Lightweight Eats

An update to the old PB&J standby.

Toast your bread.
Slather one side with peanut butter
Mash half a banana onto the other side (or a whole banana if your bread is big)
Sprinkle with fresh or frozen blueberries

The frozen wild blueberries from Trader Joe's work really well--they are small so the PB + B grips them a bit better than bigger berries.

Everything in this dinner keeps pretty well in the fridge, and is pretty nutritious. It also happens to be both gluten free and vegan, if you're wondering.

What you need for two adults:
1 block extra firm tofu
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
Cumin and chili powders
Half medium head of red cabbage
Half sweet onion
Garlic
Half jar salsa (about 6 ounces) -- we used a jar from TJ's
Some corn tortillas

What you do:
Slice up the tofu and dry it as well as you can. Toss it with some sugar, salt and spices. Sauté in hot oil until gently browned. Set aside.

Meanwhile, shred the cabbage with a knife. Cut the onion and garlic into slices. Sauté all three over medium heat until lightly browned and softened. Add salsa and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, tossing to coat.

Serve with tortillas. Optionally, squeeze lime juice over the top and add some cilantro. If you're super pressed for time, skip the tofu and eat with black or pinto beans.

Quick, flavorful, healthful, cheap, easy... Perfect? Possibly.

As training and work have progressed, I have been able to settle into something of a routine. I thrive on routine, so this has been super helpful for me. It's been a while since I've done one of these, so I thought I would share what a day in the life of a full-time athlete looks like.

5:30am - The alarm goes off. I drag myself out of bed and onto the scale. I weigh myself every morning, first thing, and record it in a chart in the bathroom. Although my weight fluctuates day to day, it helps me keep track of patterns. For example, I'm lighter when I drink plenty of water the day before and heavier when we have pasta for dinner.

5:45am - Breakfast! This is seriously my favorite meal of the day. It's usually hot or cold cereal with tasty additions, like coconut milk, bananas and blueberries. I also love a cup of hot coffee in the mornings, but only if the row will be less than 90 minutes.

6:45am - Practice time. (Yes, I like to take my time getting ready in the morning.) I bike down to the boathouse in about 10 minutes, drop my stuff in the locker room and head to the boat bay.

I first take my oars and water bottle down to the dock, then grab my boat from the rack. The boats are awkward--25 feet long and 30 pounds--but I've learned how to balance it on my head. The workout is 90' at medium-hard pace. My heart rate is around 150 bpm, and I try to row continuously for the whole workout.

9am - I've soaped down and washed my oars and boat. They are safely back in the boathouse. I eat a small snack, usually a piece of fruit, and bike home.

9:15am - I take a quick shower followed by more aggressive eating. I probably eat 500-750 calories at this point, focusing on getting fats and proteins, since my breakfast is usually carb-heavy. After eating, I stretch for 5-10 minutes and hop in bed for a nap.

I can't always fall asleep, but taking the time to decompress and relax is super important. Without it, my afternoon is unproductive.

If I wake up early, I do household chores or go frolic in the garden.

11:30am - Lunchtime. Although I haven't accomplished anything except sleeping since my last meal, the food I eat for lunch helps fuel my afternoon workout. I aim for a nutritionally balanced meal: carbs, protein, fat, with plenty of vegetables. If the afternoon workout is short or easier, sometimes I will just eat a small salad and some bread for lunch. Other days, I will make a stirfry with tofu and rice, or eat a huge homemade burrito.

Noon - Time for work. I work mostly from home, so I try to set aside chunks of time for work. Sometimes, I will go to a cafe for work, but most of the time, I enjoy sitting I our dining room with a nice big mug of some hit beverage. From there, I can enjoy the garden view and the sun beaming in.

3pm - I try to dedicate three hours to work. After that, it's time to prep for my second workout and do chores around the house. The second session is almost always a harder 60' cardio session or a lift. The cardio session I do on our erg at home. Boathouse access is limited in the afternoons, so I save time and do my workout on land. Lifting, I try to do at the boathouse when I can. The equipment is better there. Sometimes, though, I am too busy and have to do the workout at home.

5pm - Shower #2. I know it's probably bad to shower twice, but if I don't put on normal clothes during the day, I feel lazy and unproductive. And I refuse to go to sleep workout sweaty.

