Eating Lasagna and Burning Calories

I am sitting here between work and laundry and running trying to figure out meals for the week. I know I am not the only one who struggle with meal planning. You want meals to be HIP (Healthy, Inexpensive, Palatable), but if you’re like me you don’t give a crap if your family complains (well, it’s usually just the kids and one un-named child in particular) because YOU made the meal and if they don’t like it they can go to bed hungry with no candy corn Oreos for dessert.

As I’m trying to figure meals I’m thinking that you are all doing the same, so let’s trade. I’ll give you one of my tried and true HIP recipes and you give me one of yours. Fair enough? Just leave the link to the recipe, or the recipe itself in the comments and together we can make this world a better place. Don’t go giving me something like deep friend Rocky Mountain oysters (bull testicles) because I won’t make it or eat it, even if I do like balls.

My recipe? I have tons that I make regularly, but here’s a staple around here – Easy Spinach Lasagna. I love this recipe because you don’t have to cook the noodles beforehand. It’s also vegetarian if you’re trying to cut out meat a few times per week and BONUS – it only has SIX ingredients!:

Today I didn’t run because I ran a tough 7 mile yesterday and had to get up early today. Plus I wanted to wear normal/grown up clothes. Anyone else’s pie chart look like this (from Run the Edge)?

This weekend someone asked me the effects of high altitude running on how many calories are burned. Very good question and I had no clue. But, Google did. Damn if I didn’t learn a ton about the effects of running at a higher altitude (info from HERE):

• Your breathing speeds up, you work your diaphragm more
• You burn more carbs than fat for fuel
• Your metabolism may rise as much as 6 to 28% (this decreases as your body acclimates)
• Although you may feel you are burning more calories due to a greater perceived exertion, in reality you are not.  You will, however, burn through more fuel and this can lead to weight loss (which I don’t totally get because if your metabolism rises, wouldn't you burn more calories?).

If you want to read a great article on the factors that influence how many calories are burned while exercising, go HERE. Great stuff. One way to burn more calories? Be born a man and get the flu because you burn more when you have a fever.

I hope you learned something here today. I mean what other blog can you go to where one day you learn what your stripper name is, and the next your learn about high altitude running?

What’s your HIP recipe to share?

Do you base your workouts on how many calories you are trying to burn? No, but if I was trying to lose weight I probably would.

Is your running laundry out of control? Mine is because while I don’t always wash work clothes (I sometimes wear them more than once – gasp!) you can’t really do that with running clothes or you will be arrested, have no friends or at least looked down upon.

SUAR