Monday, June 22, 2009

A new plateau

I was told by  a friend of mine who does Bikram Yoga that, in the advanced stages, after hitting a plateau, the poses only get more difficult. This is interesting to hear as an ashtanga-vinyasa yoga fan, since the Bikram poses are a set 26 poses that never vary. I was intrigued first because of the similarity to the same phenomenon that I have experienced in running and weight-lifting - you work very hard, hit a plateau, and work through it. But the sense that the next set of effort is ever harder? 

Today I understood, in my yoga class, how as you strengthen and refine a set of muscles, it effects all the others as well, and the flexibility you have worked for varies as the strength does. I have naturally very tight hips due to twisted pelvic bones and a running habit, but as I have recently changed instructors after 9 months of the same classes, I am feeling them ever more! My hips are popping, my hamstrings are tighter, and I have not increased my mileage recently. It is always fascinating how deeply intricate the muscle systems are. 

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Kitchen Genie

Sometimes things come together without even trying. Here's what happened last night when I rubbed my magic refrigerator and out popped dinner:
I had this in the fridge: a dying cucumber
I had this in my grocery bag: yogurt, carrots, hot pepper

I made this: sweet carrot/cucumber soup (that I am fairly sure is ayurvedically balanced)
How: grated carrots, cucumber. Chopped up pepper. Added whey from drained yogurt. Blend in electric blender.
The result is very sweet, but with a kick from the pepper. I usually have to add cheese to my soups because I like it that way, but this soup is cheesy enough from the whey that only pepper and a bit of salt suffices. I am going to add garlic next time too.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Berry Smart

Favorite Tip #78:

Buy bags of frozen berries/fruit from the grocery store (usually $5 for two bags) and use them in yogurt, cereals, oatmeals, smoothies, frozen yogurt, sautees, etc. (usually after microwaving them for about 45 seconds).

Favorite Tip #78.2:

As an alternative to frozen berries, buy fresh ones in season at in-season bulk prices (blueberries, strawberries, etc.) either from the grocery store or your local fruit stand and stick them in your freezer for fresh local antioxidant infusions later in the year.

Thick Like Thieves

So in my great quest to figure out how to eat cheaper, and perhaps make most of my food in the process, I condensed my home-made yogurt this weekend and successfully made ... GREEK YOGURT! You may know this thick byproduct as Fage, Greek's Gods, Chobani, etc. mixed with honey or peaches or other fruit, at an ungodly price of ... way too much.. at your local grocery store. Well by straining my yogurt on top of cheesecloth that was rubber-banded to the top of tupperwear and sitting in my fridge all night, the excess whey drained off and thickened the yogurt. Which was ridiculously delicious when I crumbled some cardamom pods into it, added fresh mint leaves from my plant, and spooned some molasses into it (I forgot the flax seeds, but put those in my mid-day smoothie to make up for it). Granola would have worked too. All very yummy and significantly cheaper.

Advice: skip the process of making your own yogurt, and purchase the reasonably priced big vats of it at the grocery store for relatively little dollars compared to the amount of time spent making the home stuff; drain it, and you get half-priced greek yogurt.
Note: the draining process leaves you with about half as much yogurt as you had before, but you eat about half as much greek yogurt in a serving as regular yogurt so it all works out.
Also: don't waste the whey! I will provide you with clever and tasty ways to use it soon.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Hypocritical Beatles?

During my run today I pondered two questions:

1) is it okay that sometimes I go for a run just because the honeysuckles are out and I can smell the flowers?

and

2) I don't know what I feel about a band who, although widely influential, ingenius, and the producers of absolutely fantastic songs to run to, make both the songs "Money (That's what i want)" and "Can't Buy me Love".

Thoughts?

Adventures in Culture(s)




So I had a day off yesterday (I know, right? WOW! Am I feeling okay..?) and spent it being.. that's right, productive.

List of what I did:
had a headache
napped for three hours
cleaned the bathroom
finished painting the chair for Hannah-Bear
went grocery shopping/bought TP
brewed more kombucha/bottled the old
made yogurt.
sprouted.

yes, approximately a much larger percent of my time was spent playing around with live molds and cultures than most people. I am a scientist, clearly.

Yogurt: took about seven hours, incredibly satisfying BUT in the long run, after having to check the temperature every hour or so, not really worth the effort. Perhaps I can devise a system to fix that. Than it would be worth it as I hate paying for foods I can make.

Kombucha: ridiculously satisfying and exciting. This time I took a ginger root I had and cut it into tiny pieces and stuck it in the freezer and put a few of the pieces in the bottom of the pot while it was brewing. I am excited, to say the least.

