WIAW-Finally Taking a Breath!

Date: March 4, 2014

Author: astottler

Happy Wednesday! How is everyone’s week going? After today’s Ochem midterm, I finally have a chance to catch my breath before finals! But seriously, I am more than ready for spring break! But first, a huge thank you to Jenn for getting us all together in the food world for What I Ate Wednesday!

My morning started out with a 4 mile tempo run-easy pace with a mile at 5k pace. My legs were definitely dragging. I think it’s from all the heavy squats from the night before! My pace was definitely slower during the non-tempo portion of the run, and my legs were done at the end! Soreness finally started coming in after the run! Before my run, I had a Thinkthin bar. After, I headed to the dining hall for breakfast.

I had plain Greek yogurt with melon on top (not my favorite yogurt topping, but it was what they had!), and some puffed wheat cereal that I brought in a little baggie. I like the cereal because it has no sugar and gives the yogurt bowl some nice crunch! Plus some coffee with milk on the side. Sadly, this isn’t the most colorful picture, but I don’t have a lot of fruit (color!) choices in the dining hall!

By the time lunch rolled around, I was starving, likely thanks to a Ochem test! I was very excited for my lunch. This is college dining at it’s finest. A cheap and lazy version of my California Chop Salad. I used the same dressing recipe. The chicken leftover from what I thawed for Monday’s lunch, I had a jar of olives in the fridge, and I had shredded swiss/gruyere. The salad originally calls for gouda, but I had no clue how to shred cheese without a shredder, and the swiss/gruyere blend was pre-shredded. The dressing is the same though! I grabbed a giant bag of lettuce and tomato from the dining hall the night before.

A nearly tupperware free meal! It’s so hard to eat giant salads out of tupperware because none of them are big enough! I shook up everything in the bag, and then poured it into the bowl.

My overflowing bowl! I had to eat the top off before I could even see all the good stuff!

My afternoon snack consisted of a pumpkin spice granola bar and lots of dark chocolate. I’m glad 85% chocolate is back in my life. It’s pretty low sugar and it definitely gets rid of any chocolate cravings!

After Crossfit, it was dinnertime! Nothing looked that exciting, so I went for a prepared Asian salad (the prepared salads taste like nothing…), kabocha, and some type of tomato/eggplant mix with cheese. I’ve never had kabocha squash not from the dining hall, but when I’ve had it here I haven’t really liked it. Is it supposed to be so dry?? Also not sure why I got eggplant since I don’t normally like it, but I lucked out and enjoyed this!

I was still a bit hungry, so I got a small bowl of plain Greek yogurt with granola.

And finished my night off with a bit more dark chocolate. Not a bad day!

Also-don’t forget to enter my Quest bar giveaway! I’ll be picking a winner on Sunday night!

WIAW-College is Hard

Date: February 25, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

So…college is hard. I would absolutely love more sleep, but during week 8, that doesn’t always happen. Week 8 is something only quarter system students can truly appreciate. And yes, everyone knows exactly what week it is and the perils of each week. Thank goodness for a little foodie break! Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting this mid-week party!

I’ve had some delicious food in the last couple of days. You’ll notice that nothing is from Tuesday…I’m planning a day in the life post for that day! So-here we go!

A dining hall breakfast of COFFEE, plain Greek yogurt with fruit and granola, and a few bites of steel cut oats because our dining hall has them and I’ve never tried them.

It was Parent’s Weekend last weekend. Which meant a large vegetable delivery. And a delicious lunch out.

A panini with avocado, cheese, and tomato on whole grain bread. Take a second to look at that beauty,

Lots of roasted veggies for snack/dinner. The brussels sprouts are sesame brussels from PaleOMG. They have a curry dipping sauce, which I liked the flavor of, but I think next time I’d try it with a lighter base, such as avocado, or greek yogurt.

And since I had all those veggies for snack and after Crossfit I needed to go to the store and I just HAPPENED to find a parking spot in front of my favorite ice cream place….yeah, this was necessary!

Sunday was my long run day, now that I’m officially in half training! Since I AM officially in half training, I think it’s time to take my pre run meals more seriously. I’ve kind of been just eating whatever before them…I had some banana blueberry oats with sunflower seed butter.

Which took a long time to digest….and then I got brunch….and then another snack…so I didn’t start my run until around 5. It was 8 miles, and it went surprisingly well. My feet hated me, but that’s that…I’m trying to keep my paces on my long runs below 10:00 as much as possible, unless there are crazy hills so I was right on track!

Sunday night after a long couple of hours of sorority requirements, I was talking to my sister and she said “You sound like you need a boba.” So we drove to her newest favorite place, and I had a jasmine milk tea. Sometimes you do need a late night boba!

