First week after marathon and first week of new diet plan

Workouts:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: 30 min trail run (6 AM).  First run back and it felt great!  Rode bike to class and lab, quads  were definitely fatigued during this.

Wednesday: 44 min (5 miles) on elliptical and core at Field House.  First of 30 days following Paleo-for- athletes diet plan.  I’ll be strictly no dairy, wheat, legumes or processed sugar and restrict starches (such as oatmeal, brown rice pasta, sweet potatoes and quinoa to immediately before and after workouts).

-          Breakfast: 2 eggs (omelet style but not folded) with 1 head steamed broccoli, ¾ tomato, and handful of spinach.  Side of melon.

-          Lunch: 2 oz brown rice pasta, ½ C tomato sauce with grass-fed, lean ground beef, 1 C chopped spinach, some leftover steamed broccoli

-          Snacks: Apple and ½ C almonds, Trader Joe’s trail mix pack with nuts, seeds and dried cranberries.

-          Dinner: Salad with spinach, canned tuna (in water), tomatoes, cucumbers and lemon juice/olive oil dressing. Went to pot luck dinner after and avoided the chili, pumpkin bread and cupcakes and had lots of squash, sweet potatoes and salad (with more squash).

Thursday: Biked to lab. 

-          Breakfast: 1 egg, 1 chicken sausage, 1 orange, 1 apple with almond butter

-          Lunch: Leftover baked sweet potato with roasted nuts, steamed broccoli and 1 chicken sausage.

-          Dinner (with Lange, a friend from GU): Grilled salmon with pesto, steamed beets, carrots and white asparagus, sautéed zucchini, baked apples for dessert.

Friday: Bike to class and lab (twice each), 20 min run.

-          Breakfast: Sautéed zucchini, marinated steak strips, orange.

-          Lunch 1 (after run): Oatmeal with raisins and pumpkin seeds

-          Lunch 2: Spinach salad with tomatoes, zucchini, steak and olive oil and balsamic dressing.

-          Dinner: Jamaican chicken with steamed vegetables (at Ruth’s Diner with Lange).

Saturday:  Ran lots of errands, carried ~20 lbs of food around the farmer’s market, helped a friend move a couch.

-          Breakfast: Paleo pancakes (almond butter, banana, egg, walnuts and strawberries all mashed together).  Two fried eggs with some tomato.

-          Lunch: Steamed beet greens and leftover steak.

-          Snacks: Grapes and orange juice, apple with almond butter.

-          Dinner: Tuna with pesto and tomatoes.

Sunday: “Living Room” hike above campus with friend Jackie, would make a nice (hard, uphill) trail run.

-          Breakfast: Oatmeal with apple and pumpkin seeds, fried egg with tomato

-          Lunch: Banana, broiled lamb chop

-          Dinner: Paleo brownies (with a base of ground nuts), dried apples, stir fried beef.

Thoughts:

                It was much harder trying to plan new meals this week, especially ones that didn’t include quinoa or brown rice.  It was also hard getting enough to eat for breakfast without also ingesting 3 days- worth of cholesterol .  It has been fun eating new foods, but I spent a lot more on groceries this week than I normally do, so I need to figure something out to decrease that.  Part of the problem is that my portions are all screwed up; with my normal diet I knew exactly how much of eat food I needed to eat to get enough, but now I’m not really sure, so I end up eating a mountain of vegetables with every meal.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just gets expensive.  Until now I hadn’t realized how filling starches are.                  

It hasn’t been as hard as I thought to cut out cookies and other desserts.  Not eating oatmeal every morning has been much harder, as has not drinking a beer if I feel like it.  I’ve decided that wine is acceptable; its fermented, which you’re supposed to avoid, but doesn’t contain any gluten or wheat byproducts, which I’m more concerned with avoiding.  I’ll experiment with new breakfast foods this week that aren’t egg-centered and see if that helps.  Or I’ll just get up and run before breakfast so that oatmeal is allowed.    

                 It was a nice change taking it easy after last weekend’s marathon.  I’ll start increasing my activity level, but I think I’m going to explore new types of exercise for the next few weeks.  I don’t want to be feeling at all burned out on swimming, biking and running when I start official training.  I will do some of each so that my body is prepared for it, but I think I’ll do lots of yoga, hiking and unstructured trail running.  And I will get back in the pool (I haven’t swam since my tri…).

Motivation:

Chrissie Wellington winning her first World Championship in 2007.  Pure joy...