Damn Tortillas

Let me start off by saying that I have not been feeling myself lately.  I have had some…I guess we’ll call them physical issues…that have had me out of sorts and just not feeling up to par. (It’s girl stuff, let’s just not talk about it.) It’s not something I normally have to deal with; I’m pretty healthy most of the time, so this has really knocked me for a loop. In fact, on Thursday, I was feeling so badly, I skipped Jamie’s hockey game and instead went to sleep at 6 PM! Not only did I waste in evening, it turns out I missed a good hockey game! :/  I also came in way below my calories for the day:

The only reason I didn’t get the “nasty gram” for eating too few calories is because I took the time to eat some leftover chicken breast before I went to bed.  I’ve determined that it gets angry at you if you eat below 1000 calories a day.

Saturday morning, I had a long run of 60 minutes at Zone 1 on the schedule. It was another hot and he midmorning, despite the fact that I gotten up before the sunrise to try to mitigate the conditions somewhat. 

It didn’t work, but, you know, it was a valiant effort. Unfortunately, my run sucked. In fact, about halfway through, I gave up on trying to stay within Z1 and just ran at a slow pace, watching my heart rate climb higher and higher and feeling more and more like I wanted to be anywhere but running.

Yeah, that look about sums it up. But you know it didn’t suck? Being able to jump in my pool afterwards and actually stay there!  I have been taking a dip in the pool after every run for about a month now, and although it’s great to have that opportunity, most days, I have to get out fairly quickly, because I have somewhere to go immediately afterwards, either work or one of my kids’ events. But this past Saturday, I had nowhere to be, so I sat in the pool at 7 AM with a cup of ice water and my book.

It was pretty awesome!

I enjoy my Saturday long runs if for no other reason then it gives me calories to consume on Saturday evening. I never drink on Friday night, because I don’t like to have alcohol in my system for a long run, but I tend to make up for it on Saturday nights. 😉 This particular Saturday, because of the way my schedule was, I didn’t eat a lot during the day, which left me with plenty of calories to both eat and drink on Saturday night. Oh but wait, it gets better! My husband decided to treat his younger brother to a “boys’ night out” at the movies with our two sons, so guess who had the house, the pool, and the grill all to herself? This girl! I had chicken quesadillas on the menu anyway, so I went ahead and bought an avocado while I was out and made quesadillas with homemade guacamole, sour cream, and of course my homemade salsa. 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking it through when I started putting together my meal.  For several months now, I’ve been using corn tortillas for my own Mexican dishes, because they are a lot lower in calories. To be honest, I’ve actually found that I like the taste better, too, especially for quesadillas. I tend to load my quesadillas up with a lot of green pepper, tomato, and onion, and I go easy on the cheese and chicken. I realized after I was already in the throes of making dinner that I only had flour tortillas, but I had so many calories left, I just made myself 2 1/2 quesadillas automatically. I figured difference couldn’t be that bad.

Ha!

It turns out those 6 inch flour tortillas have almost 3 times as many calories as the corn ones. And don’t get me started about the carbs!  I was shocked and a little pissed to realize I’d gone so far over my calories for the day. So, let it be known henceforth and evermore that we are no longer buying flour tortillas in the Hawkins household. 😛

Sunday was another day in which I just wasn’t feeling up to par, and I did something I rarely do: I took a four-hour nap in the afternoon. :/ I hate doing that, because then I feel like I’ve wasted my day. And I pretty much did! I had a hard time getting enough calories on Sunday, too, and I had to work to get to the 1000 cal threshold. And yet, even though I ate so little, I still managed to go over my carb limit for the day.

I guess that’s my default setting; when in doubt, eat carbs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really benefit me:

That’s up 1.2 from last week, which was up .2 from the week before, which was up .8 from the week before. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that’s a 2-pound gain in three weeks. Not good! That also puts me over my self-chosen summer threshold of 124 pounds. And before you say that it’s just an anomaly, I will admit that this particular week, because I was so frustrated with my weight, I actually weighed myself three different days. And 124.4 was the low weight! 😮

I have determined that I really, really need to get a handle on carbs. It pains me even to say it, but the numbers just don’t lie. I discovered this week that the iPad version of the my fitness pal app has daily macronutrient charts. (Note: this might only be a premium membership thing.). My goal for carbs is 40% of my total daily intake, but as noted by own tally of the charts for the entire week, I have a problem.  (The legend shows my target percentage of each macronutrient, while the chart shows the actual amount averaged out for the week.)

Like I said, the numbers don’t lie. I don’t know what I’m going to do, because it seems that all of my go-to foods are carbohydrates, but I’m going to try to make a conscious effort to get somewhere close to my goal, if not actually under it. Baby steps.

But hey, to end on a positive note, I successfully completed Katie’s “super interval” workout on Tuesday, despite the heat and humidity. I call it a “super” work out because it was an hour and six minutes long, and by the time I was done, I had run in all five heart rate zones! It was pretty intense, but also engaging. It would’ve been more fun had it not been so humid, but I definitely wasn’t bored! And I was really proud of myself for getting it done, despite the conditions. I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to do that bitch, but when it was over, I had run 6 miles before 6 AM. Rockstar! 😉 

Do you see what time I started it? Ha ha, I am a freak of nature. But I got to see an amazing sunrise:

From my pool, no less.  😉 

Thanks for reading!