Challenge Your Beliefs
I subscribe to Mark Manson’s weekly email,, “Your Next Breakthrough (five minutes each week that might change your life.”) This week’s thought was: Nobody is wrong 100% of the time. Always look for the nugget of truth in those you disagree with. Nobody is right 100% of the time. Always look for the faults and mistakes in those you agree with. Followed by these questions: How can you challenge your own ideas and assumptions regularly? How can you seek out and find viewpoints you disagree with, and then challenge yourself to find wisdom and truth in them? Why aren’t you doing this more often? Every once in a while I have to re-examine my eating habits. Now, for any vegans reading this, DON’T WORRY. You will never, ever read here that I’ve decided to stop being vegan. I’ve been vegan for over thirty years, and that’s not going to change. But lately I’ve been letting a lot of processed foods creep into my diet, and I had to re-examine my beliefs about what a healthy vegan diet looks like. A podcast I’ve been listening to lately is Human Performance Outliers, hosted by ultra runner Zach Bitter. In this episode he interviewed Brad Kearns, who I have a love/hate relationship with. Brad has his own podcast, “B.Rad” and he’s pretty entertaining. He has a lot of interesting ideas about health and exercise, and I like what he has to say… EXCEPT WHEN HE TALKS ABOUT EATING. He does keto- fine!- but for some reason is passionately anti-vegan. It got so annoying that I stopped listening to him, but decided to give him another try as a guest on Zach’s podcast. He’s still anti-vegan! But his main rant on this episode was against “seed oils,” a term people use to refer to most vegetable oils, including soybean, sunflower, safflower, and canola. Brad said (and I looked it up, he’s right!) those oils are particularly harmful because they cause a lot of inflammation in the body, and that they’re in practically all processed foods. He said, if you want to improve your diet, first get rid of the seed oils, then come back and we’ll argue about keto vs. vegan. Hmmm! I came home and looked in my fridge. Earth balance has vegetable oils, and so does the Miyoko’s cheese I’ve been slathering on everything. The pantry was equally disastrous- all the chips, pretzels and crackers have seed oils. In fact, it really is in most processed foods and I never thought twice about it. I’m not going to make myself crazy over it, but I’m going to seriously reduce the processed foods in my diet. Tonight for dinner I made this recipe for “Ultimate Vegan Chili.” and instead of opening a bag of chips, I made some chips out of corn tortillas! I brushed them with olive oil (olive oil is apparently one of the good ones,) sprinkled on some salt, and baked them. They tasted about as good as they look, which means they pretty much sucked. But I’ll keep trying! I have to get back to having things like chips every once in a while as a treat, rather than whenever I feel like it. So, thanks Brad! We’ll never agree on vegan vs. keto, but we do have some common ground after all. Do you have any beliefs that you’ve challenged lately? When was the last time you changed your mind about something big? –I do have a big one, in case anyone missed this post, Story of an Anti-Vaxxer
Weekly Rundown- It Was a Week…
Welcome to the Weekly Rundown, hosted as always by Kim and Deborah (thanks, ladies!) It was a week of workouts, work, school activities… you know- regular life. Regular life has been pretty good lately! Here’s how it all went down: Sunday 10 mile long run! Actually it was 10.26, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I got started pretty early (BUT NOT EARLY ENOUGH) and ran to a park that has a cross country trail. This is a well-maintained, grassy trail and I was able to get in several miles on it before starting back home. The last couple miles were really difficult. The heat was getting to me, and even though I had sunglasses, the sun was blinding me so much that I passed my street. By the time I realized it and turned around, I had added those .26 miles to my run- just what I did NOT want to do! Oh well. I got it done, came home and guzzled a huge glass of ice water with LMNT. Monday Leg day at the gym! I started by pushing and pulling the sled, then moved on to squats, deadlifts, hamstring curls, tibialis raises, calf raises, and abs. Tuesday Well, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is I got some extra sleep! The bad news is, this extra sleep occurred because I didn’t hear my alarm, and we all overslept. It was a very rushed morning of angry recriminations, but somehow I got my daughter to school on time and got in a 3 mile run before work. Wednesday Treadmill run at the gym! I started with ten minutes of pushing and pulling the sled, then ran 4 miles, incorporating hills. I finished this workout with regular planks and side planks. Thursday I started my workout at home, with negatives on the pull up bar. Then, to the gym! For the first time, someone was using “my” sled when I got there. That’s okay- I did bench press until the sled was free. Quick note- several people commented that pushing and pulling the sled looks “boring.” PEOPLE. Do you realize I’ve been doing pool running? Could there possibly be anything more boring than that? Or the stairclimber? I’m used to this! Plus, I always listen to podcasts at the gym. Then on to squats… Calf raises, tibialis raises, and planks. Friday This morning I was awoken by the “cat alarm,” my cat meowing at 5 am (where were you on Tuesday, Muffin???) Since I was awake, I figured I might as well get in a run in the dark. 4 “cooler” miles. Saturday Off! Muffin meowed again at 5 am- I got up, fed the cats and went back to bed for two more hours. That felt good! After work I rushed home to see the second half of the Baylor game, which they WON! Finally! Let’s get this season back on track. Sunday On tap for today- 11 mile run. I’ve learned my lesson, and will be getting up at 5 am, so I can get the first half done while it’s still dark. I can’t take another super hot run! Overall it was a good week- there was that little glitch on Tuesday, but I probably needed the extra sleep, and it all worked out. How was your week? Did you have a favorite workout? – Mine was probably my treadmill hill workout. Tell me about your fall weather so I can live vicariously!
