The Day After and Clear Liquids

Monday

Day after my race and I was not about to run on the treadmill after running for all that I was worth the morning before. Instead, I hit up the elliptical for a 45-minutes hills workout, followed by core work and a nice, hot shower. Sub-50deg is much too cold for this little lady. Breakfast was a bowl full of Fall:

Tastes of Fall Oatmeal
1/3 c old-fashioned oats
2/3 c water
cinnamon
nutmeg
1/2 tsp chia seeds
1 T flaxseed meal
2 T pureed pumpkin
1/2 c unsweetened applesauce
2 T Grape Nuts
2 T maple syrup

So unbelievably creamy from the applesauce and it added so much to the volume of the oats. And in an orange bowl no less! The Grape Nuts soaked up the maple syrup like crazy (I think I added too much); it was delightful. My mid-morning snack was another Hugh Jass Honeycrisp apple larger than the palm of my hand. Monday means lunch with Lyle before classes. I packed a banana, a spinach salad with artichoke hommus and Italian dressing, and a Smores Triple Threat Powerbar (yummy!) for later to tide me over until I got back to the apartment and could make something proper.

In honor of the frigid temperatures we’ve been experiencing lately, I threw together a bunch of ingredients on the spot and made soup! Tomato soup for the base, with mixed vegetables (potatoes, corn, carrots, peas, green beans, celery, lima beans) and brown rice. I got two pretty large servings out of it, so now I have soup for another very cold day that is sure to come up again soon. Though, I’m pretty sure that I burned every one of the taste buds on my tongue when testing it out.

I spent the rest of the evening catching up on my Hulu queue (Bones, Family Guy, The Simpsons) and making a chart of microorganisms to study from for an upcoming quiz in Food Safety. All I can really think about right now is how much I am not looking forward to the next two days.

Tuesday

Weights training this morning. I’m actually going to try and put a real effort into including workouts with a considerable amount of upper body work at least twice a week now. I popped Jillian into my DVD drive and raced through Level 1 of her 30-Day Shred. Since I had to start my “Clear Liquid Diet” at 2:30 this afternoon to be continued until after my procedure tomorrow, I made sure to have oatmeal for breakfast. But not the pumpkin kind. Old-fashioned oats made in Vanilla Caramel tea, mixed with chia seeds, cocoa powder, and flaxseed meal, and topped with Grape Nuts, PB&Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams, and strawberry preserves.

After my classes were over, I had to rush home so that I could begin my preparations for my procedure tomorrow. I won’t disgust you with the details, but they are very unpleasant and part of it is following a “Clear Liquid Diet”. The only things I could eat were: coffee, tea, apple/white grape/white cranberry juice, Jell-O (no red colors), clear soup/broth, popsicles (no red colors), sports drinks (no red colors), sorbet (without milk or chunks of fruit), NO dairy, NO alcohol, NO red/orange juices. Yeah, I definitely want today to be over.

In preparation for all this, I have a huge bottle of fortified apple juice, lime and orange Jell-Os, and peach sorbet in my fridge as well as several bottles of berry-flavored sports drinks. I doubt all of these things will sustain me until dinnertime tomorrow, and I won’t bore you with pictures of lunch and dinner from today, nor breakfast and lunch for tomorrow since there will be very little to show with all of these restrictions. It’s times like these that I really appreciate food. You always take things for granted until they are taken away from you. Please pray that my procedure goes well and that I recover quickly, because I have exams starting this week. Eek!