The Right Stuffing

Nutrition cannot be overlooked on any adventure. This is true no matter what the nature of the challenge is. The wrong food can cause difficulty or even failure. It took me a while to learn that about climbing; many easy 5.7 climbs became epic challenges because I hadn't had anything decent to eat in hours. And in every triathlon training manual I've ever seen, there are whole chapters devoted to nutrition and diet.

And so it is with the living room expedition. Not enough food, and I won't heal well, of course. But frankly, in the harsh environment of the living room, the opposite problem is much more likely. As my leg problems have developed over the last year, I've been exercising less and less, and as a result gained a fair amount of weight already. But now the equation of calories in versus calories burned has become totally unbalanced. As in, one side of the equation is rapidly approaching zero.

As of right now, I am basically sitting in a chair all day. My big exercise is hiking the twenty feet from the LZB to the bathroom a few times per day. And I have crutches to help with that.

Actually, that's not totally true. My doctor gave me physical therapy exercises to do. They're pretty grueling. They're called "foot presses." Sitting in my chair with my feet up on the recliner, I point my toes away from me, then pull them back towards me. Repeat several times. Feel the burn! They are really just to help prevent clots in my legs from my immobility. That's right, I've reached a place that is so sedentary, I need to take special precautions. Oy.

So, given this situation, proper nutrition becomes very important. I could pretty easily wind up even heavier than I am. This isn't just an aesthetic concern...I need to keep my weight down to reduce the stress on my hip. This is really my biggest challenge. Left to my own devices, I would probably just have made a stack of trail mix, microwave burritos and soda next to my chair and lived off of that for a week.

Fortunately for me, I have a lot of help in this department from my girlfriend, Anne. Although Anne's day job is being a scientist, that's just her secret identity. The rest of the world knows her as Super Cook. No, really. If you don't believe me, check out her blog, Beyond Ramen. She is also a talented photographer, and this combination has led to her being featured several times at the Internet Food Association's Daily Food Porn page.

Now, at first glance, this might seem to be bad. Really bad. Because Anne does love to bake lots of yummy desert-type things and loves even more to feed them to me. Her reaction to any situation, including a change in the relative humidity, is to bake something fantastic. And believe me, saying no to her muffins is very hard to do! So the danger of waistline expansion in this house is very real.

But Anne is also a former college varsity athlete and current triathlete with two half-ironman races under her belt, so she understands about training and nutrition, too. She therefore has been cooking delicious but non-fattening things for me. This morning she made me an egg white omelet with chicken apple sausage. So good! On top of that, she is making sure I don't spend my time just constantly snacking.

Anne has some help, as well. Her parents are also quite into cooking, and have brought by several very nice meals.

I really am getting spoiled here.