food philosophy & grocery shopping

Will you get a load of this?

quick facts
Patrick and I ultimately want to make absolutely everything from scratch. We've worked up to peanut butter, salsa, pesto, most desserts and granola. Things I know I want to add: whole wheat bread, jam, pasta (and when we get fancy: crackers, mustard, marinades & sauces, and basically anything else we put in our bellies). In the meantime, we buy what we don't make, and mostly that's produce, honey, breads, pasta, rice, beans and sauces.

Eventually I want to shift our shopping habits to reflect the season, and to buy local where possible. Currently, we buy almost exclusively at Kroger, Fresh Market (only occasionally, because it's expensive; but it was founded in my hometown, so I must!), and a warehouse chain (which will remain nameless, because we would choose another chain if it were in our area; but we can't, so we've given in to a chain we don't absolutely love). Our shopping habits are about as far from my goal as you can get, and I admit it's mostly a matter of breaking old habits and being lured by the amazing savings of bulk shopping.

filling our pantry
So in our little limbo, straddling an old way (pseudo processed foods; shopping at big-box stores) and the new way (see above), I am happy with how healthfully we eat.

You see, my strategy during my first go at Weight Watchers was to simply get the points values of all the foods I loved and portion them accordingly, sometimes choosing to "save room" for treats by eating less food elsewhere in the day.

Treats included desserts, buttery grilled cheese sandwiches, creamy sauces with my pasta ... you get the picture. And even when I did "save room" for these treats, I had to eat less of them than I wanted, because they were points-rich options. Which made me grumpy. I would look longingly (with my grump face) at Patrick's plate, full of delicious food. He, of course, rode his bike all the time. And can't sit still for more than an hour. He could get away with that plate-full.

I was an unpleasant lady.

Now, though, it's like I discovered that fruits and vegetables are not only delicious, but worthy of being the center of attention. And what that means is that I fill our grocery cart nearly to the brim with fresh spinach, squash, tomatoes, apples, bananas, berries, peppers (to make fresh veggie sandwiches with hummus; a bowl full of oats and fruit for breakfast; big salads; veggie saute mixed with pasta or rice).

I do look forward to the day that I update this entry with photos of all our farmers market goodies, but in the meantime I'm kinda proud of our bounty.

creeper trail, fall 2010

One of my goals, completed! And we had views like this all along the Creeper Trail.

So, how can I sum the whole thing up? Something like this: It was beautiful, difficult, painful, rewarding, long, arduous, fun, body-killing. And I want to do it again.

Patrick's brother, Eric, joined us. We started in Abingdon and the three of us rode the 31.5 miles up to Green Cove Station. Patrick (who is amazing) added an extra 8ish miles to his trip by getting up to White Top Station.

Math: Eric and I clocked 63 miles; Patrick, 70 miles.



the fun
The first 10 miles or so were beautiful and carefree. Abingdon to Damascus (about 16 miles) is nearly flat. As the first leg of the trip, it's great: constant pedaling but without strain (I'd say I averaged about 13 miles an hour); lots of pasture to ride through; a faint whiff of optimism in everything.



A few miles before you hit Damascus, the path gets more loose-gravely, which provides just a little resistance. I started slowing down (not too much, but noticeable, probably down to 11 mph).

We took a nice long break in Damascus, where we snacked on peanut butter sandwiches and apples (Patrick has gotten expert at spotting apple trees; he picked us about half a dozen).

From there on, it was a 14-mile climb to Green Cove Station. And this is where I started to work. The first 8 miles or so of this leg of the trip wasn't so so bad; I probably kept it around 10 mph. But then the grade increases ever so slightly, and I could feel myself dragging. If we do this ride again, it's one of the places I want to improve significantly: I slowed to about 9 mph, then 8 mph, then I'd say I hovered around 7 mph until we hit Green Cove.

Awesome Husband Move No. 1: Patrick could tell I was dragging, so he decided we'd celebrate every single mile. We called them out and cheered. It helped, if only to know he was trying to make things easier.

When we got to Green Cove, we bought snacks (trail mix for me), Patrick set out on his extra ride, and I totally napped. On the porch of the station building. I woke up refreshed.

the pain
But wait. Then I got on my bike. And my butt was sore as hell, and my thighs were burning. And I had 31.5 miles ahead.

