Day One Of Our “Get Back Into Shape” Journey
DAY ONE
So, yesterday was the first day of restarting our clean life. I had purposely signed us up for the Shred415 class to start back up, because if you pay money for something, you’re more likely to go, right? We started off the day taking it pretty easy in the morning. You don’t want to burn too many calories before you exercise… However, you also need to take in a few calories; apparently, waiting until 12pm to eat a handful of pretzels, and then having a sandwich around 2pm that included cucumbers was not very beneficial for my stomach by the time the 3pm class started. Naturally, we started on the treadmills, too. Okay… I’ll walk at 4mp/h for the first couple of minutes. And I’ll even ramp up the treadmill to a 5% incline. Oh, you want me to speed up? By increments of 0.5mp/h? No problem! Until I hit the 7mp/h part. And then, about 10 minutes later, I was nauseous.
THIS ISN’T FOR EUROPEANS
I think later I figured out what the issue was: Even though I was fully aware that this class would be hard, in my little European mind, I thought I was going to exercise the way we do in Germany. We eat our healthy meals, and then we go for a walk, a family bike ride, or maybe – if you’re truly ambitious – you go out dancing, swimming, or playing tennis. A few of us might even take a gymnastics class or a bodybuilding-type gym class, but we generally don’t like to sweat a lot when we exercise.
To that end, I made us a light sandwich for lunch: 1 thin slice of toasted whole grain bread, piled high with arugula, cucumber slices, a sliced hard-boiled egg, one slice of turkey, as well as one slice of swiss cheese. No chips on the side. Mustard as condiment and I exclusively use Düsseldorfer Löwensenf because it tastes yummy and has exactly 4 ingredients: Mustard seed, Brandy Vinegar, Purified Water, and Salt. If we’re going to detox here and I have to give up chocolate, gummy bears, AND wine for a whole week, we will also not put any other unnatural stuff into our bodies 🙂
DINNERTIME
After we sweat our butts off (for the record, my pants did not fit any better today, so I clearly need to sweat more to make sure my butt comes off), we stopped at Trader Joe’s and got a few groceries. Luckily, we only have about two more weeks of eating at this house, so I wasn’t too tempted to buy the whole store. Also, it’s amazing how much lower your Trader Joe’s bill becomes automatically when you don’t buy wine or chocolate. I did try the wine they were sampling – this is why I so courageously face the crowds at Trader Joe’s on the weekends; they give out wine and cheese samples – and I was surprised to find a German Riesling that wasn’t too sweet. Btw, I didn’t get points taken off the diet plan by my sweet and supportive partner for the two thimble-sized cups of wine I had 🙂
On Friday night, we went to dinner with our friends who live out in the country. They have so much acreage that they can plant and harvest their own vegetables. And they sent us home with an eggplant and a whole bag full of ocra! Having never cooked with ocra (except for if it comes in a ready-soup can of sorts) before, I took my usual approach to making veggies – roast or sauté them. Since I was already sweaty from the class, turning on the oven in 90 degree weather wasn’t an option. Out came the pan. I cut up the ocra, sautéed it in coconut oil, then added a handful of frozen peas and 2 chicken breast halves, chopped. When the brown rice was done, I put one serving of brown rice on each of our plates and topped that with the chicken/ocra/peas mixture.
I must have worked off some brain cells instead of my butt though, because I forgot about the fresh spinach; one of the six items we had gone to Trader Joe’s for. Alas, it had to be added to the side. And it still tasted great! I added a few pickled spicy vegetables from Trader Joe’s refrigerated section, which James politely declined (He doesn’t eat pickles, so anything pickled is not making him salivate in anticipation of dinner lol). He just added some jarred salsa and really enjoyed his meal that way.
If you ever make this, I’d say go with the spicy pickled vegetables though! It was delicious!
THE REST OF THE NIGHT
After this small portion of a super healthy meal, we just sat on the couch and plopped in a DVD. We watched two episodes of Ally McBeal (c’mon, the Biscuit is funny!) and then went to bed, hungry. But it’s “get healthy week”, so no snacking at midnight, obviously! We fell asleep around 12:30 and I can honestly say that I haven’t slept this well or this long in a while! Woke up at 8am and ready to take on the world! Okay, at least, ready to make a delicious, healthy omelette for breakfast, instead of my usual go-to of coffee+energy bar. More about the omelette and the rest of today in tomorrow’s post.
Ashley@Shakenstirredandblended
Hi, I'm Ashley and I am a freelance writer and editor for one local and one national publication. In my spare time, I teach foreign languages and manage two households. Oh, and raise four children. It's a crazy life that I chose and I love every second of it :o)
