Tamale Wednesday Returns

Date: April 18, 2018

Author: astottler

Hello, hello! Today was another light day school-wise so I have no complaints! I started my morning with a spin workout on my own. I debated going to Crossfit, but deadlifts were the strength and that’s just not happening right now, plus the WOD looked fun but had running and given I had soccer yesterday and a 5k this weekend, I don’t want to exceed my ankle’s ability to run. Wow, I truly am falling apart…the spin bike never fails me though!

Breakfast:

Plain greek yogurt, sunbutter, blueberries, and a couple of crackers. All of our metabolism and GI lectures have made me want to try to shift my macronutrient intake to be a little less carb-heavy, so I’m trying to add some fats back in and reduce the sugar a little bit.

Lunch:

I went to a lunch talk with food, but brought my own salad. I had a side of rice and roasted vegetables in place of the crackers I packed, and then had my salad with fresh mozzarella, heirloom tomato, turkey, and green goddess dressing.

Snack:

A custom granola bar with sunbutter, chocolate, and dried cherries, and some dried pear. A little later I had a couple of crackers with sunbutter.

Dinner:

Tamale Wednesday returns! Some may remember from this past fall, but the Wednesday Farmer’s Market is back for the season and there’s a place there with the best tamales. I went just for the tamale. I got a chicken one this time, and had it with a salad with white balsamic and dried cranberries.

Dessert:

Some Trader Joe’s Churro bites which are way too addicting, and Halo Top with mint chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Snack:

New KIND bar that’s mostly dried banana with a chocolate drizzle.

The Craziest Week of Vet School

Date: December 3, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

My goodness, what a week. After Thanksgiving I really took the ground running. Hard. I think I studied more last week than I ever have in my life, and I learned more in 3 days than I ever thought was possible. This weekend was a quick gasp for air before the 2 week sprint to the end of the block, and to winter break! It is really rewarding though to work really hard and then actually know things.

I didn’t really cook much this week. When I was home for Thanksgiving, we had vegetarian chili, and I brought back the vat of it to have for dinners every night.

This was really the first week of vet school where I felt like I didn’t have time to cook. Luckily, I have a ton of easy/frozen meals for the next couple of weeks when it picks up again!

On that note, I have a few snippets for the week.

New spin shoes! Finally. My old ones were 4.5 years old and while they held up really well, they were a little gross.

Her new favorite toy. We got it in Napa for her, and she falls asleep on it.

I am so, so, SO glad we decorated. A lot of time was spent on this couch or in this room last week with my notes. It made studying feel cozy and (somewhat) fun. Plus my study buddy, who honestly is in it more for the blanket than for me. But look how cute she is!

Thursday, test day, was one heck of a long day. I got up at 5am to get a little exercise and then last minute studying in before the last, and then the day ended up not going according to plan due to some technical difficulties. When I finished my test, it called for one of the chocolate milk stouts I’ve been hoarding since February from St. Louis.

I watched a movie on the couch, drank this, and baked pumpkin bread.

I made healthy flourless pumpkin bread (with oat flour). At first I didn’t love it and felt like it was kind of bland, but it’s grown on me. I actually like it better NOT hot out of the oven. I used a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and a teaspoon of cinnamon, and I thought it could have used a bit more spice! It tastes and feels really healthy though, so I’m happy eating it at all times of the day! (And with my schedule…I basically have.)

This weekend for me has really been about relaxing and recovering and doing my best to prepare for the next couple of weeks. I got to break out my favorite Christmas sweater on Friday (and failed to take any pictures).

Saturday and Sunday were a mix of lazy and productive.

I got a mint tea latte as study rule, plus a lavender cookie.

And then spent the evening watching Elf with my roommate and her friends.

Sunday, I went into Sacramento to take a spin class. It was at a boutique studio downtown, and it was a lot of fun! The staff was also SUPER nice and welcoming. I had originally planned to do that and then go to the gluten free bakery for their Sunday only donuts, but they weren’t making them this week for some reason. I found this out AFTER I signed up for spin, but I decided it would be good for me to get out a little bit anyways. After class, I got a little pastry that was sort of like the inside of a cinnamon roll, plus an egg sandwich. Both were delicious!

