Free Friday

Free from work and free to ramble on Friday: Taper, parenting and goals. Taper madness is real, I swear it needs to be an official DSM diagnosis! Your emotions are all over the place, you second guess everything and every little ache/pain becomes the biggest problem and has you losing a limb! One minute the extra energy is great to refocus on the things pushed aside during high level training, but the next it is cause for worry of your eating, running and reason for that weird ache. You spend your time trying to convince yourself that resting is okay (believe me this is the toughest part for me). No matter how many time I have been through it (this is my 19th episode of taper madness) it is always the same, at least this time I have hubby to experience it with me!

Since it is Fitness Friday let's first look at my workout goals: Pilates 2x this week, 3 morning workouts resulting in 3 doubles, but I have failed to call the gym at work. The leg ache is back but lower this time, so of course I am over analyzing and freaking out! I am trying very hard to rest and only do what does not cause me pain. The plan as of now is to take June as a rest month with minimal running and fully heal. Besides continuing with my regular fitness goals I only have one to add...

• Run a good half tomorrow: feel good, but push myself. Would love to beat last year's time of 1:37:54 and defend my AG win

My biggest issue this week causing problems with everything else is stress/fatigue. I fatigue and headaches are better and coffee intake is closer to my normal. I took time to think about it all and had a major breakdown about all my stresses over the weekend, which has actually helped my mood and makes me really think about where I am and what is important in my life. Many time my problem is trying to fix everything else and not focusing on my stress or preventing it, I take on way too much but then lack the time to focus on the little things in life. My goal for this week and beyond...

• Make more time for family, spend time each day doing something O wants to do.

And finally food! How am I doing on the goals I set last Friday? I stopped tracking a lot of stuff since it was way to time consuming unless it was premade foods, meal planning continues to go well thanks to Pinterest, dairy is 90% out, but still working on the mindless eating. I am at least trying to eat better when I do this: packing lots of veggies and fruit to have at work and trying to make my own snack bars instead of all the processed ones. The week ahead is even busier so a couple new goals

• Prepare at least 1 new meal this week
• Change the breakfast routine from cereal to something with more protein and less carb loaded to combat the morning starvation.

Last weekend after making Sweet Potato Kale Pasta (needs some tweaking but has potential) I needed to use up some leftovers and decided on this...

Sweet Potato Sun Butter Protein Bars
1 cup sweet potato mashed
1/4 cup Sun Butter (I think it needed more but that was all I had)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oats
1/4 cup vanilla protein powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup raisins/dates

Combine sweet potato, Sun Butter and vanilla. In separate bowl mix remaining ingredients then add wet to dry. Pour into a greased 9x13 pan and press down. Bake 45-50 min at 325F.