Monday morning I thought it would be a fabulous idea to do a track workout, despite my long run being Sunday. Which is another way of saying I didn’t think. My legs were definitely a little heavy, so that schedule is going to have to change as my long runs get longer! For breakfast, I had a yogurt bowl, plus half a lemon zest pancake because I really wanted to try it. It was good! But subtle.

I had some leftover oatmeal from Sunday morning, so I brought a little with me to put on top of my yogurt bowl for some extra flavor and texture.

I must be channeling my inner Ashley– not only did I have an avocado and cheese panini, but I also made a Mexican style lunch with sweet potato, asparagus, cottage cheese, salsa, and guacamole. All in tupperware with a kiwi.

That’s a small step up from eating out of a plastic bag, right?

Have a great week everybody!

What’s one of your favorite food combos right now?

WIAW-Cocoa Powder is Not a Food Group

Date: February 11, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! We made it this far-wooo! This is my last week for a little while without a midterm, so I’m trying to soak it all in!

Since it is Wednesday, we’re going to celebrate WIAW with Jenn!

Things I learned from my Nutrition class diet assessment: dates are not a food group. Things I learned today: neither is cocoa powder. Ever since I started making homemade chocolate, my cocoa powder seems to be disappearing before my eyes. I’m out of my normal cocoa powder!

I use the term homemade chocolate a bit liberally-it’s more like moist, fudgy, warm, gooey deliciousness. I’ll let you know how much like chocolate it is if I ever actually let it cool…

There are two variations of this-one that actually is smooth and probably like chocolate if I actually let it cool, and one that is almost cakey, like the inside of a lava cake. I think it’s about time I actually gave you guys a recipe for that, so stay tuned. I need to actually measure everything out!

Also-I’m still not 100% sure how the rest of the project is going to go…I haven’t decided, and I kind of went off it again today. I want to try to finish strong, so we’ll see how it goes. But food. I ended up using Monday’s food as the day for my diet assessment because it was much more normal-the day I had originally used was the day I had a lot of the tapioca made with half and half-and I’m pretty sure I never eat that much saturated fat! Honestly I’m not feeling great physically now with my most recent eating choices, which definitely argue that I should try to stick with it! My run Monday morning was awful-I had the worst stomach cramps the whole time, and I decided to not worry about pace and just get it done-it was my long run of the week since I’m officially in half training, and at this point the miles are all that matters!

Breakfast on Monday featured a new Trader Joe’s find-pesto gouda! It was good! A good addition to my eggs. It was a green breakfast!

My packed lunch came together in no time at all! A sweet potato filled with cottage cheese and sunflower seed butter. I may be weird, but don’t knock it until you try it! It was reminiscent of my high school lunches of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but this is an upgrade since it actually has veggies and better quality protein! Plus there’s that whole nut allergy thing…

Yesterday evening, I decided I should actually do the quidditch workout that I’ve been torturing them with for the past few weeks. It was quick but good! I was definitely shaking by the end! I haven’t done this many squats in a long time, and my knee was chirping at me a bit at the end. But I’m sore today! Maybe not “can’t walk” sore, but it’s definitely there!

Roasted carrots are addicting and life changing. I’m realizing more than ever that if I had better foods on hand, my eating habits would be so much better. I could gobble these up like candy, but they’re gone so fast! Today, when they were all gone I resorted to dates as a snack-when I would have preferred carrots! The amount of dates I’ve been eating has gotten out of hand. I think I need a date detox, haha! If only I had more carrots on hand, it would be easy!

Trader Joe’s grain and lentil soup, with pesto gouda on top! This soup was really good-but I liked the cheese on top for interesting texture!

Fire-the highlight of my Monday! We had to film a video for my sorority recruitment. I wanted to take a selfie with my sparkler but as I brought it near my head I thought better of it. Which is probably why I still have my eyebrows…

Speaking of lack of eyebrows-we learned today that in Ochem lab this week, there’s a relatively high chance of messing up the reaction and making TNT. Awesome….

Breakfast Tuesday morning before quidditch-goat milk yogurt, sunflower seed butter, applesauce.

Quidditch training was fun. I need to get better at not laughing so much at their pain though…Today was a new workout, and I think it kicked everyone’s butt! For the conditioning, I introduced them to EMOM (every minute on the minute), with 5 burpees and 5 push ups every minute for 10 minutes. I need to try this for myself sometime!

I decided to get coffee afterwards-which I strangely probably didn’t need because I had so much energy! 5 hours of sleep-go figure!

I mixed it up and got a latte. Partly because I went to a different coffeeshop, and I know their cappuccinos aren’t as good. But this was delicious! My coffee-ing was cut short though when the campus coffeeshop and surrounding area was evacuated due to a bomb threat. It turned out to be nothing, but the area was closed off for a while!

