Fruit, Fitness, and Family

Date: September 6, 2013

Author: astottler

Hey guys! As I’m sure you know, I’m in Hawaii! I hope you are enjoying the fabulous guest posts! I don’t want to do a TON of vacation recaps so I’m going to stick to some of the highlights of the activities, food, and workouts.

The first night I went to a luau with my family. I showed you guys some of the delicious food in WIAW. I wanted to highlight some of the other cool non-food things as well though.

Tiki carver!

This luau had some of the best dance performances as well-there was humor integrated as well as some really impressive fire dancing. During one part, the dancers (men) put out fires with their grass skirts. Ouch.

Check out that aerial dancer-how impressive is that??

Sunday morning began with a 6 mile run. It was…not terribly fun. hot. I had been on my feet a lot the day before-it didn’t feel great. I’m SO not used to heat and humidity. I’m pushing this week’s long run back until I’m home!

The activity of the day was zipling-something DEFINITELY new to me!

We went to the Maui tropical plantation-somewhere we’ve visited many times in the past. The zipline was new to us though! It was really terrifying at first-we were up high and it was windy so the whole tower was moving. We were hooked in the whole time though, so it was totally safe. It ended up being a ton of fun!

The tropical plantation was beautiful as well.

My favorite day overall was probably Wednesday though. It began with a visit to Lahaina Crossfit. They were so friendly and welcoming. I met a few other visitors from California as well, and it was fun to visit a different box. Plus, it felt so good to get a tough workout in. Sooo now this vacation is turning into a game of “how many Crossfit boxes can I visit on one trip.” Tomorrow we’re touring a pineapple plantation in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny town, and there just happens to be a box there. So you better believe I’ll be there before the tour!

On Wednesday, while in Lahaina, we visited a pet/plant store. Let me start by saying that I’ve been to this same store a few times when I was much younger, and those visits are precisely why I stopped eating pork.

OMG TEACUP PIGS. They are sooo adorable. I’ve wanted one as a pet for years. Since we had been in the store for kind of a while playing with birds, the owner of the store let me sit in with the pigs and feed them from my hand.

They were so sweet! They behaved just like dogs- they had wet little snouts and made little snorting noises.

They eat an entirely vegan, organic diet.

The birds were super friendly as well. This guy-Prince, is 27 and has never bitten anyone. Another parrot was so funny-my mom and I would say “hello” to her, and she’d say hello back. When my dad said hello to her, she let out the LOUDEST squawk right in his ear, and then proceeded to laugh. A girl after my own heart.

I don’t want this to get too long, so I’ll stick to those activities for now. But since this is supposed to be a food blog as well, I guess I should add some of those as well.

Half of a chicken teriyaki plate (shared with my mom).

This is my dad’s-it has pork so I wouldn’t eat it-but I wanted to share it with you since it’s a traditional Hawaiian dish, and my dad’s favorite food ever. It’s called lau lau- it’s pork wrapped with ti leaves.

Pineapple ice cream with an oatmeal papaya cookie. This was soooo good. The cookie was PERFECTLY chewy. Yum.

Do you see the SIZE of this avocado? We don’t make ’em like that in CA! That makes a LOT of guac! While these are definitely fun, the California ones still have my heart. The island variety is a little starchier and less flavorful-definitely less creamy. It was a little hard to mash, and made for some chunky guac. We paired it with a nice salad-chicken, salsa, cheddar. The dressing was olive oil and lime juice, plus salt and pepper. Yum!

Sooo I guess I don’t have NEARLY as many fruit pictures as I thought when I named this post…but don’t worry-lots of tropical fruit is being consumed. Mangoes, papayas, passion fruit, coconut, and guavas. 🙂 I can’t complain!

Have you ever been to Hawaii? What did you do there? What should I EAT here?

Kitten Updates

Date: July 11, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I haven’t posted in a couple of nights so let’s go through a 2-day recap! Wednesday morning started with a kefir/granola/sunflower seed butter cup, with a side of a plum.

Note to self-this is not the best pre-run fuel. I was getting a little tired of my pre-run breakfast, so I went with something different and it was not a great idea. I had a stomachache before the run even started but it ended up not being too much of an issue.

I pushed the pace a little bit more than I have lately, but here are some scenes WHILE running, since I ran with my phone for music.

This was my attempt to catch a picture of the bunnies I saw. You can sort of see them in the distance!

After my run, I had to go down to school to work in the lab, and then go to class. I drove half an hour down there, only to realize I forgot both my key card to get in the building and my key to get in the door. Awesome. I had to go all the way back home, losing an hour. That was a pain.

