My Physio is a Fox

/ That’s What He Said / A Humpday Miracle

Sometimes, one title is not enough 😛

Sooo I saw the sports physio today! Oh boy….he is a HOTTIE! For realz! But yeah, I’ll get onto that in a minute 😛

First up, I shall start this post with some lovely blog search terms, cos I know you all ❤ them!

– deer ( x 42!!!! Obvs a lot of people like to search about deer on the internet. Huh.)

– ελάφι (x 4 – if anyone can tell me what language that is…please do!)

– pretty men (that makes me happy :D)

– what’s green and runs (me, when I feel ill. Yes, a poor joke, I know)

– madonna operation before and after (Madonna had an operation? News to me!)

– madonna’s ageless (first Kate Moss, now Madonna! Well I never)

– bark-like cereal (I think you mean Fru-Grains?)

– swap ur wife with us (Lol)

– swapyourwife.com (I NEED to go on that website!)

– world’s best main course (ha, you won’t find that here!)

– amazed facial faces channing tatum (LOL)

– hey brit chick runs, where’s the funky new blog?

Well, in answer to the last one – when BlueHost help me out with getting the header changed! I’m actually not kidding when I say I am trying SOOO hard to get it changed, and I just CAN”T. FRIGGIN”. DO. IT There’s been tears, let me tell you! If I hadn’t already paid BlueHost, I would give up, but I’m not gonna waste that £££…

Anyway! Moving swiftly on – I started the day The Oat Way today:

Actually, that’s melon and yogurt – the oats came after:

Chocolate pudding oats in fact 🙂

On top of the parish magazine, cos I’m hip like that.

Between oat-eating and leaving for physio, I went for a 1hr walk, and did Level 2 of Jillian, skipping all the cardio (cos it hurt my injured ankle). I thought the walk would be ok – but it actually made my injury feel mucho worso, which = no walking now! Obvs I HAVE to walk (ie to get from my car to my lecture hall!) but no WALK walks. Boooohiss (I wonder if I can get a ‘boohiss’ into every post!? Man, I’m such a Scrooge!)

Late morning, my mumma and I headed out on the town – not to party, alas, but to go to the bank, the store, Boots and Holland & Barratt for my vegan drugs (aka vegan multivitamin :p). Whilst we were there, we made the most of Costa, the inferior, crapper version of Starbucks. Sorry Costa, but Starbucks really did have my heart at hello, and always will 🙂 I still got a kickass cappuccino though!

Whiiiich totally spoiled my appetite for lunch – in fact, I didn’t even eat it til 4pm, and even then I wasn’t hungry! What I DID do howeverz, was go and see the sports physio!

[I’m shallow, but thank GOODNESS I put on a full face of slap this morning, and took extra time to moisturise my legs – crikey, I would’ve died of embarrassment otherwise!]

Mr Fit Physio (from here on out, known as Mr FF) was, well, brilliant!

a) he was cuteness personified

b) he made me feel totally at ease

c) he has run 3 marathons (includ. 1 sub-3hr…cripes…and his first was in Hawaii!)

d) he runs in general

e) most importantly, he sure does know what he’s talking about (who are we kidding, a) is most important 😛 I KID!)

Here’s what the What is:

– he reckons my leg pain on a whole is compartment syndrome – whereby the sheath that goes round the muscles is being spazzy and nasty and not helping (to put it in my terms, so it makes sense!)

– my other injury – I can’t remember what he said it was, but he gave me ULTRASOUND on it to promote healing, as well as supercool massage to get rid of the swelling! He also told me to ice it (I have black eyed beans stuck to my ankle as i type), and to rest it – ie no walking. But he thinks it’ll clear up in a couple o’ days.

– when my ankle is healed, he said continue with the walk/running and see what’s what – he gave all my lower legs a good massage too, to loosen everything up, so hopefully they’ll be an improvement.

