Month: January 2011

Snacks

Evening all

I am a lover of snacks, as I sure you have all gathered by now. I have introduced a mid-morning snack to keep my energy levels steady and stop me munching sweets before lunch, and I normally have a snack in the afternoon to give me energy for my exercise before dinner. I sometimes have a snack later in the evening too. I am perfectly happy with this way of eating , and think that my meals and snacks are balanced. Today I had some funny comments at work about my snacks- almost as though other people thought that I should only be eating 3 meals, and that snacks are “naughty” in some way.  Mid morning I had half a graze box, which consisted of a couple of brazil nuts, some dried mango and some dried cherries (hardly unhealthy but I got some funny comments about fatty nuts and sugary dried fruit). During my staff meeting I ate 2 clementines (and got a comment “oh dear, that’s healthy” from the people eating chocolate so perhaps they were feeling guilty? Not that they should feel guilty.) and when I got home my lovely Teapigs Mint tea and a Cocoa mint nakd bar, before aerobics. I think it is strange that the majority of people who are trying to lose weight (most of the people who comment are people who are constantly on a diet) see snacks as something so bad. For me, planning to have snacks during the day means I am much less likely to eat a biscuit or chocolate or anything else. It is days when I don’t have a snack planned that I tend to eat more. Anyway, I didn’t mean to ramble on about that, but I try very hard not to judge or be preachy, but it does annoy me when people make funny comments about what I eat.

Aerobics was fun- lots of newbies again and I had to be the high impact example!  The instructor normally does low impact as a demo but the person that normally does the high impact was away- eek! I even had some extra people in my line this evening- pressure! But it was fun.

I also had a late evening snack;

Some Mighty muesli- this time with milk. It was soooooooo good! It tasted like the muesli I remember from when I was little! No yucky powder, just lovely chewy oats, loads of seeds… yum 🙂

Are you a snack monster? What are your fave snacks?

I will like intervals!

 

(If I keep repeating it, then it might come true!)

Evening all

Thanks for the comments on yesterday’s post- I am going to try and remember to do a little roundup each week, as for myself it is quite satisfying to see how I have been getting on, and will be easier for me to look back on too.

Actually, today I did quite enjoy the intervals. Shock! I was down for a 4 mile run with intervals, so I did a mile warm up, then spend the next 2 miles going faster for 3 mins, then jogging for 1 minute to recover. The very last interval was uphill and really hard work, but at least I knew it was the last one and could slow down after that. The last mile was a cool down, but faster than my warm up as seems to be the case at the moment. Altogether it was 4 miles in 40 minutes, and I know my first mile was 11 mins, and after that I forgot to look, but I know that the intervals are making me run those miles a little faster. Plus they help mix it up and stop be plodding along at the same speed the whole time.

Then it was time for some more lentil stew– it was so delicious! Plus 13g protein in one serving is not half bad.

So today I am curious about your listening habits. When I started running, I did not listen to anything because I had to concentrate on looking at my watch for when to walk and when to run (my plan is here if anyone fancies giving it a go- go on you know you want to 🙂 ). Then once I could run for 15 minutes, I started listening to music. I love listening to music, and I would sort out a folder of music that was all fairly upbeat to keep me going. But a while back someone posted on WLR about listening to marathon talk (do you think I can now go for one post without mentioning it?) and so I started listening to podcasts instead on my long runs. This has now taken over, and I always have podcasts in. As well as marathon talk, I like a lot of the radio 4 ones- Friday night comedy, the food programme (not so good when you are hungry), sometimes medical matters ( although I get a bit queasey when they talk about blood and hearts), infinate monkey cage…. It’s all quite entertaining. But mostly I think it has helped my pace even out and become steady. I always felt that when I was running to music, I had to run to the beat, which is good in races if a song comes on to gee me up the hill or something, but not so good if it turns out I am struggling as I am running a little too fast. I was talking to Andy about it, and on his long runs he now doesn’t listen to anything, as he found that music was making him slow down to be in time with the music, and now he likes the time to think about things. I prefer some sound as the sound of my breath is very alarming- once I hear my breathing I start to think about breathing, which means it stops being natural, and I start shallow breathing and panicking, or wheezing and gasping, whereas if I don’t think about it, my lungs know exactly what to do and I am fine. I almost need noise cancelling headphones which just cancel out my breathing sounds! I do love the music at the exercise classes I do, and when a cheesy tune comes on it does give me a bit of a lift.

Anyway, what do you all do when working out?

I must drink more on Sundays

That is what I have been thinking about today! I noticed the other week, when I thought about it, that during the week I drink a lot of water, rooibos tea and normal tea, and on Saturdays because of my long run I also drink lots. But on Sundays I could go all day on 2 glasses of water and 2 cups of tea, which is not good. So today I made a conscious effort to drink more than I normally do.

I drank water with my breakfast (usually I do, but this time I had another glass of water after).

I drank water while I made some cookies;

(Yummy PB and white chocolate ones from Hummingbird ).

