Monday Night Food and Fitness

FOOD

Layered Mexican Chicken casserole. LW did her usual excellent job of making dinner for us this week. My favorite meal of the week was this new one she tried from a WW recipe. LW said she used low-fat sour cream instead of fat-free, but she used less of it than the recipe called for. This meal put me in the flashback machine. One of my favorite meals that my mom made when I was growing up was a recipe of my Grandma's called "Tortillas and Sour Cream." This WW recipe tasted just like it, but it had chicken and black beans added to it. I took some in to work with me the next day, and it tasted great as leftovers, too. Two thumbs up! (Photo is from the WW website).

FITNESS

It wasn't a very good week for me fitness-wise. I had a nasty head-cold and felt like death-warmed-over most of the week. Each morning I would spend about 30 minutes to an hour coughing up all the gunk that had accumulated in my chest and sinuses over the night, so I didn't go to Command PT. Luckily, I maintained my weight. I suspect dehydration may have been a factor in that though.

This morning, I was still coughing a little bit, but doing much better than last week, and I really wanted to start running again. We didn't have our usual Monday Command PT because it's a holiday, so I decided to go for a run out on the bike path. I forced myself to jog at least the first 1.5 miles to get ready for the upcoming PRT, but I was coughing a lot and had to stop and walk the remainder of my usual 4-mile route after that. I coughed all the rest of the way home. Maybe it was too much too soon after being sick, but I really felt like I needed to get SOME form of exercise.

Warning: Tangent Ahead. This post soon departs the "fitness" topic at hand...

It's actually been a while since I ran on the bike path. I've normally just been going to Command PT and running on the base or on the treadmill at the gym. Running on the bike path made me think of another "pro" to add to the list for moving back to the east coast. I miss the nice, clean paths and the fresh air in the parks in Virginia and lots of other places on the mainland. You would think in a place with as much natural beauty as Hawaii that the residents would be more respectful of the environment and not just totally trash the place. I suppose if they've never traveled anyplace else, then maybe they don't appreciate the beauty of their home state. It just makes me sad to see so much trash along the sides of the bike path and elsewhere around the island, and the stench that comes from the trash makes me nauseous. I wonder if that's why the boys don't like to go running with me here like they did in Virginia?

It also surprised me that they don't have a recycling program here. I think everyplace we've been stationed before this had SOME form of a recycling program where the city picks up recycling right alongside your trash can. Not here. If you want to recycle here, you've gotta do it on your own and take the stuff in to a recycling center like at the NEX. At least you get some cash-back that way, but they still won't accept nearly as many types of recyclable products as they would in our previous duty stations.

Okay, sorry, I'll get off my environmentalist soap box for now.

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend!