the food front?

Persimmon and egg cup.

Snack plate-guacamole, cinnamon laughing cow, pear chips.

Broccoli and white cheddar laughing cow.

A Whole Foods Southwest salad that I added avocado to.

Teriyaki tofu, rice and quinoa mix, salad with goat cheese, hummus, and avocado.

Christmas on a plate. They opened up a Harry and David store at my local mall, so pears were a necessity. I had to pull myself away from eating really delicious persimmons to eat a really delicious pear. I know, poor me.

Mass amounts of broccoli for lunch because that’s clearly what all the cool people do.

Mushroom and barley soup, and a salad with goat cheese, hummus, and fig balsamic. I accidentally poured half the container of goat cheese on there.I wish I could say I was sorry…I love goat cheese!

And the grand finale…

Last night I wanted something sweet, so I went forward with a microwave pumpkin oatmeal cookie in mind. Except I kind of just turned it into straight oatmeal. I used pumpkin butter, and then since I didn’t have any normal almond milk open and I’m leaving in 3 days, I used almond nog. O.M.G. The flavor combination of eggnog and pumpkin was unreal. You all you to try your oatmeal like this. I also mixed in some egg white, pumpkin pie spice, vanilla, baking powder, and butter (it was kind of supposed to be a cookie at one point…but delicious addition!)

YUM.

And since I was talking about cold weather and bundling up…here’s a picture of me being a weather confused California girl.

2 jackets. Scarf. Gloves. Shorts?

Let’s say that I regretted this decision when I left the library in the dark….brrr! It’s so much colder once the sun goes down. My friend wanted me to come over the other day at like 9pm…I wore 3 jackets, 2 pairs of pants, uggs, gloves, and a scarf that covered my whole face. I couldn’t move my arms. But I wasn’t cold!

I hope you all are having fabulous weeks! 3. More. Days.

What is your favorite seasonal flavor?