Oy. Today was exhausting, and it was all mental. And for the first time in a long, long time, exercise actually managed to clear my head instead of inviting new problems.
Yoga wasn’t very nice in that area, however. I enjoyed the numerous chatarungas and down dogs, but my head-and heart-wasn’t in it. At one point my yoga teacher mentioned to us that we should clear away any bad thoughts about things or people that were weighing us down and making us feel heavy. I almost started crying right then and there. Thankfully I had a great friend-my best friend-who helped me through the practice.
For lunch, as well as two humongous sliced up carrots (I think you all should just take it as a given that I eat a lot of carrots as a snack), I ended up finally having something that I’ve seen on the blogs and thought would either be amazing or totally disgusting. I toasted two slices of light flax bread and in between I layered one Mozzarella Veggie Slice, spinach, 1/4 block Trader Joe’s tempeh….and concord grape jelly.
Sounds absolutely gross, right? Well it was delicious! I think what helped is that I dry-toasted the tempeh first to give it a crunch, and it blended very well with the jelly, cheese and spinach. It is now on my list of favorite sandwiches! Other than turkey and artichoke, of course.
Alongside that sandwich I paired a giant peach, which I sliced. It was a little underripe, but that just upped the crunch.
A little bit later, some pre-workout fuel in the form of a Chocolate Chip Brownie Larabar.
This did not taste like a chocolate chip brownie. It was good. But not a chocolate chip brownie. I was disappointed, but still ate it because it was nummy and I needed it.
After that, I proceeded to do 40 minutes on the elliptical. I was thrilled at how the Larabar fueled my workout, but also by how my stress seemed to melt with every push of my legs and pull of my arms. I felt strong and cleansed afterward, whereas in other workouts back in the throes of my disorder I would be starved and lightheaded.
After a quick shower and prep, I was ready to eat. Because of the Larabar, I wasn’t exactly in the mood to eat some more meatloaf (although my brother had no problem wolfing down exactly that!). I preferred something light, but satisfying. I ended up pulling out a can of Pacific Naturals Red Lentil Curry Soup. I bulked it up with 1/3 a cup of Morningstar Farms Crumbles.