The Craziest Week of Vet School

Date: December 3, 2017

Author: astottler

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!

WIAW-A New Quarter

Date: January 7, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

WHEW, happy Wednesday! Can you believe it’s only Wednesday? (Well, tomorrow for me-I’m typing this up Tuesday night.) I’ve been saving up the last couple of days of food photos for…What I Ate Wednesday! Thanks as always to Jenn for helping us celebrate our new favorite day of the week!

Let’s start with my last meal at home-vegetable soup with cornbread!

Does anyone else eat their cornbread with honey? So good!

On Monday, I started my “meal plan.” Just to clarify, but “meal plan,” I really mean meal planning. It’s not so much only eating certain foods as it is getting into a routine and making my meals the night before, so when I running out the door with a minute before class starts, I have something good to grab!

After Monday’s Spin+Run, I wasn’t super hungry but knew I needed fuel and would be super hungry later in the day if I didn’t force myself to eat a decent amount. Here is a giant bowl of overnight oats-I used Julie‘s recipe, which is 3/4 c oats (which happens to be one packet of instant), 1/2 c unsweetened vanilla almond milk, a tablespoon of chia seeds, and a container of yogurt. For this particular meal, I used mango chobani.

After my one class on Monday, I ate my packed lunch in the sunshine (sorry East Coasters)-prepared over the weekend at home. Greek seasoned chicken, sage-brown butter mashed yams, and Garlic Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

This was perfect-it’s great to have well seasoned food at school!

For a pre workout snack, I ate some dried persimmons, made and brought to me by my wonderful roommate.

I also had a slice of chocolate chip banana bread, another item prepared over break.

For my new quarter eating schedule, I’m a little unsure of whether or not I should eat snacks. I know it’s totally counterintuitive to most people to skip snacks, but more often than not, snacks mess up my stomach really badly-it doesn’t seem to matter what the snack is! A few minutes after Monday’s snack, my stomach was twisted in knots.

But I guess it’s really hit or miss-on Tuesday I had 2 snacks without issue, and was hungry enough that I felt they were the right decision. Our bodies our so complicated!

Monday night, I also had my first dining hall meal of the quarter. It wasn’t a bad one-they had 2 different types of brussels sprouts!

Besides brussels sprouts, I stuck to my basic formula of a carbohydrate and a protein-brown rice and cod.

And for dessert, I threw half a chocolate chip cookie dough Quest bar in the microwave.

This is kind of ironic given I recently purchased a couple of Quest bars for after dinner treats (because yay chocolate!), but today I found this article. It talks about the nutritional merits of Quest bars. I don’t really know what to think of them. I’m sort of against them because a)I don’t like the taste of stevia and b) they sometimes give me stomach aches. But sometimes I crave them. I guess what bothers me is that they are touted as a super natural protein bar, yet I have never heard of half the ingredients, and would never be able to buy half the raw ingredients in a store. But who knows. I’m also a little suspicious of stevia, just because there has been so little research on it. But I don’t know-to each his own!

Tuesday morning I was up bright and early-I had to be at the gym at 7 to train the school quidditch team! I’m leading weight training for them, and today was the first day. It went really well-even those who hadn’t lifted before had good form by the end! And I’m pretty sure they’ll ~~hate me~~ be sore tomorrow…We broke the training up into 2 days, so I have the other half of the team Wednesday morning. I never realized how much I love teaching something I’m super knowledgable about! And I can’t wait to see everyone get stronger.

We allotted a full 2 hours for the first session so we wouldn’t be rushed, but it only took 1:15, so I had plenty of time to grab coffee and eat my packed breakfast before class.

First cappuccino of the quarter!

Same overnight oats as on Monday.

I didn’t exactly need coffee today, except for the fact that I had over 2 hours straight of Organic Chemistry today-Tuesdays are rough because of this! However, I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting through them because the first class of the day is Human Nutrition! Today, I sat in class with the biggest smile on my face. I love learning and doing things I’m passionate about. Leading weights+Nutrition class? How could I go wrong?

Lunch was also a repeat of yesterday, eaten in class.

Note to self-next time pre cut the chicken if eating in class. Don’t attempt to eat with only a fork…

After class I went to read Bio in a little cafe and grabbed a snack-it wasn’t my first choice but it did the job!

