Father’s Day Dinner

First of all, Happy Father’s Day!!! I absolutely love my Dad, in spite of his tendencies to be a little ornery at times.  He had a great day, and I hope he has many more Father’s Days to come!

Yesterday, I successfully completed my longest run ever: 5.6 miles!!! I was shocked and amazed.  I woke up this morning with a pretty raw gut, so I didn’t eat anything before I headed out.  I was so worried about bonking, but for the last mile and a half I was kind of on autopilot and just pushed it out.  It was boiling hot.  At 6:30 AM, I looked like I had ran ten miles and taken a dip in the ocean to cool off after! It was so brutal, but it proved to me that I can withstand the heat and my body is powerful.

Once again, my hunger was dulled by my run, and I didn’t feel the need to eat until 8:30.  I’m trying to listen to my body’s hunger cues, rather than eat at a certain time just because that’s what I think I should do.  So when my hunger signaled to me around 8:15, I started assembling my breakfast.

You’ll note that there’s no banana in my breakfast bowl today.  There’s a reason for that: while I love my bananas, and really adore their nutritional properties, they wreak havoc on an already locked up stomach.  They act as a binding agent (in fact they’re prescribed by doctors to those suffering from stomach viruses and diarrhea).  Not a good thing for someone with a cramped tummy! So I went with a fruit that reverses all of these symptoms: pears!

Oikos, 1 c Kashi Go Lean (we ran out of Cinnamon Life), 1 chopped up pear, 5 strawberries, 1 tbsp  fig jam, and a big drizzle of honey.

This held me over till around 11:00 (and the Italy World Cup game…man are they drama queens or what?), and then I nibbled on half of a Clif Bar Mini in Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter.  It was good! I actually had tried to eat the other half of it before my run but spat it out because I knew it would sit in my stomach like a rock during my workout.  Not good.

Around 12:30 I started prepping my lunch, and sipped a Vita Coco Pineapple Coconut Water.

This was much, much better than the last Vita Coco I tried, the Mango Pineapple one.  This one tasted much closer to the fruit it was emulating, and gave me a big boost of energy.

For lunch, I had a truly delicious, sweet meal!

I paired carrots with almond butter, then smeared an Arnold’s Multi-grain Sandwich Thin with another tbsp of almond butter and topped the sides with sliced pear and a big drizzle of honey.

This meal kept me full for nearly four hours! It actually kept me uncomfortably full…my tummy did not agree with that much nut fat at once, and proceeded to complain and nearly ruin my beach day! But I laid out in the sun with a magazine and tried not to think about it.

The one thing I don’t like the most about my stomach issues is that it deters me from having my afternoon snack.  That is pretty bad for a runner, as you need to eat a snack halfway through the afternoon to keep your energy and metabolism humming.  So I ended up just having a couple of these Pepperidge Farm Entertaining Quartet crackers (the butterfly shaped ones are my favs!)

These are so buttery.

At around 4 I went to the off-island Acme for some quick dinner supplies.  I love our island’s grocery, but sometimes they lack things we need (their fresh fruit can be suspect) so I ended up having to drive to the bigger market.  I managed to get everything I wanted, as well as some AMAZING finds that will be incorporated into my breakfast and lunch today!

After getting back from Acme, I set about making my food.  The rest of the family was going to enjoy a Father’s Day lasagna, but since I was having stomach issues there was no way I would be able to eat that and have a good night’s sleep.  Plus, yesterday I tried some absolutely amazing So, I decided on a classic standby: tomato soup and a grilled ‘cheese’ sandwich.

While I cooked, I snacked on some sun dried tomatoes and waffle cut carrots