Walking

I'm doing a large amount of walking, not do much on the running. This is partly for the dog, who is not a runner. But I just bought some new running shoes, and I'm going to train for the next 5k on August 24. 

Here us what I wore for today's Rock Creek Park walk / hike. I really like this skirt. 

Yum!

I'm really trying to embrace the "Life should be awesome" philosophy of The Foodist and only eat incredibly wonderful food, the best of which only comes from cooking at home with incredibly wonderful ingredients.  I'm really really trying, but it's really really hard.  So far, I seem to have convinced myself really wonderful food is totally worth it, and that is helping me pass up much less-than-wonderful food.  But getting fresh wonderful ingredients and finding time to cook from them is hard. But very rewarding, I have to say.  And I couldn't have picked a better time of year to try this.  I am making medium sized batches of everything, because prepared vegetables and meat stay awesomely good longer than their untreated forms.

I had a farm-delivery perfectly ripe small cantalope for breakfast, with a "parmesan cracker" I made last night after dinner. For lunch, I had the last of last week's airy cabbage cole slaw (which was still good, though losing its luster) and a left over magnificent crab cake from Sunday's epic three hour lunch out.  For dinner, I was on my own but knew I had a house full of vegetables that really needed attending to.

I made this tonight! Mine looked almost as good and was YUM!

Imagine my surprise to sit down to read the NY Times tonight after work to find a recipe for corn, squash, and tomatoes. OK, maybe not so surprising given the season. But, I was planning to cook my corn, squash and tomatoes I just happened to have sitting around. And this was Thai influenced, not yet another olive oil and basil thing. Cooked in coconut oil, with cilantro and (yes) basil, and garlic and ginger.  And I had every single ingredient (except vidalia rather than red onions).  So of course I had to make it.

I sat down to eat an hour and fifteen minutes after I started cooking. But, I also made chicken (with bottled Thai green curry sauce) and roasted a couple of eggplants that also needed cooking, which I plan to use a different night. My word, the eggplant is good - I ate a couple of pieces after my dinner, standing up in the kitchen, and had to consciously stop myself from making a whole second dinner!

Dinner was - very good. The chicken was what I expected - it is organic and from Whole Foods - and the sauce was good and meshed well with the vegetables. I'm really focusing on the vegetables, trying to put the time and effort into them, and making them the centerpiece of my plate.  Very good, even though the corn and squash were past their prime, still very summery.

Now I have leftovers for several more days of lunches and solitary dinners, while my girl is off visiting family in Ohio. No more 75 minute meals. 

So I'm sitting here all virtuous about all this lovely deliciousness I've created, when there comes a knock at the door. It's the UPS guy, who dropped off a small box I wasn't expecting. I finally figured out it was a sweet food gift from the company that replaced my roof at great expense a couple of months ago. "Oh no" I'm thinking, "here I've just stuffed myself on vegetables and someone walks right up and hands me dessert!!!"  But the good news is it's very resistable, even though good. It is a tin of pretzels enrobed in some airy sugary white confection - nary a scrap of chocolate to be seen, thank goodness. I had a couple (just to be polite to the imaginary person from the roofing company who ordered them, you understand). They are tasty - but they also pretty much embody everything I'm trying to avoid - white flour and sugar and not much else!  Off to work they go tomorrow.

But still, today was totally YUM!  And I think I'm well poised to make tomorrow similar, but with a lot less work.

Annapolis 5K

Yesterday was a women's only 5K sponsored by a running club in Annapolis. (There was a run for men afterwards.) Adrian, a friend of mine from my sailing club, had signed up for it and I joined in. It was very different from the TKPK5K - hot, humid, smaller, no headphones allowed.  Adrian is pretty much my only running friend at this point. She is a couple of years older than me, mostly retired, and lives a nomadic and very active and outdoor life, splitting her time between the sailboat and the camper trailer.

Bottom line: I did better than in the Takoma Park - I read the print out of race results, not available yet on-line, but I finished in 40:09 from the chip timer. (TKPK5K was 41:06.) Obviously I need to set a new goal of under 40 minutes from here on out.

