Tag Archives: bagels

NROLW and Bumble coffee

Nice and cool this morning – so refreshing!  I was so hungry when I woke up today.  Had the very last piece of Ezekiel bread with the last of the apricot jam and PB for my snack.  Tasty stuff.

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Here are some more stealth shots of my new gym.

cable

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I’m in in the last couple workouts from Stage 4 of NROLW.

Today was B:

  • Deadlifts: 1 x 8 55 pounds, 1 x 8  65 pounds, 1 x 8 75 pounds
  • Bulgarian split squats:  3 x 8  35# plate
  • Underhand grip lat pulldown:  1 x 8 60#, 2 x 8 at 70#
  • Reverse lunge with forward reach:  3 x 8  10# dumbbells (yay!)
  • Prone cuban snatch:  3 x 8  10# dumbbells (super yay!)
  • Crunches, reverse crunches, lateral raise
  • Back extension machine (instead of prone cobra) 3 x 8  at 90#

I decided to do the back extension rather than the cobra because I am tired of that one.  😀  I’m feeling strong and it feels so good!

Texted John (I can’t believe I have actually sent some texts recently!) to meet me and bike onward to breakfast!  Speed on the way there, just under 12mph.

Someone there wanted my coffee.  I love this guy – one of my favorite Christmas specials 😀

bumble

And the brekkie!

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Biked home.  Speed on the way home hit 13.5 mph.  Think it was the bagel and the carb boost?  Indeed.

Light on work this morning, which is a good thing because I was meeting someone at noon.  Noon is lunchtime for me, normally – so it was an ‘on-the-go’ lunch.  Been a while since I have had one of these!

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Some cereal snackage when I got back (oooooppppssss…..).

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More delicious coffee after trying to get into a work rhythm.  If I didn’t actually see blood come out when I do donations, I would assume that my veins are full of coffee.

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John grilled steak for dinner – yum!  Haven’t had steak in forever.  I so love our local smokehouse.

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Usually I go and get a bunch of chicken (I’m cheap).  John went and came home with a $8 per pound steak!  One piece of meat that is really worth paying good money for is steak.  Never buy cheap steak.  Other cuts, yes – but not steak.  So good.

Dessert:

chips

So, I am feeling a little aimless without having a goal since I am not doing the half marathon, although finishing NROLW is a good goal!  I’m doing a couple 5Ks, but it’s not quite the same.  I saw a duathlon in the paper in October this morning, and I just  might go ahead and do that.  It’s 2.2 mile run/16 mile bike ride/2.2 mile run.  I think that might be a good way to send out the active season.  I had an odd desire to to a brick the other day (what was I thinking??), so maybe I should do it.

Or really, what I should do is buckle down and take off the last 10 pounds instead of dinking around.

MST3K from Netflix tonight!

Question: What are your lunches (or any meal) on the go?

NROLW and green eggs, but no ham!

Don’t forget to enter the Fullbites giveaway! It ends tomorrow!

Went to my new gym this morning.  There were only about 3 people there, so that was nice to get used to a new environment.  It definitely seems much smaller than the Y (because it is, duh…), so it feels a little cramped to me.  At least it is clean, though and the people there were good about wiping down equipment (yay!).  I was also totally excited about the cable machine because it is adjustable!  The one at the Y, I could only to a reverse or regular woodchop because the pulleys were stationary.  Today I could actually do a horizontal woodchop, like is called for in NROLW!  Happy me!

Here is a video of the horizontal woodchops:

Anyhoo, the workout today.  Oh, I biked to the gym, which is a shade over 2 miles from home.

  • Barbell squat/push press:  3 x 8 at 45#
  • Dumbbell 1 point rows:  3 x 8 at 25#
  • Step ups:  3 x 8  at 30#
  • Push ups:  3 x 8
  • Static lunges with rear foot elevated:  3 x 8  with 25# plate
  • Cable woodchop:  3 x 8  50 pounds
  • Plank:  3 x 2 minute holds (dying!)

