Operation: Recovery

By Megan, on May 20th, 2010

Hi friends! Happy Thursday evening! I’m kinda stoked for Grey’s Anatomy’s season finale tonight… it looks like it’s gonna be tense!

This is my second day trying to recover from my Insanity workouts– I can’t BELIEVE how much pain my calves are in! I took yesterday completely off from exercise, and today I took it really easy, too. For starters, I snuck in a little nap after work. Sleeping is one of the best things you can do for muscle recovery, because during sleep, your body produces Growth Hormone which is largely responsible for tissue growth and repair. [source]

I woke up refreshed, and ready for a bit of active recovery– I took Yasha on a 30-minute walk, then walked to Whole Foods (love that I live so close to it now!), then found some motivation to do the Physique 57 Arms & Abs Booster.

This was just what I needed! I was afraid that after Insanity, my other workout videos wouldn’t feel like a challenge anymore, but, no worries there– I was still totally challenged and feeling the burn tonight! This was the perfect recovery workout for my body, because it involved most of my muscles– but not the calves! They got a much-deserved rest, while the rest of my muscles quivered from Shelly’s instruction

Since I had been totally resting up until this afternoon, my appetite kinda disappeared on me this morning! Normally, I’m hungry within an hour or so of waking up, but this morning I just kept plugging away at work, sipping on my green tea until I realized it was NOON! I’m not the kinda girl who “forgets” to eat, so that’s pretty crazy for me! I still wasn’t even that hungry, but I figured a green juice would be a good start to my day:

Just a basic combo this morning: Romaine, Kale, 1/2 an apple and 1/2 a lemon.

My appetite STILL didn’t show up, so I thought maybe some rebounding would awaken my digestive system!

(I caught up on Glee in the process)

I think the rebounding helped loosen up my calf muscles, too! Tonight, I’m noticing a HUGE improvement from this morning– they still hurt, but now it’s becoming more of a “normal” sore, rather than “I can’t walk or move” sore.

I tried to talk Yasha into rebounding, too:

But she wasn’t interested. She was a good poser, then jumped off as fast as she could!

Later in the day, fresh fruit was sounding SO good! An employee at Whole Foods offered me a sample strawberry, and they were so sweet and ripe, I just had to buy a box! I’m trying to get better at washing my berries (I’m usually lazy with berries, and just rinse them) so this time I soaked them in water and veggie wash:

I installed a towel rack right next to my kitchen sink, so that a cloth hand towel and my veggie wash will be handy. Now I have NO excuses for not washing my fruits and veggies well, and hopefully I’ll cut back on my paper towel use, too!

After soaking and rinsing the berries, I promptly chopped them up and devoured a big bowl:

These were SO good. I could have eaten the whole box, but I knew I’d want some for tomorrow, too!

Another thing I picked up at Whole Foods was some broccoli rabe:

I’m trying to break out of my food rut, so I thought it might be fun to try cooking one new vegetable a week! I’ve never prepared broccoli rabe myself, so I looked around the web for some inspiration. I settled on this simple saute recipe.

First I had to boil it for 2 minutes, until the stalks were tender:

Then I quickly dunked it in an ice-water bath, to stop the cooking process, and drained it over the sink:

That’s pretty much where I stopped following the recipe. Since it was a pretty simple saute process from there, I just dropped 2 T. of coconut oil in my big saute pan, added a clove of garlic, and sauteed about half of that broccoli rabe until it was heated through. (I’m saving the rest for tomorrow night!)

I seasoned it with Himalayan pink salt and pepper just before serving:

I felt so proud of myself for making something different! I really loved the slightly bitter flavor of this veggie, so I have a feeling I’ll be making it again in the future!

The rest of my dinner included a simple salad:

I love it when tomatoes are in season! They taste GOOD right now!

And, of course, I had some more roasted butternut squash:

That’s three days in a row that I’ve eaten butternut squash for dinner, so I think I may have gotten enough of it!

I picked up a special treat for watching Grey’s Anatomy tonight, too:

Anything that combines mint + dark chocolate sounds like heaven to me!

That chocolate is calling my name… so I’m off to watch TV! What are we going to do when it’s summer and all our favorite TV shows are on hiatus?! Good thing we have Netflix, I guess. We’re really excited to get into Breaking Bad next!