Eat a damn vegetable

If you’re at all like me, then you’re also one of the 9 out of 10 Americans who don’t eat enough fruits and veggies and for whom no amount of PSA messaging is likely to change that.

The reasons hardly matter, be they access, preparation, taste, or disinterest. There’s no need to judge ourselves harshly for this “failure” either.  I’m sure we all have enough other stress in our lives—between work, training, commuting, kids, partners, art, chores, volunteering, activism, etc.—that fretting over finishing your peas just isn’t worth it.

But (again), if you’re at all like me, then you probably also go through cycles of trying to increase or diversify your veggie intake—a week, a month, or more at a time, you might find the motivation and determination to make it happen. Even then, it may take A LOT of energy to plan and execute.

Here I share some ideas for the in-between times when you have interest in getting more produce but have limited time, energy, desire, or funds. These are my favorite ways (or “hacks” if this were a clickbait listicle) to eat a damn vegetable, specifically simple ways to sneak them into my usual diet.

• Fruit smoothies: Preparing your own breakfast smoothies is an easy way to get both fruits AND veggies. My go-to recipe includes 1 or two bananas, a handful of baby spinach, ginger, granola, almond milk, vanilla yogurt, and a scoop of vanilla protein powder (because I also struggle to get enough protein). The great thing about spinach is that it has a mild flavor easily covered by the other ingredients and adds a lot of important nutrients to the mix. Pinterest of course has a lot of recipe suggestions, and you can add any variation of fruits and veggies that you like.
• Frozen Steamfresh veggie and protein mixes (or whatever brand you like): Technology has come a long way such that flash-freezing produce is the norm, and the method preserves nutrients just as well as canning. Supermarkets offer lots of tasty vegetable mixes, some with light sauce or seasoning and/or added protein items. And you can just throw the whole bag in the microwave for five minutes and pour out a fresh, hot bowl full of veggies. Hawaiian style is my favorite: whole grains, shelled edamame, carrots, pineapple, and white beans with a pineapple ginger sauce.
• Baby food: I actually got this idea when I was pet-sitting my sisters’ sugar gliders once. They get a tub of baby food each day, but I splashed a bit when I opened the food and licked it off my fingers without a thought. Turns out that baby food fruit and veggie mixes are freakin’ delicious (especially when chilled). So I buy the pouches with a cap from the grocery store to snack on during the day, and I get a wider variety of produce than I’d ever buy and prepare myself: pumpkin, squash, beets, and even kale masked by yummier things like mango and raspberry.
• Subscription boxes: I don't know yet whether I'm recommending these, but next week I'm starting my free trial of Blue Apron, so I'll be back to write more about it.

Balancing your eating habits doesn't have to be a chore and doesn't require cutting out all sweets and restricting your favorite foods. Just add some variety and nutrients when you can.

What are your favorite ways to prepare and eat fruits and vegetables?

June Journaling 6

I found a list of daily prompts for journaling in June and thought I'd give it a shot. This one is pretty mundane.

6. Something to remember:

My task this evening is to remember to pick up some groceries and unload the dishwasher. This, I'm told, is my payment for my housemate's feeding me.

I don't enjoy the time and labor that go into cooking and have been having trouble consistently feeding myself the nutritious things I would like to. So I asked the housemate who LOVES to cook if she'd add an extra portion for me occasionally, and I'll cover the cost. Most of her recipes yield too many leftovers for her and her wife anyway, so I'm looking forward to helping them with that.

The cook is out of town for a few days, and the other is trying some new recipes. Yesterday was some awesome pork curry and rice. Tonight is chicken primavera. She just asked me to grab some ingredients and unload dishes in exchange.

The timing is especially apt since I'm kinda sick and fatigued today and struggling to make it through the work day. Not having to worry about how to feed myself is a relief. I've been experiencing executive dysfunction for a few days in addition to infrequent hunger and complete disinterest in food when I am hungry.

Executive dysfunction is a symptom of ADD/ADHD, and for me it manifests such that I sometimes look at a fridge and cupboard full of simple ingredients but absolutely cannot figure out how to get food in my grumbly belly. Coupled with low blood sugar, increasing hanger, and illness-related fatigue, it really sucks.

I'm a little bit ashamed to admit that I keep Ramen noodles on hand and that they are a staple of my diet because of the struggle to feed myself. I justify it by throwing an egg in for protein; and as much as I run and sweat, I do need the salt content.

I know I don't need to justify what I eat or feel ashamed about otherwise having a pretty good handle on adulting while still relying on a traditionally poor college kid's dish. But feelings don't care about logic.

Fortunately, my housemates like cats, particularly strays, so I fit right in with the other three.

You are not a naughty child.

Exercise is not punishment. Eating is not bad behavior. You are not a naughty child.

"Moving your body should never be done as punishment and you do not have to earn your food. Some even add “because you’re not a dog” to that statement but I disagree. I don’t make my dog earn his food either. I feed him because I love him and I’m a responsible canine-mom." Read more here.

