Email Stress?

Date: August 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Does anyone else feel that as we acquire more methods to communicate, communicating becomes more difficult? I feel like in the past few years, even since I started getting 1000 emails a day, it just becomes so much more difficult to send a basic email. With smart phones, we have the ability to check our email every 10 minutes, wherever we are. Which allows us plenty of time to ponder, over ponder, and ponder some more on the response. That’s currently what I feel! Can anyone relate?

My day this morning started with a difficult Crossfit workout, Diane. I saw this last night and thought, “That looks terrible.” I suppose I was slightly comforted when I realized that it was one of the girls, and that I’ve done it a couple of times before. If I survived it before, I could do it again, right? The workout is:

5 rounds

400m run

30 box jumps (20″)

30 wall balls (14#)

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how my foot would hold up with all the box jumps. I only starting jumping to 20 inches a few weeks ago. I planned to do step ups or stop if it was bothering me, but it ended up being just fine! Somehow I managed to beat my best time by a whopping 7 seconds. Hey, I’ll take it!

I think the hot temperatures in Tennessee were responsible for my yogurt hiatus. For some reason, when it gets hot I never want it! However, it was 65 degrees today. (Brr!) So, I’m back on the yogurt train. I’ve been making yogurt bowls with cinnamon KIND granola and sunbutter, and having fresh fruit on the side. Today’s fruit of choice was an amazing nectarine from my roommate, and the world’s largest cherries.

The big event today was taking Chloe to the vet for her annual check up. She was particularly on edge today, I think in part because she tore up her paw pads running yesterday and was a bit painful.

I really enjoy going to her appointments, now that I have seen a lot more of the clinical side of veterinary medicine.

I’m still going strong with the Pinterest recipes. For dinner the previous night, we made zucchini corn chowder, so I had leftovers for lunch with avocado toast.

Plus more giant cherries.

I liked this recipe a lot, but we did make a few modifications. We used skim milk instead of half and half, and it was plenty thick and creamy. I also threw some grilled chicken in instead of bacon. I loved the added zucchini; it made this soup feel even more like summer!

This evening, I taught another spin class back at school. It does feel strange going back, knowing I won’t be returning in the fall. I can’t decide if I feel like I should be going back, or if I feel like I’ve moved on to the next thing. Either way, as always, teaching was a blast. I played a little bit of playlist roulette today though. I chose an old playlist based on the songs it contained, but left the choreography as a surprise. It turned out to be a fun one—we did some watts testing, which is a lot less complicated and formal than it sounds. Watts are a measure of the power, which is a function of the speed and resistance. For watts testing, we basically do short sprints, trying to get the watts as high as possible.

Dinner was another Pinterest win. This one was on my radar for quite a while, and when we had extra butternut squash lying around, I decided it was time!

This is a crispy kale autumn salad with brie grilled cheese croutons. Recipe here. This was a fun one, and unlike any salad I’ve had before. The base is kale, roasted until crispy with parmesan. Honestly, I could have eaten a bowl of just the kale. In the mix are spiced and roasted butternut squash and apple, and spiced pepitas. It is drizzled with a reduced apple cider dressing, and topped with brie filled croutons. My mom actually made this and said it was a bit labor intensive. A couple modifications that could be made to make this easier would be for one, skip the dressing. The salad had so much flavor without it, and I barely put any on. The spiced pepitas were fun, but store-bought roasted pumpkin seeds would have been a fine substitute. Also, I made my croutons by throwing my brie filled bread in the oven, instead of in a pan to cut down on the fat content a bit. Overall though, it was a bit hit in our house!

The cayenne in this recipe had me hankering for something cool to end with.

I’m currently fully on board the Halo Top train, and tried the mint chip for the first time today. It’s GOOD. I made a little sundae by thawing a little bit of plain GF chocolate cake from the freezer (left over from our grad party), and topping it with a serving of mint chip and half a serving of chocolate Halo Top. YUM.

That’s all I have tonight—off to more emails!

Did I Mention Our Chef is Awesome?

Date: October 5, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone’s week is off to a good start! I’m currently feeling pretty darn good!

Yesterday, I spent the day slaving over a problem set and after office hours that night, I decided to drop the class. It’s not a major requirement but it is a vet school requirement to take a semester of Biochem. Since that means 2 quarters for me, I decided I will do it off campus a different quarter. Naturally, this meant reworking my schedule for this quarter and the next 2, but now I have some awesome classes to look forward to!

Meanwhile, as my health improves, I am more able to make the most out of my dining situation-I live in a house with a chef 5 days a week, and he’s freaking awesome. I don’t think there’s a cuisine he hasn’t mastered.

For starters, there is an awesome salad bar for lunch and dinner which is always a solid option.

Fresh falafel, greek salad with feta, and hummus.

Salad, vegetarian meat loaf, brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes.