5:30pm - Cooking dinner! Sometimes, I'll start prep before my workout. Things like slow cooking beans or rising bread happen during the day. Dan tries to get home between 6 and 6:30 and I try to have dinner ready most nights. There are definitely days when I just sit on my butt after the second workout, though, and let him cook.

7pm - After eating and cleaning up dinner, all of my necessary activities are done! Dan and I often linger over dessert or watch 30 minutes of TV before starting to get ready for the next morning.

9:30pm - Bedtime! 8 hours a night is crucial to functioning for me, so we tuck in early almost every night.

Yesterday, I talked about making a general meal plan--laying out the paper, documenting what's in the fridge and how many meals you need, etc.

This is all about how to fill in that middle section: the recipes themselves. And however much Dan wants me our menus to be unsystematic, I have a system.

I love pulling recipes from FoodGawker. As I scroll through the photos, I favorite recipes I might want to make. I usually try to make 1-2 recipes a week from FoodGawker, often relying on it to help me use weird ingredients (like the mung beans I bought on a whim.) However, these recipes are usually fairly involved and not great for weeknights.

The rest of our recipes have a formula: grain + vegetables + protein + sauce. Sounds boring, but there are INFINITE possible combinations.


With this in mind, we usually have around 5 meals a week that use this formula.

GRAINS: I try to use 2-3 different grains, repeating them over several meals. I try to make sure they are not only different forms of the grain, but actually different grains. In other words, I will try to avoid doing pasta, bread and flour tortillas as the three grains, instead choosing rice, wheat bread and corn tortillas.


PROTEINS: There is protein is most things you eat—vegetables, grains and even fruits have protein in them. And generally, by combining {fat+protein} sources and {carb+protein} sources, I get a good balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in my diet. I still like to include at least one item in each dinner that has a higher concentration of protein--it helps correct for any less-than-stellar choices during the day, with regards to protein.

I mostly rely on legumes for this. Although I have no problem eating soy, I like to vary it up. I usually aim for at least 3 nights of beans in a typical week, and 2 nights of soy (tofu, edamame). I round out my arsenal with nuts and seeds—from pepitas in a salad to tahini dressings—and nutritional yeast.



This is definitely easily adaptable to a vegetarian or omnivorous diet. For me, it's an easy, formulaic way of making consistently tasty, healthy meals using seasonal and inexpensive ingredients.

I'm sure this system will morph and adapt as fresh garden produce becomes abundant and as our needs change. For now, though, this method is keeping us healthy and wealthy!

Every week, I make a menu plan. We have them all stacked on our fridge. They all look kind of like this:


Down the left hand side of the page, I write out the indicated 
number of meals. I start by trying to use things that we already 
have (usually impulse buys or rollover meals). Then, I find/develop 
other recipes that I want to make. I'll go into this process in more 
detail tomorrow. As I go, I underline any ingredients we don't have, 
and draw a squiggly line under and ingredients that might need 
special prep (e.g. beans that need to soak, bread dough making, etc.).

Just below, I repeat the process for breakfast, lunch and snacks.
A relatively recent addition, this ensures I have ingredients on 
hand for healthy meals throughout the day.

Giving up meat was not a very well thought out decision. It just happened.

Same with dairy and eggs. I was traveling. Buying dairy or eggs didn't make sense without access to a fridge. And it wasn't so bad without them. Actually, it was great without them.

But it is hard to maintain. We were out in San Francisco late and needed dinner. Tired of the one vegan restaurant downtown, we thought we would try the Cheesecake Factory, figuring their extensive menu would have something vegan.

While they were super helpful and flexible about making me something to eat, my options were salads (sans chicken) with balsamic dressing, or their veggie burger without the bun. (Note: they will also happily sub broccoli, mushrooms, spinach etc, for chicken in their pasta dishes. Just request a dairy free preparation or let the server know you are vegan. Also, have them check that the pasta is vegan.)

It was a trying moment.

But it's worth it. Ethically, I don't have a problem eating an animal, provided that animal has lived in a healthy, natural environment. I'm not sure if I trust that to exist, or that I know enough to be able to judge.

I do not believe there is an ethical way to obtain dairy or eggs on any sort of scale, so I try my best to not contribute to their consumption.

