Split Pea Soup--Who knew?

In my last post, I wrote about P90X and training for my APFT. Well, along with the training comes the nutrition piece. Not only have I changed my work out, but I've also drastically changed my diet, and it hasn't been easy.

I'm accustomed to eating whatever I feel like eating--pasta with rich, cream sauce, tirimisu, yummy red wines (not all of those together) . . . Yes, I do like to eat! And I'm active enough to get away with eating whatever I want to eat.

But I'm changing my ways to get as fit as I possibly can. Seriously. I've given up my favorite red wines (actually I gave up all alcohol, but I mostly drink red wine), sugar, and caffeine. I'm also moving away from dairy and gluten, and I'm paying close attention to everything I put into my body. I want everything to count. It's been difficult.

The P90X program has a three stage nutrition plan, starting with low carbs, then adding carbs in the next two stages so you can learn how carbs affect energy levels. I'm not really sticking to their program, but rather trying to eat the best foods possible, and eating carbs when I need the energy most.

I've been eating a lot of raw veggies, but that is getting old. So I was shopping the other day and saw a bag of split peas. I always loved my mom's split pea soup--it's comfort food! She makes it with a ham hock, and it's yummy! So I looked up the nutrition facts and learned that 1 cup of split pea soup has 29.9 grams of carbs (4.8 g fiber), 2.3 grams of fat, and 9.7 grams of protein credit. Not too bad! And I feel like I've eaten something substantial when I'm finished--not that I'm trying to lose weight. It just seems that everything healthy appears to be diet food!

I'll have to admit that my split pea soup is not my mother's split pea soup. I leave out the ham hock (ham hock adds a lot of flavor), and I barely add enough salt to taste it, but it's still good. Now I just need to find some other tasty, nutritional things to eat!