It’s going to take me a while to feel at home at the gym, I think, but I’ll get there.  I do have to say that I do *not* like that they play music.  What they play is not even close to what I want to hear.  At least it wasn’t blaring, so I could put on my headphones and not hear much of it.  Listened to Sweeney Todd!

John met me at the gym and we then biked for bagels!

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I was a little tired after the weight workout to do road biking, but I knew the end result would be worth it:

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New employee was a little skimpy with the cream cheese…

Then I had to bike home!  Total bike trip was around 11 miles, so definitely a good workout today.

I made something interesting for lunch:

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It’s a tuna pancake!  It was supposed to be a tuna burger, but I think I needed more tuna.

  • 1 – 2.5 ounce can of tuna
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons of oat bran
  • lemon pepper seasoning

Mix together and spread into a heated frypan.  Cook a couple minutes on each side until golden brown.  I served it on top of a bed of greens with a bit of feta cheese.  It was interesting, I’ll say that.  I was going for a tuna burger, but I think I needed more tuna as I could not form this into patties.  And… the last of the fresh blueberries (other than the ones I froze).

Work, work, work, then dinner!  I got a late start on dinner because of doing some stat files.  I continued the egg theme to dinner.  I sauteed up some broccoli, then minced it really fine.  Beat 1 egg with 2 egg whites, added the broccoli and scrambled it up.  It made my eggs green Sam I am!  Topped with some Laughing Cow.  This was excellent.

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After a late night of work, John and I went out for coffee.  Decaf skim latte (the ‘why bother’ drink).  With a touch of honey and nutmeg.

latte

It’s finally supposed to be cooler tomorrow!  I have been wanted to make some biscotti, so maybe that will be my chance.

Question:  Do like tunes when you work out?

Bagel day!

It’s Sunday, so you know what breakfast was!  I finally got about 8 hours of sleep, which I really needed.  I have been getting daily headaches now for the past week, and today was the first day I haven’t woken up with one.  I am just feeling fatigued, though.  John asked me if I wanted to bike to bagels and after I thought for a while I agreed, although I probably should have just scootered it and let him bike.  I did not enjoy the ride.  Sunday is usually my rest day.

Anyhoo – 8.5 miles later and I was noshing on this:

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and drinking this:

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After some nice chit-chat, it was time to head home so I could get started with work.  We saw a friend while biking home!

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Usually I can’t get my camera out fast enough to take a picture, but she was not in any hurry to cross the canal.  She was out pretty late in the morning, kind of surprised to see her.

Busy at work today, which is good!  Have our new downstairs AC going (thanks Mom and Dad!), so it was quite comfortable.  I still wanted something cool for lunch and made a blueberry monster!

bluepower

  • 1 cup of blueberries
  • 1 packet of super greens
  • ice cubes
  • 1/4 cup yogurt
  • water
  • 1 scoop vanilla protein powder.

It was quite good and cool!  For crunch, I paired it with this:

pbar

Have any of you tried these?  Excellent!  I am in love, just when I was breaking my bar addiction. 😛

Here was dinner and my new veggie – 8-ball squash!  I’ll post the whole deal in a bit.  I also made an egg salad with extra egg whites.  That’s a first for me, as I am a real yolk lover and wasn’t sure if I would like it as much – but 1 yolk seemed to be enough.  I wanted the extra protein since I am so tired.

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I was so productive that I finished up work in 6.5 hours!  Yay!  I am done for the night, bummer there is no football on.

Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for a giveaway!

Jury duty starts for me tomorrow and I am on call all week.  I have never done this before, so it should be interesting.  I can walk to the court building, which is good.

Check back later for my Great Veggie Experiment post!

NROLW and Amazing Grass

Hope you are all having a great day!

