Full Day of Eating: Fall Foods

Date: October 8, 2018

Author: astottler

One thing I really haven’t done in a LONG time is a full day of eating! So, I figured now that fall is in full swing, I’d share one! If you know me, I’m all about the seasonal foods, so let’s see what I got into today!

Pre-Workout:

A couple of handfuls of Cheerios.

I teach 6:15am spin on Mondays and Wednesday now, so this was before my class! I’m still getting used to the early schedule, but it was a blast! I’m impressed at the class I get that early on a college campus!

Breakfast:

A couple of pumpkin crackers (these are really good and taste similar to Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup crackers, but with more spices).

And then a persimmon protein smoothie. One frozen persimmon from last year’s bounty, milk, salted caramel protein powder, and a few shakes of cinnamon.

Mid-morning snack: I don’t normally do a morning snack, but breakfast was on the earlier side and I didn’t have class until 10, so I had some of these carrot chips. They’re my newest obsession.

Lunch: I’ve had the same salad literally every weekday with a few variations. This one was nectarine, Trader Joe’s rosemary balsamic grilled chicken (this is amazing), Trader Joe’s apricot cranberry goat cheese, and light balsamic vinaigrette.

Whenever I had lunch at home, I always have to have something sweet. I try to keep it on the healthier side, so I had a square of 78% dark chocolate and half a piece of my sister’s homemade (!) chocolate.

Snack: Banana with Trader Joe’s unsweetened sunbutter. I actually really like this because I think it tastes a lot like peanut butter.

Dinner: Of course I have to have a bite of something while I cook, so I had a few of these:

And then my actual meal was a fall kale salad: kale massaged with aged balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt and pepper, butternut squash, dried cranberries, parmesan, and chicken apple sausage.

Dessert: I forgot to take a picture, but I had the exact same thing as last week that I shared before—pumpkin pie filling with dark chocolate chips heated up and topped with whipped cream.

And a ginger chew.

Evening snack: Rice cake with pumpkin cream cheese.

What do you think—was that enough fall foods??

I’ll leave you with this:

Happy fall!

Workouts, Fall Food, and a New Family Member

Date: October 3, 2018

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

If you’re wondering what’s new around here, it would be my little foster fail, Marie!

I met her when she was 7 weeks old, and fell in love with her. When she needed a new foster a couple of weeks ago, I jumped at the opportunity. I foster failed within a week. Jackson has been the most amazing older brother and they became instant BFFs. He didn’t hiss when he met her, just trotted up and wanted to play. It took about 5 minutes for them to start playing, and they literally played ALL NIGHT that first night.

Also new is that this has been my first week teaching spin for fall quarter! I taught a class the last two weeks, but this is the beginning of normal fall classes and I have 3 a week! It’s been fun but I need to adjust my sleep schedule for the 6ams because they have been wiping me out.

That all said, it’s fall so you know I’m enjoying seasonal foods. And zucchini. Always zucchini.

This is my new favorite dish. All the flavors of fall despite the summer veggies! Zucchini noodles with apple sautéed in, white cheddar laughing cow, and Trader Joe’s chicken apple sausage which is super mapley.

I felt like such a real adult peeling and cutting and roasting carrots. I served them with cheesy zucchini noodles and a salmon burger.

I love this breakfast for fall. Cottage cheese with sunbutter and pumpkin butter.

I finally got my first Jamba Juice Pumpkin Smash of the season! This is actually one of my favorite fall foods, and I never know when to get it because a smoothie is always seems awkward to have between meals. I went after teaching my first 6am spin and had this for breakfast. It’s basically ice cream for breakfast, but all this teaching is burning up my metabolism. Today I taught spin and then went to Crossfit, and instead of eating a banana for a snack like I was going to, I had some frozen donut pieces and it was amazing.

Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi with zucchini slices and trader joe’s butternut squash pasta sauce.

Dessert of pumpkin pie filling and chocolate chips.

And finally, pumpkin pie filling and sunbutter with cottage cheese.

I haven’t posted in a while but I did want to share some of the workouts I did when my wrist was much worse than it is now. It’s not healed, but it’s so much better and there’s a lot I can do.

