I didn’t eat well on Monday and I felt the effects almost immediately.
Let me tell you what I have been eating and then I can explain what I did wrong yesterday. The last couple weeks I have been having a smoothie for breakfast and a smoothie for lunch and then whatever the hell I want for dinner (within reason). My breakfast smoothie is green with avocado, spinach, pineapple and a vanilla protein shake thrown in. My lunch smoothie I make with a chocolate protein shake, bananas, mango, and peanut butter. The smoothies are satisfying, filling, easy to make, and I can switch them up enough so that I am not getting bored. And I feel good all day. This has been working surprisingly well so far.
I have not had an easy road with food and to be able to feel good about what I am eating is a rare and new experience. I tend to be one of those swingers, who restrict everything and then I get bored or hungry or sad or nervous and suddenly I am eating everything I shouldn’t. Every mealtime was another battle between my mind and body. I would try so hard to balance between satisfying a craving and what I thought I really should be eating and sticking to whatever diet I had put myself on that week. Needless to say I never really felt good after a meal. Some part of me was always left miserable.
However, I have been drinking these smoothies and feeling great! I cannot be grateful enough.
Anyway, Monday morning rolled around and I had my breakfast smoothie. Then a bit later when it was getting to be about time to make my lunch smoothie something happened. I was sitting by the window, listening to the rain, and a smell drifted in from outside, a warm food smell, a cozy, rainy day cooking smell. I suddenly did not want a smoothie. I wanted something hot. I wanted to curl up by a fire and eat potpie. I wanted stew and a fresh roll out of the oven. I baked things and crispy warm things, and things with crust that you could melt butter on. One whiff of that smell and I couldn’t imagine having a freezing cold smoothie, no matter how chocolate-y it was.
Now, while I didn’t have the smoothie, I didn’t have any of those other things either. I basically had bread. I had a bagel and cream cheese and then when that wasn’t satisfying enough I made some toast. I did some more work and then about an hour later I put on my running shoes and got on the treadmill.
It was about forty minutes in when my energy gave out.
I was tired. I was exhausted. I could feel the hollowness in my belly. My muscles were shaking and it felt like my blood was pumping hot wet cement. It was awful. I didn’t end the workout early, but I didn’t run as long as I had intended. I had a five-minute warm up, jogged for fifty minutes and then had a ten-minute cool down. Really that is only five minutes less actual running time than my goal, so not that bad, but still… By the time I was done I was so weak and hungry I wanted to devour whatever I could. I didn’t care what it was, just that I needed to eat NOW.
So, today, I am having my smoothies, breakfast and lunch.
Don’t workout on bread alone.
Rey Wright 