Are you tying your shoes the right way?

• 0 • Live Well, Running

 

 

I’m a big fan of ways you can improve your running that aren’t actually running.  There’s only so much time to run in a week, right?

For example… are you tying your shoes the right way?  I watched this 3 minute TED talk a year ago, and discovered that, like many people, I was NOT tying my shoes the right way.

One little difference in how I formed the bow completely solved the problem of my shoes coming untied while I was running.  The best part?  I no longer had to double knot them, so they’re a breeze to untie and pull off.

It took me at least a week to get into the habit of tying my bow differently, but I’ve never gone back.

Now when I want to take a break on a run, I’ve got to fiddle with my i-pod instead of waiting for my shoes to come untied.

Watch the talk and see for yourself!

Cool, right?  I love TED talks.  Their slogan is “ideas worth spreading”, and I find them just that.  They’re engaging, intellectual, fun to watch, and many of them have impacted the way I understand the world and interact with it.

I love them so much that Greg surprised me with TEDxCambridge tickets for my birthday!  Here’s a photo of me at the event, trying on the google glass before the talks started 🙂  I love the guy in the background.

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Take-aways: I left the talk thinking about how the speakers’ ideas could influence my running.  Greg says that’s because everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer, and I’m so passionate about running.

I think that’s because we all have unique characteristics as part of an audience. We bring something to the table that affects the way we will interpret and share ideas.  Ten of us could watch the same TED talk and find different applications for that knowledge, and that’s really cool.  It’s one of the reasons I love it when people comment on my blog or share their own experiences with me.  Ideas grow and evolve when they’re shared!

So thanks for sharing your ideas, reading mine, and learning (finally) how to tie your shoes the right way. 😉

Happy Birthday To ME!

• 3 • Live Well

“dun nun nun nun nuh nuh nuh nuh…. duh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh… You Say it’s your BIRTHDAY… it’s MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH!” -Birthday, The Beatles, White Album

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It’s my birthday!  I’m 31.  Anyone with access to athlinks.com can figure that out pretty quickly… and honestly, I’m not upset by my age.  I LOVE IT, because I am more awesome than I was last year, and less worried about aging, because I know in a year I’ll be even better than I am now.

About a month after I turned 30 last year, I watched this great documentary Forks Over Knives about the benefits of eating a whole foods, plant based diet.  It was incredible.  I knew fruits and vegetables were good for me, and I knew our family wasn’t really eating enough.  We all kind of know that, right?  What I didn’t know was just how much I could reduce my family’s risk of cancer, heart disease, type two diabetes, osteoporosis and other health issues by switching to a whole foods, plant based diet.

Watching this documentary made me realize how much power I have to take my health, and my families health, into my own hands by preparing meals that will reduce our risk of diseases, provide us tons of high energy nourishment, and make us feel great.

There’s a point in Forks Over Knives where a breast cancer survivor in her seventies jogs by a park bench where an elderly, slightly overweight couple sits together, sedentary.  That’s when I realized how much power I have over my own aging process.  I know I will get older, I know my muscles will deteriorate, I will wake up with aches, and pains, I will age (and probably not gracefully) just like everyone must.

But I also know that if you go to any race, 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon… you will see people who are in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies and sometimes eighties who are running.  You can see people those ages who are still actively gardening, who have avoided heart disease, survived cancer, stayed active.

I want to be one of THOSE people.  And I’ve found the two best ways to increase my odds of aging like they did.

1) Eat a whole foods, plant-based diet.  We’ve eliminated all animal products from our diets, and try to avoid refined grains, sugar, and limit our intake of oils and processed convenience foods.

2) Stay ACTIVE.  I want to keep on running this as late into my life as possible, and then I want to be walking this right up until the day I die.  I hope to keep doing spin classes, take up cycling in my older age because it’s low impact, incorporate some strength training as I get older and I lose muscle mass from the aging process.

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My past year has been improved by many miles of running, many green smoothies, and many healthy and beautiful plant-based meals on our table.  I am better than I was a year ago.  I feel better, I look better, I run better, I AM better.

Not only am I taking care of my physical health by eating plants and running, I’ve also been working to reduce the chemicals in our home by choosing wiser when I buy personal care and cleaning products.  I’ve been improving my mental state by meal planning more frequently, tackling clutter in our home, and taking a more minimalist approach to possessions.  I’ve discovered my own power to improve my life and the lives of my family, and it’s invigorating.  (Most of the time.  Sometimes it’s overwhelming, but the benefits of change have been worth those moments!)

I think, if you give me another year, I’ll feel even better and more optimistic and excited about life than I do today.  So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me… I’m not scared this year.  I’m excited 🙂

Recipes for Two Healthy Delicious Dinners!

