Lazy Monday

Date: January 22, 2013

Author: astottler

I can’t believe the weekend is over already! These long weekends always fly by! My allergies have been terrible all day. I don’t know why my cats set them off so badly yesterday, but once my sinuses go crazy, it’s hard to stop them. I’ve been popping decongestants like it’s no body’s business (no more than the recommended dosage of course), but I’m not sure how much it has helped. The 2 things that do help: eating hot food and exercise. Let’s go through my day, shall we?

After an interesting night, I got up around 7:30, 8ish. My goal for this weekend was to get completely caught up on sleep, so this was a lazy morning. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but one of those delicious bars I got at whole foods the other day sounded just about right.

Sorry for the poor definition, I didn’t have the light on because my roommate was still sleeping. I topped this with some nuts for my healthy fat. After eating, I curled back up in bed to get going on my new book!

I really love it! It’s a great read; although it is definitely science-y, it isn’t meant for the scientist, it’s meant for the general public. I’m obviously not all the way through, but I’m hooked. Although I’ve hardly gotten to any parts where he describes the dangers of sugar. I ended up falling back asleep a little bit, which was great. Once again, fixing up that sleep debt! My eating today was a little strange just because of my schedule, so I ended up snacking through the day until dinner. I had weights at 1:30, so I ate snack/meal #2 around 11.

More peanut butter banana bread (plus extra pb), an apple microwaved with cinnamon, celery (gotta slow down those carbs!), and a small cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. I don’t think I’ve ever had almond milk by itself before, but I didn’t have any regular milk and I wanted some protein. Well, I actually wanted something cold to soothe my super dry throat…This meal was nice and steamy, and my allergies cleared up quite a bit.

I worked and relaxed for a couple of hours before weights at 1:30. Weights was nothing different. But lotsss of squats today. 4×50. I didn’t put any additional weight on the bar today. Why? I’m so sore from my workout yesterday! I forgot how sore my own weights can make me! My butt, and hamstrings….augh. Plus my abs are still a little sore from Friday’s extra ab work, and my right arm is a little sore from pitching briefly yesterday.

After weights on the way to a meeting with my professor, I chowed down another half of a delicious Chocolate Mint ThinkThin bar.

I ate the other half some other time throughout the day, maybe after lunch? These are soooo good. I highly recommend them. Although they are a little higher in sugar than what I’d prefer (10g, which is generally my limit when buying granola bars), they don’t have any artificial sweeteners. My meeting with my professor went really well. Apparently the first draft of my paper wasn’t quite as bad as I thought. Who knew?

After the meeting came another snack.

A nectarine and one of the Peanut Butter granola balls I made yesterday. Perfect! I really love the crunch that the chia seeds give these bars! I thought the brown rice crisps would get soggy in the fridge, but it was totally fine!

After more work, I headed to the gym for a spin class. This is the class I went to last quarter but now can never make because I normally have practice, so I decided to go for old time’s sake. Plus, I was hoping it would loosen me up a little bit! I did a few minutes of abs beforehand, which were surprisingly difficult. I think it is because we had some ab rollouts in weights today…I took Spin a little easy, and I feel a little bit better. The thing about this type of sore, is it doesn’t exactly help to roll out, or it is simply not worth it. Rolling out= so painful! Now that I’m sitting down, I don’t really feel sore, but any time I get up…whew.

After spin was dinner. I was lacking in veggies today, so I made sure to get some greens!

Caesar salad, a few potatoes and zucchinis, veggie souffle, and a small piece of tilapia. Plus a few chunks of pineapple (which was a little too acidic for my dry mouth…) I also grabbed some greens and tomatoes in anticipation of tomorrow’s dinner. Cheese souffle leftovers! When I returned to my dorm, I was in the mood for something more. I started off eating a banana with peanut butter, then shifted gears and threw the banana in the microwave with this:

And topped with peanut butter. I love this dark chocolate cocoa powder, it gives a ton of flavor! I didn’t take a picture of my banana mix because you’ve seen it before, and frankly it just looks black….

Overall, today was not a bad day. I wish my allergies would get better though! Since I’m starting to get more school work, I want to try to schedule a certain amount of time to work on my blog, and not just work on it here or there, because honestly I need to focus. But I’m well under my time limit today! Another piece of fun news: my friend wanted to try to do the Disney half marathon with me in May, but I’ll still be in school and probably in the middle of my season, so I can’t really do that. However, I may be able to convince her to do the Giant’s half with me in August!