Since my car was still in the shop, I had to bike to Crossfit today. It gave me time to reflect-and I realized, I’m in such a good place in my life right now. I’m happy. I’m doing things I’m passionate about. I love teaching weight lifting. I absolutely cannot weight to teach Spin-my playlist is ready to go! I love the fitness industry, and I love Nutrition. I’m branching out and trying new things this quarter-Mariachi band? What?

I feel like I have so many opportunities right now-I’m going to talk to my Nutrition professor about different careers in the field-I don’t particularly want to be a Nutritionist, and I would probably prefer something on the research side of things. I’m considering signing up for a conference in San Francisco about the obesity epidemic-one of my favorite scientists ever, Robert Lustig, is going to be there. (Yes, I know I’m a nerd for having a favorite scientist!) Also, my friend in my sorority asked me if I could lead some type of fitness-y event for our winter recruitment, like yoga or spin (my suggestion). I’m planning on gathering a some friends and hopefully some of the quidditch team, who I sort of have control over now, to practice teaching a spin class to real live people!

Another new thing? I went to the weight lifting class at my Crossfit gym. The weight lifting class isn’t exactly an add-on-it’s its own program. I love Olympic Lifting, and I just don’t get enough opportunity to work on it in Crossfit, especially this particular box.

I forgot how much energy Olympic Lifting takes! I didn’t even lift that heavy, but each rep really takes it out of you! It’s also mentally exhausting. Oh, and it lasted an hour and 45 minutes. I was doing snatches and clean and jerks for 105 minutes straight. My body just kind of felt numb afterwards. Not exactly tired, not out of breath, not necessarily burning muscles, but without energy. I don’t even want to think about how many squats were involved today. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any significant amount of Olympic lifting!

Oh, and I may have agreed to do a weight lifting competition. (Not a Crossfit competition, Olympic lifting!) It’s in February, but at this point in my life I feel a little unprepared. In the last year and a half, my technique has faltered a bit, but I’ve gotten stronger, so when I nail down technique, that should be awesome, right??

On that note, I was craving protein like crazy when I returned to campus. Specifically, MEAT. It’s interesting how our bodies know exactly what they need! This may be kind of strange, but when I eat less sugar, I tend to crave meat more. But I’ll roll with it!

Greek salad, some not super excitingly cooked kabocha squash, a few brussels, and MEAT-chicken with ketchup. Lots of meat. It was heaven.

After dinner, I finished the other half of my Quest bar from the previous day, as well as the last of my double chocolate banana bread.

A couple of days ago, I started tracking my food intake on My Fitness Pal, more for interest than anything else! It’s cool to see the ration of carbs to fats to proteins-my protein ration was pretty low, so I guess it was no wonder I was craving it! What drives me crazy though is the sugar count. I really wish it was divided into added sugars and natural sugars. There is a BIG different between lactose sugar and high fructose corn syrup! I also don’t understand how my sugar consumption was insanely high today, especially compared to yesterday, when I ate basically the same thing both days? I’m not reading too much into it though-I feel really good, likely thanks to balanced meals and more veggies in my life!

That’s all I have today! I swear this post would have been insanely upbeat BEFORE the lifting drained my energy!

Tomorrow morning, I am training quidditch again and then will do another run through of my spin audition playlist. AHHHH can’t wait! So much excite happening right now!

What exciting things do you have in your future?

MIMM-Celebrating the Holidays

Date: December 23, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Monday! Thanks to Katie for hosting this MARVELOUS link up every week!

I have a lot to tell you guys about! But first-who’s enjoying the holidays?? I know I am!

Saturday morning began with a nice long run. I did 10 miles- I can’t remember the last time I did a long run! It was nice to run back by the bay.

It was surprising to see the hill I run by that was brown all summer be green!

The first half of the run was much faster than the second-at the halfway point, my achilles tendon starting hurting quite a bit. Plus, it’s been a while since I’ve done any long distance running! I also tried salted caramel gu for the first time! It was so good! I would definitely recommend it-but it was not great for me personally-I’m not sure if it’s because my allergies have been bad lately, but I absolutely could not eat it without a coughing fit. I think I have issues with thinner goos-my normal chocolate is pretty thick and maybe not so sugary?

Another issue I had with my run was getting too hungry. I had a slightly smaller than usual pre-run breakfast, plus I didn’t get out of the house as quickly as I had hoped, so I totally ran out of gas by the end of the run.

My post run meal was a beautiful salad with avocado and whole wheat macaroni and cheese.

Later that evening, my best friends from high school came over for our annual cookie decorating tradition.

