Here I am, mojo in tact. I found it somewhere around the holidays. It was a combination of an ionized bracelet, a classical cd that is designed to motivate you subconsciously and the fact that I was in the mood for all things holidays this season. Or just the mental benefits of knowing I was doing something to find my missing vitality. Either way, it came back with a vengeance and I was thrilled to see it again. Like a long lost friend.
But even though I'm feeling better mentally and emotionally, I still feel a little fatigue physically and lacking my conquer-the-world-daily attitude that got me to the gym 6 days a week. Still looking for that...I have a half marathon on Sunday and to be honest, my training has been lackluster at best. I'm thinking I could be low in some vitamins (due to lack of knowledge for my activity level and what my body requires under such duress) and also perhaps a little overtraining in all of that. And breaking my training routine has shaken my confidence. It's been cold as all get-out around here lately and the roads have been frozen, so to make matters worse what long runs I've done I did on the treadmill. I ran 8.5 miles this morning on my treadmill at a good effort pace and I feel just fine, so it really is just mental. I've run 4 half marathons and I work out harder than most on an almost daily basis, so I need to be okay with the fact that straying from my plan is okay and the outcome is up to me mentally, not really so much physically. I have almost a week to get my mind straight.
On the upside, I've been cooking. Yes, me. The girl who admittedly is missing her domestic gene in a big way. The thing is, I actually like to cook, as long as the subject matter isn't too disgusting to handle pre-cooking. I just don't have a lot of spare time. I work crazy hours and cooking takes even more time. But I'm making an effort and am building my repertoire of clean dinner recipes.
My latest endeavor is Clean Beef Stew, taken from the October 2010 issue of Oxygen magazine. It was very easy to make, it takes a long time to cook (90 minutes). The meat was a little tough, but the stew tasted really good and believable, for a clean recipe. Perhaps I cooked the meat too long? Will do some further investigating when I make this recipe again.
Makes 6 servings
323 Calories, 7g Fat, 27g Carbohydrates, 6g Fiber, 37g Protein
1 lb sweet potatoes, peeled
1 1b carrots
1 medium yellow onion
2 lb top sirloin
3 Tbsp reduced-sodium soy sauce
3 Tbsp oat bran
1½ cups low-sodium beef broth
1½ cups water
Pinch chopped parsley (optional)
Preheat oven to 325.
Chop vegetables and meat into large chunks.
Combine soy sauce and oat bran in a large baking pan.
Add meat, tossing to coat. Add vegetables, broth and water. Cover and bake for 1½ hours. Top with chopped parsley, if desired.
As I find recipes that are clean and really tasty, I'm adding them to a custom cookbook I am making for myself on Tastebook's website. My cookbook will be entitles "Eatin' Clean in a Dirty World" and so far I'm up to 8 recipes, 2 of which I've shared on here so far. This is a fun endeavor, because when my cookbook is compiled, I'll have up to 100 clean recipes bound in a nice book and they will all be recipes I will make and enjoy. Also, since I've already entered recipes into Tastebook, for now, when I need one of them I can just log into the site and read my recipe off my phone. Efficiency!
So, what now? Well, after my half marathon on Sunday I plan to revamp my workout plan to start conditioning myself for the full marathon I signed up for late this year. Also, I will be committing myself to some sort of Clean Eating Challenge, details of which are still TBTOAP (to be thought of and posted).
For now, my plan is to fuel up, rest up and move my feet like the wind via masterful mind control on Sunday!
