Tummy Troubles

“Eat Food.  Mostly Plants.  Not Too Much.”
Michael Pollan

How did I stray from my usual motto for eating?  Yesterday, I was all stressed about my macronutrients and how to properly balance them for endurance training.  How many carbs?  How much protein??  As I got more and more overwhelmed as I researched, I finally gave up and went back to my roots.

I hate worrying about macronutrients.  I really do.  It is already enough to worry about calories, portions, exercise, etc.  Do I really need another thing to think about?  I mean, its one thing if you have a poor diet but mine is pretty well balanced.  I eat proteins, I eat my veggies and fruits, I eat grains.  So I’m just going to stick with what I’m doing.  Maybe I will worry a little less about every meal and snack having a protein (like I have been for over a year since I first read “This is Why You’re Fat” – Jackie Warner).  Maybe I’ll eat pasta and veggies once in a while without shrimp or chicken on top!  Gasp!  It won’t kill me.

Tummy Problems & Solutions
So, I always have a stomach ache.  Always.  I guess there are times where I’m pretty much ok but more often than not, something is bothering me.  This weekend, I ate like crap and I think it really irritated my system so I have to hunker down and do something about it.  Here is what I’m going to do:

1. Cut back on coffee.  I know!!!  So not like me.  But I have been drinking it too much lately and I think it might be affecting me a lot more than usual.
2. Drink Apple Cider Vinegar.  Blech.  That is what you are thinking.  But its not so bad!  When it is hot and mixed with tea, its pretty good.  Last night, I got some organic unpasturized cider and ginger-lemon tea (ginger and lemon also both good for icky tummies).  I hope to drink it on a regular basis and let’s hope it helps!
3. Drink more water.  This one is an easy one right?  Yeah, I’m always working on it.
4. Fasting.  If all else fails, I might do a day of liquids, i.e. smoothies and soups, to help my stomach calm down.  This will have to wait until finals are over though.  I need as much energy as I can get right now and going without food for a day doesn’t help with that!
5. Simple Eating.  Just eat plain ol’ food.  Nothing fancy, deep fried, coated in sauce, etc.  Grilled chicken and plain broccoli?  Yum!

I’ve heard of other things to help with digestion but I’m not too sure about them.  Like no cold drinks with food (apparently food only digests when your stomach is warm?  Uh… not sure about that).  Or “food combining” where you don’t eat starchy carbs with proteins.  Again, weird.  

Workout of the Day
I know, this blog is just jam packed today!  This morning, in my new place I… slept in!  I did!  Until 7AM!  It was heavenly.  And then I drug myself out of bed and attempted to do my new Jackie Warner DVD.  I decided to do the upper body only and got started.  I remembered to pack my little 3lbers since I wasn’t sure how hard this DVD would be.   I will do a review on it next time because I didn’t finish!  So there is a minor problem with the new apartment.  FLEAS!  They are trying to fix it and are bombing it today (should have already actually!).  But the problem was that this DVD was 90% laying on the floor.  Yeah, not happening yet.  So I will review it when I do the whole thing.

After that, I decided I would instead go for a quick run.  I threw on a t-shirt since it was beautiful yesterday and opened the front door.  OMG it was FREEZING.  I threw on a long sleeve.  Still cold!  I put on cold gear.  Bearable.  I tried running out of the development to the major road (a highway with stop lights basically).  Felt awkward, turned around and ran back to the development.  There is an access road behind it and I ran to that.  No shoulder.  No sidewalk.  And I don’t know how busy of a road it is.  So, I’m really bummed because it looks like I will have to drive somewhere to go for runs.  Blah.  I hate that!  I might try that access road again maybe with Rob.  Or at least drive down it to check it out.  So I only ended up doing about .8 of a mile.  Better than nothing?  And my hands were frozen so I headed back and took a nice hot shower!

Other News
Really, this should just be called “pictures I want to use because I took them” section.  LoL.  So here are some other things going on in life.

#1  I got to sleep in my apartment at school last night!  Next week, I will stay the whole week.  I will miss Rob.  I will love being able to workout again!

#2  Rob has decided he wants to cook from scratch.  His new fun project?  Making bread.  And we can’t just make bread, he’s got to catch his own yeast!  He used store bought for the first batch.  More updates on that project later…

#3  We tried dragonfruit.  It was delicious.

#4  Turkey leftovers are also extremely delicious.

So that was a lot for today!  Time to get to work!!!