My typical breakfast consists of plain yogurt, banana, and sunflower seed butter.

The most popular lunch-Tuscan lunch. It’s a fancy cheese spread with caprese salad, deviled eggs, stuffed tomatoes, avocado, and fresh bread.

Fresh vegetarian sandwich with avocado (I ate the insides), spinach salad, quinoa salad, and corn chowder.

In other life news, I did my 9 mile half marathon training run. Tapering= <3. I just didn’t get it done yesterday so I squeezed it in after class today. I did some nice hills, and the run was uneventful, which seems to be a good thing for a training run. The running route was nothing interesting though, I will say. Sometimes you just have to get it done. THEN, this evening I taught a spin class. I’m LOVING teaching on campus! Needless to say I’ve been scarfing down food all day. Next up for the evening is my slow pitch softball game! While my shoulder is far from 100%, I’m just grateful I can swing a bat!

What’s New?

Date: March 27, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! First I’m going to cover our final day briefly and then talk about some life updates.

We started the morning with the continental breakfast again, and then I headed out to run. I technically had 6 miles on the schedule, but had trouble finding a trail so I decided to settle for 5. But then the trail ended earlier than expected and it ended up being 4.5. I’m realizing I’m not taking this training cycle or race too seriously so I’m ok with it. We found a bike path that went near the square and through vineyards.

Then, we went to Cornerstone Gardens for lunch.

Asian chicken salad with mango for me. For dessert, my family split a balsamic strawberry parfait and a strawberry torta, which was warm cake with strawberries baked in the center.

Then, we walked around the gardens a bit.

This picture shows a really cool display-a wishing tree. People write wishes on sparkly tape and tie it to the tree.

After the gardens, we returned home.

Ok-onto the life news. After being sick a fair amount last quarter, I thought I was better, or at least mostly so. However, I had another incident of the really sick feeling Monday night. I was planning on going to Crossfit, but halfway there I turned around and decided I wasn’t up to it, which I was extremely bummed about. If I had to guess, rich cake combined with my long run set it off. I spent the next few days feeling yucky on and off. It’s partly why I shorted my runs. It’s not a consistent sick feeling, but it’s kind of unpredictable. I feel pretty good right now, and I’m REALLY hoping I’ll be ok to do 15.5 tonight, but I really won’t know until tonight. After a rough evening Wednesday, I decided I should return to the doctor. He thinks it may be diet related, so I get to go on an elimination diet to try and identify a common trigger. The three things to cut out are dairy, gluten, and nuts, and I’ll add them back in a week at a time (minus nuts because of my allergy). As a result, things may look a little different around here for a while. I’ve been mostly avoiding dairy although definitely not completely lately, and I need to be more careful with nuts, including coconut which I have a mild allergy to but usually don’t avoid. So I’ll keep you guys updated on that and hope something works so that I can be back to 100% soon!

A foot update-today I visited my dad’s physical therapist so that he could check out my foot (plantar fasciitis). He thinks I shouldn’t run so much, and I’m considering cutting back for a while. I know I want to do the Giant’s Race in August, but I would consider doing the 10k instead of the half and focusing on other things instead-more on that in a second. He told me that my calf on my bad foot is pretty weak, and I walk badly on that foot-one of those things has caused the other so that’s something else I need to work on.

In terms of happier news, I will probably be focusing on spin a lot more in the coming months! I think I will be teaching more regularly at the gym I sub at, but in addition, I got hired at another place to sub! I’m extremely excited about this because it is the gym that I’ve always gone to, that I took my first spin class at, and that I learned to love fitness at. It’s a chain gym, and I always felt that if I was teaching there, I’ve met my spin teaching dream. Ahhh! Additionally, I still need continuing education units in the next year, so I see lots of workshops in my future!

What’s up with you?

Fed Up

Date: November 7, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I just finished rewatching the movie Fed Up. That movie is amazing-I think it is something everyone needs to see. It’s about the food industry and the obesity epidemic. One of the biggest things I really think was important was the discussion of our food environment. Junk food is everywhere we look. We are actively fighting to eat healthily. Given how addictive these foods are, this basically gives us no chance. (One study they brought up was roughly the following: mice were dosed cocaine until they became addicted. Then, they were given access to either sugar water or cocaine. 40/43 chose the sugar water. The COCAINE ADDICTED MICE chose SUGAR over COCAINE.) I wrote a research paper last spring on drug addiction, and I really examined the pathways of addiction. Half of addiction is dependent on environmental cues (for those interested, the glutamatergic pathway). How are people supposed to fight biochemistry? I definitely fall prey to my environment. And it’s not like you can just avoid the real world!