It has become too easy to ignore the conditions that deliver animals to the grocery store. For most of my life, I ignored it. But, when buttery croissants call my name, it's also easy to remember those conditions--to make the connection between butter and the dairy cow. And however scary it is, however guilty I feel about the years I ignored it, it's worth it.



Furthermore, environmentally speaking, meat and animal product consumption is costly. I know I'm just one person, and my impact is small, but that impact makes me feel connected with the world around me. Trying to reduce our garbage production makes me think about the effect of landfills and trash flotillas in the ocean. Eliminating animal products has made me consider the toll farming takes on our environment.



Finally, it's worth it for my health. Everybody has different beliefs about the best way to eat. And every body has different needs. For me, it has become clear that whole plant foods are best. I could go into studies about cancer rates and a myriad of other diseases linked to animal product consumption. And anybody pro-meat could easily counter with soy and estrogen studies, among others.

That's not what's important. Studies do not a healthy diet make. Ethical and environmental concerns aside, I could probably build an equally healthy diet including meat, eggs and dairy in limited quantities. But, personally, I needed to give them up to re-establish the foundation of my healthy diet: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts. Not packages of sweetened Greek yogurts, sugary fortified cold cereal or muffins and pastries.

For you, it might be joining a CSA, getting rid of packages, or going "Paleo". For me, it was becoming vegan. It became easier to make it at home than to read every label. And easier than making crackers, muffins and pastries at home was just eating cooked grains with fresh fruits and tasty sauces.

And, for my health, it's worth it to pass on the cheesecake and to replace the beef with beets and the bun with lettuce.

I didn't follow a recipe for this one, but it ended up being absolutely incredible. Dan and I both scarfed our portions down and wished the squash had been bigger.

All of the measurements are approximate, so taste as you go. (I hate measuring while cooking. No fun.)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
Coconut Squash Curry
serves 2

1 medium kabocha squash, cut into chunks and roasted with a light drizzle of oil
0.5 large onion
1T olive oil
1t cumin seed
2t garlic powder
3t curry powder
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 can lite coconut milk
salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the onion in the oil over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned all over. (This is a great time to roast your squash if you haven't already--20' or so at 400°F)
2. Add the cumin, garlic and curry, turning the heat up to medium. Stir to coat the onions and warm the spices.
3. After 2 minutes, turn the heat down and add the chickpeas and coconut milk. Simmer for 3-5 minutes, or until the sauce begins to thicken.
4. Add the squash, continuing to simmer until you can drag a spoon along the bottom of the pan, and the sauce struggles to fill in the path.

Serve with fresh bread/naan, roasted sweet potatoes or basmati rice. Make sure you sop up all the delicious sauce.
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

One of the awesome side effects of becoming vegan is usually losing weight. This is great if you're trying to lose weight, but eventually it becomes problematic.

I've talked to a lot of rowers about veganism. The biggest complaint I've heard? Not getting enough calories. I totally get it. It's definitely been a learning process for me, but I finally feel very in control and capable.

One of the things I love about dropping meat and dairy is the variety of vegetable I eat. I could snack on carrots and radishes and kale and cucumber and bell peppers and peas all day. But most of those things don't have very many calories. Fruit is a great calorie source, but it's not long lasting or a great nutritional fit for my needs.

When I dropped meat, I replaced the calories with cookies, ice cream and cheese. When I dropped dairy and eggs, I tried to replace the calories with vegetables. Bad idea.

I would eat small breakfasts, not used to drinking twice as much soy milk to get the same number of calories as cow's milk. Getting through the first training session was fine, but my diet slowly deteriorated into frenzied snacking and serious food cravings.

Once I figured out that specific food cravings always stem from hunger, the solution became more obvious. {General desire to eat everything in the universe is usually from being tired.} I shifted the focus of my diet away from fruits and vegetables towards whole grains, nuts and beans. I still eat fruits and vegetables with every meal and most snacks, but they are no longer the feature presentation.

Consuming enough fat has also been an issue. Most of the fat in my diet came from dairy, and there was plenty of it. I learned to avoid fats, and carefully scan packaged goods for low fat content. Now? If I don't pay attention, I consume less than 10% of my calories in fat--dangerously low. Most vegan fats are not only incredibly satisfying and tasty, they are often paired with protein (nuts) or fiber (avocado), and are generally "good" fats.

