The Calm AFTER the Storm

Date: February 25, 2015

Author: astottler

Well guys, I made it! Woohoo! I finally feel human again. In the past 7 days, I had 4 midterms (3 in the last 3 days), a big presentation, and several problem sets. But I am happy to announce, I am done with midterms for the quarter! On a related note, I can currently name every organ and bone on a mammal. Man. It’s been so long since I blogged! But knowing everything about every mammal take up quite a lot of brainspace!

Also-I’m feeling better! WAY better. I’m probably 90%-there are still a few times I feel a little off, but seriously, so much better. I think it was a combination of medicine and time-I started feeling better the day after the doctor. That being said, why don’t we dive into the past half week that I’ve neglected you guys?

Friday night I had retreat for my sorority. Good times, good food. I don’t think I’ve had a burrito from Chipotle before? (Yeah, coming off stomach issues that was risky but it was fine.)

Plus, we stayed at a house with a cat.

I didn’t spend the night because I had work early. I freaking love my job. I’m working at a vet on Saturdays and I love love love it. I’m learning so much!

After work, I grabbed lunch from Le Boulanger across the street. Turkey and avocado with a salad.

I talked about DC nostalgia last post, and I felt the best way to fill that void was to try a new cupcake place (my goal of that summer was to find the best cupcakes in DC). It was pretty good-a little stale.

Compare that to a DC cupcake-totally not trying to fill my void with something identical….

Sunday morning began with a run. I’m officially in half training mode, and while the “long runs” are still not up to a distance that I don’t normally run every week, I’m trying to take my schedule seriously because I think I’m a little bit lacking on the volume, especially since I was sick for a few weeks. On the schedule was a 5 miler, so I set out to run a hilly trail nearby. Unfortunately, I realized as I got there, there was a race going on so it was closed. The only good route in that direction was 7 miles, so I decided to just go for it. It felt really good! I ran that route last fall and didn’t feel great so that was nice to see! Also-post run brunch? Funfetti pancakes. Basically just pancakes with sprinkles, but it makes them so much more fun! Perfect for refueling.

Sunday was spent studying….shocker. Dinner was Mexican food which I fashioned into a salad.

Monday morning, I started with a Crossfit workout. We did a lot of deadlifts, and my legs were a little shot by the time the workout even started! The workout was a 400m run followed by 21-15-9 kettle bell swings and push ups, and then another 400m run. Not heavy, but a gasser!

Breakfast was eggs, veggies, peaches, and some steel cut oats.

Also, um, check out the weather. This is February.

Tuesday morning started out with a 4 mile run. Gotta keep to that schedule. Post run was eggs with an apple and sun butter.

Post midterm 2/3 of the week was lunch from the delicious cafe by the library, to bribe myself into spending all day there. I added an egg to this corn and black bean salad.

I spent all afternoon in the library studying animal parts, and decided to break for a little Crossfit workout. There was no way I was going to the 6am that morning before a 9am midterm! This workout felt so, so great. It was the first time I really felt 100% since being sick. I had been feeling great on runs, but I was still getting pretty light headed on Crossfit workouts. Not yesterday-I felt good and strong. And now I’m sore. For strength, we did pull ups and power jerks, and the WOD was:

3 rounds:

500m row

12 thrusters (I used 63#)

15 toes to bar (I did knees to elbow)

Now, post Crossfit dinner was delicious. It may not look like much, but never underestimate the power of cheesy grits.

Plus candied yams, chicken, and dijon brussels spouts-which are also fantastic!

I then proceeded to spend all night studying. Ohh the life of a college student.

I’m doing a 5k this weekend, so I wanted to get my “long” run out of the way early. This morning, I did my usual 6 mile loop. My foot was a little grumpy-I’ve had a few higher mileage days recently, I hadn’t had time to ice, and I can’t take Advil for fear of hurting my stomach. I was able to make that pain go away though my rolling my ankle. Ouch. It was fine to run on because straight motion is fine, but it’s irritating! I do that semi-regularly. When I was training for my first half while recovering from mono, I rolled my ankles SO much because they had gotten so weak! I’m also currently wearing compression socks to maybe help with my foot and/or ankle.

Breakfast-eggs, pear with sun butter, mandarin oranges.

Dinner tonight was caesar salad with chicken, roasted carrots, and broccoli.

Plus a giant bowl of ice cream with hot fudge and pound cake that was so, so necessary after this past week. Man.

I’m so glad the crazy is over! I’m going to celebrate by doing laundry-life was kind of put on hold!

What have you been up to?

WIAW-Finally Taking a Breath!

Date: March 4, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! How is everyone’s week going? After today’s Ochem midterm, I finally have a chance to catch my breath before finals! But seriously, I am more than ready for spring break! But first, a huge thank you to Jenn for getting us all together in the food world for What I Ate Wednesday!

My morning started out with a 4 mile tempo run-easy pace with a mile at 5k pace. My legs were definitely dragging. I think it’s from all the heavy squats from the night before! My pace was definitely slower during the non-tempo portion of the run, and my legs were done at the end! Soreness finally started coming in after the run! Before my run, I had a Thinkthin bar. After, I headed to the dining hall for breakfast.