I had some tea while I watched The Princess and the Frog (which was annoying as for some reason our box missed the end- will have to wait until it comes on again to see the last few mins)

I had more water with my lunch, some with dinner and will have some later on. So I am going to make sure I think about this each Sunday so I am properly hydrated every day.

We had a lovely meal last night, but what was very funny was on the menu, the lasagne which contained beef, was labelled as being vegetarian. So I think the parmesan cheese was the least of my worries!

This afternoon we had a nice walk, to stretch the legs, but actually I was not feeling at all stiff. I am still really amazed at how much better I am than this time last year, when the 9+ mile runs were such hard work when I was half marathon training- I was actually dragging myself along for the last few miles. Plus I can still function in the afternoon, whereas before the most I could manage was laying on the sofa all afternoon! And I am not exaggerating at all- I was totally wiped out!

And finally a little roundup- This week I did my 3 runs which totalled just over 22 miles, and I was pleased with how I felt after each run, so I am feeling good about that. I also did aerobics, body pump and had a walk on each of my 2 rest days. I have been using the foam roller, and I have been thinking carefully about what to eat to refuel (and fuel) the workouts a little more. So I am counting this week as a success. If I remember I might do a little roundup each Sunday evening to see how the training goes. 🙂

Night

Parcels, pace, pottering and peanut butter

Afternoon peeps!

Yesterday was a rest day, not much to report although after work I did go to Morrisons to get some lovely so crispy bites (they are like rice cakes but tastier), and had a walk. My shoulders were so sore yesterday, after the tiny bit of extra weights for the rest of the track I was no surprised!

Look what I got in the post!

The lovely Jess offered to send me some Dorset cereal porridge, and also included a jar of PB2 which is sort of powdered peanut butter- sounds amazing although I have not yet tried it. 🙂 Thanks so much Jess 🙂

Today has been great so far- I got up and while Andy went on his 11 mile run (how does he do it before breakfast?) I had my porridge, with a blob of pb, and pottered about. I set off with the new marathon talk podcast (what else people?). I had planned the same route as last week, and was pretty pleased with my pace- considering it was 10.5 miles I was within 30 seconds of my time last week- this could be down to stopping longer to cross roads or whatever. Again the run felt good, I was a bit hungry by the end so I think soon I will start taking something with me, not sure what. Anyway, although it drizzled a bit, it was much less windy, and I ended feeling strong. I think I need to remember this feeling for when the runs are harder work! I only saw a few other people out running today, and recently I have been seeing loads.

Once home I had a clif bar (which Andy now likes too-cue another order on wiggle methinks) and yummy hot chocolate- I heated up some Kara coconut milk in the microwave, and then added some nesquick powder. Delicious and warming as I was very cold! Although the cup got hot so it was hard to drink- next time I need to heat it in one thing and drink it out of something else.

After lunch(which was toast with PB and mashed banana and a delish fuji apple) I had a lovely snack of some Mighty Muesli with yoghurt, which was very tasty indeed. It has a massive ingredients list including oats, barley, rye, sunflower seeds, quinoa, dried cranberries, linseed, alfalfa seeds, pumpkin seeds…..(and the best bit- no dried milk powder- I do not like that in muesli)- Yum

I also made some fudge for my friends- I used my fave Rachel Allen recipe but subbed in some broken mint matchmakers instead of the white chocolate- to make minty after dinner fudge.

It made loads so I am going to take some into work on Monday.

Tonight we are off out for dinner, and I had a little browse of the restuarant website- I got a little annoyed as loads of dishes were marked as vegetarian, when they contain parmesan. They had a contact form on the site so I sent them an email (a nice one) as I find it so frustrating that this is such a common mistake on menus. Anyway, I saw they do a pizza with goats cheese, peppers, caramelised onions and some other things, which looks amazing, so I think I am going for that 🙂 Anyone else get annoyed by things being labelled wrong? I like pizza express as they clearly state on the menu how to make things vegetarian.

Off for some tea now, later guys

I love the order

Hooray!

Tonight was body pump night, which means it was going to be a good good night (that was a chest track once). More newbies (one was on time so we had time to show her the equipment etc, but two turned up ten minutes into the class which is a bit of a faff as we have a zumba class straight after so it’s such a rush)- this is the time of year where all the classes get full.

One thing that I have noticed I love about the exercise classes I do is the order of everyone doing the same thing. There is something very satisfying about looking at everyone in the mirrors and seeing every person lifting or squatting at the same time to the music. It is the same in aerobics; in our class we do a warm up, then do a little routine, and then we get into rows. I generally lead a row as I have been going for a while, and one row does a move for a count of 8 (a long move e.g. jog forward, star jumps, jog backwards, star jumps), then the next row does that while the first row does a new move, and so the moves ripple along. The people at the front take turns to count, and for some reason I find it so satisfying that everyone just falls into their places and everyone is moving in synch.

Body pump was great- last week I wimped out of extra weights during the back track, but this time I kept them on 🙂 And I managed the heavier weights during the whole of the shoulders track whereas the last few weeks near the end I have swapped to lower weights. So I am feeling good about that! Yes!

Night