I made a basic sugar cookie recipe, but this time I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for while flour. The flavor was a tiny bit different but I didn’t mind, and I definitely felt less gross after eating them.

I think we did an especially nice job decorating this year-maybe because I spent so long on my annual #1 turkey, and my friends are much more artistic than me.

One thing I want to touch on is balance. I know I’ve talked about it so much already, but I want to go a little more in depth. First of all, despite posting pictures of tons of delicious desserts, I promise I’m still eating my veggies! They just never seem to make it to the blog this time of year! Second-if you want to eat mass quantities of cookies and still feel great, long runs are awesome-my body just burned through those cookies and I woke up feeling great the next morning!

There are so many articles constantly in your face about “avoiding the holiday weight gain” and “stay healthy over the holidays.” As someone who normally gains a ton of weight between Christmas and New Year’s, I have my own set of tips for you, because for me, this year has been different. Want to avoid the holiday fluff? The best way is to just not worry about it! Don’t deprive yourself, and eat what you want to. That’s what I’m doing this year, and I haven’t gained an ounce. Why? Because if you constantly are worried about gaining weight, food will carry so much stress. I will freely admit I had a couple of sugar induced meltdowns last year-and I could barely enjoy the season! But now that I’m not trying to restrain myself from sweets? I’m finding myself eating fewer, getting more enjoyment out of them, and feeling awesome.

And you know what? When you stop trying so hard-you put less weight on your food choices. At least for me-I’ve been able to enjoy the holidays much more. I ate a ton of cookies with my friends. But I didn’t feel bad. I enjoyed the cookies and had a great times with amazing people-I wasn’t blindly eating them out of some built up craving. I enjoyed every single bite.

And while you’re at it, try to focus on the most important things-family, cats, friends, traditions. I think many people would be surprised to find that food gets a lot less significant.

But let’s get back to friends. Check out what one of my friends gave me!

Twins!

For breakfast in the morning, my mom made blueberry scones, which I paired with scrambled eggs and tea.

We took the train up to the city, and must have all been a little tired because we missed our stop by two stops-luckily it was easy to get back on!

Either way, we all were ready for some caffeine upon arriving in San Francisco.

Visiting the shelter cats at Macy’s was a must. There were 3 that looked like Charlie!

And of course we needed a picture by the tree.

The only bad thing about running 10 miles before spending a day walking around the city and a mall? My feet hated me, and were hurting SO much. It was not good.

Lunch was a giant salad with chicken, avocado, and bleu cheese.

And a late afternoon pick me up, split between the three of us.

Since the sundae was more or less at dinner time, I only had a small serving of chili when I returned home. My mom even threw some kale in the chili-so proud of her!

In other news, the Crossfit WOD this morning was 12 days of Christmas-a different exercise for each day, and then the workout goes through as the song goes. It was brutal and much harder than I was expecting-a lot more cardio too! I didn’t end up finishing under the time cap of 32 minutes!

Then, I went straight down to my school gym to ~~torture~~ take my sister and her boyfriend through a weights workout. I may have mentioned this before, but my sister wants me to teach weight training to the school quidditch team in exchange for fresh green juice, so today I tested out the workout. I’m glad I tested it out because we had to make some modifications, but it was so much fun! It made me realize how knowledgable I’ve become about weight lifting. They are going to be sore tomorrow! And her boyfriend is crazy athletic-when they ran a marathon together, he wasn’t even sore the next day! So if 26.1 miles won’t do it but I can, that’s an accomplishment!

And they did deliver on their promise:

Have a great holiday everyone!

What is most important to you this time of year?

Owww

Date: April 4, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Remember how I said I reduced my squat workout so I could walk today? SO glad I did. I started getting sore last night. On tap for the morning was a run. I ran the campus loop, which is between 3.5 and 4 miles, more than I’ve run since my illness by a long ways. I was super worried about blistering, given the fact that I had some after my first run back which was only 2 miles, but luckily, I was saved by the socks! I got these news running socks that are supposed to prevent blistering, and they worked like magic!After my run, I went to breakfast in the dining hall for the first time in a looong while. I figured, why not try their yogurt??Plain yogurt (vanilla is better but at least I don’t have to worry about sugar content!) with frozen blueberries and sunflower butter, which I brought myself. Yes, I’m that cool. I carry around a jar of sunflower butter. Plus potatoes on the side and a sample of chicken. I forgot about this new thing my dining hall has been doing in the morning recently. They have some kind of non-traditional, usually ethnic dish. This often includes some type of meat, rice, and beans. Today was Asian style chicken so I decided to try a piece. Not bad, although I’m still not sure what I think about having that for breakfast….

