old lady knees – Page 2 – Fervent Foodie

Stop.and.go.

June 17, 2011 7 Comments

Stop and go. Stop and go.

Ya’ll may recall my short-lived escapade with running last summer. And you might also recall when I hurt my knee. And if you recall those two things you might also recall that I tried to get back into running by purchasing new running shoes and starting interval training. And then remember when I hurt my knee AGAIN? And then I went to the orthopedic surgeon and he told me “some knees just aren’t made for running.” And then I said screw you, doctor. I’ll show you, doctor. And then remember when I tried to do interval training again? And then I hurt my knee.. AGAIN. And then basically said yeah screw running?

That was fun, wasn’t it? Smile

Sooooooo…. about 2 weeks ago I went to the Charlotte Running Company to buy *new running shoes* … Stubborn might just be my middle name.

Note that I purchased the new shoes BEFORE trying to start running again. Let’s give Mary a cyber pat on the back for at least taking one step in the right direction.

The coolest thing about my visit to the Charlotte Running Co., was the personal fitting. This involved me running on a treadmill while they videotaped my ankles and feet. The playback was pretty interesting to watch. I learned that I do not over or under pronate (roll the ankles inward or outward), which I was always curious about. What I do do is over extend my legs when I run, which causes my heel to hit the ground first. Apparently, the balls of your feet should hit first. The salesman told me to pretend that I’m running on hot coals and take quick short steps.

Verrrrrry interesting. It’s funny to think that there’s a “right” way to run. There’s more to it than strapping on any old pair of tennis shoes and hitting the payment. Really, Mary? Cuz that worked oh so well for you last summer, didn’t it?

After trying on about 10 pairs of running shoes, I ended up going with the Asics Gel Nimbus 13:

Even with my new shoes and my new hot coal running technique, I didn’t want to just jump into running head — strike that — ball-of-the-foot first. I decided to ramp up with… you guessed it.

Interval training.

Originally, my goal was to start with 1 minute running and 1 minute walking for 20 minutes. Then each week gradually increase the run portion of the interval by 1 minute.

Good plan, eh?

Probably was, but it just wasn’t challenging enough. But as much as I just want to just get out there and RUN until my legs can’t carry me any further, I have a little nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me how devastated I’ll be if I hurt my knee again this summer. Sooooooo I reached a compromise with the nagging voice. Instead of bumping the run time up a minute each week, I’m bumping it up a minute each day that I run.

My feets in action:

I’m also running every other day (as opposed to EVERY day I tried to run last summer), and I found a pretty nice path to run on (as opposed to hard streets/sidewalks).

If I stay on this plan, I should be able to run 5K no (knee) problem by mid August! That would be the ultimate accomplishment in my mind. I know 5K isn’t much—I mean it’s no walk in the park but it’s also no marathon—but in my knee-injurfied world it’s quite the accomplishment!

Fitness, Ramblings

Beef Cake Mary

May 17, 2011 6 Comments

I’ve NEVER been into weightlifting. I’ve tried. I’ve researched. I’ve made spreadsheets. I even made a fancy pants powerpoint slideshow. To date, each of these tactics has failed. I just can’t get into it. I admit (somewhat shamefully) to the list of reasons why I thought I hated the idea of weightlifting:

1.) I (thought) I’d burn more calories doing cardio

2.) I didn’t want to get big and beefy cakey or she-manish

3.) It’s boring

4.) I don’t understand it

5.) If I don’t see results or some sort of numerical indicator of my success (i.e., miles ran, lbs lost), then it’s clearly not worth my time.

On and on.

Despite this apparent disdain for weightlifting, I HATE how weak my body is. I have internal anguish every time I have to ask for help carrying, lifting, opening, hauling etc. I’m a strong independent women, so why can’t I carry a 75 pound entertainment center by myself? Why can’t I open this friggin jar of banana peppers? Who says I can’t rotate a queen size mattress by myself? My baby muscles, that’s who.

For months I’ve been hearing about Body Pump. Body Pump is an full-body strength training class that utilizes a bar bell and “rockin music” … It sounded interesting, but my gut told me it wouldn’t hold my interest. When I finally got my YMCA membership lined up, I felt like the pass was burning a hole in my pocket. I HAD to try Body Pump. STAT.

This past Saturday was my very first class. I was pretty apprehensive, but I went in there and gave it my all (as shockingly little as that was). As I left class, I felt pretty excited. It went by crazy fast and it was definitely challenging. Two steps into my exit I realized my legs were not quite so excited. I was literally week in the knees. I had to physically concentrate on stabilizing myself so that they didn’t give out from under me!

When I got home, I jumped in the shower and quickly realized washing my hair was extremely difficult. It took everything I had to lift my arms high enough to touch the top of my head… And all I had, whelp, it wasn’t enough. I actually had to scrunch my head down to meet my hands half way. Later, I realized sitting was difficult. As in sitting in a chair, sitting on the toilet… actually anything that involved any sort of movement was difficult… borderline impossible actually.