Still muggy around here.  Today was the B workout of Stage 4 (not 5, like I said the other day) for New Rules of Lifting.  Preworkout snack was 1/2 of this bar  (I ate the rest with lunch):

odcran

John brought me a couple bars back as a little present when he was away this weekend.  How sweet 😀  It was pretty good, like a soft granola bar.  Not much protein, but that is okay preworkout.

odwa

The lifting:

  • Barbell deadlift: 1 x 8 55 pounds, 1 x 8 65 pounds, 1 x 8 70 pounds
  • Bulgarian split squat: 3 x 8 25# plate
  • Underhand grip lat pulldown: 1 x 8 50#, 1 x 8 55 #, 1 x 8 60#
  • Reverse lunge with forward reach: 3 x 8 –  8 pound dumbbells
  • Prone Cuban snatch: 3 x 8 – 8 pound dumbbells
  • Swiss ball crunch: 3 x 8
  • Reverse crunch: 3 x 8
  • Lateral crunch: 3 x 8
  • Prone cobra: 3 x 2 minute holds.

Now I feel tired holding the prone cobra for so long.  I actually think I felt something in my back, maybe it does do something after all.   Then I did some recumbent biking.

Got a text from John that he was biking to meet me – so off I went for Bagel Day, jr. (Sunday is official Bagel Day).

Now *this* is a cup of coffee!  I don’t know if you can appreciate how big this cup is that they gave me!

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Plus the star of breakfast.  Num.

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I am just feeling off today.  Definitely not radiant, and I’m not sure why.  I have gotten a headache in the afternoon for the last 3 days and I don’t know why.  I haven’t changed any eating patterns.  Maybe it is the heat.  I have been guzzling water, so I doubt it is dehydration.  But I am definitely a wee bit cranky, too.  Of course, that makes me snacky.

Because it was hot, I decided to try the sample of Amazing Grass  for lunch that I got from Annabel.  This stuff is flying around the internets.

am

I used 1/2 of a frozen banana, 1/2 cup of milk and 6 ounces of water.

Ingredients as follows (if you can read it).

ing

I have to say, it didn’t look very appetizing.  Gray looking.  Not like the colorful spinach smoothies!

agrassAt first I took a sip and liked it, but then I got a very bitter after taste.  It was almost like a Splenda back taste, but there is no fake sugar in it.  Weird.  Each time I sipped I thought I liked it, then the bitterness set in.  Maybe it’s the kale?  Anyway, doubt I would be purchasing this anytime soon.  Although I am really glad I got a chance to try it!  I did like the bars, they were date bars like Larabars.

Afternoon snacky.  Instead of dealing with my crankiness, I ate this.

snack1

I laid down around 4:00 after taking some ibuprofen to get rid of the headache and dozed a little.  Not sure why it takes so long for stuff to kick in.  After an hour, I was tempted to take more, but just waited it out.  John offered to cook me a hamburger for dinner, but that was totally unappealing.  So I had a dinner of champions:

dinner5

Baked tostitos, salsa, and cheese.

Just finished up with work for the day.  Only 1 day left before the weekend!  Tomorrow is payday, too.  Yay!

I am feeling ice cream coming on tonight.  I mentioned it to John, and he is all for it, so probably will be going out for the real deal (no yogurt).

Question:  Have you tried any Amazing Grass Products?

NROLW and more Beck on getting back on track.

Last workout of Stage 3 for New Rules of Lifting for Women today!

  • Dumbbell cuban snatch: 3 x 6 with 20 pound dumbbells
  • Dumbbell single-leg deadlift: 3 x 6 at 25 pounds
  • Barbell bent-over row: 1 x 6 at 55, 1 x 6 at 65, 1 x 6 at 75
  • Dumbbell  squat 3 x  6  25#
  • Dumbbell incline bench press: 3 x 6 at 25#
  • Planks: 90 second holds 3 times
  • Reverse woodchop: 3 x 6 at 50 pounds
  • Bodyweight matrix: 3 times.

I also did some track walking and then spent 15 minutes doing some stretching.  While my legs didn’t feel really tired or anything from my run yesterday (really surprised here), they were a touch stiff.   Have a feeling they will be more sore tomorrow (damn matrix!).  Met John at Ridge street again for the usual Wednesday morning eats!

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coffee

This is always such a nice post workout treat.

Had the same lunch as yesterday (yogurt,cereal ,and blueberries!)

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These blueberries are good, but not as good as the ones I picked myself!  Can’t wait for Friday!