I had plain Greek yogurt with melon on top (not my favorite yogurt topping, but it was what they had!), and some puffed wheat cereal that I brought in a little baggie. I like the cereal because it has no sugar and gives the yogurt bowl some nice crunch! Plus some coffee with milk on the side. Sadly, this isn’t the most colorful picture, but I don’t have a lot of fruit (color!) choices in the dining hall!

By the time lunch rolled around, I was starving, likely thanks to a Ochem test! I was very excited for my lunch. This is college dining at it’s finest. A cheap and lazy version of my California Chop Salad. I used the same dressing recipe. The chicken leftover from what I thawed for Monday’s lunch, I had a jar of olives in the fridge, and I had shredded swiss/gruyere. The salad originally calls for gouda, but I had no clue how to shred cheese without a shredder, and the swiss/gruyere blend was pre-shredded. The dressing is the same though! I grabbed a giant bag of lettuce and tomato from the dining hall the night before.

A nearly tupperware free meal! It’s so hard to eat giant salads out of tupperware because none of them are big enough! I shook up everything in the bag, and then poured it into the bowl.

My overflowing bowl! I had to eat the top off before I could even see all the good stuff!

My afternoon snack consisted of a pumpkin spice granola bar and lots of dark chocolate. I’m glad 85% chocolate is back in my life. It’s pretty low sugar and it definitely gets rid of any chocolate cravings!

After Crossfit, it was dinnertime! Nothing looked that exciting, so I went for a prepared Asian salad (the prepared salads taste like nothing…), kabocha, and some type of tomato/eggplant mix with cheese. I’ve never had kabocha squash not from the dining hall, but when I’ve had it here I haven’t really liked it. Is it supposed to be so dry?? Also not sure why I got eggplant since I don’t normally like it, but I lucked out and enjoyed this!

I was still a bit hungry, so I got a small bowl of plain Greek yogurt with granola.

And finished my night off with a bit more dark chocolate. Not a bad day!

Also-don’t forget to enter my Quest bar giveaway! I’ll be picking a winner on Sunday night!

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?

Doing the Chicken Dance

Date: November 1, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

And by the chicken dance, I mean the whole “running around like a chicken with its head cut off thing.” That’s how I’ve felt this past week. Heck, I went to make a note about that thought earlier today, only to find I had already made one…which I don’t remember making. It’s been one of those week-I’ve been so sleep deprived I can barely see straight. And I didn’t even have any midterms this week. Next week I have 2. Eeek! I’m currently enjoying a well thought out Friday night-I’m not even being sarcastic, I’ve been looking forward to this all week! I’m in Philz coffee and I’ve been studying Biochem for the past couple of hours while sipping an iced chai tea.

A large iced tea. It’s been one of those weeks-totally necessary! Thank you to Kaitlin for introducing me to Philz. We had a little blogger meet up here a few months ago, and I was obsessed with iced chais for months after. I love the atmosphere here-it strikes me as being super hipster, in a good way. They make everything by hand in a very complicated way and it’s awesome.

I also like the music here-it’s more my style than just pop, kind of alterntive. Although I can’t stand listening to music while I study because it’s so distracting! Anyways, I’m actually really, really enjoying my Friday night. I LOVELOVELOVE the things I’m studying. We’re doing carbohydrate metabolism and that’s kind of my favorite thing on the planet. I retrieved a poster I made back in high school to study.

I’m such a nerd. I bought a big poster board today so I can make a bigger and more detailed version. I have every intention of hanging it on my wall once I’m done studying it. I need to draw one out for sugar metabolism as well! Since my roommate is writing an essay about how sugar is a drug, we decided to give it up for a week, starting most likely on Sunday. It seemed like a better choice than showing how sugar is a drug by attempting to overdose on it. I wonder how many pounds you’d have to eat for it to actually seriously make you ill? Anyways, I’m starting today with avoiding sweets, although I won’t start completely avoiding sugar until after my long run. But I’m getting so far ahead of myself. Let’s back up a bit, shall we?

Last night (Halloween), I made Anne‘s microwave pumpkin cookie. You know I’m all about low sugar, microwave options. I didn’t have ground flax seeds so I used some chia seeds and egg in place.

I also don’t know how she got hers to look so small. Mine looks like a bowl of oatmeal!

I served mine on a plate, topped with THE BEST THING EVER. Apple butter infused greek yogurt.

My roommate is on the full-fat dairy train, and I have to admit, it is pretty delicious. This was the creamiest thing ever. And since we’re drowning in apples from the CSA box (which we’re most likely going to cancel because we can’t keep up 🙁 ), we’re making applesauce this weekend with no sugar, so that would be just too amazing in greek yogurt.

My hall ended up having a little Halloween party, so I peeled myself away from my work, threw on a sombrero, and joined in on the fun.

You don’t need a real costume if you have a sombrero, right? Plus, there was guac. We already decided we’re having an epic cinco de mayo party. And my roommate and I ARE going to try to make a guacamole hat, like the ones in Despicable Me 2. It was fun to actually celebrate Halloween a little, but it was a questionable decision because I had to stay up late and finish my lab report.