My lunch pictures are kind of embarrassing. Yes, I eat salads out of ziplock bags.

This one was grilled chicken, grape tomatoes, olives, and hummus. The sad part was that I really don’t like cherry/grape tomatoes, which I seemed to have forgotten about…

After Crossfit today, all I wanted was roasted carrots. Guess what I didn’t have? Roasted carrots. I went to the dining hall with high hopes-they sometimes have them although they aren’t very good. They didn’t have roasted ANYTHING. I got beets from the salad bar and microwaved them with olive oil, but that didn’t really change the fact that I’m not a big fan of beets. Sigh-I tried!

In terms of my food goals for the near future, I think I’d feel better if for starters I cut down on the dates. While they’re not horrible for me, it’s becoming clear that they are just a lackluster replacement for the real, nutritious foods that I’m craving! I think I’m going to try to avoid them completely for one day, just to break the habit. It’s amazing how much of eating is about habits!

What is one of your major ‘food groups’?

WIAW-“If She’s Laughing it Can’t Be Good”

Date: February 4, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I’m actually especially happy this Wednesday because by some miracle, I don’t have the 2 problem sets I normally have this week, OR a lab report. Which means my week basically ended after today’s midterm. In terms of the midterm-it didn’t make me physically ill, so I’ll take that as at least a decent sign! And as always, I’m linking up for What I Ate Wednesday!

Thanks to Jenn for hosting this weekly party!

Guys. I just want to say, I’m doing something crazy right now. Laundry. Go me! I had to push it until midterms were over, so now I have no excuses. And no underwear. Needless to say, it’s time! I’m just doing a single load though because that’s all I can force myself to fold in one night. Who needs darks, am I right??

But let’s talk about some food. And fitness.

Yesterday morning I did a track workout-10x400m repeats. Nothing crazy. I may have eaten a bit too much the day before and felt kind of sick during them, so I didn’t push them like crazy.

Breakfast was amazing, and a new favorite. Full fat, super high quality Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter, and berry compote (frozen berries reduced down on the stove). Amazing. Just like PB&J!

I’m going to run through the food from the last couple of days in no particular order-I had some snack days, and not everything was captured or necessarily a full meal!

Brussels sprouts with butter and parmesan, and an apple. Yeah, doing tupperware dishes is on my post-midterm to-do list as well…

Cheese and crackers, and a blood orange. We got fancy cheese at our marathon Whole Foods expedition, and they certainly have not disappointed. These two are manchego and goat gouda. And crackers never tasted so good-for the last 2 weeks, the only snacks I had very sweet things, like fruit, yogurt, and nut butter!

More brussels, more parmesan. Eaten cold. In retrospect, they probably would have been better hot…

But the microwave was in use-I’ve been dying to try making oat pancakes for the longest time! And all I have is a microwave…

It’s kind of hard to evaluate how they turned out. They might have been really awesome on a griddle. Or with the oats actually ground up. The flavor was fine-lots of vanilla and slightly sweet! Oooo I bet they would have been awesome in a waffle maker…

In the microwave, they just didn’t quite solidify. The recipe was half a cup of extra thick rolled oats, half a cup of unsweetened apple sauce, an egg, vanilla, and a pinch of baking powder. I’ll have to try these again at home sometime! (Or sneak my batter into the dining hall…hmm).

I roasted some blueberries in the microwave for topping, plus some whipped butter.

Because sometimes you just want pancakes for dinner! I also bet these would have been even better with maple syrup-the butter kind of got to me for some reason! Mmmm or nut butter…moral of the story-microwave pancakes are hard to do!

Last night, I ended up going to the gym pretty late-as in, 10:30pm. I did an hour long spin workout-instead of a set playlist, I plugged in an hour long race playlist and just rode whatever felt right. As a spinner, I think these types of rides are especially important-figuring out what works with what, and just enjoying riding on my own an kicking my own butt. The only late night workouts I’ve done have been spin, and I actually really like it-I feel like I get extra adrenaline!

This morning, I was up bright and early to train quidditch. I always forget how much I enjoy it! And torturing them. We did a new conditioning today-and when I was explaining it, someone remarked “If she’s this happy, this can’t be good!” It was great-we really took it to the next level today with a tabata of thrusters and push ups. It’s amazing how fast these exercises get difficult when doing tabatas! My sister’s boyfriend was evening failing on the push ups by the end-and he regularly does push ups with her sitting on his back! Major success in my book 🙂 I think I’m going to do their leg workout myself this weekend. I haven’t actually done the full sequence, and I’m craving more intense workouts right now.

