Getting Back to Normal: Fending for Myself

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After I broke my knee more than two years ago, I gained an embarrassing amount of weight. In part, it was because I was non-weight-bearing for two months, and in part, it was because I was depressed about my circumstances and didn’t care what I ate. That trend continued even after I started physical therapy, so the problem lingered. I was never able to return to much exercise between that time and now, but I did work hard enough to lose a large portion of the weight that I gained.

This time, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t gain weight while sitting around recovering from surgery (DeNovo NT tissue graft and tibial tubercle osteotomy). I knew that I’d have to be very careful with what I put in my mouth because I would not be able to do exercise for a long time (it’s been 6 weeks today, and I haven’t done any cardio at all).

At first, it wasn’t too hard to watch what I ate because I had people staying with me who prepared the meals. But the last two weeks have been much trickier because I’ve been on my own more often. I had to learn how to fend for myself when no one was around to help make lunch, and that didn’t mean picking up the phone and calling for pizza delivery!

I have a George Foreman grill, so it was easy enough to grill a piece of chicken and throw some veggies in the microwave to steam. By the way, I discovered that putting fresh broccoli in a bowl in the microwave for 4 minutes is seriously the simplest way to steam broccoli. So easy!

Anyway, a person can only eat so many grilled chicken breasts before getting bored with the lack of variety. So I looked through a couple of my cookbooks to find easy, quick recipes that I could make with minimal effort in the kitchen.

I found a quick and delicious recipe for “muenster, turkey and apple quesadillas” and thought I’d give it a shot. It was totally simple to prep, and I got to take a break while it was baking. Add in the fact that the end product was delicious, and it was a win! I couldn’t find the exact recipe online, but here is a very close adaptation for the quesadilla recipe.