After class, I had a slowpitch softball game. The difference? I was pitching. Yikes. For those of you that don’t know, I was a fastpitch pitcher for…well basically forever. Our normal pitcher was gone, so that left me to give it a try. Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Fastpitch and slowpitch are slightly similar, but very different, which basically made it a mess. Let’s just say that pitching fastpitch does NOT translate to slowpitch. Plus, in slowpitch there are these weird rules that females bat with an eleven inch ball, while males bat with a twelve inch ball. As a pitcher in the past, I was super sensitive about different BRANDS of balls (I could name the brand and model of the balls with my eyes closed). So you can imagine what different SIZES of balls did to me. Needless to say I drowned my sorrows in froyo.

YUM. This is my favorite froyo place. I got salted caramel pretzel and chocolate with heath bar on one side, and tart mango and tart with fruit on the other side. Since my goal this week was no gluten, I had to make the sacrifice of choosing heath instead of brownie. I know, I have a hard life. I was going to blog last night but then I made the smart decision to actually go to bed at a reasonable time!

This morning, I was up early for the kitten nursery. There aren’t a ton of litters right now, so that all was fairly quick. A lot of the kittens are sick-nothing serious, just eye injections and colds, but it was spreading at an alarming rate. When we deal with kittens and clean their cages, we bleach EVERYTHING. Everything is bleached between litters, including the scale we weigh them on. Well, it turns out someone replaced all the bleach bottles with water, which is why things were spreading. Anyways, I did get some pictures of the youngest litter. They were even smaller last week!

The kittens are very vocal, especially when they’re hungry!

We actually had a little issue with this litter. As in, one kitten went to the bathroom right on top of ALL the kittens paperwork, which included where we record their weights and eating habits 3x a day, for al long as they’ve been here. So that was an issue.

This is from the litter that we bottle fed a few weeks ago. How on earth did they get so BIG? It’s crazy!

Here’s the steps going up from the kitten nursery to the cat shelter. I love this.

After finishing up at the shelter, I had to hurry down to school to meet with my research professor, only to get there and find out the meeting was cancelled. That wasn’t a huge deal because I had to be down there anyways to do research.
After lunch, I headed out to the bay to run. I wanted to see how far north the trail I’ve been running on goes-I had previously thought I was at the end but then I discovered another path. Before my run, I made the decision to take it at a super easy pace. I pushed the pace yesterday, and this is my heaviest week of my training plan, so I want to just get through it. It turned into a no music run because it was too windy to hear anything. I actually enjoyed the run, although it seemed to take forever. And as it turns out, a slower pace is way harder on my calves. Which have been sore ever since I didn’t wear compression socks after my long run. Smart.
For some pre-Crossfit fuel, I whipped up a smoothie with the dark chocolate almond milk in danger of expiring, a handful of spinach, half a frozen banana, a pinch of xantham gum, and a handful of ice.

This came out a lot better than I was expecting-I could only taste a hint of spinach, which just made it all the more refreshing. Oh how I love my Vitamix.
My afternoon was spent hanging out with my cat, wearing compression socks, and catching up on blogs.

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I love that guy.
While doing the WOD at Crossfit today, it occurred to me that I should probably consider the running I do in Crossfit. I mean, I ran a mile in Crossfit today, which pushes my mileage to 5 for the day. I might stick to 3 tomorrow instead of 4 because it’s likely I’ll run more at Crossfit tomorrow. Thoughts?
Dinner tonight was a good one.
Guacamole for the vegetables: the before and after.

Plus turkey burgers (my current favorite thing) and zucchini fries.

My dad also grilled up some pineapple, which I ended up adding to a little vanilla frozen yogurt.

Overall, it was a good day! And, now I have brand spanking new tires so I can nail those hairpin turns going 60. I kid. Have a great week everyone!
Do you have any funny pet stories?
Hmm maybe mine is the time my GIANT black cat chased the pet sitter around the house? The pet sitter refused to come back!

3-Day Weekend

Date: May 25, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’m just going to pop in here quickly today! I think it may be nap time soon. Even if I stay up late, I cannot sleep in to save my life. Naps, however, are a completely different story.

Yesterday, I finally did another timed mile. It was 20 seconds faster than my last one, but still way slower than I need to be, or am used to being. It made me really realize that I need to work on speed work a ton. I also did some sprints of various distances, and then core. I’m actually kind of sore from that yesterday.

At breakfast, at first I couldn’t figure out why I was so hungry, until I realized that it was already 10 am. I love that classes don’t start until later for me on Fridays!Yogurt bowl, plus half a whole wheat bagel topped with cream cheese and egg whites.

It was such a beautiful day yesterday. WIndy, but very clear.

