After 10 hours of sleep, I feel much better about life in general. 🙂
A wonderful breakfast doesn’t hurt, either! Presenting… Pumpkin Spice Latte Baked Oatmeal:
One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is the special flavored coffees from Starbucks. And, in my opinion, the best is Pumpkin Spice!
Baked oatmeal is the perfect Saturday breakfast – it’s simple and not too time-intensive, but special enough to be worthy of a lazy day off. Oh, and did I mention that it’s vegan?
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup oatmeal
- 1/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 1/4 cup vanilla rice milk
- 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon instant coffee
- 1/2 sliced banana, separated into 1/4 cups
- 5 chopped almonds
- Squirt agave nectar
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Mix all ingredients each 1/4 cup sliced banana.
- Pour batter into mini casserole dish.
- Top batter with remaining banana.
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Enjoy!
This was definitely a large breakfast, and I got pretty full towards the end, so I stopped eating.
When I was at the gym on Wednesday, I stepped on the scale (I don’t own one at home) and discovered I had put on 4 pounds in the week prior to the marathon + two weeks after. I was pretty aware of the weight gain (when you’re 5 ft 3, it’s hard to ignore 4 pounds), but I had avoided weighing myself. I really hate the scale, and I’m trying not to get caught up in the number. (Trust me, this is not ‘water weight.’)
I keep joking that I have been eating ‘marathon sized’ portions; however, I’m not training for a marathon anymore! My portions were fine when I was running 35 miles a week – I maintained my weight through most of training; but in comparison to my current activity level, those old portions are too large. I began to pull back my portions to ‘regular sized’ on Wednesday.
Weight fluctuates. It just happens! I just think it’s important to nip it in the bud. Similar to how I put on 5 pounds after my honeymoon, I plan to just go back on my ‘dietless diet,’ when I pay attention to portion sizes, eat whole foods, nix the 400-calories afternoon snack in favor of fruit or something light, lay off the booze, and stop eating when I’m full. The dietless diet helped me lose – and keep off – my honeymoon weight gain, and I’m sure it will work again. I’ve been a slave to calorie counting before, and although I see the benefits, the “cons†are too great for me to go back down that road.
Benefits of Calorie Counting:
- It works.
- When I was trying to learn healthier eating habits, it made me more aware of the nutritional value of foods.
- It helps me stick to sensible portions.
Cons of Calorie Counting:
- I feel obsessive when I do it.
- Calorie counting is all “fuzzy math†anyway. You don’t know exactly how many calories is in that muffin or exactly how many calories you burned on a run.
- Calorie counting makes me feel restricted.
- It makes me feel hungrier because all I can do is think of what I cannot have.
- It teaches me to ignore my body’s cues.
- It annoys my husband.
Benefits of Dietless Dieting;
- It works.
- It helps me stick to sensible portions.
- I can live my life without crunching numbers in my head.
- It keeps me in touch with my cravings and desires.
- It allows me to work out harder.
- Its something I can do (in one form or another) for the rest of my life. It’s a maintainable eating style.
Cons of Dietless Dieting
- It takes longer to lose the weight… but I can wait. 🙂 There’s no rush in losing weight in a way that keeps me mentally sane.
On that note… it’s time to get my booty in gear! I will be tackling my first outdoor run since the marathon – here’s to hoping my foot feels great! I would love to start regularly running again.
Best of luck on your run!!! I was an obsessive calorie counter, and you are right, it DOES work, but now I try to balance it with dietless dieting 😉