Some lessons I learned:

1. Your rear end may be sore at first, but if you just get over it and keep going, it's not so bad after a while.

2. Your thighs will not stop hurting, no matter what, so just live with it.

3. Nearly all 14 miles between Green Cove and Damascus is down hill, and it's fun as hell to hit 20 mph around little mountain curves.

4. My husband is the best husband in the world. More on that ...

When we hit Damascus again, I kept riding while Patrick stopped to buy us some Starbucks in a can (Doubleshot: easy and quick). He caught up with me about four five miles down the road (that's awesome husband move no. 2). I was proud that I'd been pedaling that entire distance at about 12 mph average, but after we stopped to take our drink break, I was slow in the saddle.

And that flat ride that was so pleasant as a first leg was painful as a last leg. Patrick helped me to push my speed when I could, he rode slowly when I couldn't push, and (oh did I mention this? there are gates all along this stretch of the trail) he rode ahead to open all the gates for me so I could glide through.

Overall, I probably averaged around 8 mph in the final 10 miles of the ride. I was in serious pain (my seat, but mostly my thighs, which seemed impossibly used up). And by the last seven miles, we were  celebrating every, single, mile.

The last three miles, I set my sights on being in the car, collapsed in the passenger seat. If I thought about what I was doing, it was hard to comprehend that I had what it took to finish.

And awesome husband move no. 3? This is the best one. The last mile, Patrick — who was tired but much more able than I — reached over as he rode alongside me and placed his hand on my back. And he pushed me.

My body and defenses were so warn by the ride that I nearly cried, it was so goddamn sweet. "You love me!" (I totally said that; twice.) And whereas I'd been going about 7 mph at that point, his help got me to 12 mph.

Just knowing he was there to help was a great relief, not to mention how good it felt to go faster, which meant being done faster.

When we got to the car, I did collapse into that passenger seat, and we set out to eat some Pal's (sauceburger, fries, vanilla milkshake).




And now? I'm ready to go again.

lessons for future long rides
Drink more water!! My muscles may have been less sore if I'd been more hydrated. To do that, I either need to learn how to balance on my bike as I reach for my water bottle, or be willing to stop more and drink up what I need.

Train on the bike more. I probably would have benefited from more experience on long rides before I set out for a 63-mile stint.

Work on my core. As much as I hate standing on my bike to pedal, it would have been a great help if I'd been in the kind of shape to do it more often throughout the ride (both for climbing and for relief as we neared the end of the ride). I was able to stand a little bit, but with great effort. What will prepare me more for those moments is a stronger core, to help keep me stably in that upright position.

ps
Eric B. gets a special mention for flying down the 31.5 miles from Green Cove to Abingdon in 2 1/2 hours (despite probably being as sore as I was) so he could return his rented bike by 6 p.m. The world should know.

building my tools: step one, gathering data

Note: I spent about a month building food and exercise tracking tools. I could have used prebuilt tools available online (Calorie Count comes to mind), so why do this myself? I love spreadsheets, organizing information and owning the process. I'm writing this brief series to detail how I built these tools for anyone interested in doing something similar. My resources include the USDA's food datasets, dietary guidelines, the University of South Carolina's Compendium of Physical Activities, Excel, Google Docs spreadsheets and a heart rate monitor.

step one: data collection
Food datasets. I wanted to use high-quality, scientific datasets. The USDA seemed a clear choice for nutritional information. They provide downloadable, comprehensive files for use by Excel (my choice) or database software (which I may actually look into for a future project, but that's a whole other series of blog entries).

Here's a snippet ...


A little overwhelming, no? You'll see later that I filter down the content to make it more useful and useable (I also edit the heights on those rows to build in a little white space and improve readability). If you download this Excel file, you'll find it comes with a documentation PDF. I suggest using it to understand the abbreviations and organization the USDA applies to the dataset.

Food guidelines. We all know about this ... five food groups (updated to the food pyramid a few years ago). But did you know that the USDA publishes a ridiculously thorough handbook for those guidelines? I'm using the tables found in Appendix A: Eating Patterns (numbered pages 51 and 52 of the handbook; if you use Acrobat to navigate, go to pages 62 and 63).

