A day's menu

Yesterday I was rambling on about a typical day's eating - i.e. how many meals there should be in a day, and how that fits into a basic exercise plan. Today I would like to delve into a little more detail about what those meals could be.

I have a pretty healthy eating plan today (except for lunch) (and the early morning snack), and so I'm going to tell you about that (editted to make it actually look healthy):

Wake up Snack: Murray's awesome frozen banana & peanut butter smoothies. I have yet to post the recipe for this, but they are the perfect smoothie for around workout time. I got up at 5AM this morning, made coffee and then (lets pretend) made this smoothie. So I would have drank the smoothie at about 5:20, before going for my run at 6:00. 

(Author's note: Actually I had about 3 pieces of chocolate cake for my wake up snack, which gave me heart-burn and gas during my run, so tomorrow I'm definitely going to try the smoothie!)

Morning Run: (6:20 - 7:00AM) 6.5km trail run (40 minutes) through the newly cut canefields, at sunrise, with a brief jog past the insanely beautiful Anse La Raie bay. Gorgeous. Birds tweeting. Sweet smell of burnt mollasses.

(Author's note: I did! Why don't you believe me?! No really, I love my morning runs! (Note: I really did go for the run, it was awesome (except for the heartburn!))

Second note: Did you know? You're supposed to eat within an hour after doing exercise to refuel your body and help build muscle and recover. Simple (high GI) carbs are fine for this, and some protein is important. I'll skip the science for now, but please believe me - Re-fueling after exercise is really, really critical to the exercise being effective and you becoming fitter. Really critical. Even if you're trying to lose weight, you must eat then. And this is why I got home and made breakfast ...

Breakfast: Jungle oats with Goji berries and sliced bananas. Healthy Awesomeness! Same as the post below called "Weekday breakfast" which says its 480kCal which is a bit high, but because I'm doing exercise I'm not worrying. Breakfast of champions, especially when combined with a run directly previously to it.

Morning Snack: (at about 10:30AM) 2 jars of yoghurt and an apple

Lunch: I haven't brought any lunch today. Lunch is most likely to be KFC fried chicken, which I don't think is so healthy and shouldn't fit into a healthy eating day, what you should eat instead, if you're not me ..

Hummus and veggies in wholewheat pita, or

Tuna salad, or

Chicken salad.

Afternoon Snack: Not sure. Today I'm planning on having leftover KFC. You should have something healthy!

Dinner: (6:30PM) Tonight we've got Linguine with a mushroom and garlic cream sauce, tomorrow we've got Caesar salad with grilled salmon. Both awesome, and both fairly nutritious (although the linguini is probably fairly fattening).

Evening Workout: (8PM - 9PM) I don't actually workout straight after work like I said yesterday. I workout when the kids go to bed. Quite looking forward to it tonight, last night I didn't feel great, I think I started to close after supper, so I felt a bit nauseous (sp?)

Evening Snack: Because you know you're supposed to eat straight after your workout. Ummm, I'm not sure. I wonder if chocolate is a valid form of carbs and protein? I doubt it. My guess is I'm going to eat more of that Chocolate cake that Wifey made last night, it should be iced by tonight.

There you go. That's a little bit of a day in the life of Murray. What I think it shows is that I need to put a little thought into healthy afternoon snacks and evening snacks. I'll think about this while I'm at the KFC later. Happy eating!