Mindful Eats

Stop to See the Possibilities

NYC Marathon Expo

We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

I left work in a rush the other night to pick up my number at the NYC Marathon Expo, and barely made it in time. Since this is my second year, I figured I would project the cool veneer of an experienced marathoner, pick up my number and leave. Nope. 

A lot of out-of-towners come to NY specifically to run the marathon. Wandering around with the group of excited visitors, I didn't see anyone I knew, so I didn't have to front that I was cooler than I am (kind of impossible anyway.) Last year I ran into a few people I knew at the Expo, so I tried to be blase. This year, I took the time to check out the scene.

I stopped to touch all the marathon-branded clothing and imagined myself in a new shirt, jacket and hat. Even gloves. I talked to pacers, and thought of myself running at improbably fast speeds. I tried on the fancy high-tech Garmin, imagining myself knowing my pace while running. I watched the video of the course and envisioned Sunday in all its gory detail. I entered a lottery - the winner will win an all expenses paid two week trip for two to Sydney, Australia and an automatic entry to that marathon.

I spent a lot more time at the Expo than I expected. It was fun imagining myself tricked out in fancy new gear, running faster than I could in all kinds of exotic places. In the end, while I enjoyed my imagination, I didn't buy any of the new stuff. My old shirt, hat and watch serve me faithfully and are plenty fine. I did buy a box of Gu though (plain). And I'm sure I'll win the lottery to Australia.

Even though I didn't leave with a bag of new gear, I left the Expo giddy and motivated. It was about seeing the possibilities. I think that's why you're here with us on MindfulEats. Because you see the possibilities in yourself and your goals. 

Keep on trucking.

What I ate: 24 oz. Gatorade, 1 banana, hummus, pita bread, mushroom omelette, sauteed spinach, latte, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana sauce, macadamia nuts, 1 Andes mint, 2 Bread Alone chocolate chip cookies, hot chocolate, 60 oz. water.

Exercise: ran two miles with Lance Armstrong (ok, it wasn't really with Lance Armstrong - it was in his general vicinity with 100 other people)

Lazy No-Chop Sauteed Baby Bok Choy

Raw Baby Bok Choy

To insure good health: Eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life. ~William London

Mindful Eater, do you want to effortlessly get more greens into you and your loved ones? Of course you do. You want the radiant skin and vitamin-full antioxidant goodness of veggies. Well, I do too. But sometimes I feel too lazy to make them. This week I impressed myself with a supereasy new green: baby bok choy (well, new to me). 

Bok choy is loaded with Vitamin C, folic acid, and also has calcium as well as other nutrients. It is winter-hardy, so it may be one of the local greens you can find in the winter months. I bought some for the first time last week since it was on sale (it's seasonal!). 

Feeling lazy one evening, I had a batch of my neighbor Antoinette's delicious home made pesto for dinner and decided I should probably have some vegetables with that. I looked in my refrigerator and saw the baby bok choy. I had no idea how to make them, but I knew that anything could be sauteed. Feeling too lazy to chop, I just washed them, threw them in a pan and sauteed them with garlic. DELICIOUS. Sweet, fresh and crunchy. It doesn't get any easier, and clean up is minimal. Who knew? Well, someone did (but I didn't), and I had to share this supereasy discovery with you. Since they're so easy, I made them last night for some friends, and they loved them too!

Supereasy Baby Bok Choy

Serves 3-4

6-8 baby bok choy
2 cloves garlic
3 tablespoons canola oil or other oil to saute

1. Carefully wash the bok choy.
2. Remove skin from garlic and dice.
3. Heat oil over medium high heat in frying pan. Add garlic and saute until golden.
4. Throw in all the bok choy. Let it saute 1-2 minutes, then flip over. You are done when the bok choy turns a darker green, and the outside leaves are wilted.

For more articles on real food, visit Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday!