Another snippet ...


Ultimately, this data feeds my calculations for, say, how many servings of vegetables are in 1 oz. of spinach. Crazy, right? I'll go over that in my equations entry.

MET(s). Also known as metabolic equivalent, or a unit of measure used to help calculate calories burned doing various exercises. The University of South Carolina publishes a Compendium of Physical Activity with MET data for dozens of exercises (including household chores, gardening, etc.).

Snippet ...


This is probably the most unfriendly dataset I worked with. I could only find it in PDF format, and I had to copy and paste the content into a Google spreadsheet. In so doing, though, I chose to only include activities that are relevant to my routine.

I'm also using a heart rate monitor to collect data for additional exercise calculations, but I'll go over that when I discuss my equations.

step one, complete
And on that note, I'm done with data collection. Step two will cover how I filtered this huge mass of data; step three, the equations I use to make the data meaningful; and step four, how I integrated everything into a daily food/exercise tracking tool.

simplify: a wardrobe of 12 items or less

So, remember how I organized my office to help bring some order to my life? It was great; it's still organized; and I was inspired to let that momentum carry me.

I was also inspired by the Six Items or Less project, which encourages people to see what it would be like to pare down their wardrobes considerably.

reasons the idea appeals to me
1. Simplify. It's a thing I want to do everywhere in my life.

2. Focus. I love clothes (and shoes and scarves), but my dresser tends to look a bit ... war-torn. I interchange going-out clothes and work clothes and lazy-day clothes. No piece of clothing is assigned any particular meaning or purpose, and then I find myself with a huge mass of fabric and colors to sort through as I try to figure out what to wear.

3. Quality and care. That huge mass of fabric? I treat it like a huge mass, like an amorphous heap. In other words, I don't treat it very well, and those clothes I have get to looking worn quickly. The vision I have for my ultimate 12 Items: that it be a collection of carefully crafted, quality pieces of clothing that I'll be able to hold on to and look good in for a decade if I want to. And how much easier would it be to properly care for only 12 items?

so i did it
I dumped all my clothes onto our den floor ...



... sorted through them, and came up with these piles:


giveaways / baking clothes


exercise / loungy

and my 12 items







so many possibilities
My 12: neutral colors, simple cuts, easily accessorized. I'm a scarf and shoe girl. I'm gonna start taking photos of my outfits to see just how versatile 12 items can be.

And then those other piles ... exercise and work clothes are absolutely necessary. And loungy clothes? I wanna make sure my 12 items stay nice, which means not wearing them around the house while I'm cleaning, watching TV, napping, cooking, etc.

next up: phases two & three
two. As I was staring at those exercise and lounge piles I thought I could whittle those down to 12 items or less each, too. But I'll live with my current setup and see which clothes I gravitate to ...

three. And then ... I like the clothes I have in my 12 items, but very few of them are good enough to hang around in my closet for 10 years. As I get in better shape and need to buy smaller clothes, I'll use it as a chance to replace my 12 items, one by one, with higher-quality pieces.

and this relates to food & do how?
Like I said when I reorganized our office, a cluttered space is a cluttered mind is a weak foundation for making good decisions. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the overfilled dresser looming in our bedroom.

I feel like I exacted control over it, and that I've crossed one more thing off my list of things to worry about.

So now I have more energy to worry about tracking my food and exercise ...

where am i sore today?

Thank you, wikipedia!
Latissimus dorsi

Let's play this game.

Today? I'm sore in my latissimus dorsi. For real.

How did I get sore here? Abs class. Whaa? Yeah. Like any good ab instructor, ours had us work specifically on our backs for a good ten minutes last night.

Why am I glad? My core is obviously in need of tuning. Also ... a stronger back is going to make my time on the bike easier.

Where am I not sore? So abs class made my back sore, but my abs themselves are in pretty good shape today. This means two things to me: I'm improving my core; and I need to push harder. I actually really loved doing straight crunches last night because of how easy they felt, as if I had actually gotten stronger. But I also noticed the instructor was stretching a little further than I was ...

happy anniversary to us!

Patrick and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary Monday.

