Rest & Prep

I stumbled across both of these little jems yesterday and they both resonated with me so well that I had to share them.  One because it completely cracked me up and is totally true for unfortunately too much of my life. No I don’t generally think I am an asshole but I sure can be a crazy bitch when my buttons are pushed.  And of course the other being that you are enough, just absolutely enough just as you are. This is perfection. 

Last night rest was exactly what I needed.  I knew my body was so drained yesterday and ultimately as a result of rest I feel much better today. Physically, perhaps not mentally, but there is even a slight mental improvement with the physical one.  I stopped at the grocery store on my way home for a couple items where I ended up purchasing a large package of fresh chicken breast.  Like pounds of it for $10.00. Normally I buy the chicken breasts frozen in a bag, but this stuff was not frozen and I thought it might taste a smidge better so I went for it. 

When I got home I opened up the package and did not a single thing to the chicken breast because I am just lazy like that and literally just plopped it down onto my Traeger smoker Bar-B-Que.   I did let it smoke for an hour to get all those good flavors in it.  This was probably a great decision.  Then I sat my ass down on my couch (after changing into pajama pants at 6 PM) and just watched some TV.  At about 7 I turned the grill up and cooked my chicken.  I could tell I must have been hungry last night because I’ve always said if you aren’t hungry enough to eat vegetables than you aren’t really hungry. Well last night I ate carrots. Lots of carrots, so clearly I was hungry enough.  But the funny thing is, it’s the carrots dipped in my light blue cheese dressing. I think it’s more about having a little crunch to accompany the delicious taste of the dressing.  Nonetheless, I ate carrots.

After about 30-40 minutes the chicken smelled and looked amazing.  Like holy shit you’d think I was a top of the line chef and not a girl who literally dropped the chicken straight from package to grill top and turned it on. The flavor of the chicken was the bomb.  I immediately started dipping that bad boy into my dressing and my tummy loved it.  So yes, I *cooked*. 

I had all this delicious chicken and therefore did the closest to meal prepping you will ever find me doing, by weighing the pieces and putting them into baggies of about 4 ounces for future consumption.  See photographic evidence.

I was kind of sickly proud because this is not something I would normally do, but it seemed like the right thing to do.  And oh that chicken was just perfection.  I am guessing it had a lot more to do with the “freshness” of it vs the typical freezed stuff I eat.  This is clearly the way to go.

So I ate my chicken, my carrots all of which was dipped in my amazing Lighthouse OPA Greek Yogurt Blue Cheese dressing and I felt happiness of the food kind.  Almost that same feeling one would get from eating a scrumptious dessert.  I guess good food is good food no matter what and it all gives you the same scary high. I say scary because as a general rule I am certain no amount of any food should ever make you this giddy. That’s part of my whole problem to begin with.  I should not actually be in love with food this much.

So this whole week I’ve been eating Lean Cuisines for lunch.  It’s like, when you are starting over you’ve got to go back to basics. Things that get you thru.  I will never knock the need or ease of a boxed frozen meal.  Sometimes you’ve just got to. Given I don’t cook I accept that they are a viable option for a girl like me.  But the nutritional quality of them is not lost on me.  It’s better than a lot of things for sure but not as good as say clean chicken and carrots dipped in dressing of course.  So today for lunch I actually opened up my prepackaged 4 ounce bag of chicken and dropped in a weighed 5 ounces of carrots and measured out 2 tablespoons of my dressing in a little container and made my own “quick meal” for lunch.

Now this seems like an amazing thing.  Of course if I ate this every day I am fairly certain that it wouldn’t take long for me to loathe chicken and carrots.  But for right now this minute it’s a damned healthy option.  This baggy is presently sitting in my work mini-fridge waiting for me.

After I ate, I pretty much decided last night that I was exhausted and I went to bed. At 8:30 PM.  I can’t even remember the last time I went to bed at 8:30 PM.  It was quite obvious to me that my body was just functioning on lack of proper rest and sickness.  I didn’t immediately fall asleep, I tossed and turned for a bit before ultimately falling fast asleep.  I didn’t wake up early or toss and turn again meaning that I got in a TON of solid sleep last night that obviously my body really needed. 

I did end up eating a tiny bit more food yesterday than I might should have. But it wasn’t bad at all. I finished yesterday eating 1,455 calories.  I don’t think that is uncalled for considering the quality of the food was pretty high.  Lots of carrots and chicken and almonds and even 2 rice cakes, which probably isn’t high quality. But whatever. Not mad.  So that means 4 days have now been spent in total food control and that feels lovely.  That is a better feeling than I’ve had in quite some time.

Today I have penciled in most foods except dinner. Not sure yet what that will entail.  But I have packed my gym clothes where I plan on heading to the gym tonight for a nice big old heavy leg day. I need it.  I need to feel powerful and in control.  I need to lift heavy things and squat heavy things.  I need to take back some power at the gym.  I am not mad about not going last night.  I knew what my body needed and I think it thanked me for the extra rest last night.  I feel much more capable today. More excited even to tackle the gym tonight.  That is all I was after anyway.  So here’s to hoping I crush the gym tonight and start to feel like my old self again soon.