I drank a lot of water in advance, and munched a bit of cheese on the drive over. Plus a couple of cups of coffee - so nice not to be seriously dependent on coffee, but it really helps.  Despite the brutally humid conditions, I decided not to carry water on the run - there were sure to be a couple of water stations if I needed it. In general, I'm inclined to follow a rule of anything less than an hour doesn't require water during it, and certainly not sugary fuel to keep going.

I wasn't sure what to wear, but ended up with some compression pants and a very loud wicking top. I got some new running shorts, but hadn't worn them in any workouts and was concerned they might have unexpected awkwardness like bunching up. Didn't seem the time to experiment.

Pre-race homage to Bitchcakes. I did put on shoes, of course. 

Pre-race jitters.

This women's only race was different from others I've been in. There were many more women our age, and as I jogged along, there were lots of women going more-or-less my speed.

I jogged most of the first mile, and from there on walked up hills and jogged most of the rest of the time. I kept the heart rate up and only had one break where it went down.

Many small hills - why did there seem more ups than downs even though we ended back and the starting point?

 We hung around for the awards, including the age-group awards. The top 3 in each age group - including 70-79 - beat my time. Only the sole 80+ runner had a time slightly worse than mine!  What a motivation to keep doing this!

BTW, my running friend just got Younger Next Year from the library - I told her about our friend Chris and that she should really love this book!

Post-race happiness. Note red face.

What's Working and What's Not

I'm cooking with awesome fresh ingredients like a fiend. This is working well. I'm focused on using the food I bought, and it is truly more delicious than just getting takeout again. I made my cole slaw - with a great vinaigrette, good olive oil, white wine vinegar, and cilantro from my garden. Who knew cabbage could be light and airy and full of summer?  I made a braised chicken dish with my Amish chicken, following a recipe from Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.  I served it with mixed beans soaked and cooked from dry - instead of grains, I am going to try to carb up a bit from where I was, but by using beans as my filler.  And tonight my girl and I had fun creating a zucchini lasagna, not from a recipe, but making it up together as we went along. The squash was sliced length-wise and used instead of pasta noodles. It was soupy, but delicious, with four different cheeses (and canned spaghetti sauce). Making dinner as joint entertainment is not what we usually do, and I'm not sure what the magic formula was that made it work tonight, but how fun! Now I've got delicious leftovers for delicious lunches, and maybe even another dinner, before I have to shop and cook again.

I'm also really enjoying just relaxing about my eating habits and my weight. I'm darn stable in my weight, and can experiment a bit and enjoy myself doing it. I've found a "paleo" granola - more nuts and seeds than grain - and have enjoyed it with blueberries and almond milk in the morning. This is closer to what normal people eat. I'm liking the idea of less meat, without resorting to grains, and I'm enjoying the quest for what works for me.

What's not working?  Breaking bad habits. It seems what I really want in the evening is excellent chocolate, and standing up in the kitchen to get it is fine. Tea doesn't do it. Cosily tucking myself into bed with tea and my book doesn't do it. Sigh. I was looking for an intelligent way out of my terrible habit. I can add over 500 calories to my day's intake in 15 minutes at the end of the day. Sigh.

What else isn't working? Running with my dog. The Very Hungry Labrador does not like the heat, not one bit. He's not wild for trotting fast while I huff and puff at a jog, either. Especially because he has had heart problems (worms in his heart) I don't want to truly strain him. We can walk forever, though if it's hot he starts to droop (and he always droops when I turn around, as if to say "let's keep going!").  But after a mile of my jogging, he slows his trot to the point where I'm dragging him.  So I have to figure out how to do some training for running, which I really like, but without him. Seems such a waste to be outside without him.  This weekend, when it wasn't hot, we walked over 4 miles each day, and he liked that fine, so that can be my every-other-day from running.

I'm also thinking it's time to find a new gym and get more social with my strength training workouts. There are more than a couple gyms in town, I'll need to check them out and look for sales. I'll check out the Y, but it is just that little bit further away to make it a barrier at 5:30 in the morning.

Some pluses and some minuses. Excelsior.

Seduced at the Farmer's Market Again

I very much want to eat more vegetables and fruit, especially excellent fresh and local ones. But that pretty much requires cooking.  Cooking often. Also shopping often.  I have a very bad track record of buying more vegetables than I cook, and cooking more vegetables than I eat.

