I went to the grocery store! I hope I never take it for granted again, because what used to feel like a chore now feels like all the holidays rolled into one when I start unpacking ripe watermelon, leafy greens, pears, asparagus, bright fresh bunches of cilantro, avocados, and all the other fresh produce I miss as we stretch our root vegetables and pantry and freezer staples to make it between trips to the store.

Today I celebrated by cooking a special lunch of falafel (my first time making it at home!) with a spring salad and asparagus, and a dinner of black bean and mango tacos with corn on the cob and fresh watermelon.

All the bright beautiful colors on the table made me think about how many different foods I ate today, and how life-promoting they are.

One thing I love about Michael Greger’s website nutritionfacts.org is all the good news it has on there about foods that I love. Blueberries are high in antioxidants and cardamom is a mood booster and walnuts are helpful for brain function… that kind of stuff. His book How Not to Die and his website are both full of research study results that make me feel great about what I’m eating.

Today I ate even more variety of whole, plant-based foods than normal because I was celebrating that grocery store run in style. I thought it’d be fun to list out the different foods I ate and link to videos from nutritionfacts.org where applicable.

In a time where many of us are worrying about our physical and mental health, this exercise is incredibly fun and uplifting. I highly recommend it for anyone in need of good news!

Breakfast: Chocolate cherry smoothie.

Ingredients:

• Cacao: contains phytonutrients and may lower cholesterol
• Frozen Cherries: anti-inflammatory
• Flax Seeds: anti-inflammatory and may have a role in breast-cancer prevention
• Banana
• Kale: awesome for the immune system
• Soy milk: may benefit breast-cancer survivors

Lunch: Oil-free falafel, lemon dressed mixed greens, oven roasted asparagus

Ingredients:

• Leafy greens: I mean you know these are good for you, but did you know this?
• Chickpeas: Among other things a great prebiotic and promoter of gut health
• Celery: May boost DNA repair
• Cilantro: anti-inflammatory and delicious if you have the right genes
• Asparagus: binds… bile acid? Whaaat? Point is, healthy.
• Tumeric: Look there’s almost 50 videos about turmeric because it’s gotten so much research attention lately for it’s potential health properties…. you’ve got to browse!

Dinner: Mango and black bean tacos with corn on the cob, cashew sour cream, tomatoes and watermelon

Ingredients:

• Mango: antioxidants, enough to make a serving of it in a smoothie more antioxidant packed than many traditional breakfast options
• Black Beans: “deliver ‘potent inhibitory activity’ against human colon, liver, and breast cancer cells”
• Corn: a decent source of fiber (which is only found in plants)
• Cashews: May fight cancer and also taste delicious and add an unprocessed fat to the meal to help with vitamin absorption
• Avocados: let’s just say there’s a lot of reasons to love them. They contain carotenoid phytonutrients which are good for eyesight but also the fat to help your body process them.
• Tomatoes: uh oh, should have cooked them for the lycopene. Think they were cooked for that jarred salsa? I guess they can be the junk food of the meal.
• Watermelon: might reduce muscle soreness after a workout! Also, hydrating and delicious.

After dinner drink:

Belgian Mint Tea

• Mint leaves: May also help with post workout soreness, but probably would be more effective as a smoothie. Still a delicious and relaxing choice for blog-post writing refreshment.

I hope you click through and watch a couple videos so you can see how entertaining and engaging they are. I’ll admit, they’re especially engaging when you’ve just eaten the food being discussed!

You can search the site or browse by topic to feel good about the plants you included in your own dinner, and I highly recommend doing so. It’s fun, delicious, and browsing the site can inspire you to throw a handful of blueberries in the next smoothie you make for your kids and feel extra good about doing so.

Stay well!

PS – still loving my indoor bike trainer! Stay active, too.

I did it! I got out of bed two days in a row and exercised! My life is irrevocably changed! I’m a new woman! I’m invincible!

Ok, maybe not, but I do feel optimistic about sticking with this because it feels amazing to have time to myself to exercise before the day begins.

This morning I biked, an hour and a half leisurely ride on the indoor trainer while watching the first episode of Star Trek: Voyager which I’ve decided will be my new biking show. I remember enjoying it (though TNG was always my favorite) and I’m really excited for the escapism into a world where competent and ethical female leadership is respected and new adventures await.

The only thing about watching television while I ride is that it negatively impacts my performance by about 20% or so. I often hover just over 100 watts on average for power output during my rides and when watching tv I settle in and get distracted by the story line.

Today I averaged 75 watts during the ride.

But I still had an elevated heart rate for 90 minutes, worked up a good sweat, feel fantastic and have a mood lift both from the exercise and from the entertainment.

So maybe I can push a little harder, but maybe it’s also ok to have some easier rides if it makes exercise more enjoyable to escape into the world of Captain Janeway.