– he gave me this (excuse the horrific picture):

Which is one of those elastic band things..to do foot exercises with (it’s hard to explain here) when my injured ankle is healed, annnnd I’m going back next Friday – he’ll see me run on a treadmill to look at my style (I have ‘loose hips’ apparently, which is why I run like a doof) and to look at treatment stuff.

Most importantly – he is confident there is no stress fracture, he didn’t laugh me out of the room when I said there was a marathon in Oct I want to do, and he didn’t need to amputate my leg(s) –

A HUMPDAY MIRACLE!

Sooooo plan of action: rest. Then run 🙂

Wahey! i feel a lot better having seen him, so fingers crossed I’m on the path to SuperFitness again ay! 😀

‘Lunch’ today was some soya mince (I made it curry flavah) mixed with roast veggies:

Followed by a buttload of cereal and yogurt and an apple when I got home. I was somewhat rushed when we got in the door – i realised I wanted tempeh for dinner, which needed MARINATING immediatosso!

Annnnd my mum had requested yet more oatmeal bars, as she’s seeing a longlost friend tomorrow, and wanted to bring gifts of joy 🙂

Her wish is my command 🙂

Thheeeen I got to have my dinner – said tempeh, fried:

With a load of roasted kabocha, aubergine and parsnip, and a banana-peanut flour – cinnamon/nutmeg-vanilla-soya milk-CABBAGE (!) smoothie on the side:

A delicious meal, if ever one did exist 🙂 Plus, I seriously need to use nutmeg more. Nutmeg + banana + cinnamon is really rather scrummeh, if I do say so myself.

Buuuuut now, my bed calls, my Heat magazine calls, and my ankle is frozen solid and needs its’ bean cocoon removing, pronto.

Au revoir!

Ps – thank you to all your comments yesterday – it meant a lot to know that other people feel the same/have been through something similar/had wise words to say – I felt 10 x more at ease after reading them.

Question – favourite smoothie combination? Mine is withouta doubt, banana, peanut butter, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg. SO GOOD!

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Happiness and Search Terms

Detox follow-up

Ok – after reading the comments on my ‘detox’ post from yesterday, I don’t think I made myself completely clear (I was SOOO tired!! 11pm is not a good time to write a post :p).

The detox idea is NOT about weight loss, food ban, excessive restriction, or a long term thing (it’s more of a challenge – thank you commenter who suggested that!). There’s also nothing wrong with oats (in fact they’re a super food!) BUT – I am stuck in a food rut, eating the same limited things – at the expense of other nutrients from foods like lentils, spinach and chickpeas – over and over. Not cos I don’t have enough time, just cos I’m in a rut and it’s easier. I also feel crummy and rundown physically, and I know this is cos of my limited diet at the moment.

I’m also someone who responds well to rules (that’s just me, my disposition…I also often need to go cold turkey on something to stop it); if I give myself a rule, I WILL stick to it. SO, to help me get out of a rut, try new recipes and foods, and make myself feel better physically, I want to say NO to the foods I’ve been relying on far too heavily for, literally, a week, JUST so I can make myself experiment more. I don’t plan on cutting coffee, Clif bars or oatmeal out of my life for good! I just don’t think I should eat ONLY those three!! (Diet Pepsi on the other hand? Yeh, I probably should live without that :p). I don’t want to lose weight or anything of the sort, I just want to be more free with my eating habits. Oh, and again – nothing wrong with repeating meals, BUT I actually want to be creative and eat different things! Just I often go for the easier option out of habit, and it’s a habit I want to break 🙂

Ya get me?

Ok! Moving swiftly on.