So, I've started eating more nuts and avocados, adding olive oil to grain bowls and loading up on seeds.

Overall, the main lesson I've learned? The nutritional concerns of a vegan athlete are incredibly different than the concerns of mainstream America. Cholesterol intake, saturated fats and low fiber are not issues for me at all. I consume zero cholesterol, and regularly break 75 grams of fiber--three times the daily requirement.

Gaining weight and consuming too many empty calories and carbohydrates? Instead, I'm struggling with getting enough calories from my meals so that I don't eat entire chocolate bars. And fruit is my biggest source of sugar, except on the days when I go overboard on beets, carrots and sweet peas.

Becoming vegan has meant re-learning everything about healthy eating. But the more I learn, the more right this diet feels. I finally feel like my diet is helping me thrive instead of just getting fuel into my system. I look forward to seeing where it takes me.

If you're trying to become vegan or have done it, I'd love to chat about what worked for you! Leave a comment or shoot me an email at < lightweighteats (at) gmail (dot) com >.

Dinner tonight was awesome. This recipe has been on our to-make list for quite some time now, and I'm glad we finally got around to it. (With all the spring planting, I've been too busy to FoodGawk so we've been working our way through the backlog of recipes to try.)

The basic recipe:
Chopped cabbage and mixed veggies (we used daikon and carrots from the CSA box)
Grain
Cilantro-peanut pesto

To make the pesto, chop/grind the following in your food processor:
2 cups cilantro
Garlic
Ginger
0.25c oil, mix of sesame and vegetable
Juice and zest of a lime
0.5c peanuts
2t miso (think of this as a Parmesan replacement)
1-2T chili garlic sauce

Taste and adjust as necessary. Too bright? Add more miso and peanuts. Too rich? More lime and ginger. A bit dull? Add some salt.

Mix the cabbage with the pesto and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. We were able to make the pesto, chop the veggies and mix it all together in the 30-40 minutes it took the grain mix to cook.

In 2011, I observed lent for the first time. I gave up meat. Two years later, I am amazed by what I have adapted to live without.

When I picked meat, I knew it would be a challenge for me. I never understood the choice to be vegetarian, nor did I want to. Moreover, I ate quite a bit of meat--sometimes three meals in a day, but usually two. Now? I think I've eaten less than a serving of meat in the last year--without any thought.

In 2012, I didn't observe lent; I didn't feel particularly strongly about the need to give anything up. Rather, I was more interested in incorporating new things into my life: more workouts, more vegetables, more fun.

And so this year, I struggled. What to give up?

I have a lot of New Year's resolutions, but, again, many of them were about adding more into my life: drinking more water, sleeping enough, stretching daily, etc.

One resolution stood out thought: I want to increase my savings. That I can do by taking something away: spending. Our garden is not productive enough that I can eliminate spending completely: I will still need to buy groceries.

However, I'd like to challenge myself to eliminate all non-grocery purchases until the end of March. I have some gift cards I can use (like iTunes money, for movie rentals) but this means no more garden purchases, no clothing, no meals out.

This will be difficult: I am likely going to Australia in March {I will need to purchase that plane ticket} and South Carolina afterwards; I like to work in cafe's while sipping hot coffee; and I will soon be in need of new running shoes and spandex shorts.

But again, I am amazed by what I have already adapted to live and thrive without.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but I'm not really into celebrating Valentine's Day. In fact, I'm not huge into holidays in general. I've picked a life where I love every day; even the bad ones have great, incredible amazing pieces.

So while I enjoy a special treat now and again, just having the opportunity to live my life with Dan is enough for me. To celebrate this Valentine's Day, we have both committed some time to making our house a home--something we can enjoy every day.

When we moved in, we were super ambitious. We got all sorts of decorations, and had ideas for all of our rooms.

We've made a lot of progress: the living room is mostly complete. (Just waiting on a few large prints of Dan's photos that have been re-routed to a gallery showing.. I think it's worth the wait.) Our bedroom is also close but waiting on a photo, and needs a mirror hung.

But let's not even get started on the kitchen, the office or the dining room. We do have some financial restrictions--we've budgeted a certain amount to home decorations and want to stick to that budget. But we also have a lot of decorations just sitting in the dining room waiting to go up on walls. Now that we have all of the tools we need, it's time to do some hanging!

