WIAW-Finals Week!

Date: March 18, 2014

Author: astottler

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?

Ending California’s Drought One 5k at a Time

Date: March 2, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How’s everyone’s weekend going? It’s been a wet one over here! I’m about to go on this week’s long run, and am hoping the run holds off! Yesterday I did a 5k-but we’ll get to that.

I woke up Friday morning and went for a walk. I wanted to do something to get my blood flowing, but seeing as Saturday was race day, I wanted to take it easy!

It started raining just as I slipped into the dining hall for breakfast!

Toast with cream cheese and hard boiled egg, fruit, and spinach with a cheese cube.

After my one class of the day, I had grand intentions of being very productive in a little cafe. As it turns out, out of my 3 tasks I set aside for myself, I forgot the materials for 2 out of the 3. But I did manage to eat lunch!

A veggie hummus wrap.

I spent Friday afternoon running errands and trying to stay dry! Then, one of my best friends from home came and visited me for dinner.

(Super old picture!)

I took her to my favorite cafe, which is outdoors. They were playing a Spanish song that we had to learn together in high school! We walked back to my dorm and ate inside. It was so great to see her!

I ordered a chicken pesto crepe. So good!

She apparently was inspired by my project, so now she’s going sugar free for 40 (or 50?) days! I’m so proud of her!

Saturday morning I was awake bright and early. I had my current 5k pre-race meal of homemade granola bars.

By the time I left my dorm, it was already pouring. We’re in a drought. It’s rained once this winter. Can anyone guess the last time? Oh, that’s right. My one other 5k. Fabulous. We had to park pretty far away (my parents brought me), and I was pretty much drenched by the time we reached the start. We feet certainly were!

The 5k started a few minutes late, and they managed to hold off just enough for the rain to stop.

The race was also a half marathon and 10k, so it was a decent sized race! The course was very nice. Some rolling hills but pretty flat. (I’m planning on doing some long runs here!)

Given that it stopped raining, the conditions were not bad for a PR. The first mile I think went pretty well. I was keeping pace. But then it just wasn’t happening for me. I just did not feel that great out there. This was my slowest 5k to date, although according to my watch I was about 4 seconds off my pace from my last one. The course was a tiny bit long, and I had to stop and walk the last little bit to the finish because it was a giant slippery mud puddle. I actually had to run through several streams because there was so much water coming down that everything was overflowing. We had to run through a foot of flowing water multiple times. I thought my Tough Mudder wasn’t until April? Haha!

I actually saw someone from my dorm in the race! He did super well-he came in 2nd overall!

An while this definitely wasn’t my best race ever, my parents actually got some good running shots.

All done! After the race, there was food. Like, food like I’ve never seen before.They had literally everything! Fruit, bagels, chips, pretzels, hot chocolate, pastries, chocolate cake, brownies, cookies-they even had It’s-it’s! Crazy!

I definitely had to try quite a few things!

While this wasn’t my best race by a long shot, the race was small enough that I somehow still managed to win my age group! Hey, I’ll take it!

I also think this race is a big testament to the project (which I swear I’ll do a recap of REALLY soon!). I have not been feeding my body that well since then, and I did not feel that great out there today, and was definitely slower despite better conditions. I’m working on a plan for the future though. I have been eating a fair amount of sweets lately and I’m getting seriously concerned for me health-nto just because sugar is “bad” but because my heart has been racing a lot and I know my family has a history of heart sensitivities. I’ll talk more about this in the project recap!

After the race, we all went to Whole Foods in search of granola bars. And of course had to get some hot breakfast!

AMAZING french toast casserole, plus fruit and some really spicy Mexican breakfast dish.

I also got some young coconut, pre cut and everything! It was a great snack later in the day.

And since this seems to be photo overload day, here are some pics from my sorority event-we did a Murder Mystery dinner, where we acted out a murder plot and then had delicious Indian food!

Roomie love!

It was a fun night! But I stayed up way too late watching KPop videos, thanks to a friend who is a bit obsessed!

What did you do this weekend?

I’m Alive Again!