I spent a couple of hours afterwards at a Starbucks doing school work. I never really thought about this until this year, but it’s REALLY nice to get out of a college town to study. All the coffeeshops here are always SUPER full of students, and it’s nice to go to a quieter, emptier spot!

In terms of workouts, this week was a little bit different. It was all about time efficiency, and doing what I needed. My Crossfit actually had a little mini competition that I failed to sign up for and regretted, but I was tired at the time and such is life!

Monday:

20 minutes of HIIT spinning in the morning because I had Thanksgiving weekend sugar running through my veins, and Crossfit in the evening.

Tuesday: Crossfit

Wednesday: Kickboxing at lunchtime. The Health and Wellness club here brought in a kickboxing instructor to teach us vet students a little lunchtime class, and it was perfect timing because I legitimately did not have time to workout that day! It was fun but kickboxing is clearly not my forte. My coordination is not quite there!

Thursday: Weightlifting on my own. I did a super quick workout (despite having to wait for a barbell…seriously, before 6am??) of 5×5 back squats at 165#, single leg RDLs/calf raises, and a few minutes of abs. Those squats left me SORE.

Friday: Crossfit

Saturday: Gym workout by myself. After my test, I was having a hard time getting my body and mind to relax, which is a really important thing for sustainability in terms of my physical health and my ability to keep working hard. I could also tell that maybe I wasn’t getting quite enough exercise (plus lots of sitting) and while my diet was honestly fine, a few extra sweets here and there can affect me a little bit. Anyways, the point was I wanted to hit it fairly hard at the gym but didn’t want to spend a lot of time waiting around for a barbell, so I made use of dumbbells. Here’s what I did:

5×12 lunges with 30# dumbells

7 minute AMRAP:

Push press/RDLs with 30# dumbells

3-6-9-12-15-….

(This was a variation of one of the competition workouts.)

4×10 single arm dumbbell snatches (35#)

4×10 box jumps (24″)

A Blogilates ab video. This is the first full length one I’ve bothered to finish lately!

Sunday: Spin

I mentioned it last week, but I want to reiterate how important it is to know yourself. My body was feeling physically stressed and I had to recognize that and how to combat it. In some ways vet school is like some type of endurance training. You work hard, and you recover hard. That’s honestly how I felt about this weekend. Rest and get ready to hit it again!

The Craziest Museum+Surprising Cooking Win

Date: September 25, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend.

I kicked off my wild Friday night with some coffeeshop studying. I was sitting next to some pre-meds working on a chem lab report. Felt like home. I went there for dinner, which was a Mediterranean salad, with delicious warm GF bread on the side. Plus a GF cookie. I’ve had so few GF baked good since coming here, so I went to that coffeeshop just for that.

I had been putting off a quiz for my online class, and decided I just needed to bite the bullet and take it Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I taught my usual 8am spin and then headed to the store. My Target trip had 2 highlights: lightbulbs (my room was super dark) and these cookies:

I don’t care if you’re GF or not, you should buy these cookies. They’re AMAZING. I’ve had this brand in other flavors (a highlight is the key lime), so I was expecting nothing less! I guess my post-spin 10am time is turning into my “try new pumpkin products” time? Last week it was pumpkin ice cream. I only have one serving of these cookies left, they’re that good.

For lunch, I made a simple egg sandwich with cheddar, and a side of extra bread, an extra egg, and asparagus.

That afternoon, I walked down to a strew festival happening in my neighborhood. There was a bouncy house, and a bunch of local restaurants selling food and drinks. Since it was scorching out, I got salted caramel ice cream from a microcreamery.

The main event of the weekend though was a trip to City Museum with my coworkers. We went downtown and trapped dinner at Pi Pizza first.

This was super delicious. I can’t even remember the last time I had pizza!

Then it was time for City Museum.