Of course, I also plan to tell Dan I love him a few extra times today (if that's possible), and I might buy myself a nice bar of chocolate. But no plans for special dinners out, or huge extravaganzas. [As far as I know.]

There are numerous blogs about gardening in Oakland; unfortunately, most of them stopped posting sometime in 2009. Of course, I'm a total amateur, so we'll have to learn together. I'd like to use some of this space to chronicle our quest to use our pitifully small but wonderfully sunny backyard to provide fresh produce for two hungry adults.

The first step was, of course, planning. I am, by nature, a planner. I will read and study, plot and plan until the time for action has passed. Fortunately, planning and forward thinking seem to be a gardener's friend.

I had two main planning concerns: soil quality and winter.

The previous gardener loved roses, and planted them along a portion of the edging. The soil shows signs of care--dark, loose, rich, lightly moist and sweet smelling. I expect it is slightly acidic (perfect for blueberries) but otherwise healthy.



The remaining soil was less fortunate. Dry, crumbly and pale, it seems only the hardiest of weeds were interested in growing. Had we purchased the house, and were sure of permanency in our residence, I would likely have sacrificed the first year of planting for soil amendment. If only I were that patient.



Instead, I have compromised. I purchased an organic fertilizer to amend the soil during this growing season. In the meantime, I am educating myself in composting and hope to seriously amend the soil this fall. Quality soil produces more, healthier fruits and veggies. From what I've read, if your plants are failing, fix your soil.

Compost Take 1: A Work in Progress

My second concern was winter. I would rather not have to can and preserve produce, having been spoiled by fresh produce my whole life. I'm ok with freezing some fruit and vegetables, but our freezer space is limited.

We don't get any snow and frosts are rare and mild, which allows winter growing. Still, daylight is limited and cold temperatures definitely limit the options. Planting for winter takes some planning.

After consulting a number of Bay Area gardening websites and scrolling through their resources, I came up with a planting calendar. I started by collecting suitable planting months for all of the fruits and veggies I wanted to grow; these were compiled into a giant chart.

In March and April, the possibilities are almost endless, but the harvest is all summertime. Instead, I focused on planting done in September through December: any edible marked as suitable for planting during these months was highlighted. These mostly constituted hardy vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, kale) and cool weather plants (lettuce, spring mix, peas).

The rest of the chart was highlighted to ensure regular harvest of favorites and staples (beets, radishes, lettuce, etc.) and abundant, extended harvest of summer's best (tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, etc.). This is the schedule I came up with:

JANUARY cabbage carrots lettuce peas radishes
FEBRUARY beets lettuce radishes parsley
MARCH lettuce peas radishes
APRIL beets cucumber eggplant lettuce melon peppers radishes
MAY beans carrots lettuce melons
JUNE beets cucumber lettuce peppers tomatoes
JULY beans cabbage lettuce radishes squash
AUGUST beets broccoli lettuce radishes
SEPTEMBER carrots peas radishes
OCTOBER cauliflower Chinese cabbage kale
NOVEMBER peas
DECEMBER lettuce parsley

This is the basic plan. I can obviously supplement these categories as space becomes available. However, I know that, come April, I will need space for a lot of plants. (Many of these are actually already started indoors; more on that in a different post.)

In addition to vegetables, we have supplemented with some fruits. At our old place, we had thriving lemon, kumquat and lime trees. (Ok, mostly the lemon tree was thriving.) Our current place had a very healthy orange tree when we moved in, which has kept us well supplied with oranges this winter.

We have since added: a grape vine, two blueberry bushes, strawberry plants, a nectarine-plum-apricot tree, and a fig tree. We tried to space out fruits so that we would have a year round harvest. Oranges should last us through April. May might be a lull, but we should have stone fruit by June. Berries will arrive late summer, followed by figs and grapes in the fall.

The nectarine-plum-apricot tree.

I'd like to keep track of what works and what doesn't, as well as note how well stocked we were in produce through the winter months. We are also toying with signing up for a CSA--we are excellent at using all sorts of strange veggies and it would allow us to grocery shop every other week. A small box might be enough to supplement our own supply of veggies.

There are a few blogs I read regularly; one of them, Writing Chapter Three, talks a lot about food budgets. Although we generally give preference to high quality foods over inexpensive foods, it has gotten us thinking about what we purchase on a weekly basis.

