Clean and mean

That title describes my diet rather than any activity I might (or might not) be doing at the moment.

I am following the nutrition plan to the letter. Now I have no issue with the food, after all who can complain about meals comprising Bircher muesli, scrambled eggs with baked beans, roast pumpkin & feta salad, beef stroganoff and tonight’s meal of sweet potato & roast capsicum pizza.

I think it’s the stop to the snacking ie picking at food throughout the day. You know, when I’m bored, tired, stressed, sad, happy, angry…well name the emotion and it was a reason to snack. Now I have 2 planned snacks during the day and if I have the calories, a hot chocolate at night. You wouldn’t believe how ridiculously and deliriously happy I can be if I can have that hot choc! Last night I couldn’t .

Of course it doesn’t help when Mr CJ sits down with a plate of just-made hot buttered toast, mid-afternoon. Omg, I didn’t realise how good hot toast smells! Then he polished off the remainder of a packet snack mix from the pantry. He even offered me some. Yes, that’s the sharing and caring person he can be, not!

However I have stuck to my plan. I’m waiting for the day that my stomach has shrunk and doesn’t emit that ominous, very audible rumble between meals. Health experts say that many of us have forgotten what it’s like to experience true hunger given our constant and easily accessible supply of food. Trust me, I am we’ll acquainted with the feeling!

One more day and I will have completed week one of 12WBT. The exercise component hasn’t quite gone to plan this week but the food has been spot on.

Sweet potato & roasted capsicum pizza

Just smile

It was definitely wishful thinking on my part to hope that the hamstring injury was just a bad dream and that everything would be fine this morning. Last night put paid to that misguided theory. I had a terrible night. I didn’t realise an injury could be so bloody painful. It hurt to move, to lie down, sit, walk, bend over, stand up….

And it’s been the same today. Unfortunately I couldn’t get in to see a physio today. Tomorrow morning is the earliest I could get and with a physio I’ve not seen before. I was on the standby list today in case someone cancelled but no such luck.

So today was spent alternating between feeling sorry for myself and trying to be positive. Day 3 of 12WBT and I can’t exercise! Great start! Makes me wonder what else I might achieve over the 12 weeks. But then in my inbox popped up a post from zenhabits that put everything in perspective. There are worse things than a hammy tear. I particularly like the following:

“What do you have to smile about in this moment?

Some ideas:

You have someone in your life who cares about you.
There is beauty all around you, in many forms.
You are generous, compassionate, and good-hearted.
You have someone you can help.
You have eaten today.
You can move.
You can see the sun shining.
You can appreciate the leaves of a tree, rain falling, wind blowing.
You can taste chocolate.
You get to spend time with someone you love.
You have music in your life.
You get to create something.”

So tomorrow I hope to get a plan for dealing with my injury and an idea of what exercise I can and can’t do. So I might not be able to run in the short term but there are other things I can do. And as I’m not exercising at the moment I have to be ultra diligent with my food. As Michelle says, weight loss is 20% exercise and 80% diet, or words to that effect.

It was also weigh in day. I’m 300g lighter

Seedy & nutty

Some would say that half of today’s title would describe me to a T, and I’m not disputing that! (and I hope you’re thinking the second half of the title, and not the former!)

However I do have to admit I am feeling seedy today, i.e., under the weather, and no alcohol has been involved. The seediness gradually crept up on me last night and has stuck around today, just to ensure that I have a very mediocre day. To think, I left half of my perfectly good cappuccino behind this morning at Kingston & Co. What more proof do you need that I’m not well?! So I am having a proper rest day – no swimming today.

However today’s title describes a loaf of bread I made last night after discovering a recipe on My New Roots site, referred to as “The life- changing loaf of bread.” This, of course, stoked my curiosity and I had to give it a go. It’s basically a mixture of seeds (sunflower, chia, flax, psyllium), nuts (almonds), oats (or quinoa flakes), coconut oil and water, mixed together in a silicon loaf pan and left for several hours (or even overnight) before putting in a 180 degree oven for 30min, then removing from the loaf pan and sitting the upside-down loaf directly on the oven rack for another 40min, until it sounds hollow when tapped.

Now if you’re after a fresh, fluffy, light loaf of bread, this is not for you. It’s obviously very seedy and nutty and dense, but I like it. It’s got flavour and texture and smells delicious when toasted. And it looks great.