This is certainly not your typical museum. It’s usually described as a giant playground for adults. There is an indoor and outdoor portion that consists of all kinds of structures and tunnels to climb through and lots of slides, including a 10 story slide.

This included climbing through caged tunnels many stories off the ground. It was a workout, and involved a certain level of strength to pull yourself up through tight spaces. I think the most terrifying thing was actually the 90 degree drop slide. It wasn’t that crazy high, but you had to essentially drop straight down into a hole, and couldn’t see what the slide looked like on the bottom.

We unintentionally ended up pursuing tickets to the roof portion, so we climbed the 200+ stairs and 12 stories to the top.

We enjoyed the view of the city while waiting in line for the ferris wheel.

Being on a ferris wheel 12 stories up was also slightly terrifying. Again, amazing views though.

After the museum, we went back to one of the intern’s places and watched a horror movie, since I had never seen one before. Honestly, I didn’t find it scary because it seemed so incredibly unrealistic. It was an exorcism type of movie, and it just seemed a little ridiculous to me. I think I would find a psychological horror movie much more frightening.

Sunday morning I lounged around a bit before heading to Forrest Park to run. Honestly, it was not a good run. My legs felt like bricks. Possibly from all the stairs and crawling/climbing the previous, night, I don’t know!

For lunch after 3 miles, I made a simple egg white omelette with garlic and herb laughing cow, and had it with a nectarine and of course some more of those pumpkin cookies.

That afternoon, I went out for coffee and to work on my online class. I’m playing around with a few different study methods to see if I can increase efficiency. I figure this is a good time to play around with these things, before grad school. I went to another coffeeshop on the list, Park Avenue Coffee.

It was a little disappointing. Not bad, but not on the same level as my top contenders. I would rank this second to last on my list. It should be noted though that this wasn’t their original location, so it’s possible it’s different? Also it definitely needs to be noted that they have tons of delicious looking kinds of gooey butter cake. Gooey butter cake is a St. Louis thing (that and pork steak?), and while I haven’t tried it, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like! It looked amazing.

After working for an hour or so, I ran some errands and braved the Sunday night grocery crowd. I was a little frazzled by the crowds, and apparently had some major slip ups.

For dinner Sunday night, I planned on totally winging a ginger chicken soup recipe. Basically, through things in a pot and hope. Slip up #1 was forgetting to buy spinach. Slip up #2 was buying cucumber instead of zucchini, which I realized when I started to cut it. The sad/embarrassing thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve done that. Also, I really hate cucumber…

So instead, I worked with what I had on hand, and it surprisingly turned out amazingly well.

Here’s what I did:

I started out by boiling a bag of carrots and a little asparagus I had on hand in chicken broth. Meanwhile, I sautéed mushrooms in olive oil, garlic, and soy sauce. Protip: you can buy garlic paste in a tube, as well as other herbs, and it’s amazing. I also got tubed ginger (it’s fresh still), because I want to keep all my gingers an dither’s no way I could mince it finely enough to pull off.

Then, I shredded up rotisserie chicken, and added everything together, along with squeezy ginger, the juice of a lemon, pepper, and soy sauce.

It tasted SO good. The ginger gives it the perfect amount of spice, and despite the unplanned addition, the carrots really worked. And, I have TONS of leftovers!

For dessert, I mashed up half a banana with cocoa powder and served it with vanilla Halo Top and whipped cream.

It’s also possible I found my way back to the pumpkin cookie bag. So good…

That was my weekend! I’m excited for some actual cooking this week. Also on the menu is vegetarian chili, which I also will be winging.

What’s your favorite kind of soup?

Guess What?

Date: August 28, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I have some weekend fun as well as some news to share! Let’s get into it, shall we?

Overall, my weekend was a good mix of fun, active, and relaxing. It’s SO nice to not have so much going on right now. There was lots of this involved:

Friday at the zoo I was outside for 5 hours in crazy humid heat, so I was looking forward to a night of air conditioning, netflix, and kitties!

