Batch Cooking and Food for Week 1

Week 1’s batch cooking video was a disaster.  We’re still learning how to be film makers, and the film we had might have been usable… if we had days to edit it.  So, for the first week, you get recipes and commentary, and we’ll save the cooking shows for later.  Look forward to it, we have cute little aprons and everything!  And pictures.  For now, just imagine with your minds eye.  Pretend we’re the dudes from the Game of Thrones describing the feast.  Or whatever.

MEALS:

Chicken tortilla soup

meatloaf, cauli-taters, and green beans

Parmesan encrusted chicken with rice pasta, light alfredo, peas, and broccoli (next time I’ll make sure I get either corn, quinoa, or whole wheat as rice means white rice which means refined carbs, oops)

The tortilla soup, which is usually Leah’s specialty, was off.  It was ALRIGHT, but we think it just had too much broth in it and not enough STUFF and it needed to be made on the stove, not the crock pot.  Everything else was phenomenal.  The chicken alfredo was about 350 calories and definitely killed our cravings for the full fat stuff.  The meatloaf was a wonderful dinner.  The cauli-taters just tasted like mashed potatoes.  Those will definitely be staples.  We ate turkey wraps or sandwiches with the soups.

To fill in the holes, one day we had fish, quinoa/brown rice, and a salad, and one day we had a micro meal (chicken korma and basamati rice) and some other various munchies.  For breakfast, Leah had fage 0% w/granola and some fruit, or a sprouted grain english muffin and cream cheese w/morningstar veggie patties. Joel had Jimmy Dean Ham and cheese omelets or Jimmy Dean Delights pancake and turkey sausage.

Snacks for snacks sake became really non-essential most workout days since we were way full with the fueling (snacks != pre/post workout fueling), but Leah dug into some carrots and tzatziki and/or fruit at times.  For Monday/Wednesday snacks (workout after work) Leah  is eating an english muffin w/jelly and some fruit and dried mango and finding 100g carbs not hard to get in (essentially meal #4 instead of a snack), though my diet quality score (we’ll talk about that soon) seems to go up when Leah  fuels with whole foods and fruits and veggies, so that’s good.  Joel had gels and whole grain crackers as snacks.

Onward and upward for week 2!

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The Beginning of an Adventure

Hi everyone!

Leah (that’s me) and Joel (my lovely husband/partner in crime) here. We’re age group triathletes in Austin TX that take this stuff pretty seriously (except when we don’t).  We’ve completed quite a few sprint triathlons, a few Olympics, and one 70.3 (half ironman) triathlon over the last few years (mostly last year :D) and have the ultimate goal of completing an Ironman before 40, and maybe even getting to Kona someday.  Y’know, with the 70-74 age group…

We both started dabbling in running and a little biking as a way to stay fit after losing a bunch of weight and I found running races and got hooked.  First a 5k, then a 10k, then a half marathon… I had the bug hard.  I really enjoyed pushing through a training program and seeking to improve my times.  Joel wasn’t that into running, but he thought triathlon sounded cool (even though he really hated swimming and running) so we started working on that and I completed my first triathlon in Aug 2010, and Joel, who was unfortunately down with a super nasty lung funk that summer, completed his first April 2011.  We were hooked instantly and are triathletes 4 lyfe now.

While we can swim, bike, and run further and faster than the average bear, we’re both seeking to shed a few lbs to reach our optimal race weight, so we will definitely cover our eating strategies and weight loss progress here as well.  If transition is the fourth sport in triathlon, nutrition (on and off the course) is most definitely the fifth.

We’ve got our Go Pro cameras, our training spreadsheets, our maps, and our plans laid out for a fantastic 2013 season, and we’re ready to chase some PRs.  As this is not our first BBQ (errr… season of racing), we’ll offer tips and tricks along the way on just about everything from bike maintenance to batch cooking to training schedules.  Joel will be the video man (so please give him props, as those 2 minute videos take a commitment of a few hours, minimum), and I will be the main wordsmith on the mic… errr… blog (though he will certainly chime in at times).

So, welcome to our Adventures in Triathlon.  We hope you’ll join us for the journey.

 

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