Date: February 20, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Friday everybody! Happy happy indeed. I have officially survived my week so I’m FINALLY back here. I had two midterms and a lab today, plus a full day of classes. This week was especially rough because I never caught up on sleep over the weekend thanks to some fabulous allergies. I’m going to do a full post-project recap probably sometime this weekend when I write up a paper for my Nutrition class, but in summary: the project made some great changes in my body. Eating horribly for a couple of weeks can undo said changes. Sooo I’m at square 1. My eating habits were more normal this week, although higher sugar than I’d like. I think I was craving it more thanks to lack of sleep.

Also-can I brag how semi-on top of things I was? I finished my lab report a whole day early, which meant my hell night only involved me staying up until 12. Although to be fair the problem set that was due today we got an extension on…

Anyways-what have I been up to? Studying. Not that much exercise. I just got back from the gym-I decided to do yesterday’s Crossfit workout on my own tonight and finished everything in about 40 minutes. BAM. Plus-no driving time!

I’ve been holding true to my Beta carotene promise.

Sloppy joe filling (turkey) with roasted carrots and roasted sweet potato on Monday. I went to my home Crossfit Monday morning. It was awesome. I was actually the only one there, plus 2 coaches! My shoulder has been bothering lately thanks to too many push presses, so instead of thrusters, I did front squats for a quick WOD of 21-15-9 front squats and burpees.

Track workout under the stars. I really enjoyed running in the dark. I had the track all to myself! (since it was dark…)

Carrots for breakfast, yogurt bowls for lunch. But actually. I had -2 seconds to run out the door to train Quidditch early Tuesday morning, and they were convenient to grab….

Delicious chicken vegetable soup. The broth is butternut squash!

Protein chocolate. I swapped some cocoa powder in my normal chocolate recipe for chocolate protein powder. Not bad but a little grainy.

I had this whole plan of how I was going to have protein bars for dessert at dinner this week…until I realized I was out of protein bars. So there’s that. Protein chocolate.

Roasted carrots as pre-run fuel. Are we sensing a theme here?

Post run fuel.

Hi I’m Aurora and I eat my lunches out of ziplock bags.

I’ve ordered lattes a couple of times lately. Not sure why. But this was kinda sad-all the milk foam gone in a single sip!

Vegetables. I’m out of carrots which is insanely depressing.

For some reason I thought it was a good idea to melt a baby Thinkthin bar over coconut flakes. It did not magically turn into a coconut truffle….where’s my fairy godmother when I need her??

I finally got my post-project giant gooey cookie. I had my elves fetch it for my last night while I was studying. In other words, I bartered out my ID card to a hungry college student. SO good. SO worth it.

Hopefully this is the last coffee for a while for me!

Eggs and gouda post-spin.

PB&J in a sweet potato. Kind of. Berry compote and sunflower seed butter. This was actually kind of disappointing. I would have preferred to just eat the sunflower seed butter and berry compote together with a spoon!

Uhh my excuse was I had a 4 hour lab and midterm that afternoon?

My lab got out after only 1.5 hours though which was amazing. I’ve been trying to curb my insane snacking as of late, so I ended up holding out a little on a snack and eating an early dinner at 4. It’s 5 o clock somewhere, right? Dinner is clearly what they’re referring to when they say that!

More soup plus a snack plate with crackers and gouda, and apple chips dipped in cottage cheese and sunflower seed butter.

Aaaand a close up of the action.

From this post, you could assume that I’ve down nothing but eat all week! That would be correct. I definitely haven’t been as active or gotten as much sleep as I would have liked this week, but the goal was to make it through the week, and here I am!

Do you crave anything when you’re sleep deprived?

Day 1

Date: January 20, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Well, it begins. My 4 week long project! One day in and I’m feeling excited and ready. And I may or may not already have decided that the first thing I’m going to eat when this is over is froyo…I digress.

In terms of data for this-this morning I took weight and general observations (I’m hoping my foot problems magically disappear-a girl can dream, right?) about how I feel. Tonight, my sister is going to do blood pressure. The blood sugar tests came in time, but the kit didn’t come with the lancets (the things that poke you), so I didn’t do that. Since I still haven’t made it to the store to get them, there’s a good chance I’m just going to prick myself with a (sanitized) needle tomorrow morning so I can get the reading.

