You Can Do It – Even if “it” is resting
My never-ending migraine seems to have FINALLY left me a alone which is a huge relief. However now that it’s gone, I’m very aware of the neck pain that was likely causing it. I had xrays and fortunately nothing was broken. I was slightly concerned since it was the result of a bump on the head. My C5 and C6 are a little compressed and probably causing the pain. I think I’m finally on the mend now but ooh boy has this been a lesson in patience and stillness. I feel like my body and mind are sometimes at odds with each other and if I’d just let them work together, things would go so much more smoothly. I so desperately want to jump back into swimming, back into hiking, pick up yoga again. Essentially I’m desperate to get moving but my neck wants to heal and my body wants to continue resting. It feels like an eternity since I’ve been the fitness machine I’m used to being. However, I believe it will all be good for my body and mind in the end.
Since I have a little extra time on my hands, I’m putting more effort into thinking about nutrition and my future. We had a good run of meal planning for about four weeks. Initially when Nic wanted to start meal planning I was so resistant. I don’t know why except that I thought it would take up too much time. It turns out it only takes about 30 minutes of planning.
During the week while doing our usual web searching whenever one of us comes across a recipe that sounds tasty, we save it in a shared Google docs folder. We don’t limit on what type of meal it is (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert). In general we’re trying to stick to wheat-free, low-ish carb meals.
On Friday or Saturday I sit down with my list of meal ideas, a weekly calendar, our upcoming CSA box ingredients and I come up with almost all of our meals and snacks. It sounds overwhelming but it really does take about 30 minutes. I have a general idea of what grains and spices we already have. Sometimes I do a little extra looking around for recipes. My favorite recipe resources are ohsheglows.com and The Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen. I also read a few fitness/nutrition bloggers and get recipes from them on occasion.
After the meal plan is created, I type up a grocery shopping list. Then Nic and I make the trek out to the grocery store and/or Costco if needed. (secret insider tip on Costco: to avoid lines and get the optimal amount of sample snacks, go right at opening on Saturday morning.) It turns out that every-other-week is a “big” trip and every other is a “small” trip. We don’t usually buy a lot of produce thanks to our CSA.
If you search on Google you can find quite a few meal plan templates and I suggest you pick the simplest one you can find.
I’m off to eat my lovingly prepared and planned wild rice, sauteed chard and mushrooms, and curried organic/free range/local chicken. 🙂
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