Friday night we played some ping pong, and I got my butt kicked. Even
after a drink, I lost every time. So we tried our hands at pool, and
that was terrible! We both haven't played pool in I don't know how long,
and it showed. We are no pool sharks, that's for sure.
Saturday night we went to a birthday dinner for one of Karen's co-workers at Kitchen 64. That was a lot of fun. And then we headed over to Crossroads to hear a band play and hang out with some other friends.
Went for a solo ride on Sunday morning around the city trails from my
apt. I felt like I was going slow and had to keep pushing myself to keep
going. But I ended up not being too far off a personal best. So that
was respectable. Capped off the evening with dinner and planning for Maine! Just a couple weeks (less now). It's gonna be awesome!
If you have any suggestions for the name of my new blog, leave it in the comments. Thanks!
7/26/12
New Blog?
Feedback time. Should I have 2 blogs? One with "what I did over the weekend" and another for "health and wellness topics?" Or keep it simple with one site and include both? Cast your vote!
I'll tell you about today which is both... I'm volunteering at Appomattox Area Health and Wellness Center just south of Petersburg, VA. I've been working on Thursdays, helping out with diabetes counseling, and weight management, which a lot of times end up being very similar recomendations. Imagine that. It's a little tough though, because they heavily promote the DASH diet, and the MyPlate.gov information, which I disagree with. I do need to get better about finding the commonalities, and quit harping on the differences between my reading and their info. Karen has been great about helping with that mental barrier.
It's been really cool though. I've learned quite a bit about how to deal with a tough population, and real world issues, like safety around patients neighborhoods, transportation issues, and money restrictions. It'd be nice to tell everyone to eat all organic, and grass fed meat, and the like, but that's just not physically possible. It's been eye opening and very interesting.
I'll have to wait and see what days I can work there in future after I get signed up for a (couple?) fall classes.
Alright, so that was really just a "what I'm doing" post, but it relates to health and wellness. The meat of a second blog would mostly be article summaries, and why you shouldn't believe the low fat, low carb, low cholesterol hype. Maybe some pictures of what I eat. Like this one. Lamb steak and eggplant; peeled, sliced, doused in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper (a la Karen). Delicious.
1 Blog or 2
I'll tell you about today which is both... I'm volunteering at Appomattox Area Health and Wellness Center just south of Petersburg, VA. I've been working on Thursdays, helping out with diabetes counseling, and weight management, which a lot of times end up being very similar recomendations. Imagine that. It's a little tough though, because they heavily promote the DASH diet, and the MyPlate.gov information, which I disagree with. I do need to get better about finding the commonalities, and quit harping on the differences between my reading and their info. Karen has been great about helping with that mental barrier.
It's been really cool though. I've learned quite a bit about how to deal with a tough population, and real world issues, like safety around patients neighborhoods, transportation issues, and money restrictions. It'd be nice to tell everyone to eat all organic, and grass fed meat, and the like, but that's just not physically possible. It's been eye opening and very interesting.
I'll have to wait and see what days I can work there in future after I get signed up for a (couple?) fall classes.
Alright, so that was really just a "what I'm doing" post, but it relates to health and wellness. The meat of a second blog would mostly be article summaries, and why you shouldn't believe the low fat, low carb, low cholesterol hype. Maybe some pictures of what I eat. Like this one. Lamb steak and eggplant; peeled, sliced, doused in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper (a la Karen). Delicious.
7/23/12
Backlog of weekends
Class has ended. No more quizzes, no more reading 2 chapters a day, no more projects. For now. It's my summer vacation, and while the classes were interesting and I think I learned a lot, I'm not missing the time crunch it placed on my life. The summer classes being 4.5 weeks long were very fast paced. We went to the Richmond funny bone comedy club as a celebratory outing which was lots of fun. Saturday was errands as it was misty drizzly most of the day, and then I finally got to hang out with Lamar and family for dinner and see their new place. Very fun.
Yesterday I went on a long mtn bike ride with Carter, and some random guy. The ride itself was awesome. The random guy, what an experience.... we'll just leave it at that and if you want to know more, I'll tell you in person. ~22 miles, 4:45 hrs (including breaks) later, my legs were destroyed and my butt was angry. My rear tire flatted. Didn't bring enough food. Slow going up a lot of the time. Beautiful weather. Incredible views and the ride down... ooooh the ride down. Roughly an hour of speed induced adrenaline goosebumps, tearing through the woods, forearms get tired from squeezing the breaks so hard, awesomeness! And at the end, a lake to take a dip in, wash and cool off. Excellent! Then it was off to a friends house for a barbque. Although, I got there "late" I was just in time for the food, so that worked out well since I hadn't eaten much other than some bars on the ride. Who was hungry? Yeah.
