Pantry Challenge

One hobby I picked up during the last year was couponing. It's fun to see how much I can save at the grocery store. Well, a few of the bloggers out there are calling for us to do a pantry challenge, which for me will mean eating the food I have in the pantry (and the freezer) rather than buying stuff to fill it. I will still buy food—veggies and fruit, and maybe other things that I can get for free—but I won't be trying to buy things to fill the pantry. I will still have to use food from the freezer or I would never get any protein, but I think it will be a fun challenge! Plus it's a good way to use the food that I already have.

Pantry

Cereals

Food in the freezer

For the AM workout, I did 50 pulses: Glutes (from bottom of wall squat) and lats (from bottom of wall push up). Now that I have a better idea of what this does (teaching your muscles to turn on and off really fast and basically priming your nervous system), I can do them better and have a better attitude. It went well and I felt fast. Plus I dreamed about running last night. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that I visualized running a mile yesterday?

Day 1 of the pantry challenge had me making a mixture of rice and corn from the pantry, meat from the freezer, and green and red peppers and lettuce from the fridge.

All mixed up

There was so much food that I had enough to eat lunch and have 9 more meals. That will basically feed me lunch for two weeks. Maybe I need to make the challenge a little longer than just January—like until May or something. Seriously. My freezer and fridge are both now more full than they were before I made the meal. How is that possible?

10 meals' worth

Because it was well below freezing today, Team Belladium et al headed to Westhaven in Franklin and the neighborhood's lovely clubhouse to do a short trainer session. Short as in 2 hours, but that feels like a lifetime when you're on the trainer!

Lisa riding fast!

We set up in their movement studio, turned on some tunes, and rode away. Every 15–20 minutes or so, Lee would shout out, "Power burst!" and we were supposed to change to the big ring if were weren't already there, up the cadence to about 120 RPM, and ride that way for 10 seconds. I did the first one and Valerie and I smelled something burning, which I figured out later, when I didn't do any of the other power bursts, that it was probably my tire on the trainer. I rode hard the entire time, pretending that I was in a race and wanting to feel like I was riding a 1:10 on a 26-mile course. It felt good. It required a lot of imagination, but that's something I need to practice and had time to do, so it was fun.

After we took down all our stuff, we headed over to Lee's house for some good supper.

Half of the caravan from the clubhouse to Lee and David's house

Lisa had a brilliant idea of making Jack's chili for us all to enjoy. Everyone brought something, and we had lots of good food to eat!

Part of the feast: chips and dip, sausage rolls, and salad. Not pictured: Chili, drinks, veggies, and dessert

I love trainer rides because everyone can do their own ride. No one gets dropped, you can ride fast or slow, you can work on cadence, you can work on technique, you can pretend you're racing. You really can get a great benefit from the trainer if you can stay on for a while. Even though it's your own bike, it definitely feels different than being out on the road and it's hard to stay on, especially when you aren't with a community of like-minded riders, for more than an hour or so.