Personal Journey: Setbacks and Silver Linings

It's been a rough several weeks. Free access to the office fitness center was suddenly and unexpectedly cut off at the beginning of the month. Building management never said a word in advance that their newly built fitness center would charge a membership fee, and it's up-front for the year rather than month-to-month, so my only indoor workout option is just gone.

However, lots of my coworkers are very interested in the new center and in the same boat financially, so a few organized a poll to find out how many employees would commit to using the center three times a week if our company subsidized the cost. Yesterday they turned in a list of more than 60 interested out of a total 200 employees. Our company rents 6 percent of the building space and may have some sway to get a group rate from building management, so fingers are crossed.

I've also been missing running and other workouts partly because I'm busy preparing to move at the end of the month, but/and the rec center by my new house is two years old, has a sauna, and costs half as much at the office center. So if I can tough it out two more weeks, I can get back to indoor workouts.

Yesterday was my first run in two weeks. We had a long, cool spring and then it suddenly got hot with no transition period. I'm terribly sensitive to the heat and literally afraid to leave my house, haven't biked in a month. I ran 3.57 miles of trail with a group—struggled, but did it—and then walked/ran 1.65 miles back to my car, including jumping a chain-link fence so I could walk through a well-lit baseball field instead of down the unlit country road with a blind turn.

I've also been adding more produce and homemade meals to my life, which is a challenge for me as I’m not much a fan of cooking, and I'm really proud of my determination and success with weekly meal prep. It’s mostly simple stews and rice, but it’s leading to less processed foods, fast food, and frozen meals, as well as a happier tummy.

Earlier this year I was dreading the thought of going dairy-free and/or gluten-free for the purpose of an elimination diet to determine why my stomach seemed to be hell-bent on my destruction, but I’ve eased up on spicy foods and found relief.

Just another entry in “fitness and health are a journey, not a destination.”

Emotional Eating is OK

And more than that, it's a good thing and a useful coping mechanism. I'm an unapologetic emotional eater.

The Fat Nutritionist explains:

. . . to be honest, eating is inherently emotional. First, in the sense that it provides us pleasure, otherwise we probably wouldn’t take all the time and effort to find food, prepare it, and eat it. Because it is so essential to our survival as a species, it has, of course, become embedded in our brain’s pleasure-pathways as something intensely enjoyable (much like, ahem, other species-propagating activities.)

So whether you think you’re eating for emotional reasons or not, whether you’re doing it intentionally or not, all eating is fundamentally emotional. (emphasis hers)

Depression and anxiety run rampant in my family and are things I manage well enough through exercise and creative endeavors. Denying cravings, food moralizing, and worrying about getting fat does nothing to promote health and in fact creates needless anxiety and stress. Alternatively, emotional eating both allows us to celebrate and to cope.

And this more than some feel-good personal opinion. These conclusions, I just learned, are also supported by research (link and quote from Dances With Fat):

Stress eaters should not be considered at risk to gain weight by default. Our results suggest the need for a dynamic view of food intake across multiple situations, positive and negative. Furthermore, our findings suggest rethinking the recommendation to regulate stress eating. Skipping food when being stressed may cause additional stress in munchers and could possibly disturb compensation across situations. 

Within the framework of Health at Every Size, the practice of intuitive eating allows, encourages, and accepts emotional eating. Food alone won't solve any emotional problems, but it can help us calm down enough to do the work that's needed. Mindless eating and frequent over-eating won't do, but paying attention and thoroughly enjoying every bite can soothe and take the edge off. Eating slowly and savoring also helps us calm down and breathe. Michelle offers a guide for doing emotional eating well:

Remind yourself that eating is morally neutral – you are not doing something “bad” by eating delicious food. You are simply being human.

Eat the food. Pay attention to how it looks, smells, and tastes, how it feels in your mouth and throat, and how it settles in your stomach. Give yourself the mental space to just have the physical experience of eating.

This is just an excerpt; the whole list is worth reading. Know that emotional eating is not inherently bad, nor is any kind of food. Context matters, and moderation. Moderation needn't mean restriction but can be attained through permissive eating of a wide variety of foods and paying attention to how they make you feel. It rarely comes naturally and may take months of practice before it does. Even then, we all "mess up" occasionally, but health is a journey, not a destination.

Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it – not just stop because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint in your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is three meals a day, most of the time, but it can also be choosing to munch along. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful when they are fresh. Normal eating is overeating at times; feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. It is also under eating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life. In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your emotions, your schedule, your hunger and your proximity to food. —Ellyn Satter

Food

I don't typically talk about food because I am very strongly anti-diet-minded* and find that the mere thought of trying to eat healthier or cut out sweets is a surefire binge trigger. I used to count calories in college, and it made me an obsessive, neurotic, hangry beeyotch, because I'd heard so much about the number of calories a woman is supposed to eat, and those advertised numbers are all for dieting and never for health. It's absolutely amazing to learn how much I'm really supposed to be eating. Though individual metabolisms vary greatly, an Internet calculator told me that for my gender, age, height, weight, and activity levels, I need ~2,300 calories per day. That is so much food!