Anyways, back to the title of this post….I was sore this morning. No surprise there. But not THAT bad. I did my run. It felt ok. I could tell after my run though that the soreness was going to get worse. The worst is getting up and walking around after sitting in class for an hour. Oof. Nothing wrong with walking like a zombie for a few steps until my legs loosen up, right??

I was worried I’d be too sore for yoga! I felt better by the end of the day. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about soreness. I actually really like it (sort of). I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything with my workout if I’m not sore. This way of thinking is mostly derived from my love of weight lifting. My absolute favorite type of soreness is ab soreness. I don’t have a ton of great exercises to achieve this, at least when my core was stronger before I got sick.

Before I started lifting, my dad tried to describe to me how weight lifting soreness is different than soreness from other things. And it really is. It’s somehow deeper. It feels bruisier, and loosening up or rolling out doesn’t help all that much. Have you guys ever been so sore that you can’t stand rolling out because it is so painful? That is weight lifting soreness right there. I seriously miss my lifting sessions with my trainer (I was getting stronger for softball). I can never do quite as well on my own; at pushing myself, lifting as heavy, and making my own workouts. I mean, part of the lifting heavier weights is I am so self conscious about dropping weights when I am on my own (plus some things like squats are tough if you fail). It is so loud! Somehow it seemed fine when I was with my trainer, and I failed lifts all the time, but now I never go as heavy as I think will cause me to fail. I also miss the superior equipment I used with y trainer. He had access to bands, bumpers, and other fun stuff. Plus my school gym doesn’t even have kettlebells! I’m pretty sure the workouts I was doing were pretty similar to Crossfit, which is why I am dying to try it (how many times have I said this??).

Back on the topic of soreness. Funny story…over the summer I got my wisdom teeth out. I knew ahead of time that I wouldn’t be allowed to exercise for 10 days following the surgery. So what did I do? I lifted the day before to get maximumly sore so I would be sore for as long as possible while I was stuck in bed with chipmunk cheeks. And then I went to abs class the morning of, which kind of stunk because i wasn’t allowed to drink anything. Sidenote: If you have just gotten your wisdom teeth out, or for any reason are physically unable to chew, do not, I repeat, DO NOT watch Cupcake Wars on Food Network. BAD IDEA. I HAD to make chocolate pudding cake after that, which was basically liquidy chocolate cake, and was still super painful to eat but so, so worth it. Getting my wisdom teeth out was not terribly fun. I remember how much I missed salad. I couldn’t eat it for the longest time, and I ended up losing like 2 stitches to salad. Also, I was out for the surgery, and afterwards, I sent a beautiful picture of my puffy face to someone. But once the drowsiness wore off, I had no idea who I sent it to. Whoops. But for your amusement, here is said photo:

Wow, I am totally off topic…Let’s move on to lunch, shall we? I didn’t have a ton of time, and I didn’t want to wait in a long line. And I didn’t want something big or heavy. After walking around from place to place for like 5 minutes, and convincing myself I should get some veggies and not just yogurt, I settled on a Greek style wrap. I unwrapped it and ate the insides out, with a few bites of tortilla. And I resisted the urge to get dessert or a muffin. Yay!

Back at my dorm after class I had half a granola bar and 2 small mangos. Only 1 left 🙁 But they were getting a tad brown inside, hence why I ate 2 today. I CANNOT let these guys go bad!

Tonight was another yoga class. I have another few on tap for the next couple of nights. Loving this schedule! After yoga I headed straight to dinner to meet some of my novice crew friends from the fall! I love those guys! And I was excited to go somewhere different to eat. I’m too scared to go there by myself! They have guacamole. Every. Single. Day.Burrito bowl! It was so great to catch up with those guys! I think we need to make these dinners a weekly thing.