John fixed me a latte for an afternoon snack, although it is getting a bit warm for that.  We only have AC in the bedroom, so unless I move up there to work, I won’t be having the hot lattes much!    Forgot to thaw out any meat for dinner, so ate veggie tonight!

Scrambled eggs with feta cheese – I love feta (well, I love pretty much any cheese, really).  It goes really well with eggs.  Delicious strawberries, too!

dinner1

Not pictured are the blueberries I am snacking on as I type this post 😀

Seems there are some struggling bloggers out there with getting back on track, so thought I might post some ideas from the Beck book about getting back on track.  Of course, it helps to have the book and start from step 1.  I am still working through the book.

Anyhoo – here are behaviors you can do to get back into the groove:

  1. Acknowledge that you went off track.  However, do not beat yourself up.  I read too many blogs with people being way too hard on themselves.   Self-loathing is just not healthy, so don’t practice it, okay?
  2. Recommit yourself to your plan.  That list that I mentioned the other day about the reasons you want to be healthy?  Read it – and if you haven’t written one out – do it now!
  3. Draw a line in the sand to stop whatever you are doing.  Stop the binge and don’t let yourself  “restart tomorrow.”  Start right at this moment.  (This is so key – there is a big difference between going over by 500 calories and 2500 calories).
  4. Get back to your scheduled eating plan.  This is really important.  If you happen to fall face first into donuts in the morning, don’t skip your food for the rest of the day to atone.  That’s only going to keep you teetering off plan.
  5. Once you get back on track, think about what was the problem that got you off track and try to find another way to deal with it or give yourself another option.

Question:  Are you really hard on yourself when you get off track?

Birthday party and Sunday

Had family over last night to celebrate John’s birthday a few days early (it’s on Tuesday).  We decided on a cheese sampling with crackers, fruit, hummus, salsa, plus cake and ice cream!   We were going to do pizza and cake, but thought it might be fun to do something different and it is what J wanted to do!

The table set up buffet style:

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The 4 cheeses:

cheese

Brie, goat cheese, smoked gouda,Irish cheddar.

Hummus platter with pita points and various crackers.

hummus

Dark chocolate cake with butter cream icing.  Was going to do a nut butter spread in between the layers, but I burned the walnuts…. ooops!

cake

I proceeded to face plant into all the food.  It was all good, though!  What’s that word again?  Moderation?  Hmmmm… missing yesterday from my vocabulary.

This morning, we decided to bike to bagels to atone for some of yesterday.  Sunday is normally a rest day for me, but I had a rest day on Friday to prep for the race.  16 miles round trip.

Blueberry bagel!

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One of the lovely things about being a landlord.  This is what my rental house looked like:

tenant

The tenants own a St Bernard and decided it was a good idea to tie him to the column on the porch.  Idiots.    The dog ran after another one and yanked the column right out.  After having a come-to-Jesus talk with the tenant today, all should be fixed and paid for in a few days or they have to face the wrath of Lori.  Anyone want to buy a rental property??

We had grapes in the house and grilled chicken, so I made one of my favorite lunches!  Curry chicken salad:

chickensalad

  • 10 grapes (I had black seedless)
  • 1/3 of an apple
  • 3 ounces of chicken breast
  • 1 tablespoon light mayo
  • curry powder.

Chop all ingredients into small bits and mix with the mayo and curry powder.  Enjoy!  It’s so easy when you have cooked chicken in the house (as I love to say).  Served with some leftover pita points from last night.

I have found that I have been doing some stress eating the last few days, which is a little unusual for me.  Normally I overeat just out of love for food, but there are those times when multiple stressors happen at the same time and I find myself reaching for the comfort of food.

I’ll post some tips from the Beck Diet book tomorrow on dealing with stress eating, which I am going to try and employ for this week coming up.

Question:  Have any of you thought about being (or are) income property owners?

NROLW and Food Should Taste Good Coupon!