Plus, I wanted to be well rested for Saturday morning! I had a spin teaching audition at a local studio. I wasn’t sure if I was going to try and teach while I’m here, but when I looked around for some classes to go to, I found that the studio was looking for instructors. Perfect! Saturday morning I taught a class as my audition, and I got the job! It was a blast, and even though it hasn’t really been that long, it was great to be teaching again (it’s been <2 weeks…).

I’ve always wanted to teach at an actual boutique spin studio, and I have my own weekly class+subbing. One adjustment though is that the classes are an hour long, and I’ve actually only taught 45 minute classes. I had to pace myself a little bit there! I was pretty beat and hungry after the 9:30 class, so I found the nearest Starbucks in hopes they had my favorite chocolate smoothie. Not all Starbucks have the chocolate banana protein smoothies, but they’re delicious! I got it with some cheddar chickpea chip things for carbs.

Afterwards, I cleaned myself up and relaxed for a few hours before braving the heat at the Festival of Nations, one of the best festivals (and free!) in St. Louis every year. It’s a really cool international festival in Tower Park, and there’s food from every country pretty much that you can buy, plus music and crafts. I went with my roommate and her friends who are all Brazilian, and we arrived just in time to see the Brazilian band play.

I got Brazilian food, of course. I don’t remember the name of the dish, but I got chicken over rice with cashew gravy, collard greens, and some type of yuca based side.

As you might recall, it’s still unclear if I’m minority allergic to cashews or not, so maybe this will be a good test!

We stayed at the festival for quite a while, and then the lightning began. No rain though!

We all headed home to clean up a little bit before going out to dinner and drinks somewhere in the Tower Grove area, I believe. I’m REALLY trying to figure out what all the neighborhoods are!

Sunday morning, I was up pretty early to go back to the spin studio to take another instructor’s class. I’m trying to drop in to a few classes to get a sense for the different instructor’s styles. It was a fantastic class, and I found myself working VERY hard! Lots of time in the saddle, which I tend to love.

After class, I went back to Starbucks for another chocolate smoothie. It’s the perfect thing after a workout, during that awkward 10:30am between meal times hour.

I actually felt like today was a day I was almost constantly eating. After dealing with my rental car stuff, I came home for what I guess I would call lunch? I kind of pieced together what I wanted+what I felt I needed. I had a little appetizer of spinach and cheese. Why not, right? Plus frozen grapes.

And then had a chocolate chunk flapjacked muffin. I’m a big fan of these, especially now that I discovered when you undercook them slightly, they taste like lava cake!

Then, a little later I had half of a big Bobo’s Oat bar, in Cinnamon Raisin.

I spent the afternoon doing little things around the house (like laundry) before deciding I should at least get out a little bit. I decided to grab my book and check out another coffee shop on my list. Today’s choice was Rise Coffee House in the Grove area.

It had a nice atmosphere. It had the feel of a good quality coffee shop, but less hipster than Blueprint.

Of course, I had my standard drink, a decaf cappuccino. I’m trying to stay consistent for my first pass through the list to be as objective as possible. Plus, that is by far my favorite drink!

The verdict? It was good! It was not quite as deep and complex of a flavor as Blueprint, but I could tell it was quality. I would say I liked Blueprint more, but if you want a less strong flavor, you might like this better!

Finally, it was time for dinner. I made an omelette with goat gouda, italian herbs, and spinach, and served it with sunbutter and jam on toast and a salad with goat cheese, craisins, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Other snacks for the night included a Yasso sea salt caramel bar, and one of these new Target finds, a chocolate chip granola bar. It’s simple, but delicious! For some reason, the flavor reminds me of a donut!

And that’s a wrap! I have a pretty active day planned tomorrow. I’m making my triumphant return to Crossfit post-busted hand (it’s definitely still quite limiting but I think the workout should be doable), and then in the evening I think I’m going to drop in on the spin class I will eventually be taking over!

What is your favorite ethnicity of food?