Scratch that. We started on Saturday. We've done a great job in the last few months of enjoying our time together as much as possible; maximizing our adventures, stretching out our weekends. It's especially fun to act like the entire weekend was a celebration of something: our anniversary, my 29th birthday.

I have a feeling this is part of the secret to me getting serious about healthfulness. I know how to have fun. I'm having a lot of positive, enriching experiencing. I'm getting off my butt.

I don't know; it makes sense somehow that having a full life means having more room to make sound decisions. Positive energy breeds positive energy. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. That whole thing.

In any case, our weekend looked like this:

saturday: neighborhood bike ride!
I was getting over a little cold (that Patrick had gotten over a few days earlier), but I'd really wanted to ride from our house to the start/finish point for the 10th anniversary of this neighborhood ride. So we did, damnit. Six miles there and back. A little over ten miles through Knoxville neighborhoods. Twenty-two miles total!



I felt a little like I made up for missing our Sunday ride the week earlier. And let me tell you, this was my first long ride with Stinger, and she was freakingamazing.

I'm gonna sound maybe, I don't know, obsessed? But this bike feels so much better than the mountain bike. Maybe because it's a road bike, and I'm riding it on roads? Right? Also, I love the positioning. I thought I'd feel unbalanced hanging my torso over the bike, arms outstretched. But there's something strangely comfortable about it. (My neck and shoulders are extremely sore, but I expect I'll develop better upper-body support over time.)

Also? I loved riding with a group. Whaaa? I was scared as heck at the beginning of the ride that I was going to crash into the (hundreds of?) other riders, but that didn't happen. Instead, I felt a great energy. Which I noticed only once Patrick and I headed back home by ourselves, and suddenly I got a bit sluggish.

Even then, though, the bike felt easier to maneuver. And I know I made it up some hills with more ease than I had a few weeks earlier on our 23-mile ride around Knoxville.

Progress: it feels good.

Things we did after our ride: brewed beer! I helped. Kind of. Mostly watched. I even took a nap in the middle of everything.

And then we sauteed up some veggies and fried up some sweet potatoes (lesson: acorn squash, skin it!).



sunday
I worked on spreadsheets! I'll write up a series of entries about these tools I built and how I use them. In the meantime, preview:



And we went to see The Social Network, which I loved. I liked it more as a metaphor for the generation than a biopic on one man.

And that was us on Sunday. Spreadsheets? Movies? Perfect Sunday.

monday, our anniversary!
I worked at the bakery, then came home and off we went to Cades Cove to ride our bikes.

Original plan? Park at the foot of the road that leads up to the park, ride up it, around the park and back down. But not so much. The ride to the park is seven miles and straight up. One: I was still a little sore from Saturday's ride. Two: I'm scared of being run over and killed by a car on two-lane roads; especially ones with sheer drops down a (admittedly small) mountainside. And while it's something of an irrational fear, it makes me a nervous rider (which is what would be the more likely culprit if I ever got in an accident). So until I'm more comfortable, I'll stick to wider roads on flatter land.

In any case, that's a long way of saying that what we did do was ride the 11-mile loop around Cades Cove and had a really spectacular, chilly, invigorating ride. So many deer and wild turkeys. And some familiar old churches and log homes.




Note of progress? There's a hill that, when we've riden the park before, I had to hop off my bike to walk up. But after our Monday ride, I couldn't tell you which one it was, because I didn't get off my bike once.

Also? I love Stinger.

We followed our ride with lunch at Tomato Head (our first trip to the one in Maryville), where I had my favorite healthy meal (hummus plate), and where I forgot to take photos. Arg! I'll get the hang of this food documenting soon.

Before we headed home, I picked up ... pumpkin cake! I made up extra pumpkin layers that morning and made a friendly request that it be decorated for our anniversary. Request granted by the best cake decorators in Knoxville.

Then home for a nap (for me) and grocery shopping (for Patrick ... best husband ever).

We rounded out the day with roses (aww), a mixed tape (best one!), and a famous Lindsay & Patrick meal: chicken cordon bleu with rice and veggies (asparagus). Patrick made me this our first Valentine's Day, and the night before he proposed to me, and for various happy celebrations in our five years together.




All in all, perfect day.