Metabolic Efficiency - Day 18 - Out Again

With the arrival of my in-laws, I think the holidays have really begun. I "warned" them about my eating - I basically told them I am going to be particular about what I eat so I may not eat everything they cook or skip a dinner out. Hmmm...this seems like a good way to avoid my mother in-laws cooking. Actually, what it does mean, however, is that my house is going to get a lot cleaner. Yep, have company AND get a clean house. Can't beat that.  But seriously here, they are great folks and I'm glad to have them visit for the holidays. And who knows, I might just throw a metabolically efficient meal their way.

On that note, I am definitely noticing that my jeans fit a little better and my ab muscles might be slightly (and I really do mean slightly) more visible. Even though there are only three more days of my study after today, I'm going to continue on this plan. I want to keep the momentum, I'm on a roll! (but not a bread roll!) I think it also works for me to have two allowed "deviation" meals each week, especially now that I have company for the next, oh, ten days or so. The sister in-law and nieces are supposed to arrive on Wednesday.

Now on to the meals. Today wasn't as ideal with meal timing. It started off OK but I wasn't quite as prepared in the afternoon as I should have been.

Breakfast was my standard yummy yogurt-whey-fruit-peanut butter bowl. It's like loaded oatmeal without the oatmeal. (See most any other day for a photo.) I really look forward to having this in the mornings.

That meal held me over about four hours today while I worked on my eBook (Coming Soon: The Triathlete's Guide to Race Week). My dog napped while I edited.

Juno loves a good nap.

Lunch was a warm cinnamon pear, raisin, and walnut salad with a side of scrambled egg whites seasoned with turmeric.

warmed pear, raisin, walnut salad with cinnamon and scrambled egg whites with turmeric

A couple hours after lunch I headed down to the Colorado Springs Rec Center, where they were hosting an ironman viewing party. Workout and watch the Ironman World Championships with other athletes, followed by a panel discussion with a few local Ironman athletes. I think that's a great way to spend the afternoon. I started to get a little hungry on the way down so I ate a couple clementines.

My workout:
20 minutes of leg strength exercises (a variety of body weight squats and lunges), followed by 45 minutes on a treadmill - walk for 10 then ease into a run. Max pace was a little faster than Thursday, 5.8mph! Keeping it EASY! Legs felt good though! Afterwards I was a little hungry so I ate two of the things on the right - PowerBar Oatmeal Raisin Energy Bites, before doing a light15 minute "cool down" swim.

you can usually skip sports nutrition products when trying to become more metabolically efficient.

Here's where I kind of missed the boat. They had food set out during the panel discussion, and although the fudge and cake looked tempting, I opted out. The spread just wasn't in my metabolic efficiency plan and I didn't have a snack for myself. The panel discussion was great (I asked them what their favorite post IM "recovery/celebratory" meal was, and they all seemed to contain fried onions or onion rings. Hmmm. But when I was ready to leave at around 5:45, I was pretty hungry. The plan was to now join my husband and his parents Fusion World Cuisine. I headed straight there.
I had a very similar meal to Day 9, with hot and sour soup and lettuce wraps, but instead of the black bean chicken I got the chicken stir fry.

Fusion World Cuisine does have great food!

I ate about half the plate. But I was definitely a lot hungrier going into this meal that I usually am. I made sure to eat slowly (and the hot soup helped) so that I wouldn't just wolf everything down. The lettuce wraps were brought out before the soup, and they were consumed pretty quickly.

Tomorrow has a "deviation" meal built in. We are doing a wine tasting at noon in Manitou Springs with the family. I'm looking forward to it and I'll let you know all about it tomorrow!