I really like food. I discovered Health At Every Size late last year through The Fat Nutritionist's blog and very seriously took to heart the practice of intuitive eating with an emphasis on permissiveness, meaning I get to eat whatever I want whenever I want as much as I want and trust my body to tell me when enough is enough. It means that sometimes I eat a little too much and feel too full, and sometimes I eat too little and have to make an extra meal. I get to enjoy food, all kinds of food, without fear, guilt, or anxiety.

Few things piss me off as much as food moralizing and comments about "earning" or "deserving" treats. You don't "earn" food; you require it to sustain life! Our relationships with food, as a society, are fraught, and I am hellbent on finding my way to normal eating, eating that doesn't rely on calories, grams, points, or earnings, eating a variety of enjoyable and life- and health-sustaining foods that support mental, emotional, physical, and social wellness.

One obstacle, though, is that I don't cook. I don't know how and don't have an interest in it. Sure, cooking is super fun and easy for lots of my peers, but it's not really something I enjoy. It takes a lot of time, planning, and preparation. It means I eat a lot of frozen foods, fast food, and cereal.

In the last six months, however, I've learned to use my roommates' slow cooker to make one helluva spicy turkey chili and bumble through various soups and stews with edible success. I dine out once or twice a week and always get a to-go box for the leftovers, which frequently are enough for another two meals.

I also started buying sandwich fixins to try to save money on groceries, even though sandwiches are SO dry and boring. But there is a panini press in my office, magically transforming dry and boring sandwiches in to hot, melty goodness.

As an endurance athlete, I recently rekindled my love for bagels and have been enjoying the hell out of them for breakfast most days. Say what you want about gluten-free, low-carb, no-dairy diets, but I have substantial daily caloric requirements to meet. That's not to say that I'm counting calories anymore; I'm eating when I'm hungry, which is frequently. And you know what? I've been maintaining my weight all year (even with increased mileage for Savage and Spartan training) and getting faster and stronger all the time

TL;DR
You should eat in a way that makes you happy and feel good. Dieting doesn't do that for me; I like and choose to eat anything and everything I want.



*"A panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health determined that "one third to two thirds of the weight is regained within one year [after weight loss], and almost all is regained within five years." More recent review finds one-third to two-thirds of dieters regain more weight than was lost on their diets; "In sum," the authors report, "there is little support for the notion that diets lead to lasting weight loss or health benefits." Link

Why is it so hard to find body positive runners?

A running group I belong to lists in its description that it will allow posting of personal questions, stories, advice, personal race photos and transformation photos. I’ve really been enjoying this group because it is overwhelmingly focused on running, compared to a running group I rage-quit a few hours after joining because it was all about weight loss.

Today a member posted an image from the internet that has used photoshop to enlarge the thighs and butts of two slim women running together and added a bucket of KFC fried chicken in their hands. I commented that the post deliberately demeans certain body types and food choices and is offensive and inappropriate to the group, and I have reported it.

The original poster is defending it, claiming she has a sense of humor and that I need to lighten up. I have both messaged the admin and tagged the admin in the comment thread of this post and really hope it will be dealt with. I can’t believe all the people supporting this image as a humorous post and attacking me for being a humorless bitch. UGH.

Ethics of meat

I’m feeling icky after reading and briefly commenting on a heated debate on the ethics of eating meat, with the conclusion being that I’m a shitty fucking person for being an omnivore and that valuing my personal emotional, mental, and physical health, abilities, and income over that of farm animals is morally lazy and inferior.

1.       Where do these skeptics get off assuming that vegan is the objectively morally superior choice?
2.        Where do these atheists get off cramming their “morals” down my throat?

Going vegan is literally the least efficient way to effect change in the brutal farming industry: you’re enacting a significant effort to accomplish zilch. If you want to end animal cruelty and your food restrictions are so easy to afford to accommodate, donate to lobby efforts to change industry regulations (or buy me a Whole Foods gift card), you self-righteous cunts. All your raging is doing is making me want to go out for steak tonight and talk about how rude vegans are and how fucked up their priorities are.

I'm going to continue to eat meat for the foreseeable future for many reasons:

• I’m struggling enough, as is, to deprogram the food moralizing thrown in my face at every turn by this culture within the context of anti-fat bias, to say nothing of food ethics in addition to that.
• It takes a LOT of bandwidth and a lot of my income just to feed myself ENOUGH on a daily basis without adding dietary restrictions or guilt to the mix.
• I am only just learning how to cook at all in the last few months, and it still requires considerable effort to do better than fast and frozen foods for every meal.
• Food restriction is super-triggery for many people and is not something I can safely attempt at this point in my life.
• Though I know it can be done, I can’t imagine how I would sustain my highly active lifestyle, including marathon training, on a vegan diet. 
• And let's not overlook the social, emotional, and cultural value of certain foods, including meat, and what it would mean for me to ask or expect others (friends and family) to accommodate me if I had dietary restrictions.
• I'm reaching now, but I could also cite my obese family and my present over-consumption of delicious, glutenous starches as a further obstacle to purging animal products from my diet.
• I don't care for rice.

Recognizing, accepting, and honoring my personal limitations and applying myself to other forms of activism is a good choice to make. We all have to choose our battles and how we prioritize our individual well-being.