"Life should be delicious" says the book I'm reading now.  I agree, but it's an awful lot of work to get there.  I'm just back from the market, and here's what I've got-and what I plan to do with it. I need specific plans, and I have to get this done this weekend because all bets are off during the week.

Cauliflower.  I will roast it, with some shallots I already have. Will keep for most of a week.

Zucchini. I want to make a lasagna, using thin long slices of zuchini instead of noodles. I have ricotta, but no mozzarella- I'm contemplating using feta instead. I can assemble today, and cook tomorrow or the next day.

Cabbage. I want to shred it in the food processor and make a cole slaw in a homemade vinaigrette.  (A couple of years ago I did this with a fresh young farmers market cabbage and realized there is a huge difference even with this humble vegetable between supermarket ones and the real thing.) this will be good with work lunches all week.

Peaches. These early peaches are iffy but I couldn't resist.

Cherries. Good for snacks.

Blueberries. For breakfast or late night snacks.

I also decided to put my money where my mouth is and buy farmers market meat from pastured animals. I got a couple of steaks (I've got a big craving for steak salads), and three pounds of chicken thighs for a family meal. I tried not to flinch at the price. I don't have a specific plan for the chicken, but usually I would cook it with a bottled curry sauce and serve with rice. But I'm wanting to add beans to my diet, as I decrease meat, so I'm thinking about this. I put the meat in the fridge not the freezer because again, I need to cook it soon.

Rather than leap into the kitchen to get started on this I'm thinking about a nap. 

Decomposing Habits

Trigger, response, reward.  That is what a habit is composed of.  You can make a new habit by setting up a new sequence of trigger, response, reward. Breaking a habit is harder. One way to do it is to overlay a new response onto the same trigger-but that new response has to have an equal or better reward.

My bedtime snacking for example.  As I get ready for bed, I plan to sit there and eat something chocolaty, while spending a last few minutes checking in with my book or online. (And the dog gets his own bedtime snack-and his habit is so strong it's now absolutely essential or neither of us gets any sleep!). This sometimes leads to huge sugar binges, sometimes actually doubling my total calorie intake for the day. What is the actual trigger, and what is the actual reward?  Is the reward the physical sugar rush? Is my body craving higher blood sugar levels after a day with fairly low carb levels all day? Or is it the psychological sense of a special treat, taking care of myself, some sort of extra nurturing? Or some third possibility, associated with the physical act of eating, but not the blood sugar? I could ruminate on this for a long time, as is my wont. Or, I could set up an experiment and decompose the habit into separate responses, and see which reward seems to satisfy me. (This is straight from the book I'm reading, and right up my line of self-tracking and experimentation).

If the physical sugar rush is what matters, then almost any form of sweet eaten almost anywhere should do it. A teaspoon of sugar while standing up in the kitchen, for example. If it's the physical act of eating, perhaps a cup of warm herb tea would meet the need. If its nurturing, hmmm, checking in with the family instead?  A little doggy petting session? (He is very affectionate and wiggles and snuggles all over, very positive feedback.)  Not sure.  What I do know is I am usually so exhausted at the end of the night whatever my action is it has to be very very easy and not time consuming, so some sort of lotion on the face, or a bath, doesn't appeal.

The idea is I can do anything by paying attention and using my willpower- for a short period of time. So I should try these different approaches, for a couple of times each, and think about what is most satisfying. Then make it a habit, do it essentially the same way every night, so I no longer think about it and don't need to use any of my precious willpower on it any more.

My hypothesis is that the cup of tea will work, made in the microwave but in my fancy china cup.  In fact, right now, I have a little thrill of anticipation at the thought of trying it tonight.

Seduced by good looks

I saw these at the farmers market and had to get them: yellow and purple cauliflower. I assume the taste the same. I'm going to combine them with my rainbow of heirloom carrots. I could roast them, but I'm thinking marinating for a day in a cilantro vinaigrette is more summery. 

The Foodist says to focus on eating good stuff and don't focus on eliminating and denying yourself other stuff. If you learn to love the good stuff- and make it easy on yourself to eat it- then eventually junk food just drops away to low enough levels you don't need to worry about it. The skeptic in me says very sarcastically "sure it does"- because the good stuff is always more work. But I'm willing to focus on seductively beautiful produce for now.