A little extra effort

Today is another good day for keeping it real and hauling ass into exercising.  Though I love going to the gym, I'm not so enamoured of functional swimming.  As I did weights yesterday, however, it had to be a swim or a run today and it's way too hot for me to run any time after about 8am, so swim it was.  Intervals make it a little bit less boring and as I'm stronger, I'm feeling stronger in the water too.  It's not translating into extra speed though as it does require more than just the bare strength itself so this is where the intervals come into it.  And then, once I've done the Nokia Thames Swim, I'll dial in some proper structured sets, e.g. of 8x200m with 20s rest in between sets at a pace of 01:45 per 100m (i.e. 18s lengths - which is pretty achievable given that my 200m time trial time is 03:15 or so).

Dinner tonight was a really nice one... take one chicken breast (125-150g), lay it on some kitchen foil enough to wrap comfortably and loosely with some to spare.  Smear cream cheese on one side really really thickly (30g).  Grind some black pepper onto the cheese and press chorizo slices (x3) onto the cheese.  Wrap the whole lot up in the foil and bake in a pre-heated oven at 190C for 15 minutes then 150C for 15 minutes.  Serve on a bed of mashed butternut squash.  NOM!

The cheese goes soft, mixes a bit with the chicken and chorizo juices, so make sure you pour that liquid over the top as it's really flavoursome.  That little bit of extra effort with tonight's dinner was really worth it.  I'm glad I bothered :o)  Really nice flavour and I'm feeling nicely full and almost clean too! (though the cream cheese is a bit on the processed side as it's an extra low fat one with added thickeners)

Nutritional info (including 400g butternut squash):-

Calories (kcal)	339
Carbohydrate (g)	29.3
Protein (g)	41.5
Fat (g)	6.8
Fibre (g)	5.5
Fruit & Veg	4.4

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop MP Max, Yeo Valley fruit compote and flaked almonds
S - strawberries with greek yogurt and a small squirt of agave nectar
*swim*
S - 1 scoop MP Max in skimmed milk
L - lettuce, celery, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, sweet pepper and a chicken breast
S - mango and single cream
S - Frijolemole with carrots
D - chicken stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in chorizo, with butternut squash mash

Exercise - 33 minutes swimming (315kcals before background tax)

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1463 2068]
Protein (g)	152.5 (42.1%)
Carbohydrate (g)	141.4 (36.6%)
Fat (g)	34.1 (21.2%)
Fibre (g)	23.5
Fruit & Veg	16.5