• 0 • Live Well, Recipes

 

Spaghetti Squash with Kale Walnut Sauce – serves 2

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Health Benefits: This meal is a great way to get some greens in your diet without having to chow down on a salad for dinner.  (I have a moderate to intense dislike of salads, and much prefer my greens in smoothies, sauteed with garlic or lemon, or made into a pesto style sauce.)  We probably all realize that kale is good for you, and spaghetti squash clearly wins over the refined carbs you’d be eating if you served this sauce on pasta… but did you know that walnuts are one of the best cancer fighting nuts out there?  (First off, I didn’t realize that nuts even fought cancer, I thought that was broccoli’s job.)  I recently discovered www.nutritionfacts.org, a great website that highlights up-to-date findings on nutrition in easy to follow videos jam packed with references to the scientific studies supporting the claims.  Nutrition info you can TRUST, because you can see for yourself where the findings are coming from.  Neat.  Many of the videos are just 3-5 minutes long, and they make me really excited about the food choices we’re making in our home.  Here’s the video about the potential cancer reducing benefits of walnuts: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/which-nut-fights-cancer-better/

This is great news, because walnuts are the key ingredient in this amazing pesto-style (but NOT flavor) walnut kale sauce.  It’s so good, you’ll freak out a little when you eat it for the first time.  It feels like you’re cheating the world, because you’re eating something so healthy, and it tastes SO GOOD.

Walnut Kale Sauce*:

1/2 cup water

1 crushed garlic clove

1 cup walnuts (lightly toasted if desired) – reserve some extra walnuts for topping squash

2 cups baby kale

3 T chopped onion (optional)

3 T tamari or braggs liquid aminos

Pulse in a vitamix or food processor until mostly smooth, but leave some texture.

Spaghetti Squash:

Pierce the spaghetti squash, place it whole in a pan.  Roast in a 375 degree oven until soft, rotating every ten to fifteen minutes.  Most spaghetti squashes take about an hour to roast.  Rotate or remove before the outside gets soft.  Slightly brown from being on the bottom is fine, once it starts to cave in, it’s becoming over done.  Scoop out the seeds and scrape the squash onto plates.  Top with Walnut Kale Sauce and extra walnuts.  Eat.  Thrive.

*This sauce was inspired by a recipe for Miraculous Walnut Sauce by Ann Esselstyn, found in the Forks Over Knives book.  She serves it over kale.  I decided to adjust the recipe to INCLUDE the Kale to make a pesto style sauce that I could serve over other things.

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Pesto over Pasta with Sauteed Cherry Tomatoes and White Bean Avocado Salad for 2

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Health Benefits: Avocados are high in healthy fats, pesto is a great way to get a leafy green into your diet, white beans have protein and fiber, and this meal tastes like junk food because there’s pasta in it and the textures are creamy.  I love this meal because I enjoy serving pasta occasionally, but struggle to incorporate enough protein and calories to feel full.  Adding heart healthy, calorie dense sides like avocado and protein packed white beans does the trick.

Pesto:

2 cups basil leaves

2 T lemon juice

3/4 cup lightly toasted pine nuts

1 t salt

2 cloves crushed garlic

1/2 cup water

3 T olive oil (added last, while pulsing other ingredients)

Pulse in a food processor or vitamix until it reaches the desired pesto consistency, drizzling the olive oil in while you’re pulsing.

Tomatoes: 

I like to sautee them lightly in olive oil just until the skins start to separate.  It’s healthier to avoid the oil, though, so you can put a little water in the bottom of the pan to keep them from burning and use that to sautee them instead.

White Bean Salad:

1 T lemon juice

2 cups white cannelini beans

2 T veganaise

3 T chopped red onion

1 chopped avocado

Mix all the ingredients together except the avocado, then sprinkle the avocado on top.  Yes, it’s got veganaise on it, which doesn’t win huge health awards, but the taste awards are TREMENDOUS and this is still packed with healthy fats, fiber and protein.

Serve: Toss the pesto with some pasta (you can use whole wheat or a spelt/quinoa blend if you’re going for extra credit) and top with the tomatoes.  Serve next to the white bean salad.

 

Being a Mother Runner Means Sometimes You Don’t Run

• 5 • Live Well, My Running

I haven’t posted much this week, because I kind of quit running.  (I do this somewhat regularly, only to take it up again a couple days later.)  I had two insanely great runs last week, a 5 mile run and then a 4 mile run the next day, both averaging sub 10 minute pace.  Thanks to how running karma works, that means I’d had two steps forward and was due a step back.  Sunday was a horrible run (quitting after 1.5 miles horrible) and I haven’t run since.

I took Monday off, because it was Andrew’s first day of school and I was too emotional to deal with another bad run.

I was going to run yesterday… but I was more excited about arranging flowers and de-cluttering for a Mother’s Forum event I got to host for new members.  (Wine, appetizers, thirty moms… it was a great time!)

I was going to run today, but I had a rare and amazing opportunity to spend one-on-one time with each of my kids!  Their preschool orientations didn’t overlap, so I dropped Andrew off and Will and I had time to go for soy hot chocolate, bagels, and do some train watching.  Then we picked up Andrew, waited for a bit, and dropped Will off at his school.  Andrew wanted to go see the fish and check out new books at the library, so that’s what I did with him.