“Where there is love there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi

Training, massage, voting & chocolate tart

The morning seemed to come around really quickly and I was up again getting ready for my cycle/run session. It was a pleasant morning so I could ride minus my head band, cycle jacket, thermal socks and shoe booties. Made for a nice change. It was only an hour cycle this morning and then I was home getting ready to run 30 minutes (approx 6km). People were already up and about setting up polling booths, planting those candidate placards that have infested road verges for the past couple of weeks, and hanging about 100m from the polling booths with how to vote cards (by law they’re not allowed any closer).

The run went well – it’s so much easier when I’ve only cycled for an hour opposed to three hours!

I really appreciated my massage this morning and surprisingly there were no stand out sore points. There were some areas of tightness but all things considered I seem to be in good shape. And fortunately yesterday’s incident when someone ran into the back of our car hasn’t caused any problems.

Originally the plan was to swim this afternoon but I decided to do my long run instead in the heat. Given that Port Macquarie is a lot warmer than here (and it got to 39 degrees there today) I thought a run in the heat was required to get myself used to how it feels (bloody awful I might add). So I ran 12km with the return trip into a head wind. I was glad to finish and must’ve drunk at least a litre of water once I got inside. After a shower, we wandered down to the local polling booth and voted.

Made a chocolate tart with a difference for dessert tonight. The crust consisted of almond meal, fresh dates and a tiny bit of coconut oil blended together and pressed into 2 small tart tins. This went into the freezer initially to set and then into the fridge later. The filling consisted of avocado, coconut oil, cacao powder, stevia, vanilla and some chocolate liqueur which was blended together until smooth and then spooned into the tart shells and refrigerated. Before the filling went into the shells I spread some strawberry jam on the bottom and then spooned the filling over the top. The verdict? Very rich so we shared one tart and will have the other one tomorrow night. Very smooth and delicious. And Mr N has no idea that he has consumed avocado!

Tomorrow: the plan is to sleep in! I have no plans of getting up early and doing any training. Later in the day I will do my wet suit swim. I also need to start to think about packing. And I want to buy a new bike helmet – not happy with mine.

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” ― A.A. Milne

Tuesday training

It was back to the gym for a weights session this morning. It feels like its been ages since I’ve done a weights session so the plan wasn’t to go crazy with heavy weights. I really don’t need to spend the rest of my week struggling to move because of DOMS. Today was legs, chest and biceps day so the session started with the leg press (after a warm up on the xtrainer), followed by DB chest press, BB bicep curls, DB flyes, BB squats, DB sumo squats, reverse lunges, and mac push ups. I ended the session with an abs circuit. All up I was in and out of the gym in about 50 minutes. Not a bad way to start the day

After work it was on my bike, on the wind trainer, for an hour of intervals – lots of 1 min hard/1min easy intervals! It was a good session with no problems to report.

Made basil and walnut pesto spaghetti with roast tomatoes and pumpkin for dinner tonight. I had some left over eggplant so roasted that as well. This was a really delicious meal and the bonus is that the pesto is made without oil. And I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow – bonus!

Tomorrow: the plan is to swim before work and then do a 45 minute fartlek run session at lunchtime, to break up the work day. Hopefully the weather will hold out.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Three weeks to go

This morning I was up early to do my bike/run session. I remembered to change all the clocks and watches (didn’t realise how many we had until I started changing the time!) before I went to bed last night as we are now in daylight savings. Then I was off on my 2 hour bike session which took me out along Barton Highway to the Nanima Rd turnoff before returning to Canberra, and then doing a couple of laps around home. So I got a mixture of hills, flats and stretches with no traffic lights.

I gotta say I hate it when I’m slowly pedaling up a long hill when some young, skinny upstart on an all carbon fibre, ‘you beaut, got all the bells and whistles’ bike goes flying by you as if the hill was just a tiny blip on the landscape. Well secretly I am green with envy but jeez, this really makes me feel my age!

Today I made a point of practicing my drinks strategy while on my ride. I have a bad habit of forgetting to drink on longish rides which is not good. During the HIM I need to drink regularly not only for hydration but also for energy and electrolytes not only for the ride but also to prepare for the run afterward. So every 15 minutes I made sure I had a drink – this also ensured I practiced getting my drink bottle out, drinking and putting it back without swerving all over the place or falling off my bike! Have I ever mentioned that I am an A grade klutz?!

I also road tested my new tri suit, which admittedly was under all my layers on the bike leg but it was about 2 degrees when I started out this morning, so it was a bit nippy. The thing with tri knicks is that there is minimal padding, for a reason. After all you can’t really swim wearing regular cycle knicks (water-logging would be an issue!) and I can’t imagine what running  in a pair would be like (a nappy perhaps?!). Anyway there was no discernible discomfort on my ride this morning, given the lack of padding.

