Funny that when I moved into my place, I expect to buy a ton of fresh food and cook a lot of healthy meals. Hasn't really happened! A lot of nights I'm content with waffles, a bowl of cereal, or some mac 'n cheese for dinner. Pathetic, I know. Or, I'll go out to eat with friends instead of cooking. It's rather challenging to buy food for meals for just one person and use it all before it spoils. I still hate dealing with raw chicken (barf) and ground beef isn't something you should eat every day. I've used Morningstar's veggie crumbles quite a bit, and I actually like them more than ground beef!
I've made veggie tacos with black beans and have also used them with whole wheat pasta and marinara sauce. If you use them for tacos, mix in a bit of taco seasoning. A lot of people cringe at veggie meat, but I say give it a try! I can't stand ground beef in my pasta sauce, but this stuff is great.
About a month or so ago, I tried to go vegetarian for a week (succeeded except for giving in to a Buona beef sandwich for lunch one day). I didn't miss eating meat, but I felt unbelievably tired. I had protein from sources like eggs, beans, peanut butter, and the Morningstar crumbles. I also took an iron supplement each day, since I already have low iron. Still, I felt awful. Probably should have done more research on going veg before I tried it, and I may try it again in the future, but I really doubt I'll ever go full vegetarian. I love burgers too much for that!
On the workout side of things, I've mostly kept up with my regular training - except for boot camp. When I joined in October of last year, I was working for JSTN and could attend the 6:15 AM class since I didn't have to be at work until 9. With my new job, I have to be at work at 8:15...which means I have to go to the 5:30 AM class. I did pretty well with it for a few months, but when the season change started happening in April, I seemed to have a more and more difficult time getting up. In fact, getting up for work feels impossible most days. I'm still not sure why I have felt so exhausted - it's not something I'm used to. Even when I was able to wake up, I was completely wiped out by 2 PM and struggling to make it through the work day. I will say that my new job is a lot more stressful and challenging, and I'm still getting used to a lot of things there. Of course I had to make sure I was rested enough to do well at my new job, so boot camp has fallen to the wayside. I went sporadically in April and May, and then for the month of June, I completely stopped going.
I've been meaning to cancel for a few weeks, but couldn't bring myself to do it. I finally went there today, and decided I'm going to try one more time to get back into it. Even though I know a lot of the exercises now and could do them at home, it certainly won't be with the same intensity or number of reps. I never felt as toned and in shape as I did when I went to boot camp.
Alarm is set for 4:50 AM tomorrow. Let's do this!
