Grazing

For me one of the hardest things about this season is going to be keeping track of exactly what I am eating. Something which was brought home to me last night as I was puttering around the house putting up decorations and watching Christmas movies. As part of the Christmas ‘decorations’ I had set out a bowl of mixed dried fruit and nuts. The problem is that I found myself taking a few every time I passed and at the end of the day, I had no idea how much I’d had. In the food diary it says I had mixed fruit and nuts at 21:30, but it was more like constant grazing between 18:00 and 22:00. I ended up working it out by weighing the bowl as I refilled it this morning to about the same level it was yesterday, and dividing the refill amount by 2 (I assume my husband ate as much as I)!

Of course having the food out and visible encourages nibbling, but I was also quite hungry yesterday evening and definitely in a grazing mood. Possibly because I had a big workout earlier in the day and didn’t get enough food afterwards. Right after a workout, especially an endurance workout, the glycogen (carbohydrate) stores in your muscles are depleted so need to be replenished, plus you need protein to rebuild the damaged muscles. Most recovery products are high in both carbohydrates and protein but lower in fat. However my favourite Sponser Protein Snack Bar has 16g of protein, 13g of carbohydrates and 7.5g fat. This is fine after a resistance workout but I don’t think it is providing enough carbohydrates after my running workouts, which is why I had the munchies last night. The Sponser Recovery Shake has a much more typical recovery product profile, with 23% protein, 74% carbohydrates and only 2% fat, so I’m going to try switching to that after most of my workouts this week and see how that affects my hunger levels. It’s all in the balance!

And I think that bowl of nuts is going back in the cupboard!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2338.72	128.91g	263.60g	77.74g	7.05g	30.91g
	22%	45%	30%	2%
Calories burned through exercise:		672

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
09:30	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's orange, mango and passionfruit juice	150mL
10:15	Black Tea	500mL
12:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:00	Homemade beef stew	460g
	Sainsbury's Freefrom iced rich fruit cake slice	1 slice
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill
14:15	Green Tea	250mL
15:00	Resistance workout + 33 minute easy run
	Lemon-Lime Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
17:00	Sponser Protein Snack bar	1 bar
18:00	2 Clementines (Mandarin oranges)	175g peeled
19:00	Orange, mango and cinnamon tea	250mL
20:00	Poached salmon	94g
	Merchant Gourmet Red and White Quinoa	100g
	Mixed peppers	100g
	in Olive oil	7mL
	Sainsbury's Taste the Difference apple sauce	20g
	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
21:00	Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur	50g
	Butterkist microwave butter popcorn	20g (popped)
21:30	Sainsbury's Fruit and Nut mix	about 50g
22:00	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.