Pain, Food and More Food

Happy spend-time-with-your-loved-ones-day!  Funny how these holidays revolve around eating, which I totally love to do (obviously), but it usually ends with me feeling a tad guilty!  Let’s hope I can practice some good ol’ self-control! I have a plan and, man, plans help!  I have salad mix, dried cranberries and avocado ready for a salad and sweet potatoes that I plan to slice and bake with a drizzle of olive oil.  That’ll be my meal while my family eats ham and mashed potatoes with butter and cream.  However, when the chocolate cream pie from the best French bakery around appears at the table, I cannot make any promises!   I deserve a little sliver, wouldn’t you say?

Marathon & Tendinitis Update
The Salt Lake City marathon that my best friend and I were training for is this Saturday, the 18th.  As I mentioned in a previous post, due to over training, I got tendinitis in my right knee.  I was planning on running through the pain, but now that my ego has subsided and rationality has kicked in – I’ve decided not to.  I don’t want to further aggravate the problem and after doing a lot of research on tendinitis, I cold seriously screw up my knee in pushing through the pain for 26.2 miles.  There will always be other marathons, but I only have one right knee. When in doubt, love your knee.

I am super excited to see Tamara and her little baby William in the beautiful landscape that is Utah!  So, my friends, that is the silver lining.  I get to visit Tamara and support her while she runs her first marathon!

Buuuuuuut…I’m not going to lie; I can’t help feeling a little blue.  All I’ve wanted to do lately is run off my worries.  Instead, I’ve been icing my knee with frozen peas and taking it easy.  My eating habits, however, have not diminished to compensate with my decrease in exercise, so I need to kick that in the rear before my rear gets any bigger! (I needed to confess that.  Funny how these blogs start to feel like confessional mixed with a therapy session!)

I have enjoyed doing some upper body strength training.  Nothing like push-ups to challenge me! Yesterday I did an hour on the elliptical at the gym and kept it really challenging by doing intervals of 8 and 12 mostly.

Now, enough of me, me, me!  Let me share two new snacks and an entree I’ve enjoyed that you may like to try.

Prunes & Cottage Cheese
No, I am not an 80-year-old woman!  I just love foods that pack a nutritious punch worth every calorie.

• 1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese = 100 calories, 2.5 g fat, 0 g fiber, 14 g protein
• 5 Sunsweet dried plums = 100 calories, 0 g fat, 3 g fiber, 1 g protein
• Total: 200 calories, 2.5 g fat, 3 g fiber, 15 g protein
  

Blueberry Oatmeal and Blueberry Muesli

• One package Trader Joe’s Heart Health, Whole Grain, Blueberry Instant Oatmeal (Made w/ flax seed and plant sterols) = 160 calories, 2.5 g fat, 6 g fiber, 4 g protein
• One ounce Trader Joe’s blueberry muesli =  97 calories, 1.4 g fat, 2.1 g fiber, 2.8 g protein.  Nutritional data from Calorie King as I disposed of the package before getting the stats!
• Total:  257 calories, 3.9 g fat, 8.1 g fiber, 6.8 g protein

Famished Girl Scramble Burrito with Avocado

• 1/2 of the Famished Girl Scramble = 102.5 calories, 3 g fat, 0.5 gram fiber, 12 g protein
• 1/3 cup sliced avocado = 78 calories, 7.17 g fat, 3.27 g fiber, 0.97 g protein
• 1 Trader Joe’s Hand Made Whole-Wheat Tortilla = 140 calories, 5 g fat, 3 g fiber, 3 g protein
• Total: 320.50 calories, 15.17 g fat (that’s higher than I expected, but 7 g of it is healthy, avocado fat!), 6.77 g fiber, 15.97 g protein

I hope you enjoy your day!  Anyone else going to be eating an individual, tailored, meal today while others at the table gorge on butter and cream?!

Tags: Calorie King, calories, marathon, nutritional information, overtraining, Recipes, tendinitis, trader joes