July 5th-8th, Karen and I went to Asheville, NC. What a great little town. Great food, great hiking, and we missed out on the 104 degree weather in Richmond. Score! We stayed in a Yurt for 2 nights and that was awesome! Simple, quite, relaxing. I'd highly recommend it. Did some hiking which was fun too. Here's a few pictures, and hopefully I'll add more shortly, now that classes are done and I have more time to putz around on the computer doing what I want to do. Oh, and I found a squirrel nest in my engine. Thanks a lot jerks!
Got some disc golf in last weekend before the overly oppressive heat set
in. Lots of trees were down from the past couple storms. Planned on
riding but got rained out with another afternoon thunderstorm. Made some
green salsa from the tomatillos in my Farm Table box, and played around
with Maddog. I think that about covers the last few weeks. Here's a few
more pics.
Yesterday I went on a long mtn bike ride with Carter, and some random guy. The ride itself was awesome. The random guy, what an experience.... we'll just leave it at that and if you want to know more, I'll tell you in person. ~22 miles, 4:45 hrs (including breaks) later, my legs were destroyed and my butt was angry. My rear tire flatted. Didn't bring enough food. Slow going up a lot of the time. Beautiful weather. Incredible views and the ride down... ooooh the ride down. Roughly an hour of speed induced adrenaline goosebumps, tearing through the woods, forearms get tired from squeezing the breaks so hard, awesomeness! And at the end, a lake to take a dip in, wash and cool off. Excellent! Then it was off to a friends house for a barbque. Although, I got there "late" I was just in time for the food, so that worked out well since I hadn't eaten much other than some bars on the ride. Who was hungry? Yeah.
July 5th-8th, Karen and I went to Asheville, NC. What a great little town. Great food, great hiking, and we missed out on the 104 degree weather in Richmond. Score! We stayed in a Yurt for 2 nights and that was awesome! Simple, quite, relaxing. I'd highly recommend it. Did some hiking which was fun too. Here's a few pictures, and hopefully I'll add more shortly, now that classes are done and I have more time to putz around on the computer doing what I want to do. Oh, and I found a squirrel nest in my engine. Thanks a lot jerks!
7/3/12
Agave: Is it a healthy alternative to sugar?
Agave.
All natural, organic, raw... you’ve seen the labels. You’ve been
marketed into thinking agave nectar is farmed by humble Mexicans trying
to get the good stuff out to the world, and that it’s a healthy
substitute for sugar and syrup. We are led astray, thinking we are
eating the sap from the agave plant. Traditionally, in Mexico, the plant
is tapped for its sap, the sap is boiled for a couple hours to extract
some of the water, and the you are left with something similar to maple
syrup they call miel de agave
(honey of agave). This is what the agave nectar manufacturers want us
to believe and have done a good job so far in pushing this idea.
The stuff on the store shelves, is quite a different product than the traditional miel de agave. It’s actually made from the bulb root of the agave plant, which looks akin to a pineapple. The main component of this root is starch, very much like corn or rice, and inulin, which is an indigestible fiber. This root, is dug up and processed in a similar fashion as corn is, when turning it into high fructose corn syrup. They throw in some enzymes and some chemicals to break down the starch and inulin of the bulb, into its smaller chemical parts, namely fructose and glucose. The worst part is that when the processing is done, the end result of the syrup is roughly 70% fructose.
At 55% fructose in sodas, high fructose corn syrup is 15% less fructose than agave nectar. Everyone knows fructose is bad right? That’s why people shy away from high fructose corn syrup and trend towards artificial sweeteners or stevia. But why is fructose bad? Fructose is in fruit. That’s how it got its name. Fructose = fruit sugar. The problem is that while fruit has loads of other vitamins and minerals, fructose in sodas or processed foods is just empty calories. The fact that it’s void of any nutritional value should be enough of a reason to avoid fructose as a sweetener.
When you eat fruit, you get a healthy dose of Vitamin C along with your fructose. Vit. C helps the liver process the fructose more efficiently and reduces the risk of fatty liver disease. Fructose can be detrimental to health when calories consumed are in excess. Sodas and such add extra calories without the fiber, or nutrients of fruit, or the filling feeling of real food, so extra calories are very easy to consume with HFCS.