What I ate: Barbara's Bakery Shredded Oat Cereal, 2 lattes, zucchini and potato egg frittata, 1/3 apple, 1 glass orange juice, 2 green teas, 2 chocolate cookies, macadamia nuts, 12 oz. Helios Kefir, dried mango slices, 1 pear, 1 cup quinoa, steamed tofu + rainbow chard + shiitake mushrooms, soy sauce, sesame oil, 1 T. Udo's oil, 2 hot chocolates, 1.5 biscotti, New Chapter multivitamin, water

Exercise: Ran 8 miles (last week before NYC marathon)

Healthy Bones and Osteoporosis

We are delighted to welcome back Brandi Simpson, who wrote the popular post on her week-long raw food diet experience. This time she is sharing her vast knowledge on osteoporosis. I met Brandi when we were consulting for a pharmaceutical firm. She worked on their osteoporosis drug, and has since worked extensively in the area. I learned a lot of things from this post - I had no idea that my food goes into my bones!

It’s easy to get caught up in thinking about how what we eat today makes us feel and look now. And I know you mindful eaters are concerned about eating your fruits and vegetables to stave off cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions associated with aging. But have you given much thought to your bones lately?

Just like every other system in your body, your bones cells are constantly turning over. Surprisingly, the cells that make up your skeleton today will be no where to be found five or six years from now. This is because about 20% of the cells of your skeleton turn over each year. A little sobering when you consider the four years in college (before you became a mindful eater) when maybe you lived on coffee, beer, and cheese puffs. Those four years contributed to most of the skeleton you had at 23! It’s a wonder you didn’t break a hip!

This isn’t to say that if your diet remains unchanged your bones remodel every 5 or so years to the same state they were in 5 years earlier. In fact, about 80-90% of your adult bone mass was acquired by age 20. After age 20, the real battle becomes trying to maintain the bone mass that you have. This is actually challenging as we tend to lose bone mass as we age and our habits (as well as our genetics) make a big difference.

It probably didn’t strike you until a few years after you started growing. But every time you gave grandma/grandpa/great aunt Edna a hug you noticed that they seemed to be shrinking. They probably were! Long before osteoporosis causes broken hips (which, by the way can even lead to death) it causes vertebral fractures. In fact, many physicians believe that vertebral fracture should be suspected in any woman over 45 experiencing back pain. Over 25% of post menopausal women have at least one vertebral fracture. Over time, osteoporosis causes the vertebra to fracture and compress, resulting in loss of height, loss of spinal mobility, and significant pain.

But can’t they cure osteoporosis these days? No! Some drugs can slow the re-absorption process, but they do so at the cost of long term bone remodeling. In fact, the seller of the world’s most successful osteoporosis drug, Merck, is currently facing several court cases because it is believed that its therapy can cause osteonecrosis (that is, bone death), most commonly in the jaw. There are other therapies that have been shown to improve bone mass and reduce fracture risk - but these drugs also have a lot of risks.  If someone has severe osteoporosis, they really have no choice but to either accept the risk of fracture or the side effects that come with the therapies. But you are far from that decision. Act now to save your skeleton!

What can you do?

• Eat a diet high in calcium and vitamin D.  These nutrients aren’t found exclusively in dairy products.  Dark leafy greens are excellent sources of calcium.  Fatty fish and eggs are good sources of vitamin D. 
• Avoid smoking and excessive alcohol (yup - these affect your bone mass along with everything else).
• Do weight bearing exercise!  Running and jumping are actually great for your bones!  Do it before your knees can’t take it!  Weight lifting positively affects your bone mass too.  So if lifting your suitcase to get it into the overhead bin isn’t enough - now you can do it for your bones!
• Know your risks:  non-Hispanic Caucasian and Asian women have higher risks as do smokers (stop that!), those with small frames, and individuals who have taken corticosteroids for long periods of time (like those with asthma.) 

What I ate: Kashi Go Lean cereal, Fage 2% Greek yogurt, nectarine; salad with mixed greens, hard-boiled egg,  beets, olives, red peppers, and balsamic dressing; 1.5 oz of pretzels (I know, I know); 2 clementines; homemade chicken noodle soup with organic chicken and homemade noodles; 1 fruit juice sweetened Cascade farms yogurt.

Exercise: 40 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes hard running at 5% incline

Marathon Daze - Obsessing Mindfully

Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory. ~George S. Patton

One of the main tenets behind MindfulEats is moderation. Moderation in what you eat and drink, and moderation in your habits. 