———–

Ohlala, I slept terribly last night! In fact, I dreamt – when I eventually did get to the land of nod – that I was driving and was so tired I crashed the car into a field! When I dragged myself out of the wreckage, I proceeded to fall down a waterfall. As you do. At that point, I woke up

Needless to say, this morning my eyes actually hurt with tiredness 😦 All the more reason for a ‘what makes me happy‘ post dontcha reckon!!?? I like doing these posts 🙂

1) Blake Lively and Florence of Florence and the Machines fame:

(source)

I love those two! Why? Well – they’re both small giants, like me! I’m 5ft9, they’re both 5ft10 (and proud) and that makes me HAPPY! They’re also super role models, being healthy physically and oh-so talented. Well, Florence is – not so sure about Blake…my experience of her skills is limited to Gossip Girl, and we all know that every actor on that show obvs gets overshadowed by the wonder that is the (British!) Ed Westwick/Chuck Bass. Duh.

2) I’m driving along, happily singing to my CD on the way to uni today (Bruno Mars, Grenade) and about 37secs in, I decide to see what’s on the radio. The exact point where I paused the CD was the EXACT point where the same song was playing on the radio! Like – on CD ‘But darlin I’ll still…[pause]’ —-> on radio ‘catch a grennaaaade for you’ :O it was incredible! Little things people, little things!

3) Oatmeal:

I used the same method as yesterday (cooking 1/2c. with lots of liquid, then leaving it to sit in a warm place for 45mins) and OHY MYYYY again! I really can’t describe the wonderful texture:

Either I’m on to some new amazing method, or I’ve been doing oatmeal wrong all this time 😛

4) New issue of Runner’s World

This issue was all about motivation, and ohmydays, I am countin’ down the days til I can run properly again! I am DYING to get back out there! Especially after reading all the great speed training workouts in this issue. As soon as I am back to my full training ability, I am going to start doing some real good drills :p so excited!

5) Peanut banana sauce on tempeh 🙂 1/2 serving peanut flour, mixed with water, salt, maple syrup and melted mashed banana…

(my last bag, bought when I ran the marathon in Washington DC. I made my mum traipse through the streets in the heat, getting lost, for about 2hrs, JUST to find a Trader Joe’s :p)

…bliss!

6) Blog search terms 🙂 This week, we have gems such as:

– I just walked 14miles and I feel really sick

– cat named darcy

– nosebleed in cold weather

– old cereal

– pink sparkly things (i love whoever searched that! And must’ve trawled through thouuusands of pages of results before finding my blog!!??)

– kate moss smoking just to annoy freya (cheers for that)

– i’m doing this so I can be on brit chick runs blog search list, holla (it worked!)

And, this is odd – someone clicked off of the following website to find my blog;

link-t2news.co.cc/woman-claims-yogurt-sample-tasted-of-semen

Er…..???!!!! No words.

Just…no words.

What’s made you happy today?

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Fill Me Up

Seriously, legs? SERIOUSLY!?

You know I said yesteryear that the pain in the old shins seemed a little less? Well, have I got a tale for you!

Actually, I don’t, I just like that phrase 🙂 but anyway – when i went to bed last night, a NEW PAIN arose! This time, if I flex my left foot up or down, there’s a slight weird niggly odd feeling in the [tendon?] verticle to about my 3rd toe. Gah. It doesn’t feel like it’s ohemgee-need-an-operation serious (though saying that, it’ll probably turn out to be gangrene, and this time next week I won’t even have a left foot to moan about), but I sure am thankful I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow! Finger’s crossed Mr Doc can solve my woes 🙂

In the meantime, I’ll settle on other, less scary ways to make me smile:

MM…more oats in a jar.…(and I still have another empty jar waiting! Hooray!)

Howevz, the problem with these tiny 227g jars is that they hardly fit a darn thing in them! Hence why the overflow was served up with a side of melon:

Overflow:

Melon:

Yes.

I tried to be different today, and mixed in some carob powder and maple syrup – a combination I normally love – but it did NADA today! I could barely taste it! Alas, I still did a sweet as job of cleaning the jar:

hehe! My thumbnail looks so neat and tidy in that pic! If ONLY you could see the state my nails are really in 😛 I try and grow them and file them and make them look preddy, but horses + cold weather + haynets + rug buckles = skanky nails. BOO HISS.

