Archive for health
Better to see you with my dear
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My daughter discovered fairy tales recently so we’ve been reading one every night, most recently little Red Riding Hood. So the phrase “the better to see you with my dear” has been stuck in my head. So you’ve heard that carrots are good for eye health right? They are, the lutein in carrots helps prevent cataracts and macular degeneration. And carrots are full of vitamin A which is a good immune booster. I like carrots, my little one has never really been a fan. Occasionally she’ll eat grilled carrots (we do lots of grilled veggies) but it’s not consistent. Last night I decided to try the Barefoot Contessa’s roasted carrot recipe for something different.
If you are looking for a new way to cook your carrots, try this recipe! It only takes 20 minutes and the roasting brings out the natural sweetness of the carrots without any added sugar. Unfortunately, the wee one was feeling under the weather so she didn’t eat any. My husband and I however, devoured them all.
Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
- 12 carrots
- 3 tablespoons good olive oil
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill or parsley
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
If the carrots are thick, cut them in half lengthwise; if not, leave whole. Slice the carrots diagonally in 1 1/2-inch-thick slices. (The carrots will shrink while cooking so make the slices big.) Toss them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Transfer to a sheet pan in 1 layer and roast in the oven for 20 minutes, until browned and tender.
Toss the carrots with minced dill or parsley, season to taste, and serve.
Here’s something for your running mix now that those carrots have helped your vision!
Keep it simple
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Is anyone else annoyed already with the plethora of great “tips” in every fitness, health, or women’s magazine about how not to go overboard during the holidays and gain weight? It seems even though deep down we know a magic bullet doesn’t exist, we’re still looking for it. If you want to not gain weight during the holidays you need to do what you should do all of the time, eat sensibly and exercise. I could give you 500 different dumb ways to do that like – clean the house for 2 1/2 hours but holy cow, that’s a big dose of NO FUN! So why not stay active by finding fun ways to do it?
Like a turkey trot, a race on Thanksgiving that lots of cities have. Most are family events like ours here in Austin. I’ve never done the one here but my brother and I did a turkey trot outside Omaha a few times and it was a great way to start our Thanksgiving. My friend Sandy said she was going to do the one here so I checked it out and was delighted to see that they have a kids 1K and allow jogging strollers and even have awards for the top jogging stroller finishers.* So on Thursday my husband, daughter, and I will all be participating in a turkey trot before we trot home to our marathon of food. I am hoping it’s a new family tradition for us. Why not spend your Thanksgiving morning starting a new family tradition with a turkey trot? Even if you are not a runner, many of them welcome walkers too. Hey, you could burn enough calories to have a guilt free piece of apple pie, and as my idol The Barefoot Contessa would say “how bad can that be?”
*I was thinking of seeing if I can unleash some real live wild turkeys to get my husband going fast enough to bring home that jogging stroller prize.
Here’s something for your running mix because the title is as cool as the song, it’s called Gorgeous Behavior. It’s for all of you, because you’re all gorgeous!
Burn baby burn
Posted by: | CommentsIn the days when I trained with a group and we were doing our Sunday long runs, we’d joke about what we would eat with the extra calories we were burning. We used a rule of thumb, 100 calories per mile. So those days when we did 20 miles runs – yippeee, it was fantasy hot fudge sundaes galore. In reality, the number of calories you burn depends on how much you weigh. But, here’s the tricky part, that’s the GROSS amount that you burn. Remember that you burn calories just by being alive so you need to subtract out that number to get your NET number for a more accurate representation of your calorie expenditure. Here’s how to figure it out:
- Multiply your body weight in pounds by .75 if you are running, .57 if you are walking. That will give you the calorie burn per mile.
- Then, figure out your basal metabolic rate, or how many calories you burn being alive, you can do that here.
- Divide your BMR by 24 to get your hourly rate.
Now you can figure out your net calorie burn for any given run. Here’s an example. I weigh 107 so my burn rate is 80 calories per mile so if I do a 6 mile run in an hour I’ll burn 480 calories. My BMR is 1214 or about 50 calories per hour. So my net calorie burn is actually 430 calories.
Now if I walked that same distance, see what happens. My burn rate is 61 calories per mile. For me to walk the same distance would take twice as long, I’d burn 366 calories but because I have to subtract out 100 calories for metabolism then my net is only 266 calories.
Pretty eye opening isn’t it? I give myself license to splurge a bit when I do a long run but just with anything else, everything in moderation. I could eat through the benefits of a 6 mile run pretty easily. And I’m biased so I’ll go ahead and make my plug for running here, you can burn nearly twice the calories in half the time than walking so why not get more bang for your buck?
Here’s a fast one for your running mix to keep you burning. Calories that is.
Derailed
Posted by: | CommentsSometimes your running or training plan gets derailed. Like when say, your mom comes to visit and you are having too much fun shopping and eating candy (and can’t muster the time to update your running blog). And eventually you are going to get sick, especially if you have one of those little germ factories we affectionately call our “children.” But what do you do if you are in the middle of race training?
First of all, if you are sick, put your health before your training plan. I follow the neck rule, if my sickness is confined above my neck, e.g. head cold, I run. But if I’ve got stuff in my chest or all over body aches, I take some time off. Listen to your body and remember rest is the most important training secret.
What about the training days you’ve lost? Well sadly, until we master time travel just go ahead and kiss them goodbye. Just keep moving forward. If you lose a few days or a week of training, those first few runs might feel tough but you’ll be back where you were – and even further ahead in some cases because of the rest – very quickly. Here’s a little secret, even if you don’t follow a training plan to the letter, it still works. Most plans have some give built in, you can skip a run here and there and still be fine. Don’t give up your race plans because you miss one long run, you don’t do all your training in a day and you generally aren’t going to lose it all in a day.
I follow a few simple rules. Coming off a break of 3 days or more, the first run back should be easy and shorter (one of your shortest distances pre-break). Use it to gauge your fitness and recovery. If you feel at the end of the run that you could go more, you’re good. If you feel slightly more tired or sore than a regular run but ok within 24 hours, you’re still ok. Anything more and you probably went out too soon. You can do another shorter run to gauge it but if you still feel cruddy, you might need a few more days.
If the worst case scenario happens and you can’t do that race you’ve been training for and planning on, get upset, then get motivated. Sign up for another race as soon as it’s feasible to do so. Again, running is just like life. Things don’t always work out the way you planned. Sometimes they work out better.
Here’s a good motivator for your running mix. I’ve been watching the Monty Python documentary that was on IFC, so this tune has been in my head.