Workout 1:

4×5 barbell squats

4×8 single leg squats supersetted with pistols (to a bench for me)

20 minute (or 15) AMRAP: 30 sit ups, 20 lunges, 10 box jumps

Workout 2: No Barbell Workout (perfect for busy gym times)

4×6 heavy single leg RDLs

4×8 single leg squats supersetted with pistols

3 Rounds of tabata for conditioning (20 seconds working, 10 seconds of rest for 4 minutes—one tabata for each set of movements)

Squat jumps/ speed skaters
Air squats/ lunge jumps
In and outs with a twist at the top

Workout 3:

Heavy backsquats

Hip flexor exercises—3×20 (fire hydrants, etc)

MetCon: 5 min AMRAP of kettle bell swings and box jumps 3-6-9….

That’s all i have today! Enjoy the fall season!

Fall Fun and Fall Food

Date: November 12, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

WHEW. Last week was a week…several tests and lots of class and assignments…On top of that, the mystery pain in my ankle bone was still bothering me to the point that I went to urgent care Thursday night for x-rays. Thankfully, it seems like there is no break, and I have an appointment with a specialist when I get home at Thanksgiving. For now, I’m trying to walk in a way that doesn’t hurt and I’m avoiding anything involving running (minus soccer…whoops).

I was a day ahead of myself all week so it was a great time for a 3 day weekend!

I was missing my college friends, so a trip outside of Davis on my day off was just what the doctor ordered…Friday morning after a couple of hours of study time, I drove an easy 1.5 hours south to see my college roommate. It was so, so nice to see her and chat about life. Her persimmon trees were absolutely GORGEOUS!

We chatted for a while before whipping up a delicious lunch. We made fall-themed salads with hard boiled egg, butternut squash (cooked in the microwave, then sautéed with turmeric and garlic salt), chicken, and sunflower seeds.

After lunch, it was time to pick some persimmons! (Also…admire her adorable kitty).

There are two varieties of permission; one that has to be eaten soft (the pointy ones) and one that is perfect crunchy. It’s a little early in the season for the soft ones, but I managed to find one and of course ate it right off the tree (which was horribly messy.) We spent about an hour picking while chatting on the phone with another one of our best friends. It was so much fun to talk to them both, and to pick persimmons! I may have gotten a little carried away…

I, um, went home with over 40 pounds of persimmons. However, they keep a really long time, and I’m currently averaging 3 persimmons a day (and I’m sharing), so I’m pretty confident I can finish them!

That day was the perfect fall day, and the perfect break from vet school.

Since we’re talking about fall, I recently realized that Thanksgiving is almost here, and I’m running out of time to eat all the fall foods! So I decided to make that a priority! Here’s what I’ve been eating:

Breakfasts

“Chocolate” yogurt (cocoa powder and maple syrup) with blueberries and sunbutter.

Such a perfect fall breakfast: pumpkin Noosa yogurt and a persimmon.

So fun fact: I like to eat my persimmons sliced up. On the side, yogurt with pumpkin pie filling (don’t judge; it’s less sugar than pumpkin butter!) and sunbutter.

Lunches

A variation on my typical weird but quick and easy go to salad: chopped salad with american cheese, guacamole, and ketchup, topped with an egg. On the side, I made some amazing cinnamon apple tea, that I stirred fresh ginger into. Apparently I actually have a lot of tea in my cabinet that I’ve never tried.

Ok, this really is pure fall. Salad with persimmon, cranberry goat cheese (I love this in salads), and chicken.

Subway salad with turkey, provolone, veggies, oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. Nothing new here. Plus avocado.

My typical salad.

Pear and cranberry goat cheese salad with chicken and a side of leftover roasted butternut squash.

Another persimmon salad.

Chipotle with classmates after volunteering at a clinic that Davis puts on. I feel like my Chipotle order isn’t super conventional. I get a salad with fajita veggies, chicken, corn salsa, fresh salsa, and of course guac.

Dinners

Roasted carrots, roasted zucchini, and my baked tofu (breaded in nutritional yeast/onion powder/garlic powder).