A lot of you wanted recipes for this process, so I’m going to go over everything-I did a lot of food prep today and yesterday, so instead of just dumping every recipe on you guys today, I’m going to post recipes/foods as I eat them.

Here’s some of the prep that I did though.

(This will be in more detail tomorrow.)

Yeah…I’m pretty sure we’re set on meat. Which is probably good-whenever I clean up my eating, I start craving meat like crazy! Last night for dinner, my dad grilled Greek seasoned chicken for our salads, so he threw a few extra things on the grill for us! The turkey burgers are pre-seasoned with Italian seasoning (but don’t worry-nothing weird!), plus garlic powder and salt and pepper. The chicken is seasoned with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and an Italian herb blend. I’m planning on freezing some of this for next week-seasoned and grilled chicken is way better than just plain chicken!

Veggies getting cooked up.

A week of lunches all packed up.

Homemade ketchup from The Fat Chance Cookbook (which was my inspiration for this project).

Pre-workout Energy Balls. This is a recipe I’ll go ahead and post now! I kind of just threw it together-for me, it’s functional more than anything! I need something in my stomach before morning runs, and what I had been eating was Thinkthin Divine bars, which are chocolate coconut. I ended up using coconut flour instead of coconut, which worked out amazingly well, as it completely held these balls together. This recipe is functional more than anything-it may be a bit bland, so feel free to add a little honey, chocolate chips, raisins, nuts, etc!

1 banana, heated and mashed

1/2 c rolled oats

1/8 coconut flour

1/2 t vanilla

1 T cocoa powder

2 T chia seeds

Mix well, and roll into balls.

So…I’m sure everyone is curious-what did I eat today?

Homemade cappuccino-my mom really wanted me to try one from her Nespresso! It was good, but not quite the quality of my favorite place!

Breakfast-two sunny side up eggs and blueberries. It occurred to me that I won’t have a chance for some nice eggs in a while-dining hall eggs are much more suspect, and this is way more interesting than hardboiled!

After breakfast and food prep, I headed to the track for a speed/Crossfit style workout. I was disappointed I couldn’t do today’s Crossfit workout-squats are not happening for me right now (although my knee is definitely getting better), so I’m looking at this as an opportunity to really work on other things.

I started with a half mile warm up, and then did 10×200. And then this WOD:

This was originally going to be 4 rounds, but it was taking forever! The lunges are 50 EACH. I broke up the middle parts into 2 sets of 25 lunges, 20 sit ups, 15 push ups, and 10 hollow rocks. I did both back and front lunges (about half and half) to mix it up. My legs were definitely feeling it by the end!

Lunch was quick.

I made my butternut squash soup with cranberry relish, but for the relish, instead of adding sugar, I swapped out about half of the cranberries for one apple so it wouldn’t be quite so tart. Topped with creme fraiche. I also had a few bites of grilled chicken, and a small piece of 100% chocolate.

(This is the cranberry relish.)

I had Chem section today, so I rushed back in time for that. Afterwards, I had a small snack of one of my energy balls and a little sunflower seed butter.

I really like this sunflower seed butter-the only ingredients are sunflower seeds and salt-the other brand I normally buy is lightly sweetened, and their unsweetened type is pretty bad.

I went to a Yogalates class as well today. I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but somehow I committed to teaching yoga at one of my sorority recruitment events, and given I’m the most inflexible person ever, that will be interesting. Anyways, I wanted to go to a couple of classes before then. This was mostly Pilates, but I definitely felt the burn!

Here’s dinner-a turkey burger with homemade ketchup (although these turkey burgers are so good I’d actually rather eat them without), lettuce leftover from our ski trip supply, homemade Balsamic dressing, and roasted cauliflower with cumin. I’m not normally a cauliflower person, but I really like it roasted this way! It’s basically just olive oil, cumin seeds, salt, and pepper, in the oven for about 20 minutes. The recipe called for a yogurt sauce-yogurt, a pinch of salt, and fresh mint. I actually might have liked it better just as is, but I think I like the idea of adding mint and yogurt to salads. Also-homemade ketchup+yogurt for a healthy 1000 island? Maybe?

I had a lot more salad than this afterwards-it just wouldn’t fit! And then I ended with an orange. It turns out the oranges from last week’s CSA boxes are blood oranges!