I’ve never really talked about my race experiences. All 2 of them. Over the summer, I trained for the Giants 10k, which was in San Francisco and finished on the field.

My sister ran the 10k as well, and my parents walked the 5k. I ended up finishing first in my age group, but I didn’t know that until later so I didn’t get a medal. I think my time was around 52:00? Then over winter break, I ran the Silicon Valley Santa Run, which my friends were going to do with me but ended up not.

Check out all those Santas! I believe I finished around 25:00, but I could have been in better running shape (I had hardly run at all before, mostly erging and other workouts). But it was a fun experience! There was snow at the finish line, and cookies and milk! I definitely want to do this again next year. I also have always been dying to do a Turkey Trot! This year I ran on my own, maybe 4 miles? I take Thanksgiving very seriously, and I want to do anything to maximize my appetite for the big meal!

On other news, I am going on a ski trip with my dorm this coming weekend. I am slightly terrified, because I’ve only been skiing once. I talked to a few of my teammates who had their ski trips this past weekend, and during our weigh in at weights, they were moaning that all they ate all weekend was cookie dough and cheese. So I think I’m going to have to pack a ton of granola bars, because I don’t think I can handle that….

Any other suggestions for food I could bring?

The Big Question

Date: January 18, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Friday! Who’s ready for the long weekend? I sure am! I don’t have practice until weights Monday afternoon, so I’m pretty pumped! It’s 2 pm on a Friday, and I’m done for the day! Yayyy! I’m posting early today because I don’t have a lot to do right now, and I won’t have much to comment on earlier in the day anyway.

Ok, so this morning I woke up at 5:45 for weights. Ugh. I definitely didn’t make my 10 pm bedtime last night, and after a hard day yesterday, I was dragging. My legs were still tired from yesterday. And throughout all this, one question was running through my mind. Uh oh, what is this tiredness is me getting sick? EVERYONE is getting sick! Gahh!

As usual, my snack before weights was quick bread! More of the peanut butter banana. I actually found the recipe I used, which wasn’t the link I posted before (Though you guys should definitely try that one, it looked awesome!) The one I actually made was from fANNEtastic food, which you can find here. This bread is growing on me, I’ve started to crave it! I love Anne’s recipes because they’re mostly low sugar. I have been wanted to make another quickbread for a while, and I will hopefully do that this weekend! I need to restock my freezer! Also, her granola bar recipe looks great! I really liked having something around that was easy to snack on, and I like that the recipe has brown rice syrup.

Well, I powered through weights. I’m happy with how I did. I’m getting the hang of the workouts now, plus it’s less crowded as my teammates are starting to go to the later weights session more. After I finished my workout, I did 5×10 ab roll outs. As I stated in an earlier post, I think ab strength may be one of the keys to improving my rowing, so I got a little extra work in. And it certainly didn’t hurt that the baseball team was in the weight room after us. 😉 I definitely want to go to some of their games this spring, I LOVE watching baseball! (Go Giants! Anyone? Anyone?)

After weights, I was planning on finishing up a Greek yogurt I had in the fridge, but my coach was insistent that I drink a protein shake. I really didn’t want one of the ones from the weight room (ugh), so I had to promise her that I would make my own back at my dorm. Remember my idea from yesterday? I was considering making a protein smoothie with my vanilla whey protein powder, and adding cocoa powder. So that’s just what I did!

Plus a banana, milk, yogurt, a spoon of peanut butter, and 2 heaping spoonfuls of cocoa powder. And a more surprising ingredient? Frozen blueberries! Since my banana wasn’t frozen, I wanted something cold to thicken it up a little bit. The addition of blueberries turned out to be a great idea! The fruitiness of the blueberries really brought out the dark chocolate flavor!

I also had some fruit, and a little cream of wheat because I felt like I needed some carbs. I’m glad I decided to make a protein smoothie after all. After my workout, I realized I was pretty shaky, and the greek yogurt probably wouldn’t have done it for me.

Here’s the smoothie recipe:

Dark Chocolate Blueberry Smoothie

1/4 c plain yogurt

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

1/2-1 scoop vanilla protein powder (I used 1/2 because I’m always scared to add too much) or chocolate protein powder (just add less cocoa)

1 tablespoon peanut butter

1/3 c blueberries

2 heaping spoons of cocoa powder (more or less to taste, I like more)

milk (enough to get it moving)

Blend and enjoy! Top with peanut butter if you like!

