It has been over a week since I last wrote. My intention was to accumulate material for a nice, long post about North Carolina and the activities I did. Thanks to my gracious host Dan, I have plenty to write about tonight.
When I last left off, I was singing the praises of an active vacation. I will continue to explore this theme, along with the concept of "healthy eating" on a vacation. In a region of the world where oily grits and biscuits and gravy is a loved tradition, one might assume that "healthy eating" is a tough apple to swallow. In fact, it is not, and I will continue with that later. Now, I want to outline a few of the activities we did that we classified as Fun but can also be classified as Exercise.
One of the best ideas we had was go to the US National Whitewater Center. It was a recreational centre, but outdoors. It had constructed waterways for whitewater rafting, flatwater activities such as kayaking and canoeing on an actual river, zip lines, canyon crossings, mountain biking, rock climbing, and hiking. We did several of these activities, but we both agreed that kayaking on the Catawba River was the most fun we had that whole day. We jumped into kayaks and spent several hours exploring the area, watching turtles slip into the water to get away from us, exploring little nooks and crannies on the bank, and even chatting with fellow kayakers and stand up paddlers. Neither of us had watches, and I left my camera in the car, so it was really just us, our boats, and the water. Time flew as we paddled up and downstream, and our arms gradually grew tired. We would take rest stops, "dock" side by side, chat, and then continue on until we decided to dock again. We were surprised when we got back and realised how much time had passed. We got a continuous and long upper body workout without even realising it!
We didn't have to trek so far away to get a good workout in. Another afternoon, we went for a jog on somewhat hilly terrain. I kept complaining about the hills, but Dan pushed me. "Come on, pick it up, let's go!" So I pushed a little extra as to not disappoint him. Another day we did sprints. Up a hill. In the sun. Again, when I started to falter (after... what, one round?), Dan would turn back to me and go "Come on, keep going!" Eight sprints later, I felt sick, but glad I'd done them. We weren't finished, though. We did a pyramid: 10 push ups, 15 crunches, 9 push ups, 15 crunches, 8 push ups, 15 crunches, etc. When I reached the point when I couldn't do a full push up, I did cobras (knees on the ground) and kept going. A few days later, we went for a 4.2 mile (6.75km) run through a beautiful (and flat) peninsula. This was followed by a pyramid, of course. I have Dan to thank for helping me push myself to my limit. I wouldn't have done sprints on my own, and I never thought of doing a pyramid to completely exhaust my arms. Having a workout partner definitely helps. It helped for my 10K training, and it's helping now.
Intense exercise was definitely a good thing to do, but some days we didn't go for runs or do any push ups. Some days we just walked a ton. Our trips to Charlotte were full of walking. One day in particular we walked through the NASCAR Hall of Fame, through parts of downtown, and then out to a historic home district from where we could see the city skyline clearly. We were on our feet for 5 or 6 hours, wandering and taking photos. We worked up a good appetite and clearly deserved the delicious Thai food we ate that evening.
While planning our trip, Dan and I had decided to try some recipes from the Paleo Diet. Recipes are based on real, non-preservative-filled foods that include meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables. One of my favourite dishes that I ate in NC - and this includes all meals, both home cooked and restaurant - was steak with apple horseradish relish. You can find the recipe here.
We didn't shred our apple, so it was more of a chunky side dish:
Simply the most delicious thing. I compared everything I ate to that dish. The steak wasn't anything special, but the apple horseradish relish…. Wow. It's my new favourite food.
And speaking of food, we did really well! I mean, we went out to restaurants and ate good, hearty meals, but we didn't do anything too crazy. We didn't go overboard binge drinking and snacking on beer nuts, and we certainly were active enough to deserve a splash of Jameson at the end of the day, or an edamame-filled chocolate bar. We went strawberry picking and lettuce cutting, so the fridge was filled with yummy and healthy things.
So basically, we organised and executed a healthy eating plan!!!
But then we didn't.
;)
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