The Healthy Tales

I’ve read about the Couch to 5k program a few times before. I’ve never given it a try as I am not a runner and the few times in my exercise life where I have become a runner, I didn’t need to rotate walking and running. Rather, I would just push myself and start running as I was in moderately good shape. This time around though I am more out of shape than I have been before or at least I feel that way and pushing has been leaving me tired and in pain.

So I decided to revisit the Couch to 5k program. If you are unfamiliar with it the link is here.  Everything seems very easy and straightforward.  You follow the program 3 times a week for 9 weeks and before you know it you are running a full 5k (3.3 miles roughly).  Week 1 requires a brisk walk/jog combination.  At first glance, warming up via a walk for 5 minutes and then alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes sounds like nothing bad.  It actually seems easy and kind of wussy when you are use to running for 20-30 minutes (a year ago of course).

Off I went down to the treadmill and I started up my 5 minute walk – 2.5 minutes at 3.6mph and 2.5 minutes at 3.7mph.  Felt really nice and easy.  Then I started the interval portion.  The first 5 minutes were great, second 5 minutes and I’m feeling a nice sweat, the last 10 minutes I couldn’t believe this program was kicking my butt but I kept going.  I finished off pretty strongly but I’m curious to see how I progress as I was no where near 3.3 miles tonight.

Here are my final stats:

Day 1, Week 1

1.73 Miles

168 calories burned

25 minutes

Day 2, Week 1- Tuesday night!

I just got home from the gym and saw someone that I follow on Twitter post their Meal Plan Monday link and I realized I forgot to post my meal plan for the week. I don’t have anything really fabulous planned but I am testing out a new Weight Watcher friendly slow cooker recipe – BBQ chicken. I hope it tastes as good as it sounds. I’ll post the recipe and photos Wednesday night.

Monday: Brats and Sauerkraut, 1/2 apple
Tuesday: Brats and Sauerkraut, 1/2 apple
Wednesday: BBQ chicken, salad
Thursday: BBQ chicken, salad
Friday: open to go out to eat
Saturday: BBQ chicken pizza, salad
Sunday: open for ideas

I really enjoy slow cooking as it allows me to have a pretty tasty dinner without a lot of work. Usually it goes like this: line cooker with special liner, dump meat into pot, mix & pour sauce on top, run to work. Not a lot of work for a great dinner.

So last weekend before running to HEB, I went through my Fix It and Forget It Lightly Cookbook and decided to give Barbecued Pork Chops a try. I’ve made pork chops before in the slow cooker and they have turned out fairly well so I figured why not. The ingredients were things I already had on hand so I just had to pick up the pork chops which were on sale last week.

Barbecued Pork Chops
4 loin pork chops, 3/4″ thick, trimmed of fat
1 cup ketchup
1 cup hot water
2 Tbsp vinegar
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika

1. Place pork chops in slow cooker.
2. Combine remaining ingredients. Pour over chops.
3. Cover. Cook on high 5-6 hours.
4. Cut chops in half and serve.

Nutritional information: 180 calories, 7gms fat, 11gms carbohydrates, 20gms protein

4 Weight Watcher points per serving

My review: The recipe was super simple. I will say though that I was disappointed in the recipe but I think it was more “cook’s error” than anything with the recipe itself. The chops I bought at the store were bone-in and had quite a bit of fat still on them. As I was making this before running off to work, I focused on cutting out the major chunks of fat on the exterior of the chop but didn’t make it to the inside of the chop. Therefore, there was a ton of fat floating around in the pot and all of my chops cooked into a giant meaty clump. It wasn’t very appetizing looking so I decided against posting a photo. Overall, I would give this recipe a rating of 3 out of 5 stars. I would make it again but I would use different chops and possibly a little more sauce to prevent the fat and cooked together issues I experienced.

Good grief! I will admit that for the past month I have been fairly lazy. I think in the month of September I went to the gym all of 3 times which is translated to be approximately 10%. There was no real good reason I skipped the gym other than I was being lazy and had absolutely no drive to go.

I didn’t think skipping for a month would be a big deal. I mean look at this past summer, I skipped most of July due to the wedding and then exercised off and on between January and June. Each time I picked myself back up and went to the gym, it was fairly easy to get into the swing of things and there was no revolution from my body. Rather, everything felt good, the stress was going away, and I felt re-energized.

This time around has been a whole ‘nother story as I like to say. I am tense, achy, and quite tired these past two days from exercising. I thought possibly that I just overdid things yesterday by spending an hour on the elliptical machine after taking the month off so I turned things down a small notch tonight – 35 minutes on the treadmill. I hate to say but I’m still not feeling much better about this whole exercise thing. I’m hoping that once I start lifting weights and take some of the focus away from cardio workouts that I’ll start feeling better and re-energized.

I think I’m going to pop an IB Profin and then take a warm bath so I can rest up and do it all over again tomorrow. The results are worth it, it is just a battle to get there!

I waited until the last minute Sunday to try and meal plan. Mike came home and was ready to go to the grocery store as it was 6pm and he had spent the entire day at the Texans game. They won but he said it was a boring game but I am digressing. I was home the entire day but wasn’t in the mood to do anything as noted in this post on my other blog.  So I had all of 5 minutes to plan out our dinners and lunches for this week.  I think I did a decent job since we will have left overs from Sunday for Monday’s dinner.  I am going to try and do better next week though.  Plan more in advance.

So here is our menu.  I have 1 recipe posted and will post the others as I make the recipe.

Monday – Lunch: ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, yogurt, banana
Dinner: BBQ Shrimp and Pineapple, salad

Tuesday:Lunch: ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, yogurt, banana
Dinner: Pork tenderloin, salad, peas or corn

Wednesday: Lunch: ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, yogurt, banana
Dinner: Going out to Happy Hour. Will try to eat slow cooker Pork Chops before we go.

Thursday: Lunch: ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, yogurt, banana
Dinner: Slow cooker Pork Chops, salad

Friday: Lunch: ham & cheese sandwich, grapes, yogurt, banana or Lean Cuisine
Dinner: Pork chops & salad or Pizza & salad

Saturday: Lunch: open
Dinner: LSU vs. Florida at Big Woodrows here in Houston. Will be having some Boudin balls and Fried Alligator