So….how was today? I ate well. I didn’t miss anything. But I’m tired. I’m definitely low on sleep from ski trip, and without my usual daily shots of sugar, I’m feeling it a bit more. After section, I had to keep reminding myself that I was not hungry, I was tired. So yeah. Sleep would be good. Lack of sleep probably does lead me to eat worse things in general. However, I’m not looking at a TON of sleep in the near future-at least not tomorrow. I still have a million things to do today and I can’t sleep in tomorrow because I have to train quidditch. So we shall see…

But in terms of food-I feel really good! I felt happy today (until the tiredness hit), and I’m excited about this. Everything is pretty much already laid out for me to eat the rest of the week, so I don’t anticipate too many problems. I’m confidant that I won’t cheat on this, because I’m much more committed than just saying “I’m not eating sugar for a while.” I’m taking data and trying to prove a point, so I’m not giving myself the option to not make it through. Plus, with all this delicious food, it shouldn’t be an issue!

What else do you want me to touch on with this project?

WIAW-A New Quarter

Date: January 7, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

WHEW, happy Wednesday! Can you believe it’s only Wednesday? (Well, tomorrow for me-I’m typing this up Tuesday night.) I’ve been saving up the last couple of days of food photos for…What I Ate Wednesday! Thanks as always to Jenn for helping us celebrate our new favorite day of the week!

Let’s start with my last meal at home-vegetable soup with cornbread!

Does anyone else eat their cornbread with honey? So good!

On Monday, I started my “meal plan.” Just to clarify, but “meal plan,” I really mean meal planning. It’s not so much only eating certain foods as it is getting into a routine and making my meals the night before, so when I running out the door with a minute before class starts, I have something good to grab!

After Monday’s Spin+Run, I wasn’t super hungry but knew I needed fuel and would be super hungry later in the day if I didn’t force myself to eat a decent amount. Here is a giant bowl of overnight oats-I used Julie‘s recipe, which is 3/4 c oats (which happens to be one packet of instant), 1/2 c unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a tablespoon of chia seeds, and a container of yogurt. For this particular meal, I used mango chobani.

After my one class on Monday, I ate my packed lunch in the sunshine (sorry East Coasters)-prepared over the weekend at home. Greek seasoned chicken, sage-brown butter mashed yams, and Garlic Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

This was perfect-it’s great to have well seasoned food at school!

For a pre workout snack, I ate some dried persimmons, made and brought to me by my wonderful roommate.

I also had a slice of chocolate chip banana bread, another item prepared over break.

For my new quarter eating schedule, I’m a little unsure of whether or not I should eat snacks. I know it’s totally counterintuitive to most people to skip snacks, but more often than not, snacks mess up my stomach really badly-it doesn’t seem to matter what the snack is! A few minutes after Monday’s snack, my stomach was twisted in knots.

But I guess it’s really hit or miss-on Tuesday I had 2 snacks without issue, and was hungry enough that I felt they were the right decision. Our bodies our so complicated!

Monday night, I also had my first dining hall meal of the quarter. It wasn’t a bad one-they had 2 different types of brussels sprouts!

Besides brussels sprouts, I stuck to my basic formula of a carbohydrate and a protein-brown rice and cod.

And for dessert, I threw half a chocolate chip cookie dough Quest bar in the microwave.

This is kind of ironic given I recently purchased a couple of Quest bars for after dinner treats (because yay chocolate!), but today I found this article. It talks about the nutritional merits of Quest bars. I don’t really know what to think of them. I’m sort of against them because a)I don’t like the taste of stevia and b) they sometimes give me stomach aches. But sometimes I crave them. I guess what bothers me is that they are touted as a super natural protein bar, yet I have never heard of half the ingredients, and would never be able to buy half the raw ingredients in a store. But who knows. I’m also a little suspicious of stevia, just because there has been so little research on it. But I don’t know-to each his own!

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early-I had to be at the gym at 7 to train the school quidditch team! I’m leading weight training for them, and today was the first day. It went really well-even those who hadn’t lifted before had good form by the end! And I’m pretty sure they’ll ~~hate me~~ be sore tomorrow…We broke the training up into 2 days, so I have the other half of the team Wednesday morning. I never realized how much I love teaching something I’m super knowledgable about! And I can’t wait to see everyone get stronger.

