Hungry

Yesterday, I decided to exercise twice despite the two hour bike ride on Sunday. I hamstered for a while on the elliptical trainer at lunchtime, and after work I went to my normal weights class. But it wasn't the regular instructor, and the substitue is someone known at my gym for teaching really difficult classes. Yesterday was no exception; there was some stuff I couldn't do because of my leg (the 1-10-1 jumping jacks/pushups pyramid was done all on my left leg) and a lot of stuff that was really, really hard. I was quite knackered after the workout was over and called OF while I walked home, and didn't realize until I'd been home about 10 minutes and hung up the phone with her exactly how spacey and out-of-it I really was. Then I kind of fell over. Then I ate a handful of walnut pieces and some turkey, flopped on the couch, and asked Dan if he could get me some juice, because hoo boy that was some low blood sugar. Last night before bed, Dan got this worried look on his face and confronted me about the incident, and I reassured him that I'd eaten enough food (I had! just should have eaten sooner after that second workout).

Today during the breathing part of my yoga class, the instrutor (as always) said something about focusing on the reasons you come to your mat, giving thanks for those intentions, and I decided to give thanks for the ability to do yoga again. I am really, really sore from all the crazy pushups and other stuff I did yesterday, but I was still able to do most of the yoga poses and flow from one to the next without too much difficulty. I have plans to go swimming for the first time in ages after work at a local pool. But I didn't count on the hunger. Today I brought with me string cheese, an orange, some baby carrots and grape tomatoes, and some leftover black bean/corn salad. It wsn't enough. I am really, really hungry now, and in a few minutes it'll be time to go home. If I eat right when I get home, I'll have a lead belly while I'm trying to swim. So I'm not sure what I'll do. I burned a lot of calories the past few days, because my leg is finally up for extended exercise (and I'm sure swimming will be good for it, too), and I *want* to be burning calories. But I also don't want another low-blood-sugar incident, so I'm not sure what to do.

This black bean and corn salad is the only good thing to come out of my first full-time job in Colorado (meaning, not a temp job) - I worked at the state Medicaid agency and they paid me to do things like sort/count paper clips and hanging file tabs. I'm not even kidding. It was the worst working environment I'd ever been in (even worse than the publishing company in the Bay Area with the misogynistic boss who only hired women he thought would be subservient) and morale was terribly low for the whole five months I worked there. But one time, there was a potluck, and a lady who worked there brought this black bean/corn salad. And it was SO GOOD. I made it last week to go with a meal of turkey brats and grilled zucchini/asparagus.

Black bean/corn salad (scaled down to serve 2 with some leftovers)

1 14.5 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 small can (9 oz?) corn (or you could use a cup of fresh off the cob or frozen), drained
1/3 chopped red bell pepper
1/3 chopped medium size red onion
handful chopped cilantro
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp chili powder
juice of 1/2 lime
1 tsp olive oil
few dashes rice wine vinegar
optional: 1/2 finely diced jalapeno

Mix everything up in a bowl and let it sit for an hour or so in the fridge to let the flavors meld together. Eat. SO GOOD.