Fitness Update (but mostly food)

Before we get to the food, I have an exercise comment.

I was not able to go to BCS Fitness last week at my regularly scheduled timed because I had to work later than usual, so Brad let me come on Wednesday instead. That means I worked out Tuesday AND Wednesday, and at the end of the workout Wednesday I wanted to lay down on the floor and not move again until Friday. Wednesday was hard - beyond hard - and I almost didn't finish. Luckily, during partner work I was teamed up with Patty (I think that was her name), someone who obviously is no stranger to hard workouts, and she encouraged me and maybe picked up my slack a little.

I didn't want to go from Wednesday to the following Tuesday without working out, so this afternoon I went to the gym. I decided ahead of time that I was going to walk five minutes and then run five minutes for thirty minutes total. This is slightly more rigorous than my usual gym routine of setting the treadmill on a breezy 3.5 miles an hour and watching Ice Loves Coco.

Unfortunately, as soon as I started walking on the treadmill my knee starting screaming at me. I thought maybe I could stretch it out and it would feel better, but it just hurt more. This turned out to be a good thing because I got on the elliptical instead. I ellipticalled (I have an English degree that allows me to make up words) for thirty full minutes, and I would now call that a pretty easy workout. That's a long way from where I was.

By the way, Ice Loves Coco wasn't on, or that part of my workout would have been the same. Guilty pleasure tv, anyone?

It dawned on me today that my knee has never bothered me while working out at BCS Fitness. I have no idea why - my guess is that it's either because there's someone there making sure I'm doing exercises correctly OR because I'm so focused on not passing out that I don't notice.

And now food.

Currently I'm munching on baked sweet potato chips from a recipe I found on Pinterest. They are delicious and wonderfully, well,  munchy. These are a little softer than I think they should be, and had I arranged them in a single layer on the baking sheet they would be even better.

Tonight for dinner we had shrimp with creamy orange chipotle sauce, and oh my holy goodness it was good. I found the recipe in a cookbook that a friend from work let me browse (thanks, Jenny), and tonight is the first time I've made it.  It makes four servings and has about 138 calories per serving according to my fancy app. The recipe says to serve it with linguine, but I didn't have any so we ate it over brown rice. YUM!

We also had sliced avocado and asparagus. I don't think I've cooked asparagus before (maybe once) but Trish gave me a quick explanation of how she cooks it when I asked for suggestions on my facebook (thanks, Trish). I put it in a shallow container with a small dollop of butter and some salt and just enough water to cover it. She said to microwave it, but it occurred to me that I had no idea how long. Well, it turns out I have a very smart microwave because it has a setting for cooking fresh vegetables (you just punch in the weight in ounces) and the asparagus came out perfectly.

Then, I spent about 45 minutes tonight preparing some things for this week so that I won't be tempted to just have pepperoni rolls because I don't have time to cook.

First, I made prosciutto and green olive pasta salad and packed it in containers for lunch. I haven't eaten it yet, but it sure smelled delicious when I was making it. At three servings per "batch" it's about 276 calories. The recipe says it's four servings, but I could only find three empty containers and since I'm having it for lunch I decided that my version would just be three.

The pasta salad came from Jenny's cookbook, too. I can't remember the name of it, but I'll find out. Maybe she'll just post it here. :)

Finally, I made the stuffing for apricot stuffed pork tenderloin, which we'll have for dinner tomorrow. We don't have to be at the baseball fields until 7:00, so I've got time tomorrow to stuff it and cook it for 30 minutes This came from my niece, Jackie's, Paleo cookbook, The Paleo Diet (thanks, Jackie). I did a little taste test on the stuffing, and it seems pretty good. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Also on the menu for the week, Trey's green enchiladas. He usually makes them the night before and they heat up really well, so those are great for a night when we have to be at the baseball field at 5:30. I also want to make individual meatloaves again because they were perfect for lunches and a quick dinner last week.

My new favorite breakfast recipe: spinach and feta frittata. It smells heavenly when it's cooking and it heats up really well so you can make it ahead of time and have it for breakfast during the week.

So far, so good. While I'm working out better, I think food choices are going to be a huge part of me participating (and hopefully winning) the contest. I definitely feel better. Getting dressed in the morning takes about twice as long because the pants I wore two weeks ago are likely to fall down which could result in a very unfortunate flashing incident at my elementary school. My smaller sizes don't quite fit yet, but I think I'll get there. I feel reasonably certain I haven't peaked at a week and half!

In the last couple of years I have learned to love to cook, but I get easily bored with cooking the same thing all the time. I especially love spicy food and food that can be prepped or even completely cooked ahead of time. If you have a fantastic healthy recipe, please share!