Pictured is a meal that we’ve enjoyed at least once a day for almost the last 6 months. During that time we’ve lost 34 pounds and our running has increased from about 9 miles per week to 25 miles per week.
We are not sure but perhaps we are training for a marathon in May. During that time we’ve always tried to balance weight loss against increasing our mileage. In the past we’ve always found that once we get above about 15 or 18 miles per week, caloric restrictions start to increase the risk of injury, especially from pulled muscles. [We’ve lined up for 5 marathons in our life and finished 4, the last one being in 2019.) We’re talking here about a 68 + year old runner.]
In any event, we started at a whopping 272 pounds in July. We now sit at 238. We weighed somewhere around 203 pounds when we last ran a marathon, and in fact this time around a big problem we have faced is that the weight, while it has come off, has not come off fast enough for us to realistically run a marathon in May. But we haven’t given up the ship just yet.
Anyway back to the picture.
That’s about 4 oz of very lean sliced Turkey breast. It’s 3.75 oz of canned Sardines (we love the ones in Louisiana Hot Sauce the sardines come in). It’s also a half can of black beans, a half can of green beans all over a bed of spinach, kale, greens (perhaps aragula). And some horseradish dark mustard, salt and pepper.
Really it tastes just awesome. And we calculate it’s just a few calories over 500 calories, with plenty of protein, a manageable number of carbs (after all we need a few for running) and lots of healthy green veggies packed with vitamins and minerals.
The green beans don’t add much nutritional value and frankly we use a half can of that instead of a full can of black beans (which we love) because the black beans have a hefty 450 calories per can. So that’s why we use only use a half can of black beans instead of a full one. Once our mileage creeps up a bid maybe we’ll use a full can.
We microwave it for somewhere between 1:30 minutes and 2 minutes. The veggies make give it a nice moist texture.
Our diet right now has us restricting our caloric intake to 2200 calories per day give or take a few.
We do allow ourselves the luxury of consuming about 300 calories extra on days when we run more than 4 miles- which right now is 3 times per week.
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