Food, Liberated

My shoulder has been really bothering me lately.  And I think I mentioned that I woke up with a sore throat on Thursday morning.  It was worse on Friday morning so between that and the shoulder I decided I needed to skip the gym.  That's always such a tough call for me and I went back and forth in my head all day.  But by the end of the workday I knew it would be smart to let my body rest.

Saturday is a regular day off from the gym.  I had Marek's buddies over for a playdate in the morning.  It's always nice to hang with my mommy friends.  I purchased a loaf of Greenlees Cinnamon Bread to share.  Toast the bread in the toaster oven and put a bit of butter on it and you're in heaven.  I had a slice (or was it two?) but there was easily 1/2 a loaf left when the playdate was wrapping up.  I knew I couldn't be left alone with that much heaven so I asked my mom friends to take it home.  I split it up and sent it packing, saving a couple slices for the kids' breakfast the next morning.

Miguel worked on Saturday (he works one Saturday a month) and the day seemed like it was never going to end.  I finally bundled the kids up and took them out in the rain for a walk.  It was already dark but I thought it might a fun adventure while they wait for daddy to come home.  Ugh, they were running in different directions and dipping their flashlights in puddles.  No more rainy walks this winter, at least not without another adult.  There were a few cute moments, like when Marek suddenly stopped and asked, "Mommy, why are we walking in the rain and dark?"  Because mommy was going stir crazy in the house honey.

Back at home I quickly searched out a friend for a glass of wine after the kids went to bed.  I texted to ask if she felt like ice cream.  Fortunately for me, she didn't.  It was great to sit with her and chat in peace with a nice glass of wine (Thanks Deb!).  Back at home and I munched on some crackers and cream cheese (that was leftover from a recipe) for the second time in two days.  I threw the rest of the cream cheese away and went to bed.  But not before I justified the crackers as carb loading for my run the next day.

Perfect running weather, 55 degrees, clear skies and no wind.

That brings us to today, Sunday.  Miguel had a soccer game (he just joined a winter league) so I spent some time with the kids before meeting him at the soccer field for a hand-off.  It was a beautiful day for a run.  I decided to just run from there to the gym, workout, and run back.  I had an AccelGel and headed out.  I was able to do a loop route, making the run to the gym 4 miles.  And my pace?  9:28 minute miles, or an average of 6.3mph.  Yes!  I tried not to look at my Garmin during the run, I'm finding I do much better when I run by feel.  I think because when I see my pace I start worrying I'm going to crash and burn so I make myself slow down even if I don't feel like I need it.  Anyway, here are the stats from the 4 miles if you're into that sort of thing.

I did back/biceps/core at the gym.  Things went pretty well as I was hyped up from the run.  But my shoulder did give me some winces of pain.  I think I need to schedule another visit to the doctor.  I might even ask for an MRI.  I've been dealing with this for decades and it's getting worse.  Physical therapy helped for a while but now I'm in pain again and I really want to know what's causing this.  I headed  back out to run back to the car, telling myself just to take it easy since I'd been exercising for over an hour already.  Of course, when I saw my pace was over 10:00 minute miles I picked it up some.  I ran the two miles back to the car in 19 minutes, 22 seconds for an average pace of 9:41 minute miles.  Garmin stats here.  All in all I was exercising for about 1 hour, 45 minutes.  Nice work.

I stretched for a while and then got in the car to ride home.  Boy was I hungry!  I had leftover chili and then met up with a girlfriend to do a little shopping.  I tried on a bunch of clothes but ended up leaving with the shirt in this picture and a pair of short, brown boots.  I have to wear a black tank under the shirt though because the mesh is totally see-through.  The back is solid material so it's not totally crazy.  The boots are cute, now I need some skinny jeans to wear them with.  I don't look good in skinny jeans but I think they just might tucked into these boots.

I came home and got started on dinner.  Roasted chicken thighs, home fries and brussels sprouts.  This is the kind of meal that I would have thought of as "bad" in the past.  But with my meal planning I've been embracing eating a variety of foods, including chicken thighs (with skin, gasp!).  To give you a sense of things here's what I made this past week:

Monday:  Italian chicken with peppers and onions, quinoa.
Tuesday:  Pasta with frozen meatballs, broccoli
Wednesday:  Teriyaki chicken, brussels sprouts
Thursday: Miguel cooks "tipico"
Friday:  Slow cooker chili, salad
Saturday: Beef Stew

Chicken thigh, potatoes and brussels sprouts

Have I mentioned how much easier life is with a little meal planning?  And more so because I'm feeling so liberated when it comes to what I can eat.  It really is all about portion control.  I know that's not breaking news, but for me, I'm really starting to get that concept.  And it's very exciting.  I can eat all sorts of things I enjoy - just not too much of it.  Now there's a concept.  I was thinking about this today and the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" slogan came into my head.  Food sort of works the same way, it's what we do with that food that is killing us.  Now I support some gun regulations and I also support some food regulations.  I think we need to give kids a fighting chance when it comes to things like Pepsi machines at school or not selling gallon sized sodas at fast food restaurants. But this isn't a political blog and maybe I'm contradicting myself so I should just stop.  My point is, I'm sort of re-discovering food lately, and it's liberating.  I am going to carefully watch my weight of course, to see if all this liberation impacts my waistline, but so far, so good.

The only caveat is protein.  I know I need a lot of it to stay satisfied and I'm not going to eat huge bowls of beef stew to get more protein so I need to figure this part out.  Maybe a post-dinner protein shake?  Though I do prefer whole foods over powder.  Maybe I'll make some homemade chicken breast patties and keep them in the freezer for post-dinner hunger when I haven't had enough protein.  I have a lot to learn but I'm looking forward to figuring it out.

One last thing...got this in the mail yesterday.  Isn't that cool?  I have my WW goal star on my keys and I'm pretty excited about getting lifetime status.  For a lifetime, that's how long I plan to keep this up.