I definitely need to post my favorite smoothie recipe at some point because I’m actually sure of the proportions. That smoothie is good, but not my absolute favorite. Any guesses as to what my favorite is? I’ll post it next time I make it!

After breakfast I had a little time because I didn’t have to do a run this morning. I felt pretty tired, but I knew I was planning on napping later, so I compromised and drank a cup of caffeinated tea.

This is my favorite black tea!

During class, I was feeling exhausted and a little shaky. I felt kind of weird as well. Again, I asked myself the big question, am I getting sick? I was starting to get worried, because I felt pretty off. Finally, I was sitting in Math, when I figured it out. I was definitely suffering from caffeine overdose. Now, keep in mind, I don’t drink caffeine that often, and whenever I have coffee, I have half a cup tops. It was a huge mystery to me why a single cup of tea would cause me to feel so jittery. Now I never have to drink coffee, right? If tea can wake me up this much? I’ve never really felt the effects of caffeine from tea before, so this was all very strange. The only thing I can figure out is that a) maybe because I just exercised hard, I was more sensitive? Or b) I put a TON of cocoa powder in my smoothie this morning….So it was probably a combination of things. I was relieved that I wasn’t getting sick, but I was a little uncomfortable for class. This morning was full of weird sensations in my body. I realized that going up stairs was really not tiring. However, down stairs? My legs were shaking like crazyyy! My hamstrings and glutes were pretty much shot! And after math, I was hit with a huge wave of hunger, out of nowhere! Good thing it was lunch time!

I caught up with my sister at lunch. Can you believe I haven’t seen her since basically Christmas? Which is kind of strange, considering we go to the same college. Here’s what I ate:

This is basically the best salad ever. We have a salad restaurant here, and this is the only type I’ve ever gotten. It’s a Southwest salad, with beans, cheese, corn, tomatoes, salmon, and a cilantro dressing. It comes with tortilla chips, but I prefer it without. Normally they have avocado too (they didn’t today), which just puts it over the top. SO good. The thing is though, these salads are huge! It may not look like a big container, but they absolutely cram it in there! Especially if I get it with chicken (they put so much in), it’s super heavy! I usually end up picking the best parts out, and still walking away completely stuffed, but this time I came prepared and brought tupperware so I could portion away half of it (which will probably be dinner tonight). Then after picking up some school supplies, it was back to my room to relax. I wanted something sweet, so I grabbed a few handfuls of that spicy trail mix. I didn’t really want to eat a ton of cocoa powder before attempting to sleep, so I decided not to get creative.

The rest of my day will be spent relaxing! We had a suggested run or erg this afternoon, but my body is so done. I feel way better and stronger now that it’s been a few hours since my workout, but I think I’m best off taking the rest of the day off and hitting it hard again tomorrow. I have some freedom in my workouts, and you can bet I’m going to take advantage of that! I probably won’t post again today. Dinner will most likely be a repeat of today’s lunch. I have an avocado in the fridge, but I don’t want to end up with an extra half of an avocado sitting around if I’m going to be gone. I might experiment on my “dessert”, so I’ll let you know if I come up with anything amazing! Have a great weekend!

Any plans for the long weekend?

Make Up Post 1/15!

Date: January 17, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So sorry that I didn’t post last night! I had to work on a paper, and it was already getting late, plus I knew I’d have to be up early this morning. So here it is:

You know you’re truly a blogger when something in your life happens and the first thing you do is think about how you will describe it on you blog…

So the reason for the delayed post is I had a paper to write last night, and it was getting late as it was. Gahh. So my day?

I woke up at 5:20 and busted my butt to get out to workout as soon as possible, so I would finish my erg in time for a 7 am spin class. Right before I walked out the door (around 5:35) I remembered that nothing opens here until 6. So…if I got inside at 6 there was no way I’d be done by 7, and I’d be stuck waiting outside in the cold…luckily there was someone there who opened up early, but I’m not sure what I’ll do next Tuesday. I certainly don’t want to depend on that! I loved the spin class, as usual. I’ve only been to this instructor’s classes once before, but I really like her music choices. My legs were pretty shot after an hour of erging and 45 minutes of spin, but I pressed on! I still had a 30 minute run! I initially planned to do it on the treadmill, but they were all full or broken, and I didn’t have time to wait around! Instead, I headed out into Winter Wonderland (not sure a few sheets of ice constitutes Winter Wonderland, but I’ll roll with it). The best part? I got to listen to my favorite scientist talk (nerdy, I know), Dr. Robert Lustig. He recently came out with a new book about the dangers of sugar, and he was on NPR’s Science Friday to talk about the book and answer listener questions. Aaaand it was available on my NPR app. And even more perfect, it was 29 minutes. Obviously, it was meant to be. I’ve listened to a ton of sugar podcast while I run in the past, so this was no new experience.