We allotted a full 2 hours for the first session so we wouldn’t be rushed, but it only took 1:15, so I had plenty of time to grab coffee and eat my packed breakfast before class.

First cappuccino of the quarter!

Same overnight oats as on Monday.

I didn’t exactly need coffee today, except for the fact that I had over 2 hours straight of Organic Chemistry today-Tuesdays are rough because of this! However, I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting through them because the first class of the day is Human Nutrition! Today, I sat in class with the biggest smile on my face. I love learning and doing things I’m passionate about. Leading weights+Nutrition class? How could I go wrong?

Lunch was also a repeat of yesterday, eaten in class.

Note to self-next time pre cut the chicken if eating in class. Don’t attempt to eat with only a fork…

After class I went to read Bio in a little cafe and grabbed a snack-it wasn’t my first choice but it did the job!

Since my car was still in the shop, I had to bike to Crossfit today. It gave me time to reflect-and I realized, I’m in such a good place in my life right now. I’m happy. I’m doing things I’m passionate about. I love teaching weight lifting. I absolutely cannot weight to teach Spin-my playlist is ready to go! I love the fitness industry, and I love Nutrition. I’m branching out and trying new things this quarter-Mariachi band? What?

I feel like I have so many opportunities right now-I’m going to talk to my Nutrition professor about different careers in the field-I don’t particularly want to be a Nutritionist, and I would probably prefer something on the research side of things. I’m considering signing up for a conference in San Francisco about the obesity epidemic-one of my favorite scientists ever, Robert Lustig, is going to be there. (Yes, I know I’m a nerd for having a favorite scientist!) Also, my friend in my sorority asked me if I could lead some type of fitness-y event for our winter recruitment, like yoga or spin (my suggestion). I’m planning on gathering a some friends and hopefully some of the quidditch team, who I sort of have control over now, to practice teaching a spin class to real live people!

Another new thing? I went to the weight lifting class at my Crossfit gym. The weight lifting class isn’t exactly an add-on-it’s its own program. I love Olympic Lifting, and I just don’t get enough opportunity to work on it in Crossfit, especially this particular box.

I forgot how much energy Olympic Lifting takes! I didn’t even lift that heavy, but each rep really takes it out of you! It’s also mentally exhausting. Oh, and it lasted an hour and 45 minutes. I was doing snatches and clean and jerks for 105 minutes straight. My body just kind of felt numb afterwards. Not exactly tired, not out of breath, not necessarily burning muscles, but without energy. I don’t even want to think about how many squats were involved today. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any significant amount of Olympic lifting!

Oh, and I may have agreed to do a weight lifting competition. (Not a Crossfit competition, Olympic lifting!) It’s in February, but at this point in my life I feel a little unprepared. In the last year and a half, my technique has faltered a bit, but I’ve gotten stronger, so when I nail down technique, that should be awesome, right??

On that note, I was craving protein like crazy when I returned to campus. Specifically, MEAT. It’s interesting how our bodies know exactly what they need! This may be kind of strange, but when I eat less sugar, I tend to crave meat more. But I’ll roll with it!

Greek salad, some not super excitingly cooked kabocha squash, a few brussels, and MEAT-chicken with ketchup. Lots of meat. It was heaven.

After dinner, I finished the other half of my Quest bar from the previous day, as well as the last of my double chocolate banana bread.

A couple of days ago, I started tracking my food intake on My Fitness Pal, more for interest than anything else! It’s cool to see the ration of carbs to fats to proteins-my protein ration was pretty low, so I guess it was no wonder I was craving it! What drives me crazy though is the sugar count. I really wish it was divided into added sugars and natural sugars. There is a BIG different between lactose sugar and high fructose corn syrup! I also don’t understand how my sugar consumption was insanely high today, especially compared to yesterday, when I ate basically the same thing both days? I’m not reading too much into it though-I feel really good, likely thanks to balanced meals and more veggies in my life!

That’s all I have today! I swear this post would have been insanely upbeat BEFORE the lifting drained my energy!

Tomorrow morning, I am training quidditch again and then will do another run through of my spin audition playlist. AHHHH can’t wait! So much excite happening right now!

What exciting things do you have in your future?