A weekly round up. Eats, workouts, watches, and reads. Stir Fry Edition.
For this week's adventures, I found a quick and delicious chicken stir fry recipe, started a new weight lifting routine, and watched a lot of TV. Let's get into it!
Breakfasts
Monday and Friday: cereal bar, string cheese, fruit.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: I was out of breakfast burritos, so avocado toast had to step up and fill the void. Gave myself two eggs on Tues and Thurs since those were the heavy running days.
Saturday: Avocado, sausage, and cheddar scramble with English muffin.
Sunday: the other half of the frozen pizza that I had for lunch on Saturday.
Lunches
Monday and Thursday: hit up work catering for salad.
Tuesday and Wednesday: Finished the pasta from last week. I had too much for one meal and not enough for two, so I bulked it up with salads.
Friday: hit up the freezer for Sweet Potato, Corn, and Black Bean Enchiladas. I've said this a million times already, but my standard alterations to the recipe are green sauce instead of red and I double the recipe every time.
Saturday: frozen pizza (see also Sunday breakfast).
Sunday: cereal and snacks.
Dinners
Monday (family meal): leftover chili mac from Sunday.
Tuesday (family meal): grilled cheese and tomato soup via my hunky husband.
Wednesday (date night): At first we thought that we would have the boys that night, so we started with the idea of a family meal in mind. I wanted to actually cook something instead of winging it, but not badly enough to go to the store. Stir fry popped into mind, specifically ramen stir fry since if nothing else I knew that the boys would like the noodles. At the last minute the schedule changed and the boys went to their mom's at the usual time and we ended up with dinner for two.
And 15 minutes later (ok more like 25 since I started with frozen veggies...note to self for next time, get those dethawed before trying to cook)...I had an amazing stir fry on my hands. The mediocre stir fry curse is broken. Thanks Averie!
Recipe changes: I used what I had on hand, so that was frozen broccoli and bell peppers. Left out the corn, bamboo, and green onions since I didn't have them. I left the chili garlic sauce out for the sake of my husband's mild palate but added a big spoonful to my plate. Both of us were very happy and I'm pretty sure that the kids will like it also, so you'll be seeing this again for family meals.
Thursday (fend for yourself night): we finished off the stir fry.
Friday (family meal): chicken parm.
Saturday (family meal): taco night! Our standard taco spread is ground beef cooked with onions and chili powder and cumin added, cheese, lettuce, tomato, green onions (stepsons are obsessed), guac, and cilantro lime rice.
Meal Prep
Breakfast Burritos with a new twist. Scrambling six eggs at one time takes forever, so I tried doing them one at a time. I think it went a bit faster, though there is a trade off in more hands on time. The other thing I was trying to achieve was to get a more consistent and even layer of egg in each burrito. I'll report back as I eat these.
Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Bowls Since I've been watching a bit more TV than usual, the idea of having home cooked lunches without putting in home cooking time was appealing.
Workouts
Like every other runner on the planet, I'm not that excited about weight lifting other than knowing that it makes me a better runner and helps with injury prevention. To my credit, I've been consistent about lifting twice a week for the past year, but I haven't been so good about switching my weight workouts up. This caught my eye and I realized that yes a 4x week program could work very nicely with my schedule if I move lifting to my lunch break. As it is, I usually walk for a bit at lunch, so it's easy to make the swap.
Running? Yep, did that too. 28 miles this week.
Monday: 3 fast treadmill miles in the morning/lifting at lunch.
Tuesday: 6 very hard and very slow treadmill miles/lifting at lunch.
Wednesday: off
Thursday: 6 miles of speedwork like a boss/lifting at lunch. I will never understand why the Tuesday running is so hard and the Thursday running comes so naturally, but there it is.
Friday: 3 hilly treadmill miles/lifting at lunch.
Saturday: 10 miles treadmill. Took a few minutes for breaks/water bottle refills at 5.1, 7.6, and 9.1 miles. I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that the longer treadmill runs are easy, but it just wasn't that bad. I think I could go further if I had to and we'll test that theory out next week.
Sunday: off!
Modifications to the lifting program: yeah, I can't do dips, so I just hold myself on the bars for 30 seconds so that I'm doing something instead of nothing. Our work gym doesn't have a pull up bar + who am I kidding, I can't do pull ups anyway so that's a skip. I'm not down with back extensions (yes I can do them but they don't feel great and I've read that they actually aren't great for the body) so that's another skip. But other than that I'm a fan and interested to see what the next 11 weeks bring.
Running thoughts: In theory I would like to run more miles but my body is telling me that everything is good where it is. I remember that it took at long time to go from 15 miles to 20 miles a week, and then suddenly it was completely natural to go from 20 to 25 miles a week, and now it's very comfortable to do 28 miles a week and when my body is ready it will do more. Also, for fun I hit up the foam roller after my longer runs this week and I was amazed. Just a few stupid rolls up and down really takes the tiredness out of my legs.
Watching
- From the treadmill:
- Finished A Place to Call Home. I planned it so that I would have the last two episodes to watch for Saturday's run and I finished the run just a few minutes before the end of the show, which was super convenient because the end involves a bit of reading and a bit of crying. So so good and I will miss that show.
- Started season 3 of Wanted and I am looking forward to next week's workouts so that I can continue.
- From the couch:
- Dirty John!!!! Or how to make genius with "Lifetime movie of the week" material. This show nailed it. I loved the podcast and I loved the show. I haven't watched this much TV on my own in a while. Worth noting, although obviously it's a very dark and adult story, it wasn't graphic so I was able to watch it with little people in the house.
- Family viewing this week was Terminator 2. As with Die Hard last month, the best part of watching action movies with the boys is hearing all of their ideas on how they would handle the situations.
Look, reading has been a little stale lately. There are a few Great Novels on my want to read list, but I was in the mood for a page turner so I went to Marcia Clark and Moral Defense. No disrespect to the last novel that I read, but folks this is how you do it. I got hooked from the first sentence and can't put it down.
I don't know why I never considering string cheese for breakfast! Honestly such a yummy option as a side, like you have it!
ReplyDeleteFor sure! It's way easier than a hard boiled egg or something like that. And with two growing boys in the house, it's something we always have on hand.
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