A soup recipe, and a yarn recipe.

I feel a little bad. It has been so long since I blogged that I had to login to do it!

Well, I’ve been doing important things. Namely, being on vacation and visiting our friends Claire and John in Syracuse, New York.

It was a great trip. I even got a little running in while I was there. I laced up on two mornings for three mile runs from their house to the duck pond and back.

I love the upstate New York geography. I can understand why this region’s Iron Man competition would be held there. So many beautiful ridges and mountains, and not forested like Maine is. You can just see out and around you forever. Lovely.

I’ve had a couple of great trips this year where I brought my running shoes. Tucson. Destin, Florida. Boston. (OK, when I started that sentence, I wrote a lot, but then I realized it was only three.) Just … one of the many things I love about running is how it helps me experience a new place. I get so much more out of my vacations when I can take a little time and explore. And I get so much more out of my exercise when it brings me to exciting new places. 🙂

Confession: I’ve gained about 3 pounds since the marathon. I can feel it in the way I carry myself and in the way that my clothes fit. I don’t know what it is, but since the Halloween candy fiasco, I’ve just felt it’s been so hard to stick to a good diet. I crave sweet things. I crave more food than I know my body needs to balance the calories I burn. And I have been letting myself indulge and now it shows.

I really don’t want to lose or gain any more weight. I’m really happy at 150 pounds. I’d like to stay there forever, please (or at least until kids). So, this week’s resolutions:

  • No beer until after Saturday’s long run. They are empty, dehydrating calories.
  • Make soup for one meal each day. This is my Weight Watchers trick.
  • Snack on raw veggies (mostly). My favorites are red pepper strips and tzatzki dip, which is made out of plain Greek yogurt, dill, cucumbers and lemon juice.

Soup is my go-to diet food. I love it because its high water content fills you up, and its an easy way to eat more veggies. Tonight, I made this:

Carrot and Apple Curried Soup
Ingredients

  • 8 carrots
  • 2 apples
  • 1 rib celery
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 5 cups stock
  • 2 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1 tbsp minced ginger (you can get these in a jar to save time)
  • 3 tbsp curry
  • 2 bay leaves
  • salt, pepper and cayenne to taste

Steps

  1. Peel and cut up onion. Set aside in bowl. In separate bowl, peel and cut up carrots, apples and celery.
  2. Melt the butter in a stock pot. Add the onions. When the onions become translucent, add the garlic, ginger and spices. Saute until fragrant (about one minute).
  3. Pour in stock and all the carrots, apples and celery. Simmer for about 30 minutes (carrots should be soft).
  4. In batches, puree in blender.

One serving of this soup (it makes about 10 one-cup servings) probably has a whole day’s worth of vitamin A and half your days’ worth of Vitamin C. And you can have have as much as you want without feeling guilty about how much you ate.

In other things I’ve been doing other than running, I’ve been hit by the knitting bug. Hard. Since the marathon, I have finished one pair of socks, seamed a sweater, and am 75 percent of the way done a second pair of socks. I also bought the pattern and the yarn to start this sweater:

I think it’s going to be so pretty on my broad-shouldered frame. This is the yarn I just got for it:

It was only $36 for enough (wool) yarn to knit a sweater. That’s nuts! In the two sweaters I’ve already knit, I don’t think  either of them were less than $80 in materials.

Yes, I know, not about running. Or fitness. But hey, this is the resting period!

 

Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.