The next morning I went shopping, and actually went home EARLY because my arms were too tired to carry bags. WHAT?!?!?

Holy hell I was sore.

This much SORE must mean I did something right. Maybe there is something to this weightlifting thing after all…

to be continued….

Fitness, Recipes

Strength Training & a Breakfast Sandwich

January 15, 2011 8 Comments

Last spring, I found a new love in running, and shortly thereafter I found out I have crappy knees that can’t handle too much impact.

Sadness… Sad smile

Then, a few months back, I joined a gym.. That’s right, a gym. And since then I’ve pretty much become BFF’s with the elliptical. Feeling like a hamster is better than feeling like a sloth. Am I right?

While it feels good to get some cardio in during the week, I noticed I’ve been feeling kind of weak lately. Slightly feeble. (could be the cold weather?) Plus my posture has definitely declined in the past couple of years, and that is not a trend I’d like to continue on.

With all this weighing on my mind, in my down time over the past few weeks I’ve been working on putting together my first-ever strength training routine. I’ve NEVER EVER been into weightlifting or any of the machines at the gym. It’s just, well, too complicated. Plus, I’m a numbers gal. If I can’t see the numbers adding away right in front of my face, I feel like I’m not accomplishing anything.

So one morning, I tried out a few different exercises I found in the pile of fitness magazines I’ve been hoarding in my office and was immediately discouraged. I just really didn’t know what I was doing, I had no plan of attack, and it felt like a big fat waste of time.

Well that is until I woke up the next morning and literally had to lift my legs out of the bed because they were so sore. Perhaps it is possible that doing these silly strength training moves DOES actually impact your body…

Perhaps.

The next day, I went through ALL of the fitness magazines I’ve been accumulating over the past year and snipped out the strength-training exercises that looked promising. Using this data, I pieced together the exercises I actually understood and/or those that appeared somewhat feasible and that could be done in the comfort of my own home…

Thennnnn I found images and instructions for each exercise and then decided to take things to a whole new level of crazy by organizing all the data into a PowerPoint presentation.

What? You don’t put your strength training workouts into PowerPoint?

Open-mouthed smile

After ALL of this research and organization, I had about 30 exercises but still no plan of attack. I knew what the moves looked like, how to do them, and… well, that was about it. So I sent my PowerPoint to the BF, who has a heck of a lot more experience in this area than I do, and asked him to please help me because I’m to the point of extreme frustration even though I had found pictures for each exercise, detailed descriptions, and picked out a really pretty color scheme!!!!

Hehe…

Pretty, right?

Luckily, he obliged and did help and also did agree that it was a pretty color scheme…. (your darn tootin it’s pretty) all while I got to work on breakfast!

FINALLY!!

Cue the turkey pepperoni breakfast sandwich please!

Easy peasy, I tell ya. This is 1 egg seasoned with S&P topped with 4 slices turkey pepperoni and 1 tbsp reduced fat Mexican cheese:

My cheese was being stubborn and would not melt, so I popped a lid on for a bit to coerce it.

Mellllltttttt I say!

Then I slid the egg onto a toasted whole grain English muffin and added some Ketchup and some Franks Red Hot:

How ridiculously good does this look?

Mmmmmmmm….

Get in my belly.

Smash em together:

Annnnddd the sandwich was gone 13 seconds later.

Stats on the sandwich: 221 calories, 31g carbs, 9g fat, 15g protein, 8g fiber

What I ate

Starting the week on a roll… a jelly roll that is

August 9, 2010 1 Comment

Sometime last week I accidentally downloaded the $10 Runkeeper pro ap on my iPhone… I was kind of annoyed because the free Runkeeper pro app I had was working just fine… but apparently my right thumb decided I needed to go the extra mile (no pun intended) and buy the pricey app.

I’ve played around with the full Runkeeper Pro ap a little bit, and wasn’t too impressed until I logged onto the website and saw all the cool information that my phone automatically transmits. As you may recall, I’ve been working on interval training (since my right knee is opposed to me doing a 5k). So in the past, it’s been hard for me to tell how fast I was running and how fast I was walking during my intervals.

Enter the fancy schmancy Runkeeper Pro ap for the low-low price of $9.99! When I logged onto the website I was VERY happy to see that I can get a breakout by interval. Here’s the stats from my interval this morning which consisted of 5 intervals of 3 minutes walking and 3 minutes running:

Not too shabby on the run times. Now I can actually work on improving my pace AND my knee strength. I guess this was a happy $10 accident 🙂

Breakfast #1

I was planning to have eggs for breakfast, but time was not on my side this morning. Instead I grabbed an Earth Grains 100% whole wheat deli flat and topped it with 1 tbsp Trader Joe’s Crunchy Salted Almond Butter:

My friends Tim and Jaci hooked me up with some Smucker’s reduced sugar red raspberry preserves to try, and I thought this combo would be fantastic:

AB & J:

I was right, it was fan-friggin-tastic!! I love these reduced sugar preserves just as much as I love the regular blackberry preserves! Smucker’s preserves are perfection.