Ok, enough ranting for now. Today included a couple of things:

1. A timed mile

2. An “I don’t know what I want to do with my life” crisis

3. COFFEE

I went to the track first thing this morning for a timed mile. It’s been over a year since I did one. I also have done very little speed work lately, so there’s that. I was expecting it to feel terrible but it wasn’t too bad. Not as fast as I would have liked, but I’m also sore today (what’s new) so who knows how it would have gone. It’s fine though-a good starting point!

I was going to do a track workout, but my legs weren’t feeling it after the mile so I did a couple of laps of cool down and a few sprints.

Then, COFFEE. Track workouts mean a trip to my favorite coffee place I never go, since it’s on the way back! This cappuccino was amazing.

Then, breakfast was in the dining hall-banana pancakes with a bit of butter, eggs, and grapes.

Today I did something different-I spent my day phone less. It was exhilarating. Or maybe that was the caffeine…I was way more productive, although also somewhat lost. I was convinced it was a Wednesday…

Lunch was same old-same old. Grilled chicken with Greek seasoning from home last weekend, sage mashed sweet potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

After class today, I FINALLY got a haircut. My ends have been driving me crazy for far too long. Beforehand, I had some roasted carrots, a spoon of sunflower seed butter, and earlier a granola bar in class.

This is sort of embarrassing-after my haircut I DROVE to the gym. On campus. But I was already in my car, and I went to the far gym so…

I had to go though to practice my spin class one last time before tomorrow morning! It went really well, and I’m feeling pumped about my playlist!

Dinner back in my room was more wraps. One with salsa this time though, which was delicious! I just need some avocado now!

On the side, I had some sweet potato tortilla chips and persimmon.

And WHEW, now I’m ready for bed! I will say though, that movie really makes me want to cut out some more processed food!

Feelings on the food industry?

Multitasking and I’m Finally Doing It!

Date: October 2, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello everyone! I wasn’t exactly planning on posting, but this day has become more post-able so here I am.

My alarm went off this morning…freaking too early. 4.5 hours of sleep after a 5 hour of sleep night is just not enough. But that’s temporary. I headed to the gym for a lifting session. It was supposed to be entirely leg day (my Leg Demolisher workout, but I didn’t have a bar to use for overhead squats, so instead I made myself a little pull up WOD. Before that, I tested with the pull up machine how little resistance I could use and still be able to perform the exercise. GUYS. I’m only 25 pounds away from being able to do a real live pull up! Anyways, the WOD was 15-12-9 pull ups and box jumps. Short and sweet.

I also added on some planks. I’ve definitely neglected ab work lately, and after power yoga tonight as well, I can already feel it.

After my workout, my sleep deprivation started to catch up to me, so I went to the dining hall for breakfast for the first time this year for some quick coffee.

Life saver. Except not because either dining hall coffee isn’t very strong or I’m just used to my beloved cappuccinos. I was very tired today, and we’ll leave it at that. Here are some other morning eats.

Dining hall fruit. Not too shabby!

Casually stealing eggs from the dining hall in a glass…That’s totally normal…

I really tried to rally after finishing the days classes to go to the lab, but the banana was just not going to be a substitute for sleep. I decided I wouldn’t be able to do good work anyways so I returned to my dorm for a glorious, glorious nap.

After my nap, I made a half asleep decision to have a snack of pumpkin cream cheese and pumpkin butter on crackers. I say half asleep because I could not for the life of me remember making that decision…but hey, it was a delicious one! Aaaand let’s just say the pumpkin cream cheese may kinda sorta be gone already.

I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing this week’s problem sets (yay!) and skipping my run because I napped for so long. I’m fine with this-my original plan was 3x a week, so the 4th run is icing.

Chicken, balsamic salad, and root vegetables that tasted how horses smell. But maybe I’m just not a root vegetable person.

Baby dessert-muesli with a little grape jelly and almond milk-so happy the dining hall has almond milk this year! The whole “only pumpkin desserts” thing? Well…

They brought gourmet ice cream sandwiches to our house meeting…And once again, the free foods wins. Which is partly why I’m still awake.

Before the house meeting, I spent a ton of time on iTunes browsing new spin music. Did you know there was a genre called “hardcore dance”? Interesting…Well, I made a class for myself to do sometime this week. Which leads to the multitasking. I decided to listen to the playlist to get a feel for it while doing laundry (yes, it’s 11pm). I desperately needed to do laundry-I have no clothes left (specifically workout clothes) plus my sorority has a mixer on Friday and I won’t have any time on Friday to do it then. I decided to do half a load tonight and half a load tomorrow. So I’m currently doing laundry, blogging, and checking up on my playlist.

Also-I was stupid enough to throw all my clothes in the dryer and press start…before realizing it was the dryer and not the washer. Yes, it’s been that long since I’ve done laundry.

And after all this spin talk, guess what??

I finally registered for spin certification training! So, I’m actually doing it-I’m going to teach spin! The class is 9am-6pm. I’m HOPING we’re not on the bike for the whole time….

That’s all I have today! My laundry calls!