I’ll a little concerned about my long run tomorrow. I have not been treating my body well these last few weeks-I’m sleep deprived and have been subsisting on a diet of mostly coffee and sugar. It’s not necessarily that I’m craving sugar, but then apparently when I’m tired, I have zero ability to plan. Take today for example. I was super tired and running out the door, so I grabbed this for lunch.

A pear. That was a really dumb thing to do, given I wouldn’t be able to get any food between classes, so I had to power through a 4 hour lab powered by just a pear. That’s not a great way to treat my body! Plus I’ve eaten a lot of sugar this week-and it’s left me with a pounding headache every day. I’m already feeling much better at the end of today because I haven’t had sugar today.

I stopped by Trader Joe’s for dinner, and for some reason, my foggy brain picked out this wrap. Which is weird because it’s not something I would typically get, but it got the job done just fine, and I’m in an awesome mood now.

I also restocked on dried mango. My mom brought me some, but you can never have too much, right?

I stopped by the drugstore for my poster board, and what was Halloween a day ago is now taken over by Christmas. My thoughts?

Seriously?

OMG I really want to start decorating my room for Christmas. I used some restraint though-it’s too soon!

We’re going to have epic Halloween decorations, but I’m planning on spending all of Thanksgiving break planning that out.

Ok, that’s all I have today. I need to walk back to my car. In the dark-that’s kind of sketchy because it’s far. I’m actually feeling a lot better about tomorrow’s run, because I feel way better now than earlier today. Wish me luck-I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

*Edited to add-Ok, it really wasn’t sketchy. I parked a block from downtown…

When you get busy, what’s the first thing in your life that goes to hell?

For me it’s laundry. Heh. Speaking of which, guess what I desperately need to do tonight?

Stress Eating

Date: October 16, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! I’m taking a much needed study break to blog. Before I go into anything else, I have 2 pieces of exciting news.

1. My friends and I got a CSA box! This week features the world’s largest pomegranate, pears, and a mystery fruit. (Excuse the lazy photo-taken from my bed while blogging.)

2. Yay! After looking around at races and considering timing/etc. I decided on this one! It should be a ton of fun-the race goes across the Golden Gate bridge. Since I’m taking time off halfs for the winter, I figure this will be a good warm up for a summer race that I might try to PR.

Ok, back to my day and the topic of the day (since my day to day posts are getting a little repetitive, I’m trying to mix it up a little bit).

My day started off really awesome-ly. I woke up early for a gym workout-20 minutes working on hang cleans, 3×8 minute row, ab circuit. After a less than stellar lifting day, I stripped it down to the basics on my cleans and practiced just being in the correct position and getting the bar up. By the end, it was definitely smoother, and the bar was coming up faster.

To make the morning even sweeter, I went for coffee, and the barista now officially knows my order! Ohhh midterms week.

And on top of that, this was the world’s best cappuccino. I swear it was half milk foam. My first 3 sips? All milk foam. It wasn’t that it had MORE milk, it was that the ALL the milk was frothy so the espresso at the bottom was less milky. YUM.

I only managed one more food photo, and then let’s get down to business. I got mystery bread again. I was thinking of getting something else, but it looked so moist and delicious, and I was definitely right!

Stress Eating

I’m definitely a stress eater. Example A: having zero time before midterms started and then being unable to wait in a super long line for my race packet resulted in this purchase: oat bars.

One thing I have gotten a lot better about this year is not letting myself get stressed-a far cry from last year’s disaster (helloooo mono). I’m pretty good at not letting things get to be (like forgetting my sweatshirt at Crossfit), much more so than I have been in the past. However, with midterms in season, I’m starting to feel the pressure. I was really stressed on Monday-something I realized I haven’t really felt in a long time.

However, today the stress bug hit me. After getting some assignments back, I started worrying how I would possibly be smart enough to compete with the other students here in my classes (since everything is on a curve). It was silly because I didn’t necessarily do badly on the assignments, but I started questioning myself. After staring at my OChem homework with no idea what was going on, I stress ate. But here’s the thing. Stress eating doesn’t always have to be so bad. Here are some tips to avoid a stress-binge:

1. Before eating, take a walk, or meditate for 5 minutes. Try to bring down your stress levels before getting anywhere near food.

2. Choose healthy foods. If you eat crap, you will most likely feel like crap as well-that will only make your stress worse! On the same note-sugary junk foods will most likely make you crave more sugary junk foods, so you will tend to eat more of them.

3. Choose low calorie, high fiber foods. They fill you up and you can spend a lot of time chewing without killing your waistline.

4. Eat slowly. While stressed, many people have the tendency to shove foods down their throats. Try to fight this and give your stomach time to catch up.

5. Move on. Stress eating happens. If it does, let it go-it’s not worth stressing over!

So what did I eat?

Carrots with hummus and goat cheese.

(Old pic)

Dried fruit

Chocolate granola bar.

Was stress eating the best thing to do? No. But I chose foods that would fuel my body and not make me feel bad-and guess what? After my snack, I headed back to the library and cranked out my chem homework. Life goes on!

Now I’m not stressed at all.

Do you ever stress eat?