Soo update on Operation: Get Healthy? Eh. My workouts have been on target. Food? Room for improvement. I’m worried I’m not getting in enough veggies. I’m becoming addicted to sunflower butter, which is a problem because a) I don’t want to burn through my supply and b) I don’t want to cause some allergy from going crazy with it like I may have done with peanut butter (not sure if that’s a valid statement). I also haven’t been strict enough avoiding sweets. I’ve been pretty good about reducing my grain intake, but I faced some problems at dinner today when I reached for lemon merengue pie, and later some cereal. This left me with fierce sugar cravings. I had some yogurt and sunflower butter a little later, and even later a few small pieces of chocolate and some granola bar. When I got back to my room around 9, it was all I could do to keep from eating everything in my room. Reason #10000 why I don’t keep much in the way of sweets in my room. Soo I’m going to seriously focus on avoiding sugar, and grains as much as possible (I might need something to go into my yogurt to make it super amazing). I am going to try to increase my fruit and veggie intake, which should be interesting given that all I have in my room is half a bag of lettuce, 4 small celery sticks, 1 small mango, and a couple of oranges. I may hit up the grocery this weekend for some awesome produce. Anyways, I thin I need to really focus on myself for a few days, so I most likely won’t post for a few days, or read other blogs. I need to immerse myself in what I am doing, at least for a tiny bit. I should be back sometime this weekend, don’t worry!

A few last notes: not sure what tomorrow’s workout will be yet. My schedule works out perfectly to do a track workout, and I want to do a timed mile this week to see where I am at. My best mile time is like 6:55 or something but that was a few years ago and I haven’t done anything like that since. Plus I’ve been sick. When I timed a 2 mile jog, my better of teh 2 miles was like 9:30, but I wasn’t really pushing it and I’m better off than I was then. I think I’ll be happy with anything under 9 minutes for now. I thought this would be a good way to track my progress. HOWEVER. Tomorrow there is 90% chance of rain, which basically means it will definitely rain, so I think I’ll lift. I originally was feeling too sore for that but I think I’ll be good to go now.

Lastly, new week I’m rushing. I’m not sure I’ll necessarily join a sorority, but it should at least be a fun experience. Any advice from the sorority girls out there?

Were you/are you involved in Greek life?

Catching Up

Date: February 5, 2013

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Guys, I am SO SORRY I haven’t posted in such a long time! I was pretty busy this weekend! Juggling rowing and school is…difficult. But I think I’m getting better at managing everything. How have you all been? Any good eats? I guess today will just be another flood of pictures. I definitely haven’t documented everything I’ve eaten. Especially not the sweet things…He he…

Ok, here it goes!

Veggie chili! Plus I love that the dining hall has had soybeans lately!

Mushroom barley soup from Whole Foods

Banana with cocoa powder and peanut butter 🙂

Brunch= best meal of the week. Gotta love that avocado! Plus now they have crepes…those seem to have gone unpictured…both days.

One of my first times getting pasta (it’s not whole wheat so it usually isn’t a priority for me). I mostly picked the chicken out and ate it with my salad though!

I have to add, this day also included some very delicious pumpkin cake made by my roommate.

I LOVE BISCUITS. It’s dangerous. And they’re so cute, right? By the way, peanut butter update! The dining hall now has natural peanut butter! So I don’t have to carry my own around!

Super Bowl food! But not really…GAH such a frustrating game though!

And that brings us back to today! I have to be honest…I’ve been indulging quite a bit since I stopped my no sugar challenge. Cereal with chocolate milk and peanut butter is a big one for me…plus some cookies, some frozen yogurt…and of course my roommate’s cake! But hey, it was hot out of the oven! Before I recap on today, I’ll go through a few non-food things from the last few days.

Friday morning was weights. We did single leg RDLs as well as regular RDLs, but we actually did the regular ones at a decent weight. Here’s the thing about RDLs. My hamstrings are ALWAYS sore after doing them, no matter how many or few reps, or how much or little weight is on the bar. It’s Monday. I’m still fairly sore. And here’s the thing. My bed is at a kind of awkward height, because my dresser is under my bed. So normally to get in bed I have to get a nice little running start and jump in. Sooo with tight hamstrings? Let’s just say I haven’t always been clearing it lately!

Saturday morning practice was actually really fun. I got to row with some of the other walk-ons who went to the lightweight rowing team. I also had my other coach from fall coach us. I think I would be happier on the lightweight team, just because I like their workouts better and I wouldn’t be the shortest one…Oh well. Maybe next year.

Later Saturday afternoon, I lifted weights on my own, and did one of my no-fail workouts from the fall. This workout I did a couple of times with my trainer before I left for college, but last fall I did it like…every other week. At the beginning, I would be sooo sore, but I did it enough that by the end of fall I wasn’t sore at all. Here it is:

I always write my workouts on whiteboards, and then take a picture and set it as my phone background. What’s nice about doing this workout a lot, is that it is already on my phone, and I have already made adjustments to it to accommodate the weight room at the gym here better.