Hitting the Y today for the last weight workout for the week.  We are running a 5K Saturday morning, so not lifting on Friday to rest.  Started off with some dates and hazelnut butter preworkout:

dates

NROLW:

  • Dumbbell cuban snatch: 1 x 6 15 pounds, 2 x 6 20 pounds
  • Dumbbell single-leg deadlift: 3 x 6 at 25
  • Barbell bent-over row: 1 x 6 at 55, 1 x 6 at 65, 1 x 6 at 75
  • Dumbbell single-arm overhead squat 3 x 6 (using 10# and 20#)
  • Dumbbell incline bench press: 3 x 6 at 25#
  • Planks: 90 second holds 3 times
  • Reverse woodchop: 3 x 6 at 50 pounds
  • Bodyweight matrix: 1 time.

I noticed my hamstring felt funny on Monday, but then it didn’t bother me yesterday.  Today it definitely felt funny during the workout and after 1 time through the leg matrix it started to hurt – not good.  I decided to not do any more of the matrix, as I have the race on Saturday.  It feels uncomfortable right now.  Never had a hamstring problem before.  Think I’ll be doing the Tylenol PM tonight.

Had John meet me for breakfast!

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Stopped to take a picture of the little fountain near the parking lot.

fountain

Today has felt really snacky.  Not sure if it is the heat or the humidity (or both).

One of my favorite chips are Food Should Taste Good brand.  Here is a link to print a $1 off coupon good through the end of August!  Stock up!  My favorite flavors are the sweet potato and the multigrain.  I wish our stores stocked the lime.

Here is a video of the dumbbell snatch for those that are curious.  I actually jump a little bit as the weight nears the top from push off, this woman does not.  It’s a great whole body exercise.

I have graduated to the 20 pound dumbbell with this one.  Not sure I want to try the 25# one or not, it is a little scary LOL!

Had cereal and yogurt for dinner.  Dinner of champions!

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And – some of these:

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Not a great eating day.   Seems like I have a day like this about once a week.  Can I call it a refeed day??  Calorie cycling, that’s it!  😀

Question:  Are you a lurker on a lot of blogs or do you only read and interact on  a few?

What’s blooming today and Sunday eats!

Had a very active Friday and Sat – so today is rest day as usual.  For some crazy reason, John and I went jogging last night after a 15-mile bike ride earlier in the day.  I only did 2 miles (20:40) and he did 3.  My legs were kind of stiff from Friday’s strength workout plus the 18 mile ride that day.  Sort of a brick, although spaced quite a bit apart.

This morning was a bagel at Cool Beans:

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This was a white bagel, which is a rarity for me.  Topped with sunflower seeds and reduced fat cream cheese.  I chose this bagel because the wheat ones looked really small and I was super hungry.  John did get a wheat one and noticed the size difference LOL!

Here it is almost August and some of my flowers are just blooming.  This cool weather has got some of them all out of whack.  And my annuals are very stunted.  Salvia isn’t even close to blooming.

The doppelganger echinacea are in full swing.  I love this plant (so much so that I took it with me from IL when we moved a few years ago!). With pretty liatris in the background:

doppel

One of my other favorite plants is almost in full bloom.  Butterfly bush!  This starts out as a stub in the ground and is now over 5 feet tall.  I love it.  I used to have a yellow one at our old place, but couldn’t find one to replace it, so got the davidii one.

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Closeup of one of the flowers.  They smell like honey, too.  Butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds go nuts over these.

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Black-eyed susans have just opened this week.

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Not too much exciting in the eats department today.  I have managed to not snack all day like I tend to do on Sundays (so far, at any rate).  Dinner was a chicken wrap with hummus and feta cheese.  Awesome combo!

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And more blueberries.  I can’t believe they are almost gone.  I swear there is a blue tinge to my skin today.  Gonna have to go again, because I didn’t even make any jam like I was going to!

If you watch the Today Show – check it out on Monday.  They will be doing a vacation segment on Lake George – which is where we bike to frequently.  Featured in posts like the Elvis day and early spring.  It really is a beautiful place.  The Adirondacks are venerable old mountains with a ton of history in the area.

NROLW and bagels!

