Physical Therapy: If it's easy, you're not doing it right.

Oh the joys of physical therapy (PT).  All the stretches and exercises look so darn easy, and seem like they should be, but when you follow all their directions - keep your shoulders down, tighten your core, lift with your glutes, don't engage your back...whoops, your shoulders are inching up, keep them down - I mean, really, with doing all that, it's a miracle I can even move.  But, I'm not a total dud patient, I did do my exercises yesterday.

I went to the gym after work.  Work has been crazy, because I was off half of last week (in Philly) and I'll be off half of this week (more on that in a second), so by the time I got to the gym I had less than an hour to do my thing.  So I decided to cut my 25 minute run down to an intense 10 minutes.  I ran at 6.5 and 7.5mph, switching each minute.  The last few minutes were pretty tough, I had to dig a bit to keep going, reminding myself, "you're only running for 10 minutes, just keep going, it's only 10 minutes."  In the end I ran 1.15 miles and got off the treadmill satisfied with my performance.

Oh, that reminds me, Kate suggested I do a "dynamic" warmup before my runs, instead of the couple/few minutes of walking I normally do. Something about it doing a better job of priming the muscles (and loosening the ligaments?) for running.  So I did about 10 each of the following things at a fairly quick pace.

Pre-run dynamic warmup:
Walking lunges
Soldiers
Butt kicks
Hacky Sack
Side Kick

I've never done a video post but I might have to do one to demonstrate this warmup because I can't find anything online that shows them all.  So yesterday I ran through these before I started running.  It only takes about a minute though and I'm used to walking for about 3 minutes so I still walked a bit before I started running. 

After my run I did back/biceps/PT exercises - moving through things pretty quick being pressed for time.  Then I hustled to get home and put some food on the table.  I had a bowl of pasta with chicken breast and zucchini drizzled with olive oil.

Medium pasta shells, chicken breast, zucchini, olive oil and a bit of parmesan cheese

Those are cumin seeds on the zucchini, I'm afraid to tell you how long the zucchini was in my fridge.  But there was no mold on it and, well, I'm a bit extreme when it comes to eating "old" food.  If it doesn't look bad and it doesn't smell bad, I'll probably give it a try.  And if doesn't taste bad - well then, I'm eatin' it.  Though I am a tiny bit more conservative with meats.  A tiny bit. 

Oh, I forgot about lunch!  I ate at a Mexican restaurant and ordered a grilled fish taco with black beans on the side (no rice).  I told myself I could have 5 chips with salsa while waiting for my food, and I tried to be mindful so I'd notice that I was eating them.  I ate my lunch, which was yummy, and then had 2-3 more chips after.  With all that, plus a large glass of water, I felt very satisfied.  And since I'm being über detailed in reporting my food intake yesterday I'll add that for my morning snack I had 6oz of FF greek yogurt (Trader Joe's brand.  Don't do it.  Just don't.) with a cup of sliced peaches in lite syrup and my afternoon snack was 1/3 of a Clif Bar and a banana.

A few hours after dinner I got hungry so I had a 1/2 serving of Kashi GoLean with cinnamon sprinkled on it (the cinnamon is ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY) and almond milk for a snack.  I call this a routine eating day, nothing particularly indulgent, pretty clean, balanced, etc.  Eating like this as a routine allows me to indulge a couple times during the week and still maintain.  Though I am technically wanting to "lose" right now, I'm not trying, I'll continue eating my standard healthy diet and I know my weight will probably settle back where it was.  It's not about the number, it's about how I feel, and eating this way feels great.  The number will take care of itself.

So...the big thing going on this week is that tomorrow morning I'll be on the road at oh-six-hundred hours headed toward the Desolation Wilderness for the annual girls' backpacking trip.  From Wikipedia:

The Desolation Wilderness is a 63,690-acre federally protected wilderness area located along the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, just southwest of Lake Tahoe in El Dorado County, California. It is a popular backpacking destination, with much barren rocky terrain at the edge of the tree line: it has extensive areas of bare granite.

If you recall, last years' trip was to the Ten Lakes area in Yosemite, and was an amazingly fun time. This years' plan is to hike to Tyler Lake or Gertrude Lake from Wrights Lake. And, like last year, I have gotten so lucky as to have started my period.  Oh the luck. I get it maybe twice a year these days and it happens to fall during the backpacking trip two years in a row...can you believe that?  SO irritating.

Anyway, food went pretty good today. Shopping for the camping trip was tough because I was hungry for dinner.  But I managed to pick something good to eat for dinner, a Shrimp vegetable stir-fry from Trader Joes.

I added some soy sauce and Sriacha and it was very yummy.  I ate the whole bag.

And I got some yummy food for trek.  All sorts of treats I don't normally eat - salami, cheese, garlic naan, trail mix, etc.  Well, it's late and 5am will come early so I'm wrapping this up.  Night.