As for the actual run? I took it pretty slow, but powered through and finished. I saw so much ice and frost! I’ve never exactly seen a frozen puddle before so naturally I had to stop and look at every single one, and test if it was frozen.

This one? Well, it was frozen on the surface. Yes, that is my footprint.

By the end, I was pretty hungry. I just had a few bites of my frozen Peanut Butter Vanilla Protein Bars beforehand, which was hours earlier. I was excited to finally get to a different dining hall for breakfast. Why? I can get some veggies in!

There is an omelette station with all kinds of goodies, so I always snag some spinach for my breakfast sandwich. On my plate: Half a whole wheat english muffin topped with spinach, scrambled eggs and cheddar, and mushrooms (how great would this be with avocado?). I also had some melon, and an unknown type of yellow fruit. One thing was for sure though, it wasn’t ripe! It tasted ok, but was really tough. My theory is that it was pineapple. I also has some pistachios. This dining hall has gone upscale for breakfast lately.

Just look at that fancy shmancy cheese platter!

After breakfast was a shower and then class, and then back to the dining hall for lunch!

The healthier options weren’t all that interesting, so I went with something less on the healthy side, because it looked pretty good!

I first filled up half my plate with Asian chicken salad (though I never seemed to find any chicken…), which hit the spot perfectly. I was hoping for something different than the vinaigrette salads I’ve been having lately. So what else is on that plate? Mexican rice, fajita chicken (I skipped the tortilla), a bit of refried beans, and nacho casserole. Plus some sauteed greens. It was really tasty! I saw that someone else had salsa and guacamole on their plate, so I went back and added some after I photographed. I was hankering for something sweet, so I went for a not too sugary alternative.

See? That pineapple was actually good, I could totally tell what it was! Plus cinnamon raisin toast with Smart Balance. Seriously, that stuff is so good! I think I may have overdid it a bit on the carbs, but hey, my plate was half veggies, right? By the way, those veggies on my dessert plate were for later.

I cracked open a mango before practice, and unfortunately it was pretty brown on the inside, but I still got a good 1/2 of it. I hate when I let food go bad, especially in my dorm room, because any food I have that has the capacity to go bad is a treat. I was really angry at myself earlier too because I had to toss 2 oranges because I never put them in the fridge. I also snacked on frozen cherries and a few bites of protein bar. Plus, I made a pb sandwich for later, which just happened to finish the jar, so I naturally had to take care of that. 😉

Since I knew i had a paper to write that evening, I packed a pb sandwich and those veggies which you saw earlier to eat in the van on the way back from practice, so I could go straight to the library. Unfortunately, this plan was foiled when a teammate twisted my arm into eating dinner with her. I figured a few more veggies couldn’t hurt.

I also had a few slices of fruit and another slice of cinnamon raisin toast. Unfortunately, this sparked a major carb craving (glucose rollercoaster anyone?) (see glucose post here).

Or maybe it was a result of my no sugar challenge? Either way, back at my room I pulled this baby out of the freezer:

Peanut butter banana bread! I want to say this is the recipe I used, but I’m not entirely sure. I used whole wheat pastry flour and and most likely reduced the sugar, although I’m not sure. I really like the texture of the bread. It is nice and oat-y. I love the idea of using oats in banana bread! My only suggestion for improvement might be adding a swirl of peanut butter. So this time I added my own!

After all those carbs, I finally headed to the library, but it was an hour later than I was hoping to get there. Oh well, I finished the paper.

A few notes:

My legs were sooo tired all day when I was biking around!

I think I need to rethink my meal timing. I wasn’t all that hungry at lunch, since it hadn’t really been that long since breakfast. I think that threw me off a little bit.

And lastly: I promise I’ll do a sugar post soon! Hopefully this weekend!

Any big weekend plans?