Tag Archives: healthy eating

Who says you have to grill on Memorial Day?

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Not me!

I didn’t have any plans at all on Memorial Day. I needed a day to just be at home with my dog. If it wasn’t so gosh darned hot we might have gone for a walk or something. But K-dog’s black fur doesn’t hold up so well in the heat, and neither do I, come to think of it.

We spent most of the day lounging. But in the morning, while it was still relatively cool, I did put together a few things in the crock pot. I used my new Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook‘s recipe for Moroccan Chicken Thighs.

I don’t usually do foodie blog posts, but this was SO GOOD I had to share. I made 3 modifications to the recipe. I didn’t have a red onion so I used a yellow, I didn’t have canned whole tomatoes so I used canned crushed whole tomatoes. (The recipe said to take canned whole tomatoes and dice them which seemed to defeat the purpose of throwing things in a crockpot anyway.) I used bone-in chicken thighs that I de-skinned instead of boneless skinless thighs and just cooked for a bit longer. Bones = flavor, people. Plus, when they were cooked the bone just slid out of each thigh anyway.The rest of the recipe was golden raisins, cumin, chickpeas, and tomato paste.

It was torture as the house started to smell more and more like delicious food. About 10 minutes before it was due to be done, I whipped up some 5-minute couscous. And got my mason jars ready. ”Mason jars?” you ask. Yes, the whole point of this recipe was to make myself some meals to take in for lunches and I thought I’d try a technique I’d seen on this blog.

It went a little something like this.

Open lid and gaze at deliciousness:

Then layer coucous, sauce, and a chicken thigh into a mason jar:

(I am never going to make a living as a food photographer, sorry.)

I had the chicken out of the pot for dinner and a jar for lunch today. I already know I’ll be making this again, maybe a double batch! I’m not sure how the calories breakdown in this recipe, but without the skin on the chicken thighs, there isn’t anything in this recipe to make it bad for you!

Weighing Things

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I feel like I know myself fairly well at this point in my life. I know what motivates me and what doesn’t.

Being angry at myself does NOT motivate me and push me to work harder. I know it works like that for some people, but not for me. Publicly flogging myself does not often motivate me (although it’s probably necessary from time to time). For me, if I can pull something, anything, that I can truly call a success, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant it might seem, or how much I have to stretch to get there, THAT motivates me.

Right now, while I’m injured, I have decided that I’m not going to do weekly weigh-ins here on my blog. Note that I am not saying that I have given in to eating like crap every day and given up trying to get back running and dancing. I also did not say I was not stepping on the scale.

What I need to focus on right now is taking care of my injury and slowly getting back to the gym and to the activities that I love, as soon as my body is ready. I have to be willing to be gentle with my body and take things slow, maybe even take two steps back after I feel like I’ve taken one step forward. I don’t want to focus on my weight right now, publicly. Mainly because I think it’s inevitable that with my sudden and dramatic decrease in activity I’m going to gain back some weight. I know I can deal with that when I get fully back from my injury, because I was doing it before and I’ll do it again. For now, if I can pretty much maintain (+ or – 3 pounds) and heal, that’s enough for me.

Plans may change, of course, if I have to go a very long period without being able to truly get back to my fitness plan. IF that occurs I’ll have to really rethink my diet and eating all over again, and I will share that…but I really don’t anticipate that.

Feel free to comment if you think that I’m making the wrong choice here. I value your opinions!

Strugglin’

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You probably haven’t noticed, but it’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged. Truth is, I’ve been avoiding you.

I hurt. My back hurts, and it just keeps hurting (with tantalizing days when it doesn’t and I try to do too much). It hasn’t been that long, in the grand scheme of injuries, but I’m going to tell you how I feel right now. My heart hurts.

I feel like it’s unfair, so unfair. I can’t run, I can’t line dance, I can’t Zumba. For the first time in my life I was getting proud of my strength and fitness level and now I’ve got nothing.

What sucks about that is, at this point, while I can’t exercise, I’m finding it very, very hard to care about eating right and the other aspects I could have control over. Just now, when my calorie intake becomes even more important because I really have no means of exercising, I feel so depressed about not being able to exercise that I start to get all “what’s the friggin’ point? Pass me the cheese fries.” This isn’t good, I know this isn’t good. I can’t seem to stop it. I feel helpless, and out of control and that makes me want to eat. I’ve always been an emotional eater, as well as someone who eats when she is bored and HELLO? I’m emotional and bored.

Today I signed up for a 5K on May 5th, since the one I was supposed to have run on April 21 has been cancelled, and I probably couldn’t manage it by then anyway with this blasted injury. But with the help of my chiropractor, I’m going to assume that May 5th is a good possibility. Truthfully, I’m going to do that race if I have to crawl it. And the chiro said tomorrow morning I can try 3 on 3 off intervals if I think I can handle it, but not even to try if it was still really tweaking.

Sigh. Sorry, I’m not faking it very well just now.