Right now my tentative plan is to run on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and bike while watching Voyager on Tuesday and Thursday and leave the weekends as flexible depending on family plans. Maybe I’ll get in a bonus workout.

I hope this ends up working out well, because I think the morning routine would be good for me if I can keep getting up and getting moving!

I got up early this morning to run.

With no school lunches to pack and no need to get the kids out the door on time, I’ve been sleeping until right before I need to get my kids on their zoom classroom meetings.

But a few days ago I realized that my life would probably be better if I got up an hour or so earlier and got a workout in before the day started.

With no place to go it seems like I could work out at any time. But my mid-morning workout routine of running or biking after the kids have been dropped off at school no longer works well.

The kids need me accessible in the morning to help with finding links for zoom calls, or passwords for remote learning websites. I am also in charge of lunch every day for four people, even if it’s just heating up leftovers.

I could exercise in the afternoon, but it’s helpful if I am available during the day to gently mitigate sibling disputes before they get too loud while Greg is on a conference call, or encourage the kids to get some fresh air if they start racing around the house shrieking in delight playing some new game they’ve invented that is as noisy as it is destructive.

It feels like my time should be really flexible since we’re all at home, but I’ve finally realized that working out during the day is hard. Many days I get up and don’t bother to shower because I have ambitious plans to go for a run or a bike ride, and then I end up never having the right block of time to do it. Or it hangs over my head until 4:00 and when I finally get around to it I’m racing the clock to make sure I can shower before I need to start dinner.

I realized that if I started getting up earlier and exercising before the day starts, I would start the day showered and energized and know for sure that I could get my workout in without sacrificing daily tasks to do it. Now I can use mid-morning to clean up from breakfast, supervise remote learning and prepare lunch without worrying about why I haven’t found time for a run. I can spend afternoons getting to laundry and housework and cleaning up from lunch and prepping dinner without trying to make an hour and a half slot for a bike ride and shower.

It also means I’ll hopefully fall asleep earlier and easier, something that’s hard in times of stress.

I’ve done this one day so far, and we’ll see how strong I am when the alarm goes off tomorrow. But as counterintuitive as it is to set an alarm when there’s “nowhere to go”, I think working out before breakfast is the best solution for me right now.

And hopefully that means I’ll catch up on my running!

I hope you are finding ways to exercise safely during these times, because it’s a great de-stressor. With our routines altered, it may be a good time to re-evaluate your schedule and make sure it’s working for you.

Stay well!

It’s April! And I’ve been doing a lot of indoor cycling. Because I love it and it makes me ridiculously happy and I need that right now. I love running, too, but it’s easier to get on the bike if you’re feeling tired! I’m going to work on remembering that I feel energized once I start running, too, but there’s just something great about exercise that you can start doing while you’re sitting down.

It’s April Fool’s Day, a holiday our 9 year old anticipates and plans for basically all year and our 8 year old nervously dreads. I enjoy finding ways to surprise and delight them that aren’t mean, because I think the best jokes make everyone laugh.

This year we decorated for Christmas, made our usual Christmas morning breakfast of cinnamon rolls, and gave the kids a few small gifts that will give them something extra fun to do during the weeks at home.

We’ve been staying home, playing board games, doing remote learning and making meals from pantry staples that stretch out the time between our trips to the grocery store.

I’ve also been sewing masks for health care workers at a nearby hospital who requested them to wear over their PPE that they’ve had to reuse even though it’s not safe to do so. This is devastating, because hand-sewn masks are not medical grade protection. They’re not safe for health care workers to wear. They might help keep your own respiratory viral droplets from spreading as far, so wearing one could help keep you from infecting others, but they are not good protection for someone who is working with patients because they’re not air-tight around the face.

But because of shortages, and the mind-numbing unwillingness of our president to use the Defense Production Act to get more PPE for our health care workers, these hand-sewn masks are being worn over N95 masks that are getting reused.

I have a lot of fabric remnants from all of the reusable gift wrap I’ve sewn for Sustainable Wellesley’s zero-waste holiday efforts, so I also started putting together sewing kits with elastic and fabric and instructions for people in our community to sew masks as well. I made 85 masks worth of kits and they were all picked up by people who wouldn’t have had the supplies to help otherwise. Seeing how many people wanted to help was a highlight of the week.

I hope you’re finding ways to keep moving! Look for the helpers, help the helpers, stay informed but limit the amount of time you spend watching the news and scrolling through social media, and be sure to give other pedestrians space if you’re exercising outdoors.

Our local yoga studio has been publishing great online classes, and accepting Venmo donations. There are so many ways to remain active and connected even as we work together to flatten the curve.

Wishing everyone the best, stay home and stay well.