#FitReaders- Weekly Check-In June 23, 2017

I finished vacation with a walking bang and my L4L team placed 4th. Dipped my toes in one day at work, then work was cancelled for the hurricane that wasn’t on Wednesday. It made for an interesting week. Plus, this is literally the best sleep week I have had, ever. Or at least since I got the Fitbit, but I honestly can’t remember a better/more consistent one.

On the Vitamix front, I haven’t made another soup yet, but yesterday I did put celery in my smoothie…which is…interesting.

Stats: Week June 17-23, 2017

#FitReaders- Weekly Check-In June 16, 2017

#FitReaders

Nothing exciting. Exercise wise, I am still taking a small vacation. Minimum goals, minimum effort, maximum vacation. In other news, much like every other incident in life, it can best be described as “probably benign”. I am just going to roll with it.

Stats: Week June 10-16, 2017

#FitReaders- Weekly Check-In June 9, 2017

So the exciting news for this week is that I have my Vitamix, and I am having a ton of fun with it. Not having quite so much fun with the amount of whoo I am encountering when searching for recipes or tips & tricks, but you have to take the good with the bad. But if anyone has any favorite blender recipes, I am all ears.

I even made the USDA suggestions soup. The first day or so were a bit of a struggle, but I am becoming acclimatized. However, it was a bit bland, plus I actually will eat green beans on their own, one of the few vegetable I can manage, so it doesn’t make sense to me for me to blend them. I will be making some tweaks on the next batch, at the least adding more garlic and spices and finding something to swap for green beans.

But those fruit smoothies though, damn. I never honestly dreamed a smoothie could ever feel that delightful in my mouth. I’ll admit I thought people were insane for spending that much money for some blended fruit at professional places (almost as crazy as I assume people think I am for spending this much money on a blender). All I can say is that if I had ever tried a pro smoothie before, I might not have ever been able to afford my own fancy smoothie machine. I wussed out on putting any veggies in this week (fear is a terrible thing), so that is my goal for next week, to start slipping veggies into my fruit smoothies.

Exercise wise, I am taking a small vacation. I won my first Step Bet, which was often a struggle, and then I looked and saw how much my step requirement would go up and I figured it was pretty impossible to do another one right away. Instead I am backing down my steps to my “minimum” goal of 17,500 a day and I will go back to Step Bet when things are more possible.

Weight wise I am approximately 3 lbs from goal, though body composition is an issue. Which was of course to be expected considering I have lost about 50 lbs and eschewed weight lifting. I know better, but just couldn’t seem to make myself go. I planned to go while I am on vacation…that didn’t happen either. Ceste la vie. I am njot UNhappy with where I am at, and life is nothing but time.

Altogether, a nice, soothing week. Heck, even my sleep came into line a little bit. I have been playing with meal time and macros to see how it interacts with my sleep medications. Frankly, just because 8-10 PM is when my body prefers dinner, doesn’t mean that is a good plan in a pharmacological sense.

Stats: Week June 3-9, 2017

 

#FitReaders- Weekly Check-In June 2, 2017

#FitReaders

 

So the exciting news for this week is that I finally pulled the trigger on a Vitamix. This exchange with Vitamix would probably tell anyone everything there is to know about me, lol. It started in the middle of the night on an Ambien fugue at the end of March. I didn’t even remember I’d written it until several days later when they initially responded.

“So, kind of weird. But this is more of a request. I’d love to see a soup recipe that would take care of a week’s vegetable requirements based on USDA recommendations.

Dark green vegetables, like broccoli, spinach, and other dark green leafy varieties: 3 cups per week or 6 half-cup servings
Orange vegetables, like sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash: 2 cups per week (4 servings)
Legumes, like pinto beans, lentils, and chickpeas: 3 cups per week (6 servings)
Starchy vegetables, like potatoes, corn, and green peas: 3 cups per week (6 servings)
Other vegetables, like tomatoes, green beans, and onions: 6.5 cups per week (13 servings.

Then I could just make one batch and portion it out for the week and be done with it.

I’ve been considering getting the new Ascent series A3500, (mostly for the soups) but would buy it immediately if there was a recipe I could make that I could just pour down my gullet every day and be done with this vegetable madness.”

Probably the funniest thing about the whole thing, is that I don’t even know exactly where I got those numbers from, since they don’t exactly match MyPlate USDA recommendations. But somehow I doubt that the USDA would overly quibble over the inclusion of more dark greens, and the “other” vegetables category is pretty nebulous.

And here’s their final response, with recipe. And yes, I ordered the blender, a deal is a deal, and that sort of customer service is awesome (and it turns out referring people could get me rewards, who knew?). This will of course be the first thing I make, and then I will play with it from there. But I am super excited. I am on vacation for the next two weeks and should get my blender before the end of this week which should give me plenty of time to experiment. Don’t get me wrong, I will continue to try to eat actual vegetables, but considering how many misses versus hits, this seems like a sensible addition. I will make sure that I am getting as much vegetables as I am supposed to…kind of like a real foods health supplement, and then any extra veggies I eat will just be gravy.

Stats: Week May 27 – June 2, 2017