Once back home, it was off the bike, strip off the outer layers (of which there were a few), and pull on my brand new pink/blue runners with elastic laces. Yep, another new thing to test. Out the door and then I was off doing the CJ shuffle for 6km. Which wasn’t so bad except I couldn’t feel my feet – they were frozen. I managed to pick up the pace for 4 x 30sec although whether anyone else would have been able to tell is debatable! I kept thinking about the banana protein smoothie I was going to have once I finished. Food is a great motivator!

Later today I did a 1.7km swim session. I was in two minds about doing this session because I was tired. However I decided that I would see how I was feeling once I started and if it was all too hard I would back off and do an easy session. The session included 12 x 100m with alternate 100m swum hard with an easy 100m to follow. I was fine so there was no need to ease off.

Before the swim session I had borrowed a friend’s wetsuit hoping it might fit me therefore saving me from having to buy one. I tried it on at home before leaving for the pool just to be sure it fitted okay. Unfortunately it didn’t, it was too big and gaped at the armhole which defeated the purpose of a wetsuit really because I would have taken on water and sunk if I had tried swimming in it! So its off to 2XU tomorrow and hopefully they will have one in my size – mind you, I may need to take out a second mortgage to pay for it!

And the payoff for all this training today? Well, apart from the obvious! To enjoy a delicious meal of roast pork belly, potatoes, pumpkin and beetroot with a side of peas.

One word: delicious

“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” - Talmud 

Bonus rest day

Gotta love long weekends. The chance to get an extra sleep in. And a bonus rest day to boot. Well, I was kinda directed to have one and I’m doing as I’m told.

It is a drag, though, waking up just as tired, or even more tired, than when I went to bed but that’s been the theme of the past week. I’m hoping its just some virus going around that I’ve caught but to be sure I am making an appointment to see my GP and get some blood tests done.

Breakfast was scrambled egg with avocado toast, oven roasted cherry tomatoes and wilted baby spinach. Love my breakfast meals!

Then I met Ruth for coffee later in the morning at Kingston & Co – great coffee and I had a chilli choc macaron.

The afternoon was spent preparing meals for the week. Cooked up pumpkin & green bean red curry, Mexican style shepherd’s pie, honey banana muffins, and a granola to top my yoghurt and stewed fruit tomorrow for breakfast.

And I my training program arrived in my inbox – woohoo! The last 4 weeks. No surprises which is great but just building on what I’ve already been doing. Slow and steady is the way to go.

Tomorrow: the plan is to run before breakfast and do a bike intervals session after work.

“Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Oh no, I’ve got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I’ve got to keep on moving.” – Ain’t nothing gonna break my stride lyrics, sung by Matthew Wilder, 1983

 

 

A clean bill of health

This morning I went for an easy 6km run before work. It’s amazing how light it is at 5.45am – I could actually run along the cycle path rather than the roads, which is what I usually have to do at that hour of the day. Also, it wasn’t cold so it was a very pleasant run. Mind you, no-one else seemed to be up as I didn’t see a soul the entire time I was out. There was no pain while running or afterwards and dutifully I did my stretches before having a shower.

I had a physio appointment later in the morning to review the past week. I mentioned that I had run this morning. He looked at my card and read out something about no running for a week until the next appointment when we would review things. Minor detail. My reasoning was that if I ran this morning then if there were any problems he could fix them! Besides it’s not like I went gangbusters this morning – it was a very steady, measured jog. So, after further prodding, manoeuvring, and mobilising, he agreed that I seemed to have recovered well which was due in large part to me playing it cautiously and getting the initial niggly, nagging pain looked at before it got too bad. Points to me! He did do some loosening of tight muscles including applying the elbow into the tightest spots in the glute – oh man, that is so cruel and it hurts. Anyway I have been given a clean bill of health but with the proviso that I don’t go out gangbusters on my training now. Also he suggested I not do the Coppins/Uriarra and William Hovell loop again before the event which is perfectly fine by me.

The Chicken, Orange and Avocado Salad I had for lunch today came about because I am trying to use up what is left in the fridge before the end of the week and grocery shopping. I used left over chicken from the roast the other night, an orange which was part of a box load that came from a work colleague’s father in Griffith, and some avocado that we had in the fridge. Add to that some cucumber and mixed lettuce leaves, and it made a delicious meal.

Tomorrow: the plan is to do a weights session in the morning (and I can include lower body exercises) and another intervals session on the bike after work.

“The will to win means nothing, if you haven’t the will to prepare.” – Juma Ikangaa, 1989 NYC Marathon winner

A case of the blahs

The blahs continue. Again, not sure why. Someone pointed out that maybe it was because it was my recovery week. Who knows? I’m just soldiering on and hoping it will go away. It just makes everything harder in the meantime.

However, on a positive note I had a really good swim this morning with NO PULL BUOY! The plan was for an easy 1.8km swim, split into a warm up, then 15 x 100m with a brief rest after each 100m, followed by a cool down but once I started swimming I decided to just continue until I needed to stop to let someone pass. However this never eventuated and so the 1.8km ended up becoming one continuous easy swim. And swimming is funny in that while there are other people in your lane, unless you actually stop, you never really get to see them. You know they’re there because you can sense or see them as you pass each other in the lane but that’s it. This is so different from running and cycling, where you can actually see other people and can talk to them. Anyway I know there were other people in my lane this morning but I never really got to see them because I swam without stopping. Some people had been and gone in the time it took me to swim the distance.

DOMS from yesterday’s upper body weights session was making its presence felt and the swim really helped. I highly recommend easy swimming post-weights sessions – it really does help.

I had brekkie once I got to work, by which time I was starving and was ready to inhale the contents of the work fridge (which is a risky venture). However I had one of my favourite brekkie meals this morning – banana bruschetta. Nothing complicated – a toasted gluten-free bun topped with reduced fat ricotta and banana. Cinnamon was sprinkled over the top (after the photo above was taken). Yummo! This is also my breakfast of choice before long rides and runs, as well as events.

I spoke to a lovely 89-year-old woman in the change rooms – she had just arrived to the pool and was about to go for her swim, as I was leaving. In years to come I guess that will be me…well at least I hope so! I’d like to think that a) I’ll still be around when I’m 89, and b) I’ll still be physically active. This morning’s brief chat reminded me of a similar one I had with a 94-year-old woman outside the gym a few years ago – she started going to the gym on a regular basis to keep fit and healthy, as well as for social contact, after her husband passed away.

Did the first of two bike interval sessions tonight. As its recovery week the session was only for 30 minutes which felt really strange after having done a few longer sessions up to this point. Not that I’m complaining! This was followed by stretching and everything seems to be a-ok.

Tomorrow: the plan is to do an easy 6km run before work – my first run for a week. This will be followed by a physio appointment later in the morning.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I’ve ended up where I needed to be.” – Douglas Adams

Monday motivation

It has been a week since I’ve been in the pool, which was always part of my training program as last week was a recovery week. But I felt pretty good this morning as I got ready to leave at 5.50am for my 6am session; even despite the fact that my pull buoy was going to get one hell of a workout this morning *groan*

The number of lanes had been reduced for the swimming public again as the water polo squads were also there, along with the regular swim squads. This meant it was peak hour traffic in all other lanes but I think we all behaved ourselves remarkably well. A little courtesy truly does go a long way For the first couple of hundred metres I did have problems breathing – the hangover from my sinus infection last week. Even though I don’t breathe through my nose while swimming I think it’s the pressure that makes it uncomfortable. After my warm up laps it was then time to reacquaint myself with the much beloved pull buoy, not….for the next kilometre. And not only that but to increase the intensity every second lap. Coach, you can be such a meanie sometimes Following this set there was 500m of swimming pull buoy-less which I really appreciated, before returning to using it to swim hard for 200m. I have to point out that ‘hard’ is all a matter of perspective – it may not have looked hard to those in the “fast” lane, who in my books are turbocharged swimmers. But believe me, by this stage (I had swum 1.7km prior to this set) anything felt hard! 2km later I was done and out of that pool, feeling very satisfied with my start to the week, and feeling pumped that I had actually swum 2km – that’s my longest session to date.

My director brought in a chocolate masterpiece she had made on the weekend for Father’s Day – the Raw Chocolate Ganache tart. Can I say it was all manner of evil deliciousness – a base of blended pecans and dates, topped with a blended mixture of coconut oil, avocados, cacao powder and agave. For a start, if you didn’t know what was in it, you would never pick avocado as one of the main ingredients. It was of an ultra-smooth, rich, dense chocolate mousse texture, similar to that of chocolate truffles. Like I said, pure, unadulterated, evil deliciousness. This was not something you say no to, besides anyway only a small slice was needed. I’m so getting the recipe!

After work I headed to the gym for my 5km intervals session on the treadmill. Its been a couple of weeks since I’ve done this workout and boy, does it show. That session was hard! I really can’t recall it being so hard in the past.

And I’ve just seen my new training program for the next 4-week block and I’m scared. Hooley dooley I have my work cut out for me! I’ll just put it out there now that I’m hanging out for my next recovery week, which will come after 3 gruelling weeks of training. See you on the other side

“What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”― Friedrich Nietzsche