Aaah, a new week, and one in which I am not sick, excellent! I have a minor little bit of hanger-onner cold symptoms, but I declare myself healed and that means that I will be hitting the gym tomorrow morning! Technically all I missed was 3 days so I’m not even going to worry about it, just get after it tomorrow morning and push ahead.
I did have a minor setback over last week and that was my ongoing battle with sugar. I’d been “clean” for 30 days and was feeling alright and then I got sick. A hot toddy was had one night last week and the combo of warm booze (straight to the blood stream) and a good dollop of dark honey was enough to totally screw up my sleep, bad dreams and restless all night. Future hot toddies were struck from the list however I did live on Fisherman’s Friends for about three days and while sugar was at the end of the ingredient list, it wasn’t entirely innocuous. Aaaand….last night I had a mini Aero bar from the Halloween candy box. Aaaand I had horrible nightmares and tossed and turned the whole night through. Physically this sugar consumption has bloated my stomach as well, there is no other explanation for my weight being where it should be but my gut being where it shouldn’t! So, where I thought maybe I could add a treat back in here and there? I realize I cannot. Full sugar embargo, back on!
Friday night we went to the pub for dinner which was a big mistake. We were both feeling awful but neither of us wanted to cook so we hopped in the car and drove up the road. Unfortunately the pub was so crowded and so hot inside. The only table we could find was tucked way in the back corner, surrounded by people and 10 feet from the fireplace. We pretty much wolfed down our dinner and got the heck out of there, too hot and close for sick people!
Saturday morning we had plans to get up and get chores and errands done, but again, not very lively. I got out of bed to get a drink of water at about 6am and this is what I was greeted with when I got back 35 seconds later.
Grace likes to be spooned. What can I say, she takes after me?!
I started to get some life back on Saturday mid day and made Spicy Shredded Beef in the crockpot. It was a combination of a couple of different recipes and turned out not too bad. I made it specifically because it was going to be spicy and a bit of heat in dinner couldn’t hurt a cold! I would definitely do it again however the coconut flour tortillas that I was all excited to put it on were absolutely disgusting and got tossed out, full stop! Sunday morning I reheated some of the meat and put drippy basted eggs over it with some homemade guacamole and that was frigging delicious!
The drippy yolks mixed into the spicy meat was absolutely delicious! I called it Huevos Carnitas (instead of Huevos Rancheros)
Also on Saturday I threw a chicken in the oven to roast and then took all the meat off and used it in a Chicken Bacon Soup. We had it for dinner last night and it was absolutely fantastic! About 7 ingredients, fully clean and completely delicious. I served it with some Paleo Biscuits that were moderately decent. I’d tweak the recipe slightly next time, but will definitely make those again!
Chicken Bacon Soup simmering on the stove
Saturday night we spent watching television and reading and generally being lazy. By Sunday morning I was feeling not too bad and got up and took advantage of some rare sunshine. Grace and I walked 3.5 kilometers in the park while Ray slept (until 1:30pm!).
We did 3.56km in 34 minutes. No speed records broken but it sure felt good!
Sunday afternoon saw me raking the leaves in our huge backyard……..until I figured out that our small leaf blower works absolutely perfectly for that! It’s not strong enough to blow the leaves all willy-nilly, just enough air to actually “rake” piles. Saved me, seriously, about 4 hours of work! I raked and blew and picked up 4 garbage cans and 7 yard-waste bags full of leaves. And that was only 1/3 of the backyard! Ray should be getting some more bags today so we can try and get it finished this week.
I think that’s about it for me, life is pretty much back to normal, back to the gym and back off of sugar. Gym is Tuesday, Thursday and maybe Saturday this week. I’m also going to try and do three good dog-walks this week (miserable weather). I’m pushing on with my goal of squatting my body weight as well as running a 10K in 1:05:00 in the spring (I have a post written about upcoming goals, I just haven’t shared it yet). I’m trying to keep these two things as a driving focus for my fitness at the moment. They say to “keep your eye on the prize” so that’s my intent.
Do you have any goals to achieve over the winter? Anything in particular that will help drive your health and fitness over the long, dark winter months?
Fitty vs Fatty 