Zucchinni pad thai.

Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup (the fresh one). Super good. I’ve put quality cheese in it. It’s good with aged gouda, but I think it’s even better with aged cheddar! Toast on the side.

Ok, this was a good one. Roasted butternut squash, parmesan, dried cranberries, over a bed of kale massaged with balsamic, olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Side of the same tofu.

More pumpkin soup with a GF ciabatta.

Same salad, except with chicken. For this ciabatta, I spread the center with butter and a little fresh garlic, and then wrapped it in foil and put it in the toaster oven.

One of my favorite forms of zucchini: noodles seasoned and tossed with parmesan, and then topped with Harvest fall pasta sauce.

Super simple: zucchini scramble with soft garlic and herb cheese, and avocado toast.

And finally for dinners, this may not look like much but it was delicious! Roasted butternut squash with parmesan and an egg. I wish I had more squash left for this meal!

Sweets

Blueberry zucchini bread from the freezer.

Ok. So I bought a big can of pumpkin pie filling. I mix it with egg white, then microwave it for a little makeshift crustless pumpkin pie. With whipped cream of course.

No egg this time; cold pumpkin filling with a GF cinnamon cookie and whipped cream.

I had a fair amount of Halloween candy leftover (we got all of 1 group of tricker treaters, and I was grateful just to get any!), so I brought some to school, and then made banana bread with some. I chopped up milky ways and 3 musketeers.

Thursday evening…I impulse bought a cake at Trader Joe’s. It was 100% one of those weeks, and this was delicious. I stuck some in the freezer for later also!

We routinely have bake sales at school to raise money for clubs, so this weekend I made GF brownies. I had to try them first (this is actually a time when I had to try them…I’ve never used a GF brownie mix before. This was Betty Crocker).

Etc.

This is my new favorite thing. A tea latte with soy milk. I found a coffeeshop where you can get any type of tea in your tea latte. This was peach apricot!

Honey lavender beer.

Decaf cappuccino for study time!

And now, after that long post, it’s time to hit the books (or…the iPad…).

And the Zucchini Obsession Continues…

Date: September 24, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

It’s totally normal to celebrate the end of a test by buying 5 pounds of zucchini, right?

This time I didn’t even try to get a smaller bag because I’m confident I’ll go through it!

Today, I’m going to catch up on all the delicious (often zucchini-based) meals I’ve been eating, and also talk about a little fitness!

The fall weather has me craving longer distances, running-wise. My foot (post stress fracture a year ago) is starting to feel really solid. My tendonitis is feeling better….although it seems to have been replaced by my old plantar fasciitis….

Anyways, I think I’m going to slowly and carefully start building a little more distance. Maybe do another half, if everything feels good. Not soon, I’d be shooting for the spring or even next fall. But for now, I would love to do a 10k! I’m a faster human than I was before when I was doing more runs. So I’m going to play around with it, and see what happens! I miss my Sunday morning long run tradition! I actually don’t think I’ve really run more than 3 miles since last November, when my foot got pretty sore for a while after a 5 mile run. So we shall see!

Otherwise, I’ve been doing basically all Crossfit lately. I need to get back to spin classes, and yoga. While Chloe was here, I didn’t run at all (just walked a ton!) in an effort to get my plantar fasciitis to feel better. It’s not bad, but I’m trying to really take care of it!

So let’s go through, shall we?

I finally made zucchini lasagna! It tasted great, but presentation left a little to be desired.

I had 2 layers of zucchini noodles, with a ricotta-parmesean-+1 egg in the middle, with tons of pasta sauce, and topped with mozzarella. I froze most of it for when things get crazy (or I get lazy).

Pumpkin smoothie! I genuinely thought this was going to be disgusting, but it was actually delicious! I blended up half a packet of Flapjacked vanilla smoothie mix, half a frozen banana, half a cup of milk, half a cup of canned pumpkin that I had leftover, plus tons of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Yum!

In other zucchini news, once I bought another large batch of zucchini, I invested in a more legit spiralizer and it was the best decision. 100% worth it, and I love it.

SO I’ve been making tons of zoodles.