This pretty much sums up my morning-coffee and chemistry.

Lots of yogurt. Lots of sunflower seed butter. Lots of berries. Perfection.

Semi-homemade guacamole with carrots and the following crackers. For the guac, I just mashed an avocado with some fresh salsa.

Dinner after Crossfit tonight was a different one. We finally put some of our Whole Foods goods to use.

Roasted carrots.

And the crowning achievement-sushi bowls! My roommate suggested we try making sushi, and I suggested we just be lazy and throw it all into a bowl.

We threw some short grain brown rice in the rice cooker, and then mixed it with some rice vinegar for that sushi rice flavor. Plus some Nori (seaweed), toasted sesame seeds, steamed kale, avocado, cabbage, coconut amines, and tuna. The tuna was really good-we got some in a jar marinated with herbs and olive oil. I’m no usually a tuna person (I’ve lived with cats way too long to not associate it with cat food) but this was flavorful in all the right ways! Major win in my books! Plus-leftovers!

Also-I’m starting to really fall in love with running. Which is fabulous. My race was great. Aside from the result, it actually was fairly enjoyable. I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up until the last .5 miles, which was a huge improvement from my previous 5k where I felt really sick pretty much as soon as I took off…

But the biggest reason? I’m starting to feel fast again. I’m starting to feel like myself again. I’m freaking excited for tomorrow morning’s tempo run. I’m doing hill sprints later in the afternoon-can’t wait for those. I want to do sprints. I want to be fast.

These last few months of running (aka my whole “official” running career) have been sort of tough-I’ve improved so much, and definitely done distance I never imagined before, but the few extra pounds from my freshman year put a HUGE dent on my speed. Plus, my feet kind of hated me. To be honest, I credit my project for helping me find my love of running again-due to some miracle, my feet are cooperating and I cannot wait for my next long run. And to be honest, losing some weight is definitely helping. Heck, maybe that’s even why my feet are improving. But I have the desire to run-as an athlete, as a racer. I also think that with these continued diet changes, I could make leaps and bounds with my speed, which is exciting. Post-project, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. But for now, I’m going to roll with it.

(I really like this picture but I couldn’t come up with an excuse to include it…so here?)

What is your favorite pancake topping?

WIAW-Oatmeal, Oatmeal, and More Oatmeal

Date: January 28, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy Wednesday! How’s the week treating you guys? I’m definitely dragging. Midterm season is officially upon us. Yayyy. Thanks to Jenn for the food party!

This morning I got in a quick treadmill run. The good news? My feet are still cooperating. I guess this ‘no processed food’ business really is doing something? The true test will come when I start half training soon!

Breakfast was leftover banana egg white oats with yogurt stirred in.

I apologize that everything I eat is in a cup. I then topped it with some berry compote.

Plus a little crockpot oatmeal-but more on that in a minute!

Lunch was eaten outside in the beautiful weather-although I think we’re getting rain soon!

Brussels sprouts tossed in balsamic dressing plus a turkey burger.

And this:

I definitely thought this was a blood orange, so I packed it in my lunch. Upon further inspection, it was clear something was up. It was a Meyer lemon! Meyer lemons are a cross between oranges and lemons, and I was convinced to try it anyways.

Yeah, it’s still just like eating a lemon.

So, yesterday, we made applesauce in my roommate’s crockpot. Since it was out, last night she put in the mixings for baked oatmeal, which I HAD to try this morning, as it smelled amazing. When I returned from class, she was fiddling with it a little more. She added all kinds of things-banana, raisins, cinnamon, dates, egg, pumpkin.

After cooking all day, the texture was more like a sticky pudding-very soft.

Then, we tried to make a quick bread type of deal out of it by adding more egg and coconut flour, and cooking further.

It baked a little on top, but it was just too wet for bread. The texture because a thick, stick to your rips custard type of deal. Definitely good, but not really resembling oatmeal or quick bread! But still a great snack on a cold (ish) afternoon!

Dinner was at the dining hall. After talking about fats on here yesterday, and talking this morning about how fish oil is the ideal type of fat, I was pretty excited to see fish at the dining hall that didn’t appear to go off my project!

Plus, I was ready to load up on veggies!

Tilapia, a simple spinach salad, cabbage salad, mushrooms, and some type of potato dish.

And a baby plate of cilantro rice, more potatoes, and green beans.

Plus a little bit of applesauce.

It was a good day of food! But not going to lie, there are only so many ways you can do oatmeal, bananas, and yogurt. I’m getting so tired of them! I think I’m going to try to go to the dining hall for eggs tomorrow, but still not the most exciting option!

Any good ideas for breakfast that have no sugar and are easy? (As in dorm friendly…)