Where the longhorn cattle feed
On the lowly gypsum weed
Back in the saddle again...
Oh, sorry, got a little carried away there! :-P
I'm back to where I was before I got sick! Woo-hoo!
Since this was my first illness since I've started running I didn't know what to expect as far as recovery time goes. Some friends at Daily Mile said for a chest cold it would probably be 2 weeks or so before I was able to go the distance that I had been going and they were right. This has unfortunately set me back a bit in my Bridge to 10K program. I was on week , which is 4 10-minute intervals with a 1-minute walk between each one - when I got sick. When I was able to start running again - after about a week off - I was only able to do 2 of those 10-minute intervals. Yesterday I was able to do all 4 of the intervals!
Speaking of yesterday's run, I found myself in somewhat of a debate in my own mind as to where I should run. We had winds averaging about 28mph yesterday. In the morning the temperatures were in the 40's but the wind did make it feel cooler than that. Our YMCA has an indoor track that I use when I need the childcare but, whenever possible, I prefer to run outside.
Those of you who have known me for a long time, stop laughing! I do so like to go outside! I know that before this past October you would have NEVER heard me say that but, once this running bug hit, I realized that running outside in nature is pretty much my favorite thing to do.
Since I did not need the childcare yesterday I really wanted to run outside, so run outside I did. I wore my usual outdoor running tights, shorts, long sleeved wicking shirt, wicking hat and gloves and on top of that I added my new zip-up wicking fleece jacket that I got from Old Navy at 40% off.
Running straight into the wind slowed me down from my usual pace of 13:45 to around 15:05 but that's ok. It felt great! I was running outside for the first time in weeks and did I ever feel lucky to be able to do so!
Once again it was weigh-in day today. I weighed 188.0 this week. That was up a pound from last week which wasn't too big of a surprise. Last week I had my 2nd week in a row with a loss of around 2 1/2 lb so I was expecting to maintain or go up a bit this week. Even sticking to the program and staying within my PointsPlus range I find myself in a pattern of big loss - no loss - no loss - big loss - no loss - no loss...so last week's big loss was a really pleasant surprise. Even with today's gain I'm still ahead of where I would be in a typical 3-week period so I'm happy.
One thing we've been talking about lately at our Weight Watchers meetings is planning ahead what we will eat. I find this really helps - especially with dinner. Breakfast and Lunch usually consist of a few choices that I rotate through that are around the same points values. But dinner can be tricky especially since it involves more than just me. If I don't have anything planned then I'm tempted to have my husband pick up fast food or take-out which isn't usually the healthiest option.
We've also been taking a class at our church called Financial Peace University to help us out with learning to budget and save money so this "learning to plan meals in advance" thing couldn't have come at a better time. We all know that, along with not being healthy for our waistlines, fast food and take-out aren't exactly healthy for our pocketbooks either. So this week we planned most of our dinners out on Sunday and I went to the store to get exactly what we would need for the week. So far so good...
Here's where I'm going to ask you for a little help. If you have any great recipes or links to any great recipes please share them in the comments section. I'm looking for main dishes, sides, new and interesting ways to fix vegetables...anything! I'm also going to try a few recipes that I've found online and some from my Weight Watchers weekly pamphlet and I'll share those with you in future posts.
Let's make 2012 our most active AND healthiest year!
I've started back on my food diary like when I'd done WW. I've been eating English Muffins w/ PB for lunch w/ fruit. Black bean &cheese tacos are pretty low cal (and protein too) for lunch. Jollytime popcorn WW always suggested as a easy crunchy snack(w/ spray butter 0 cal). Fruit-fruit-fruit...lots of water w/ lemon I hear-helped rev up your metabolism to burn faster. Salads...
ReplyDeleteforgot to mention! the ww jello cups that are like 10 cal then add some lowfat cool whip. yummy dessert for just 30 cal, i also get the fudgebars at sams club that are 100 cal. my downfall is dessert at night (or boredom/emotional snacking during day) so i need low cal things to grab as well as fruit...
ReplyDeleteI love black bean & cheese tacos. I keep low-carb tortillas on hand at all times so that I have it ready to go for lunches. I miss my in season apples and holiday grapes so I bought some kiwi today that was really good. I found a recipe online for quinoa that looks really good so I plan to try it this week. I couldn't find quinoa when I went to the store today so I'm going to have to go on a search for it.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever tried the mini ice cream sandwiches and drumsticks? The sandwiches are 100 calories and the drumsticks are around 150 - maybe more but far less than the regular size. They are really good. I've broken the desert every day habit but do like to have it now and then. In our area we get Girl Scout cookies in November (right before the holidays makes no sense to me but they stagger it throughout the country) and we still have a few left. I've been really careful to eat only the serving size rather than the whole sleeve or box. That's what's been really hard for me - portion control. I'm a big time emotional eater/binger.
ReplyDeleteI tried the quinoa recipe tonight and it was really good. I'll post it either tomorrow or Wednesday depending on when I get it written.