What a dreary rainy day.  The morning actually was a little sunny, but it’s been rain ever since!   It sure doesn’t feel like July.  Today was the last official workout for stage 2 of NROLW:

* Barbell deadlifts: 1 x 10 80 pounds, 1 x 10 85 pounds
* Bulgarian split squat: 2 x 10 with 25 pound plate
* Underhand lat pulldown: 2 x 10 60 pounds
* Reverse lunge with forward reach: 2 x 10 with 12# dumbbells
* Prone cuban snatch: 2 x 10 with 10# dumbbells
* Swiss ball crunch: 2 x 10
* Reverse crunch: 2 x 10
* Lateral flexion: 2 x 10
* Prone cobra: 2 x 60 second holds

I tried the cuban snatch with 12# weights, but couldn’t quite do it.  That is one tough exercise!  I am actually going to do one more strength workout on Friday just to finish off the complete week (I am AR that way).

Wednesday is a bagel day for us, so I called John and he biked to meet me.  Multigrain with plain cream cheese today!

bagel

Yum.  I could eat bagels and cream cheese all day long and be perfectly happy.  😀

Did have something strange happen with my phone. While we were eating, John’s phone rang with the ringtone that is assigned to me.  He thought I was playing around, but my phone was in the car!  It rang him 2 more times, so I went out to see if something weird was happening to either the car or my phone.  Nope – my phone was just dialing him.  Isn’t that bizzare?  We called Verizon and they installed something on the phone which seemed to help until about 20 minutes ago when it did it again.  Spooky.  It only seems to be happening to John, though and not everyone else in my contact list (thank goodness).

Green smoothie for lunch, guess you don’t need to see another picture of that.  I think that will be the last one of those for a few days – the weather is turning cooler (it is July, right??), so not in the mood for those.

Snack with my latte:

chipsCinnamon chips!  I got these to put on oatmeal, but I haven’t done that yet,  just nibbled out of the bag.

Dinner was an old standby of omelet with broccoli and strawberries.

dinner

We were supposed to go to an outdoor concert tonight, but it has been raining and pouring, so we didn’t go.  Went to Panera Bread instead and I only had coffee there:

coffeeSaw this as we got out of the car:

rainbowNot sure how well the rainbow comes out in the picture, but it was pretty. Didn’t last long!

Managed to stay away from all the luscious baked goods at Panera, which was a little hard, although I had a bite of John’s chocolate pastry 🙂   That’s me trying to be moderate.  Since I had a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast, there was no room in the bank account balance (so to speak) for a carby treat at night.

Think tomorrow is brick day depending on the weather.  No rain = bike/run brick!

Recovery day and too much food.

Did an active recovery day today.  It’s really hard for me to rest.  I somehow feel like I am going to gain 100 pounds back over night if I don’t go/go/go.  Know what I mean?

So, I did 500 yards of an easy swim, then sat in the therapy pool for 15 minutes.  That was a luxury.  I positioned myself so the jets hit my low back, and then my thighs.  Mmmmmm…….  Then I dragged myself out to walk around the track for 30 minutes.  I kept wanting to break into a jog (what is wrong with me??).

John met me for breakfast after this.  Ridge Street coffee for ….. wait for it….

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Plus some of this:

coffee

It’s my Friday work-wise, and it was hard to go back home and get to work!  I do not take enough relaxing mornings.  So glad it is the end of the work week for me.  I kind of feel like Pixie did today:

pixie

I definitely got the snack attack today.  I don’t know what it is about my rest/recovery days – but those are the days I really *should* be limiting my calories, and yet those are the days I have the hardest times controlling my eating.  I cannot figure it out.    The one thing I am looking forward to about doing after the triathlon is getting back to the weight loss zone for the last 10 pounds.  That is an arena I am very comfortable with.   The training is still so weird to me, even though I have been doing it for a few months now.

So, in being honest – here was dinner.  John and I split a calzone with some feta cheese from a local place (they are fabulous, too).

calzone

Question:  How do you handle rest days?  Do you find a pattern of days that you are hungrier than others?