It was AMAZING.  My children are angels when they have my undivided attention and we’re doing their very favorite  activity.  (Shocker, I know.)

The morning was filled with precious moments.  Will telling a police officer on a bicycle that he has a red bike but his has training wheels.  Will getting a punched ticket from the conductor who saw us watching the trains and came over to say hello.  Andrew telling the fish at the library that they are “good, good swimmers”.  Will drinking his hot chocolate and asking me to explain the train map in great detail.

These moments were so magical, so wonderful, and I actually got to experience them in full because I didn’t have another child running in the opposite direction or competing for my attention.  We could look at the fish as long as Andrew wanted, and the train map as long as Will wanted.

I could have put one of them in the single jogging stroller and gone for a run.  I could have woken up early after a late night relaxing with a group of other moms, and gone for a run.  But I didn’t.  Sometimes, being a mother runner means putting “mother” first.

I just hope I remember that when I’m at mile 11 and wish I hadn’t skipped a single run in my training schedule.  I hope I remember that perhaps I’m lucky just to be there at all.

It won’t be too long before they’re in school full time, and I’ll have hours and hours to run if I want… and I’ll wish I was at the train station or library, instead.

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Best Life Practices – Things that Make me happiest when I do them regularly

• 0 • Live Well

Life is about maintenance more than achievement.  It’s about running each week, not the marathon you ran four years ago.  It’s about regularly tidying up the hallway closet and switching things out each season, not going to the container store once and thinking you’re organized and done.

With running, consistency is key for improvement, maintenance is key for not slipping back.

So many areas of my life are like that, too.  I used to get frustrated by the need to clean out the pantry or my closet twice a year.  Why wouldn’t it just stay organized?  What was I doing wrong?  But that’s not how it works.  I need to practice organized living by putting everything back in its place, not over-shopping, and checking inventory before I buy something.  I need to do regular maintenance by going through my closet occasionally and seeing if everything fits, reminding myself of the clothes I have, shifting their location so the seasonal clothing is most accessible.

I’ve realized that many items should not be on a “to do” list, so much as a “best practices” list of things I should be doing every week, and some of the bigger items should be on a maintenance list of things I do a few times a year.

Here’s a few best practices for life, ones that have the biggest impact on my happiness when I do them regularly:

Meal Planning: It’s stressful not knowing what you’re going to make for lunch or dinner, especially when you have children who aren’t very forgiving if a meal is half an hour late.  To have a good day, I need to know what we’re eating each meal of the day.

Grocery Lists: This goes right along with meal planning.  Every time I go to the grocery store without a plan, I end up with duplicate items that I’m shoving into the fridge or pantry because they don’t fit, and a whole lot of half-planned meal ideas where I’m usually missing a few ingredients.  It’s stressful, unpleasant, and often causes me to waste food and money because I bought things without a plan to use them.

Planned times to exercise: Sometimes I just wing it, and throw the kids in the stroller when I feel like going, but I find that I exercise more consistently if I know when I’m going to run, and what my workout goal is for each run, before the day or week starts.

Making the bed in the morning & cleaning up the toys at night: When I make the bed in the morning, I feel organized and put together every time I walk by my bedroom during the day.  When I clean up the toys at night, it stays cleaner all day.  It’s hard to ask Will or Andrew to put their toys away before lunch when it’s two days worth of activities strewn about the family room.  It’s easy to ask them when they started with a blank slate and are just playing with the blocks.  I try to have everything cleaned up before dinner (when the boys are awake and can be responsible for helping or doing it themselves) but if I don’t, it makes a big difference if I take the time to do it.

Meeting with friends / getting out of the house: If I don’t make plans to see someone, I can end up chasing the kids around the house and folding laundry for the entire week.  Other parents can probably relate!  It’s much better if I can get the kids out of the house to go somewhere, meet someone at a playground, get to the library.  They’re not making a mess of the house, I’m not trying to multi-task (which I do all the time at home where there’s laundry to fold and meals to make) and we can all focus on having fun with each other.

Inventorying before I buy anything: I am getting better and better about looking in the kids closets before I buy a single article of clothing for them, and I’m trying to do the same with myself.  It breaks my heart to see how many clothes Andrew has that he doesn’t wear, because he has all of Will’s hand-me-downs, and all of the clothes given to him or bought for him in his current size.  He doesn’t need it, doesn’t wear it, and it clogs up his closet and keeps me from being able to find his favorite shirts!  The same goes for toys, games and other items.  Imagine what your house could look like if you only bought something when you knew you had a need for it and had room for it, or you donated an item for every item that came in.  Less clutter, more usability of the items you have!  Glorious.

Probably none of these surprise you – because all of us know deep down that we would benefit from doing them.  I’ve been renewing my focus on practicing these habits recently, and it’s made a huge difference in my mood and my daily experience.

It’s back to school time, and the holidays will be here faster than we think.  It’s a great time to do some big maintenance like cleaning out an area of your home or re-hauling your training schedule, and then settle into some of the positive habits that can improve your quality of life on a daily basis.

What do you wish you did regularly?

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