WIAW: #Bootlife Nostalgia

Date: August 16, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Today on the way to teaching spin at my undergrad campus, I listened to an album that I listened to a lot last spring. Immediately it took me back to all my boot workouts: grinding it out on the bike, learning new leg machines, endless dumbbell presses. I actually miss the boot in some strange way. Obviously, it’s nice not having a broken foot. But many good times were had in my boot. While wearing a giant boot with a broken foot was painful and made it hard to get around, I didn’t let it hold me back from doing anything I wanted to do and from enjoying my senior year. And not going to lie, I definitely felt super tough doing some of the things I did in a boot. I tried to make the most of it and have fun with it. Protip: if you go out and don’t want people to step on your broken foot, lighting up your boot works fabulously. The big silver lining of #bootlife was that I spent 2 months working on pull ups like a mad woman, and now I’m busting them out in workouts like it’s no big deal. (I did 50 kipping pull ups on Monday in sets of 5 the whole way!) Being optimistic is who I am; I may be sarcastic and pessimistic about humanity, but on a case by case basis I always look for the bright side.

But again, I think a lot of the good times that were had in the boot were because of the awesome people I was with. I’m missing my college friends like crazy now, and while I’m excited for a new opportunity in a new city, I’m sad I won’t see them every day. I think it’s finally getting real that I won’t be going back to Stanford this fall.

Sigh.

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(Featuring: Boot goes to the beach, boot goes win tasting in Napa, boot goes to the Giant’s game, boot goes to senior nights, boot goes to a Stanford baseball game, boot ‘graduates” from my sorority, and boot does murph.)

After that absurdly long introduction, let’s get into WIAW, shall we? Thanks as always to Jenn for starting the fun all those years ago.

WIAWbutton

For breakfast, I had a few crackers alongside a smoothie bowl. I recently bought Quest salted caramel protein powder, and so far I don’t hate it. I want to try it in waffles/pancakes at some point though!

In the blender went 1.33 bananas, milk, cocoa powder, and protein powder. I topped it with some KIND Raspberry granola.

I taught a noon spin class on campus. It was a class I made when I had a broken foot, and it was fun to actually be able to do the full class for real (I couldn’t stand before).

I had some business to attend to on campus, so I packed a lunch because I knew I would be hungry post-spin. I had a Trader Joe’s chicken, goat cheese, and beet salad, and a few crackers.

When I got back, I had snack part 1: a farmer’s market peach that was absolutely delicious.

Snack part 2 was a new purchase: a Flapjacked muffin. I saw these the other day and actually am not allergic to anything in them, so I was excited to try them out! Plus, given my physical activity for the day I knew I wanted plenty of protein, and these pack 20g in.

I overcooked it a tiny bit. When I originally took it out, it seemed too soft still so I added a few extra seconds and apparently that was too much. It was good though! The cinnamon chips were a good touch!

Before dinner, I attended a spin class. Normally I would never double up spin, but since it’s my last week and I had one spin credit left to a local studio, I wanted to go to one of my favorite teacher’s classes. It was a fun one! I always like her music.

For dinner, we had roasted corn and spaghetti squash mac and cheese.I haven’t had mac and cheese in forever so I was excited!

I love the idea of using spaghetti squash. Honestly, I’m not a huge pasta person. I’m all about the sauce! And who doesn’t love sneaking in extra veggies? This may be my favorite way to eat spaghetti squash thus far!

For dessert, I had my final 2 leftover grad cupcakes: chocolate with caramel frosting, and caramel with chocolate frosting.

A little while later, I had another snack. Because, hello, 2 spin classes, I needed the calories! Another thing I was super excited to try? Pumpkin spice cheerios! We finally found them! Yes, they are good. And I’m ready to dive headfirst into pumpkin. I was crazy into pumpkin a couple of years ago, but less recently. I think I’m due for another year of being crazy into pumpkin. And clearly I’m starting off strong with 2 pumpkin items in one day!

I also had a few milk chocolate chips to cap it off.

Have you had any pumpkin yet? What’s you favorite fall food?

I love pumpkin bread!