This was a great combo: parmesan, mozzarella, chicken, garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper.

And then there’s the classic marinara. Similar to spaghetti squash, in my opinion the key is to get the squash tasting good before you put sauce on. I used various seasoning blends and salt and pepper.

I’ve also been into non-green green smoothies lately. Mango juice, frozen berries, and spinach.

When Chloe was here, I got a few Trader Joe’s salads because cooking with her was hard, and she was time consuming, and I had to run home in the middle of the day and shove food in my face while entertaining her. This one is my favorite. I used to eat it a lot in undergrad, especially when I was sick because it doesn’t have anything I’m allergic to. Broccoli slaw, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, kale, chicken. YUM.

More healthy pumpkin bread from the freezer. I think I’m going to make more soon because I have a lot of ripe bananas.

My go-to BBQ chicken salad has been making a comeback! Dressing is just salt, pepper, olive oil, and lime. Then I tossed together corn, tomato, and lettuce, and topped it with BBQ chicken, cheese, and guacamole. A break from zucchini—what??

I love the pumpkin yogurt-fig-sunbutter combo. Plus a peach. The peaches are good, but I can tell they’re reaching the end of the season. Apples season is coming, my friends!

I went to the weekend farmer’s market, and they had a gluten free bakery that comes to our market back home! The best part is I already know what things I’m not allergic to. Naturally, I had to pick up a flour less chocolate torte.

I did my Wednesday night farmer’s market thing as well and of course picked up a tamale. This week was chicken! I had some of my favorite fall harvest salsa on the side, plus a salad tossed with Bolthouse cilantro ranch.

Dessert of chocolate Halo Top and fancy caramel sauce.

I ate the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner Saturday and Sunday without even realizing it! For my lunches, I had my favorite salad. I admit this is super weird, but I like it and it’s quick and easy. Lettuce, American chess,e deli turkey, chopped with scissors, and then dressed with guacamole and topped with ketchup.

Dinners were a zucchini scramble with reduced fat alouette. I realized that it is going to expire extremely soon, so I repeated the meal Sunday.

Served with a peach one night and GF cinnamon raisin toast the next.

Here are a couple of other fun (seasonal!) things from this weekend:

I found this pumpkin wheat beer and of course had to try it! Sipped while cuddling with the cat on the couch and streaming Stanford-UCLA football. Fall feels like football season, and I hadn’t caught a game yet. It was a good one! We came out on top! It made me nostalgic for my alma mater for sure though!

My Starbucks fall drink of choice: decaf cappuccino with one pump pumpkin spice.

And FINALLY. FINALLY, I made zucchini bread. After buying probably 20 pounds of zucchini over the past month and a half. I made pumpkin-zucchini chocolate chip bread, so it’s also seasonably appropriate! I love this recipe: just 1/3c honey as the sweetener!

Check back in next time for more zucchini adventures. I probably have at least 3 pounds left! I’m trying some different things this week. I’m thinking teriyaki stir-fry, Mexican style, and pad thai!

Full Day of Eating: First Day of Fall!

Date: September 21, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello friends! It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

It’s been a WILD week. I have a TON of pup adventures to share, but for now, I have a test tomorrow so I’m just going to bust out a quick fall day of eating as a little study break.

Rina even has her fall look going on with the pumpkin-colored bow:

(It should be noted that she has since forgiven me for said full week of pup adventures…)

Pre-Workout:

You know it. I love this flavor of Cheerio in general, and was eating them way into the new year this year thanks to ordering a few boxes at the end of the season.

Workout: I wasn’t feeling the Crossfit WOD. Plus I’ve been doing CF a lot lately and wanted something a little different. I’m still doing my squat program, and with the influx of undergrads to campus this weekend, I figured going early on a weekday morning to the campus gym to try and get a squat rack would be wise.

Breakfast:

Pumpkin spice Siggi’s+sunbutter+figs. Mango on the side.

Lunch:

I had a 3 hour gap around lunch time and was SO tired. I debated napping, but I really needed to study so I went the caffeine route. I got a small black tea, and only drank half of it but got the buzz I needed! (I’m super caffeine sensitive.)