Agave has even more fructose, and similar to HFCS, adds calories without fiber, nutrients or filling properties, and can therefore easily cause excess calorie intake, increasing risks for obesity and other health issues that come along with it. Stevia, is extremely low calorie, can be grown at home and used sparingly while your taste buds adjust to eating less sweets.
The stuff on the store shelves, is quite a different product than the traditional miel de agave. It’s actually made from the bulb root of the agave plant, which looks akin to a pineapple. The main component of this root is starch, very much like corn or rice, and inulin, which is an indigestible fiber. This root, is dug up and processed in a similar fashion as corn is, when turning it into high fructose corn syrup. They throw in some enzymes and some chemicals to break down the starch and inulin of the bulb, into its smaller chemical parts, namely fructose and glucose. The worst part is that when the processing is done, the end result of the syrup is roughly 70% fructose.
At 55% fructose in sodas, high fructose corn syrup is 15% less fructose than agave nectar. Everyone knows fructose is bad right? That’s why people shy away from high fructose corn syrup and trend towards artificial sweeteners or stevia. But why is fructose bad? Fructose is in fruit. That’s how it got its name. Fructose = fruit sugar. The problem is that while fruit has loads of other vitamins and minerals, fructose in sodas or processed foods is just empty calories. The fact that it’s void of any nutritional value should be enough of a reason to avoid fructose as a sweetener.
When you eat fruit, you get a healthy dose of Vitamin C along with your fructose. Vit. C helps the liver process the fructose more efficiently and reduces the risk of fatty liver disease. Fructose can be detrimental to health when calories consumed are in excess. Sodas and such add extra calories without the fiber, or nutrients of fruit, or the filling feeling of real food, so extra calories are very easy to consume with HFCS.
Agave has even more fructose, and similar to HFCS, adds calories without fiber, nutrients or filling properties, and can therefore easily cause excess calorie intake, increasing risks for obesity and other health issues that come along with it. Stevia, is extremely low calorie, can be grown at home and used sparingly while your taste buds adjust to eating less sweets.
7/2/12
Concert, sushi, and brownies
The storms this weekend were a little much. Thankfully I didn't lose power like some other 3 million people did. There were times I thought it'd go out for sure, but I got lucky this time. Karen and I went to Sushi-O Saturday night and had some really good sushi and sake. We were thinking about going to see a band play after, but the storm rolled in and we decided to call it a night.
Friday night, on one the hottest nights of the year so far, we went to an outdoor concert. The music was excellent and it is an awesome venue, and the freezer packs felt great. Right on the skin, down the shirt, up the shorts; the freezer packs probably felt violated, but it was the only way the heat was tolerable. That and portable fans.
Sunday morning I went on a ride, and put away 3 liters of water in about 2 hrs. I probably sweat out 4. There was quite a bit of damage from the storms on the trails. Took us a little longer to ride it due to breaks from the heat and walking over downed trees. I made some gluten free brownies in my new ceramic pan, which worked out really well. Did some school work so I can enjoy a mini vacation this coming weekend after the 4th. Looking forward to Asheville, NC! It's gonna be a yurt thing.
Fires in CO are at least improving. My parents are good to go thankfully. It was about 2 miles away from them and now it's more contained and farther from populated areas. There's also a fire right here in VA burning up one of my favorite mountains, Old Rag. Over 1000 acres have burned already. Hopefully those will be be completely contained soon.
Look for the agave post tomorrow.
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| Brandi Carlile |
Sunday morning I went on a ride, and put away 3 liters of water in about 2 hrs. I probably sweat out 4. There was quite a bit of damage from the storms on the trails. Took us a little longer to ride it due to breaks from the heat and walking over downed trees. I made some gluten free brownies in my new ceramic pan, which worked out really well. Did some school work so I can enjoy a mini vacation this coming weekend after the 4th. Looking forward to Asheville, NC! It's gonna be a yurt thing.
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| g-free brownies |
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| Trails torn up |
Fires in CO are at least improving. My parents are good to go thankfully. It was about 2 miles away from them and now it's more contained and farther from populated areas. There's also a fire right here in VA burning up one of my favorite mountains, Old Rag. Over 1000 acres have burned already. Hopefully those will be be completely contained soon.
Look for the agave post tomorrow.
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