—

So, at the weekend, my stepdad made something using chopped tomatoes (hear me out). Since that day (Satdee), the half empty can – NO! Scrap that! The half FULL can (positivity folks!) has been sitting in the fridge, looking sad and lonely. Every day, i’ve said to my mamma, those tomatoes need using up…but nothing happened. So, today, i TOOK. CHARGE. I had beets on my mind, cocoa, and tomatoes – which called for only one thing; a beet cocoa tomato sauce!

Before you go getting those knickers in a twist over my sheer genius at the combination, I can’t take credit for it 😥 In fact, it was a recipe over at (Never)Home Maker that created it. Howevverrr, when I stopped by there today, i could find no trace of said recipe. OH! So here’s what went in the mix:

1/2 can chopped tomaddoes

2 tsps cocoa powder

salt to taste

a squeeze or so of agave (to taste)

a lorra dried mixed herbs

a scrunch of pepper (yep, to taste)

a lorra mixed spice

1 giant and 1 small cooked beet (aka 2 medium beets!)

I shoved it all in Vincent:

Made him do that blendy thing he does oh-so well, and voila!

One gloriously rich tasting sweet lovely sauce!

I had a load of it mixed with chickpeas, alongside perfect roast veggies and stir fried cabbage with soy sauce and garlic:

I can’t decide…..

Very scrumptious! My mum finished off the other half of the sauce with some pasta this evening 🙂

Talking of this evening – mine was finished off with a healthy dose of textbook and chocolate:

NOW – moving on.

I’ve received a few comments recently about – yet again – portion size (some more politely put than others! :() and I feel I need to address the issue. It’s something which has been brought up on other blogs before (see Emily’s post, and Katie’s brief referral at the end of her post) and I have actually talked about it on here before, but I shall do again.

I do have big portions! And I’m not ashamed to admit it! I can look at some blogs and envy the tiny delicate neat plates..but that’s not me. I just don’t feel satisfied without a good load of food in my stomach 😀 In an ideal world, I would like to eat smaller portions cos yes, sometimes I do feel uncomfortably full after a meal. But as Katie said in her post – sometimes it’s worth it! I LOVE roast veggies (like, seriously) and I LOVE taking my time over meals, savouring every bite. Ergo, i tend to make a lot of my favourite foods, and spend ages enjoying them 🙂 Tis how I roll! At some point, I would like to reduce my portion sizes (we’re talking about veg here) just so my vision of what is ‘normal’ doesn’t get TOTALLY skewed, but for now – I like eating lots of veg, and that’s what I’m gonna keep on doing.

At least until my supply of parsnips and/or squash runs out – they’re the only veg worth really pulling the boat out for 😛

Question: How do you judge portion size? Do you like large portions, or small portions?

—–

Lighten the mood a bit, shall we?

Blog searches (everyone seems to be doing these atm!)

– old cereal

– foods that take 2days (2 days to what, I say??)

– wonder woman photoshop

– swap your wife.com (my post entitled ‘I’d swap my wife for peanut butter hummus’ or something, written about 10months ago, is still haunting me then….)

– eat live run green monster (eerrr wrong blog – I think you either want here or here)

– kate moss smoking (x 2 – why does that phrase get me so many hits!?)

And my personal favourite:

– fully nakd girles (whoever searched that clearly needs to check his/her spelling, if they want to get what they’re REALLY looking for!)

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Strange Searches

Hehe!!!

Four quick things:

Firstly, I forgot to mention it yesterday, but I just have to give a mini shout out to Katy – on Saturday, she told me a brilliant quote – ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going!’. I love it! And I actually used it a few times in my 16miles yesterday when I felt crummy, and it really really helped. So thank you girl! 🙂

Secondly – the latest round of weird searches for my blog!

Can you see them? Oh how I chuckled!! Do you guys want to keep seeing these?

Thirdly – general housekeeping really…- is there anything y’all would like to see different on the blog? More pictures? Less pictures? More writing? Less writing? More horses? No horses (heaven forbid!!)!? Do let me know – I’m open to ideas!