I was expecting to be fairly weak on the squats, and therefore be super sore from them. But this workout surprised me! My legs weren’t too bad. I’m sore, but not terribly so. What shocked me most though was that the pushups destroyed my arms! These aren’t ordinary pushups. You keep your elbows at your sides and slowly lower your chest to the ground, and then back up. I usually have to come back up on my knees after a few reps. My arms were dead! And now, so sore! That was a surprise!

So how many of you watched the Super Bowl? I sure did! After a bit of stress over how to turn the TV on downstairs, I got it going just in time for kickoff! I must say, I wasn’t impressed by the commercials. I liked the Oreo one, and the one with all the adorable baby animals. Some of them were just plain weird though.

Ok, now that I’m caught up, on to today!

Weights this morning, so Blueberry Apple Cinnamon bread beforehand!

I still haven’t come close to my maximum weight for squats, but I’m always scared to go too heavy in new situations. I’m still up there with most of the girls though. I don’t know why, but I haven’t squatted the same weights as the strongest girls on the team, even though I know I could handle it.

I went for a quick jog afterwards. As in maybe 1.5 miles. I had wanted to do more, but I had some last minute work to do. Breakfast was a new one for me.

So, my nutrition professor from last quarter (whose class I sat in last Thursday) told us that this was the healthiest breakfast ever. Although the walnuts are my touch. So what the heck is that?? Raw instant steel cut oats, nonfat plain greek yogurt, and semi-thawed blueberries. My evaluation? I could have done without the oats. I really don’t like textures in my yogurt (flaxseed in yogurt is the worst), so this wasn’t great for me. I’ve learned to like granola in yogurt though, so maybe I could try baking up the steel cut oats with brown rice syrup or something and making it into granola. The idea behind raw steel cut oats is that they digest more slowly.

Ok guys, I have some big(ish) news. I had a great/horrible revelation after breakfast. I think I may have a nut allergy. What?? Let me explain. My friend has a nut allergy that causes her face to break out when she eats too many nuts. She was texting me today saying that her face was breaking out because she ate too many nuts. So here’s the thing. I’ve never had skin problems hardly at all before, and then in the middle of the summer, my face started breaking out like crazy. I really thought it was an allergic reaction, and I had a feeling it was to nuts, but I couldn’t figure out what nut, because I wasn’t eating any new type of nut. It finally occurred to me today that where I went wrong was in looking at the type of nut, not the quantity! Whenever I would cut a certain nut out of my diet, I would simply replace it with another type of nut. And the timing makes sense. I started eating more nuts than ever before this summer, and let’s be honest, I eat a crazy amount of peanut butter. Sooo I need to severely reduce my nut intake. So for the next couple of weeks, I can’t have more than a serving of nuts per day, because I need to test this out. So why is this partially good? Because it means there is hope for my skin to be normal again! Which is super exciting! I was telling this story to my friend, and she told me, “Aww you won’t be peanut butter girl anymore (referring to my habit of bringing peanut butter to the dining hall).” I told her, “No, I’ll just be less peanut butter girl!”

So that is where I stand. I need to monitor my nut intake carefully.

Guess what everyone? I have to learn several dances for crew. Which would not be a big deal if I had any coordination or ability to dance at all. However, I have no coordination or ability to dance at all. And here’s the thing. I actually have to be good because I have to preform this in front of tons of people, including basically every athlete at my school. Awesome. And I have a week….Wish me luck!

Oh, I have one more picture for today!

Hiding under all that lettuce is a piece of potato and collard greens. On top of that mess of lettuce is brown rice, Thai barbecue chicken, and yellow curry sauce. This dish is something that the dining hall has almost every night. It was every night at the beginning of the year. The first week, I loved it and had it multiple times. And then….it was still there. Every. Single. Night. I think I’ve had it all of once since the first week. But today I was just not up for waiting in the grilled chicken line, so I went with this! I also had a slice of buttered cinnamon raisin toast.

Well, that’s my day! I have to go study for a math midterm that I have tomorrow! You know what is bad? In the time since I last posted, WordPress changed its whole look. I swear I haven’t been gone that long! I promise to be better!

Do you have any food allergies? How did you find out?