What Is With This Hunger?!

Yesterday morning, I woke up, and immediately my stomach started grumbling.  I don’t know if I didn’t eat enough the night before or what, but I was seriously hungry.  I don’t usually eat before my early morning workouts, so I headed out to the gym as usual, but my belly was definitely growling at me through the entire thing.

I started off with ten minutes of walking and jogging on the treadmill to warm up, and then started on this chest + biceps workouts.  Once I finished that, I did the usual hanging knee lifts and oblique and back work and then hopped back on the treadmill.  There, I did two ten-minute sprint intervals, alternating one minute of running and one minute of walking, doing some slow walking at the beginning and end for a total of 30 minutes.  It was a sweaty one but my legs felt really great! 

Once I got back home, I immediately started in on breakfast.  I was craving something sweet (per usual), and I wanted something filling, so I went with pumpkin pancakes.  (I really want to try another version of grain-free pancakes (maybe banana?) but I figured that would have to wait until the weekend when I have a little more time.)  I topped them with the usual – strawberries and maple syrup – and I was good to go!

Because I usually bring my breakfast to work and eat at my desk a little later in the day (combined with the fact that I already woke up starving, I guess), I was unusually hungry once the middle of the morning rolled around.  I snacked on a few cashews to hold me over, but then lunch came pretty early on in the day too.  I baked up some chicken, green beans, and tomatoes with olive oil and crushed red pepper the other night and heated it up for a very tasty lunch. 

After lunch, I ‘m usually pretty full… but that was not the case yesterday.  I guess all these workouts and hikes and activities were catching up to me! I pretty much immediately dug into my snacks to try and quiet my hunger – delicious purple grapes and a couple of perfectly sweet medjool dates for the win.

By the time I hit mid-afternoon, I knew it was going to be a problem that I’d already run out of snacks.  Usually I do a good job of bringing just enough to keep me satisfied for the entire day, but I couldn’t have predicted this appetite!  I picked up this Kind bar, which I’d tried before, from the vending machine, and it did the trick to hold me over until I could get home. 

Back at home, I dug into the peanut butter jar just a tiny bit while getting my stuff ready for today.  Seriously, I wasn’t kidding when I said I don’t know what was going on with that appetite of mine!

But luckily my friend invited me over for dinner, so not only did I not have to cook for myself (bonus!) – but I also knew that I was going to eat well.  We had chicken and peppers with seasonings and a bit of salsa, and it was absolutely delicious.  I know that my style of eating isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s really cool to know people who enjoy it as much as I do.  This wicked crappy iPhone picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was exactly like something I would’ve cooked for myself and I gobbled it right up.  Thanks, E!

For dessert, I had a couple of bites of mint brownie ice cream and called it a night finally feeling satisfied.  Let’s hope my appetite takes it a little easier on me today!