I stopped at a cafe to pick up lunch between classes. I grabbed a yogurt parfait and a packaged burrito. The burrito was a really strange choice for me; it is definitely not something I would normally buy. I’m not a big burrito eater, especially not pre-packaged ones, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to be underwhelmed. I decided to just eat the beans out of the middle. Classy, right?

And since I really don’t have that much to say, here are a few more pictures. One more note: I AM GETTING SPIN SHOES TODAY! SO PUMPED! Any advice?Guac. Guac. Guac.

Yeah. No one wakes up early.I was in the mood for a waffle this morning, and I decided to just go for it, instead of fight it. I would probably end up losing that battle anyways. I topped it with blueberries- delish!

Ok, two more notes: Only 2 weeks left of school! And then I swear the food part of my blog will be much healthier/more interesting. And, is anyone going to the Healthy Living Summit? I really want to go, and I am just trying to figure out if that would be at all feasible for me. It is before school starts, so it is a possibility! I’d love to meet some of you guys!

Have a GREAT 3-day weekend!

Any fun weekend plans?

The Great Microwave Scare and Something New

Date: May 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello everyone! I am loving reading everybody’s posts about BLEND. I am determined to go next year, even if it means doing a ton of random Psych studies for the money! Experiments with my brain? BRING IT ON.

So last night after I posted, I was sitting on my bed attempting to do homework. I had a lot on my mind, and could not sit still. I decided, gym at 9 pm? Why not? Ok, now looking back on it, this doesn’t really seem too late, but I’m definitely an early morning workout kind of girl. But honestly, nothing sounded better than spinning my heart out. I hoped on a bike, shuffled my Now That’s What I Call Music 45 album, and just had such a great time. It was on shuffle, but all the songs came up perfectly for my profile. I was there for about 45 minutes.

While this was something I really needed, I regretted my decision just a tad when my alarm went off at 7 to go lift weights….but I’m glad I got up! I did this tried and true workout:While I love it, I think it is time to start upping the weight on those squats.

And being the good blogger that I am, I ate semi-more interesting things today, and photographed a majority of them!Plain Greek yogurt, frozen blackberries, and granola with added raisins. It was a different type of granola at the dining hall, and I’m not a fan. It was too sweet. Granted, the other type probably has too much sugar for me as well, but whatever. For lunch, I bought a super expensive salad in an effort to begin to use up my outrageous amount of meal plan dollars. I had half for lunch, with the plan of having the other half for dinner. (That didn’t happen, as you shall see.)

I had plans to run with my friend after class, but she was feeling sick and I wanted a nap. And a mango. In lieu of running today, we made new plans to run tomorrow evening. That’s my fruit knife, which I love. I seriously only use it for fruit though, not that I’m complaining!

My snack ended up being larger than planned, and included some bites of my now-soggy salad, banana bread, and another mango (the above mango is tiny, but you can’t tell from the picture). Oh, and some yogurt!Frozen banana bread. Since the school year is ending, I’m trying to eat up my freezer!

Enter microwave woes. For some reason, our microwave wasn’t working, so I went downstairs to use the dorm one-which, by the way, is super janky. And kind of gross. But it got the job done!

When my roommate got back, we looked a bit closer into the microwave problem. It appeared that the plug it was attached to was dead, because when we connected my lamp to it, it would not turn on. After further investigation, we finally discovered the root of the problem. The whole octopus the fridge and microwave were connected to was unplugged. Yayyy smart college students. I’m just glad we realized this when we did! The fridge is fullll.

I also received my housing assignment for next year! I’m actually super happy with where we are, although it is technically not considered very good housing. We got a pretty good draw number, but we had a huge draw group (8 people). (Oh, and the housing is a draw- you rank your top choices and they draw numbers.) But the dorm we are in is solid- centrally located, pretty close to 2 decent dining halls, and most importantly, very close to the gym. Because when I’m biking to the gym to go to a Spin class, and I don’t want the extra few hundred feet. You know.

I decided to make dinner in my dorm, since we had a now fully functioning microwave. I ran into the dining hall for spinach, and left with a slice of cinnamon raisin toast as well. This stuff is seriously so good! And then I whipped up some guac from the avocados from my big, and a packet of guacamole mix. I the cooked egg whites in the microwave with a ton of spinach, and topped the eggs with guacamole. Have I ever told you guys I like avocados? No?

“Dessert” was more freezer cleaning- frozen blueberries and a Paleo Pumpkin sort-of-bread creation, x2 (because it’s half a slice!).Whooo check out the ice crystals on those blueberries!

Well, that’s about all I have for you guys. I’m currently realizing that my abs are sore….Being the weirdo that I am, I really love that feeling! So if you guys have any great sore abs workouts, send them my way!