Stats on B#1: 225 calories, 30g carbs, 11g fat, 9g protein, 6g fiber

Breakfasts #2

My usual overnight oats with strawberries and blueberries:

OO love 🙂

Stats on B#1: 229 calories, 42g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 7g fiber

Lunch

When I was making yesterday’s garbanzo bean salad, I saved some of the veggies for my lunch. CHOP ONCE, EAT TWICE my friends 🙂

Mixins:

I also added 2 ounces grilled chicken, half a bag of romaine lettuce, and 2 tbsp Ken’s Lite Northern Italian with Basil and Romano dressing:

Whole lot o veg:

Stats on B#1: 309 calories, 36g carbs, 7g fat, 25g protein, 10g fiber

Question for ya’ll: What are your favorite things to pack for lunch? I tend to get super bored with my lunches and would LOVE new ideas! 😀

Fitness, Restaurants

5 steps forward, 5 steps back

August 3, 2010 6 Comments

Over the past 4 months I’ve had on-again off-again knee problems. 🙁

I’ve played soccer since I was in elementary school, and never had any issues. This past spring, I decided to take up running. I was AMAZED by how much I enjoyed it! About a month into my newly found passion, I had a sharp pain in my right knee during my morning run. I didn’t twist the knee, or land funny, or make any other type of movement to cause the pain. It just sort of happened. I attributed the pain to weakness (i.e., “push yourself harder, Mary“) and ran about 1 more mile to my house. That genius move resulted in me limping around for about a week or so. I tried several times to pick up where I had left off, with no success. I even went to see an orthopedic doctor who told me “some knees just aren’t made for running.”

Unacceptable.

Then a couple months ago I developed a plan of attack in the form of my interval training plan. Basically, the plan was to start off with walking/running intervals and slowly increase the running time over a period of weeks until I was running the entire time.

Things were going super smooth, and I was up to 7 minutes running and 3 minutes walking…. that is until I hurt my knee again on vacation a couple weeks ago. I think this time it was due to overuse–we did a TON of walking and I was still doing my regular intervals on top of it.

It’s been 2 weeks since vacation, and I’ve tried several times to get my run on. This was not going well at all — I could only do 1/2 of my regular intervals before feeling the pain start. At least I have learned my lesson and now stop running at the first sign of knee pain!

So this morning I decided to start the interval all over again… yup… all the way back at 4 minutes walking, 2 minutes running. Slowly but surely, I am determined to get to running a 5K with no knee issues!

Breakfast #1

Leftovers from yesterday’s eggins–with one new addition:

Heinz reduced sugar ketchup. After my ketchup post last week, I started thinking about how much ketchup I actually consume in any given week. As much as I love ketchup, it’s really just a bunch of empty calories. So I decided to give this reduced sugar version a shot:

The ketchup was pretty good — though it oddly tasted sweeter than regular Heinz ketchup. I’m going to try and use the reduced sugar ketchup in place of the regular stuff as much as possible.

Stats on B#1: 161 calories, 9g carbs, 5g fat, 21g protein, 2g fiber

Breakfast #2

Overnight oats 🙂

Last night, I put the following into a bowl:

1/2 cup uncooked quick oats
1/2 cup almond breeze unsweetened vanilla almond milk
1 tsp brown sugar
sprinkling of cinnamon

I mixed everything up and left them in the fridge overnight. This morning I added about 6 sliced strawberries (thank you to my mom for hooking me up with these DELICIOUS strawberries) and a 1/3 cup fresh blueberries:

All mixed up:

These overnight oats never get old 🙂

Stats on B#2: 236 calories, 45g carbs, 5g fat, 6g protein, 7g fiber

Lunch

My all-time favorite hummus comes from Nate’s Deli in Cleveland. A close second would be Trader Joe’s hummus. Unfortunately, neither of my long distance relationships with Nate nor Trader Joe are able to satisfy my frequent hummus cravings, so I’ve been on the hunt for a tasty hummus that I can find locally.

I picked this up at the grocery store last night:

I especially liked the simple list of ingredients (chick peas, tahini, fresh spinach, lemon juice, garlic, and salt) and it is only 33 calories for a 2tbsp serving! The flavor was a little on the bland side, however.

For lunch, I made up a sandwich with a 3.5 ounce grilled chicken breast, 1 tbsp Amir Hummus, 1/2 a roma tomato, sliced red onion, and 1 cup spinach sandwiched between a Pepperidge Farm 7 grain Deli flat:

Notice that I used my tupperware lid as a plate instead of using a paper plate. “Kelsy” would be proud 😉

Now that’s what I’m talkin bout:

I could eat this every day:

I also had some cucumber salad on the side. This cucumber was straight from the BF’s mom’s garden!

Stats on lunch: 323 calories, 37g carbs, 3g fat, 40g protein, 10g fiber

Question: Have you ever had an injury that prevented you from doing an activity you really enjoy?

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