Baked goods

Topping up a muffin top? Or providing vitamins and minerals?

25.06.2014
There's a whole lot of baking going on in this house these days. Under employment, combined with a summer redcurrant glut and an inspiring feature on the benefits of sourdough have all conspired to bring on a bout of kitchen love. Trouble is, what I cook, I eat with gusto, and the sourdough loaf, in particular, has me hooked. The abovepictured redcurrant muffins was super easy to make and they're perfect little fruity sweet energy bombs. I used a little less sugar than the recipe advised, and replaced it with mashed banana. The fat used is olive oil. I ate a couple alongside pre-training organo coffee yesterday evening and ran pretty well, considering I'd done a half marathon two days before. We did 1mile warm up, then strides, then 1200m, 4x400m, 4x200m, with 200m recoveries, then a 1mile warm down in the park. A nice, sharp sesion, because there's an assembly league race tomorrow.

Shape wise, though, in the sense of 'contouring', I still feel too solid in the trunk department. I should so like to have a waist. Midlife adds to your midsection.  Mother Nature, in her wisdom, demands that a woman lays down fat to make up for the loss of oestrogen that comes with reaching the end of reproductive (and in the eyes of the world, productive) life. The unfairness of this hormonal re-apportioning of fat, and the devastating effect it has on a woman's self esteem shoould not be understated. Almost every woman of my age that I know has moaned about the sudden disappearance of a waist and the sense of being all stomach, from bra line to knicker line. As I type this, reclining on the sofa in the study, I'm looking at the dome of my stomach, swelling a few centimetres away from the keyboard. My yoga mat and Swiss ball are out, ready, for a bit of core stability work, but I'm more inclined to fetch myself a cup of tea and a redcurrant muffin. Baked goods in the house may provide energy for running, but they're a sore temptation.