Annnnnd finally – as I’m sure you’re all aware (if you’re not, where have you been the past 6months??), I’m running a marathon in Washington DC on 31st October. Of course, I would LOVE to meet some bloggers and blog readers! I already know of one or two people in the DC area (Emily is running the marathon too, and I think is going to hold a get together, and I believe Allie lives in DC), but I was wondering if anyone else would be around during that time? I’m arriving the Wednesday before the event, and leaving on Tuesday after it. I’ll be with my mum, and I don’t particularly want to leave her every single day alone while I flit off doing bloggy things, so I was hoping one big meet up would be good 😀 Who is likely to be there!?

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Sunday Dinner:

OBVIOUSLY I had one of my ‘treat meals’, cos that’s what you do when you’ve run 16miles :p My meal was actually Hugh Jass – I was craving like crazy veggies and volume, so that’s what I did 😛

 

The tempeh topping is made from peanut butter mixed with melted banana and mixed spice and salt (aka pure bliss)

 

I had a chat with my mum after dinner, about my run, and we have a mild theory…see, this weird sick chest lump thing has happened 4 or 5 times to me. Once on a very hot 7mile run, at the very last mile, when I’d sweated out my own weight but hadn’t had any electrolytes or salt (bad bad bad). Once on a random long run at home (? who knows why ?). Once on the half mary the other week (crazy sugar high/crash from Kendall mint cake/killer hills out to get me). And finally, yesterday, on the 16miles. Now…my mum is sick. Not cool-kid-speak-sick, but sick as in she’s had a nasty virus all week. Sooo it could well be that (espec. seeing as I’m Mrs Sniffy right now) I was/am fighting off said virus myself, which caused my body to protest when things got tough! A wise theory, yee think?

Anyway. Moving swiftly on!

I had a defrosted homemade vegan carrot & raisin muffin not long before bed, cos I felt like something sweet 😀

Monday

A day of rest! And wonderful overnight oat breakfasts 🙂

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. yogurt
• 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 spoon vanilla-almond Vega mix
• Toppings = cereal 😀

Before the addition of the beautiful banana:

And after:

A seeeeaaaa of baanananana!!

Oh it was good 😀 Though I think I prefer the chocolate Vega mix – nothing against the almond-vanilla, but I feel the chocolate to be more versatile 🙂

Lunch today was packed up into many a plastic box, ready for consume-ation (what’s the word I’m thinking of!!??) at work 😀

We have – raw mushrooms and aunt-grown cucumber, mixed with seasonings and fresh basil and balsamic vinegar:

Bbq-salt roasted carrot, kabocha and parsnip, with a few gran-grown tomatoes, and an aunt-grown crazy baby cucumber:

And finally, the roast beans I love so much – they feel the same way about me, I can tell.

All in all, a good lunch. Just a shame my boss was a grumpy old *insert mildly rude word here* today, which somewhat meant it was very rushed 😦 Plus, I was aaaaaall on my lonesome the whole afternoon again, bar a trip to the bank to swap £60 for some fivers and pound coins. My days are getting so wild aren’t they!? Freya, contain the excitement.

But! To make up for the lack of printer ink for sale in the store (which I need so I can print out nice pictures for my vision board which I banged on about t’other week), I did pick up FOUR (count ‘em, FOUR!) charity shop books, for less than the price of one paperback!!

 

Now that is a bargain if I ever did see one.

Anywayz, when I got home after work, I had some yogurt and cereal:

And…that’s it :p I’m confused. I need to think of something to eat for dinner, and I desperately want to do something different, ie not tofu and 2 veg, as it were. I just can’t think what! I feel tremendously uninspired…Does anyone have any good ideas for vegan meals? What’s your favourite meal? What do you reckon I should try? Seriously, my lovely people, I need some inspiration!!

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PS – thank you so so sosososos much to all of you who commented on my 16mile post yesterday – each and every one means so much! I love you all :p

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