A+ Day

Thanks for the comments on my post from yesterday.  It really is a beautiful area.  I will have to get some more current pictures, plus some of the surrounding area.  Some of you asked how far of a move this is for us ..... it's about 3 1/2 - 4 hrs drive - so a move for sure, but not terribly far.  It's a completely different lifestyle.  Where I am now is almost city living.  The region I'm in (not the particular city) has a population of 2.5 million.  Where we are moving the regions population is under 300,000.  But city for city the population is pretty similar. 

The big kicker though is the weather.  The new place is classed as a cool semiarid climate, meaning it receives fairly low annual preciption.  It's also prone to fairly hot summers (25°-40°C or 75°-100°F) and somewhat cool winters (just above or slightly below freezing).  Where we are now we receive annual 62" of rain (sometimes it feels like we get that in a day!).  Up there it is 13".  That's a whole lot of difference!  The area we are moving to is often one of the hottest and driest in the country.  That's right up my ally!

Anyhow, enough with the figures and facts.

Yesterday was A+++++++++

When I wrote out my menu plan the other day I decided to "track" by counting points.  I no longer attend WWs meetings as they do nothing for me after all these years.  I'm a Lifetime member in good standing so don't have to pay anyway, but I'm just not into it.  However, counting points is easy for me.  I know by heart the points value of pretty much anything I regularly eat.  Plus I can calculate quite accurately the points value of a food just by looking at it's nutritional information.  Once in a while I pull out my tracker to check but I'm always right on.

I even remembered an old "pal" of mine from years ago - chocolate pudding and cool whip!  A small serving after dinner was exactly what I needed.  This isn't my pudding (though it does look awfully fancy, maybe I should try it), but you get the idea.  Actually the link I got it from looks pretty good if you wanna check it out.

source

Lately my whole schedule has been topsy turvy and I think that was contributing to me being so off balance with my eating.  For a while now I've been having a hard time preparing my lunches for work, often buying out.  Then coming home and struggling to put together dinner.  Too often I found myself reaching for (or going out and buying) packaged and/or prepared foods.  That a good diet does not make in my world!

What I am finding helpful (besides being organized and having a plan) is as soon as I get home from work I go straight to preparing dinner.  Ideally I like to come home and chill for a bit.  Maybe watch some TV, go on the computer, sit down and chat.  But then I'd find myself in a crunch to make dinner, plus I was HUNGRY and I'd find myself picking.  So I'd end up making something quick (and not usually very healthy) and because I ate late I'd end up feeling lethargic and skipping workouts.  Not a good combination.

I have to keep this up.  Keep up the planning.  Keep up the organization.  It helps SO much!  And I end the day feeling satisfied and without guilt or remorse.

Here's yesterday's eats:

Breakfast - Steel Cut Oats with peaches & brown sugar

Lunch - Brown Rice w/shrimp stir-fry (leftover from dinner) & an orange

Snack - Cottage cheese & pinapple (not good together, but great apart)

Dinner - Toasted english muffin with ham, cheese & egg

Dessert - Chocolate Pudding with cool whip

All this for 22 points

After dinner had all settled I hit up the gym for some running and a bit of core work.  I don't enjoy running on the treadmill, but sometimes it's a necessary evil.  I wanted to do 10K, but I find it so monotonous running on the TM.  Instead I did fast intervals:

2 x 1.5 miles

3 x 1.0 miles

average pace 7:40/mile

total time 47:30 **see below

Now ... there's NO way I could run a full 10K at that pace right now.  After each mile I paused the TM, caught my breath, had a sip of water and/or a little stretch (plus a piddle break in the middle) - then continued.  It took me closer to 60 minutes with all my breaks to actually finish.  But I think it's important to do intervals at a faster pace like that to improve your speed.  This has worked for me in the past.

I was really happy with my interval pace though.  I remember not too long ago where I couldn't break an 8 minute mile - even if just for one mile.  Now it's totally doable.

Hope you're having an A+ day!

Heidi

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