Friday Odds and Ends
Oh, hi there! It’s Friday (phew) and I thought I’d share some random things that have been happening. Last week I showed a photo of our “finished” kitchen, but is it really finished? Ha. Read on… Let’s talk about the kitchen floor. As a reminder, here’s the new kitchen! Here’s the old kitchen: Luckily, we got rid of that weird counter that stuck out and made the kitchen feel even smaller than it is. When we took it out, we discovered the “triple floor” situation: Not to worry though, because we had extra tiles in the garage. The people who tiled the floor, before we moved into the house twenty years ago, left some extra ones. My husband replaced six tiles that were damaged (or missing), and the problem was “solved,” However- before we could get that area grouted, SOMEONE, I’m not going to say who (but it wasn’t me) stepped on the tile and cracked it. Actually two of them are cracked, but one really badly, and it’s right in the middle of the kitchen. Now we have no more tiles. We tried to order some, but since the tiles are twenty years old, we’ve had no luck. This is a huge problem, because that tile runs throughout THE ENTIRE HOUSE. There’s no doorway to the kitchen area where it would make sense to have a different floor, and we aren’t prepared right now to re-tile the house. The guy who tiled our backsplash recommended putting down a vinyl floor which could go right on top of the existing tiles (if anyone is counting, that would be the fourth level of flooring in this house.) We’re considering it. Putting the expense aside, the logistical nightmare of getting new floors right now is daunting. I’m not sure what we’re going to do, but for now I’ve come up with a brilliant solution! On the subject of pumpkins, I went to Trader Joe’s yesterday. I LOVE the way Trader Joe’s embraces the season, but the truth is, most of their pumpkin products are either not vegan, or have a lot of sugar. But I enjoyed browsing through the store, and here’s the more “seasonal” part of my haul: Of course I got all my usual things, like soy milk, nuts, almond butter-Trader Joe’s crunchy salted almond butter is the best- bread, and ingredients for pizza night (pre-made dough, pizza sauce, vegan chorizo.) Then when I got home I read the Fearless Flyer and saw all sorts of things I wish I had gotten (green apple sparkling water? Um, yes!) Well, I’ll have to go back soon. One last thing: in my post where I talked about eating more beans, Lisa put a link to this recipe for lentil enchiladas in the comments. We made them for the Dolphins game on Sunday: YUM! They were delicious and easy! Thank you, Lisa! I have to go back and read those comments again- there were all sorts of great recipe ideas. Do you live near a Trader Joe’s? What are your favorite Trader Joe’s items? What would you do about our kitchen floor situation? – Augh! I don’t even want to think about it. Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
The “L” Word
Sometimes to have a little good luck is the most brilliant plan. -Sam Waterston as Ben in Crimes and Misdemeanors Today I’m joining Kim (Kooky Runner) and Zenaida for their Tuesday Topics: “This week, Tuesday Topics falls on the 12th day of September. The 12th letter of the alphabet is “L” – write anything that comes to mind that begins with the letter ‘L’.” When my husband and I were dating, we lived in New York City. One night we went to a jazz club, and outside the club we ran into the pianist who was performing. My husband said, “Good luck tonight.” Afterwards, I admonished him. He’s a HIGHLY SKILLED performer! He doesn’t need luck! My husband responded “Everyone needs luck. There could be a problem with the sound system, or it could be too hot or too cold in there. There are all sorts of things that could go wrong that aren’t his fault.” Ever since then, I’ve understood that no matter how much you prepare, no matter how much knowledge and skill you have, a little bit of luck is the magic ingredient to success. Think of a race- you could have a perfect training cycle for a marathon, and then on race day it could be 100 degrees. Or you could get a stomach virus, or trip and break your foot. OR, you could have a cool, clear day with the wind at your back, and have the race of your life. My daughter is hard at work right now preparing for all-state auditions. She’s auditioning on flute for the concert band, and also on guitar for the jazz band. She told me she feels she has a shot at the jazz band, and I had to remind her, gently, that they only take ONE guitar player from the whole state and she’ll be competing with seniors. I told her to imagine how much better she’ll be in four years- that’s the level she’s competing against right now. She said “Yes, but all I need are five good minutes. If I have five good minutes” (the length of the audition, more or less) “and everyone else has five bad minutes, I can get in.” Now, if she weren’t practicing hard for this audition, I would say this is a very bad plan. But she is practicing, and having extra lessons. So I like her attitude! Why not go for it and hope for a little- or, in this case, a lot- of luck? Do you leave room in your life for luck? Or do you not believe in luck as a factor in success? Photo by Amy Reed on Unsplash