However, I am spending six weeks obsessed with the marathon. I'm training for NYC, and the countdown has started. So now I'm either running or worrying about not running. When I'm not stressing about training, I worry about staying healthy, how painful the race will be, and if I'll have a meltdown during the race, in addition to a whole slew of other running-related issues. 

I have no doubt that I'm not going to win (or even be in the top 10,000), but I'd like to do well for me. Last year I got hit with a huge wave of nausea at mile 16 which never let up, and it killed my performance. So now I have to run it again this year.  

The marathon obsession is taking a big toll in other areas of my life. When I trained for it last year, I became very resentful of the time it took. I often had to skip out on fun evenings so I could get up early to go for a run. (Right now it's Saturday evening, and I'm staying in so I can get up to run 20 miles at 7.) It seemed unfair and I whined a lot about it, but then a wise friend asked me if I wanted to go through life without ever sacrificing to accomplish anything. I paraphrase poorly, but you get the gist.

Mindful obsessions and passions are what life is about, as long as they are healthy.

What to do - Be Mindful About Your Obsessions

1. Is your obsession hurting you or anyone else?
2. Does your obsession prevent you from enjoying other priorities? (Can you still balance other people and fun things?)
3. Are you shirking your responsibilities for your obsession? (e.g. work, kids, exercise, cleaning, your health, etc.)
4. Is your obsession the only thing you talk about?
5. Is there a finite time box for your obsession - when will it be over? If not, figure out how to work it into the rest of your life without having it take over.

If you answer yes to any of the first 4 questions, your obsession is unhealthy. Figure out what you need to do to make it work. Talk to a trusted confidante or a professional.

As for me, I can't wait until November 1. There's a huge list of things I've been waiting to do:

1. Have a party  
2. Go on vacation
3. Clean my apartment
4. Get a hair cut
5. Go to the dry cleaner
6. Revamp MindfulEats
7. Write overdue letters
8. Catch up on the Economist
9. Find another obsession

What are you obsessed with? Another obsession I have is the book I'm reading: The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. I can't stop reading it and don't want it to end. It's inspiring, thought-provoking and fun.

What I ate: 1 hard boiled egg, 1 latte, 1 banana, goat cheese, 10 macadamia nuts, pear cider, dried mango slices, seaweed rice ball, miso soup + tofu + seaweed, 1 clementine, rotisserie chicken, whole wheat spaghetti + Rao's Siciliana + parmesan cheese + spinach, GT's Kombucha, hot chocolate, water

Exercise: jogged 4 miles, 30 minutes lifting, 70 min. yoga

Save Money by Eating Healthy

Union Square Greenmarket

A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul; a sick body is a prison. ~Francis Bacon

Let's talk about money and getting you more of it. There's an awful lot of buzz around health insurance these days. But better insurance is not going to help U.S. health issues if people are going to continue eating a processed diet, as Michael Pollan points out in a great op-ed. It's true!

A processed diet provides calories stripped of nutrition. Good deal? Not! This kind of diet can lead to obesity and fatigue, which can then contribute to and exacerbate health problems. Not only will you look bad, you'll feel bad.

You need a good diet (whole foods) to be at your healthiest. It may seem like it costs more, but it saves you lots. You're getting more nutrition per pound, and you are saving yourself healthcare costs in the long run. Being unhealthy costs nearly 300% more in healthcare costs per year. Type II diabetes costs $6,600+ annually, or $400K+ in a lifetime.

But you knew that, didn't you smartie? That's why you're here to begin with - to get healthier, get happier and save money.  

Here's a mindful refresher:

• How to get healthier: the Mindful Eats Map
• Kick off the mindful revolution and why to pay up for your food (cause it's worth it)
• Get in your exercise

What I ate: 50 oz. Gatorade, Yogi Goji cereal + milk, macadamia nuts, 1 hard boiled egg, bagel + lox + Snofrisk, 1 plum chicken, latte, linguini + Rao's Siciliana, cheddar cheese, moon cake, hot chocolate, Union Square Cafe: carpaccio + artichoke + rocket, papardelle + wild mushrooms, broccoli rabe, 50 oz. water

Exercise: 1/2 marathon (really horrible and disappointing, argh - the marathon is in trouble)