Third attempt at sprouting in this kitchen: while I am somewhat frustrated and prefer to blame my new apartment for my inability to sprout recently, I do truly believe it is the fact that I AM NEVER THERE and therefore cannot rinse the grain appropriately. Bummer. This will change once new job is enacted.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Workout Prep

Alright so I have this firm idea that what you eat before and after working out makes a big difference in your performance (as does all food you eat), but do I ever follow these ideas? Negative. I had, until yesterday, never really noticed a huge difference - except, of course, that one evening run last summer when I had a giant dish of pasta for lunch and I went super fast - and, of course, eating before a yoga class is never a good idea for me.

But yesterday, on my way to perhaps the most awesome yoga class ever at Charm City (with Girish playing live - sweet!) I had my favorite snack of 7-11 coffee and a Hershey bar. I felt SO gross at the beginning of class, my breath felt limited and thick, but by the end I was all clear and in my new radiance decided to cut out sugar.

That worked until this morning's breakfast, when half a cupcake slid in. Unimportant. The next instance that is, though, is my four mile run-turned run/walk today (first out since the half marathon last week) and I not only started cramping up in the first mile, but my legs were so heavy I didn't feel like they were the same ones I ran with last week! Culprits in my head: it had been too long since I ate, not enough water in the morning (only 1.5 liters, should have been 2 or 2.5), the cupcake (duh) and too much of my newly homemade kombucha (I had about 8 oz. and the recommended first week is 2-4 per day).

I am now going to pay as much attention to what I eat before I workout as I am after. The first hitch to get over - I have to buy groceries, which will end my miraculous four week grocery hiatus. We'll see.

Kombucha

This morning I was woken up by lightening flashing horizontally across the sky.

My first brew of kombucha was ready last night, so I pantsless went to the kitchen while my roommate was out on a run in the storm (wayyy too early for me) and opened the glass jar, lifting the culture from the top of the tea with a wooden spoon. I poured some into a glass and counted to ten. My thoughts rested on the possibility of contamination, the foul smell, the chances of all the harm I could do (which is, in fact, none) and took a sip. It was actually good! There was so much sugar I guess that the bitterness from the fermentation did almost nothing except stink it up. So, score! Free kombucha! It was a wonderful way to start the morning, actually, and I have as much energy as I would have if I had my coffee - with better health results! This makes one excited blogger :-)
So if you have any ideas for flavors, as it now tastes like sour sugared black tea, let me know and I will try it and give you some.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

1/2 Marathon

There I was, standing at 6:15 on a Sunday Morning. It is pouring down rain, with lightening, and I am waiting to run a 10K I signed up for with work. I am grumpy. VERY grumpy. I ate crabs at my boyfriend's the night before, and had a luna bar for breakfast, and zero water. So I am also hungry, thirsty, and tired. My co-worker comes up, who signed up to run the 1/2 marathon and did not train, and stands next to me. I look over and realize why I am grumpy, and it is not the lack of food or the rain or the ungodly hour of the morning. It is because a 10K was not a challenge, I had been running 6 miles for weeks.

So what do I do? I run the 1/2 with my coworker instead. I just keep running. The rain let up around mile 5, I had to pee around mile 4, and my legs stopped feeling pain around mile 10. That's right, here is proof that you can run twice as much as you train for!

I have never run so mentally - much of our breath was spent on motivational statements, on making comments that it was only one more mile until the next mile, and the necessity of not stopping. It did not really get hard until the 9th mile, when the prospect of four more miles became hard to handle with heavy quads and an aching back.

But we did it! 13.2 untrained miles in 2.3 hours - I felt terrible for hours afterwords, and had some interesting digestion problems for a while. I was taken care of by the red-headed angel I am dating who took me home, stuck me in the shower, handed me pasta, and made me sleep.

No blisters though! Now I can check this off my one-year fitness goals!

New Blog

I am increasingly frustrated with the vastness of the internet, and no, not in a begrudging, why-do-we-need-to-know-that-what-is-happening-to-todays-youth kind of way, but in an overwhelmed there's-so-much-to-know-i-feel-stupid kind of way. Also, I am tired of wasting time going to ten different sites to get tips and information for my day just because I want to nourish my whole self, body and all, and not just a particular angle of it.

enter from stage right: new blog!
Here is where Lauren and I come in, to share with you the information we have spent our long hard minutes slaving to find so that you, too, may benefit. Here's the kick: we want to live the best lives we can, which includes taking care of our bodies as well as our souls. We love to research and get to the point of the chemicals in our shampoo, or the vitamins in our kale, or the ideal length of a post-work-day-and-commute run. Here are some topics you will be reading about:
natural body products
nutritarian meals
yoga in real life
running for real people
lauren's comic strips
decision making flow charts
tips for busy people to save time
organizing principles for slobs
movie recommendations
good photos from the boyfriend
anything you want to hear about! submit it, we'll do the research and write about it.