Ashley talks a lot about their target budget of $60/week for food and groceries. I'm sure we are a very different family than them, but we've made our goal budget similarly, around $70/week. For us, this is very easy to manage, even buying a significant portion of our diet as organics.

Our typical weekly grocery list includes:
8-10 different vegetables, all seasonal, a mix of fresh and frozen (75-80% organics)
3 pieces fruit/person/day, supplemented by homegrown oranges (organic dirty dozen)
3-5 types of grains/starches (potatoes, hot cereal, bread, popcorn, etc) (75-80% organics)
5-7 servings of concentrated protein (dried beans, tofu, faux meats)
2 cartons non-dairy milk
1# of nuts/seeds

Some of our tricks:

1. Don't waste any food. Seriously, this has been the biggest help to our budget. We use everything. I eat apple cores; celery tops go into smoothies; the ends of carrots and orange peels go into our compost bin. When leftovers are starting to go, one of us has to buckle down and eat them. (Usually me--I do most of the household eating, and have generally low food standards.)

2. Rethink chores as entertainment. Why spend $1 to rent a movie and $1/pound more for almond butter, when you can just entertain yourself by grinding your own? I spend my weekends out in the garden--making compost, working the soil, pruning our orange tree, etc--instead of wandering the mall or the grocery store.

3. Start a garden. This isn't feasible everywhere--some places there just isn't enough sun to grow much successfully. But grow as much as you can. If it's cool and gray, grow peas. If the winters are cold and the summers hot, try cucumbers, bell peppers and tomatoes. Fruit trees are super low maintenance and often abundant if you select a variety appropriate for where you live--plus fruit is one of the most expensive grocery items.

4. Eat more vegetables, less fruit. Fruit is expensive. In the summer time, it's cheaper, but eating a 50 cent nectarine twice a day adds up quickly. $75/week = ~$11/day = ~$5.50/person/day. Eating vegetables for the nutrients and adding calories with grains and beans is much less expensive than eating fruit.

5. Stop buying packaged foods. If it has more than one ingredient, don't buy it. We're not there 100%--we still buy soy milk and breads--but we no longer buy crackers, cookies, etc. They aren't necessarily cheaper to make at home, but it is cheaper to replace them with whole foods, like oatmeal, nuts, beans, veggies, etc. We recently started making our own hummus from dried beans, which is incredible.

6. Menu plan. This helps us tremendously with #1. Produce rarely goes on sale at our local store--the price and availability simply varies by season. For example, winter bell peppers are over $4/pound for organic, but I expect that in summer, that price will drop to ~$1/pound. Therefore, we don't need tons of flexibility for sales in our menu plan--I know what will be cheap before I arrive.

7. Use the freezer. Sometimes, it doesn't matter whether a fruit or vegetable was frozen. Our local corner market sells papaya on its last leg for $0.50/lb. We buy it, peel/cube it and freeze it for smoothies. Squishy shelf berries at reduced prices and seasonal cranberries freeze for hot cereals. We also buy frozen organic spinach and frozen sweet peas for soups and pastas.

8. Bike to the grocery store. This is the absolute best way to prevent over-buying. If it doesn't fit in your bags, tough luck. And who wants to cycle home with extra food on their back? Of course, we live less than a mile from an incredible store, which makes this plausible, but we used to cycle four miles every other week to pick up groceries. (In Princeton, I cycled 4.5 on my rickety mountain bike, in the snow/rain, on a dirt path, with no lights and partially non-functioning brakes--no excuses, people!)

9. Shop around. We buy our soymilk at Safeway. It's about $1 cheaper per carton, and we consume 2 cartons a week; $2/week *50 weeks/year = $100 in our pockets. The two stores are walking distance apart, so no extra gas money. While we're there, we also check their sales and sometimes pick up staples (pasta, sliced bread) or produce when it's on sale.

10. Make friends with somebody who works at a grocery store. Our housemate works at Whole Foods. She often brings home awesome stuff from work--lightly bruised apples, berries about to spoil, hummus samples, etc--at very reduced prices.

There are tons of other ways to save money on food--sharing with lots of people, eating less, taking advantage of free food at work and/or free samples--but these have been the most practical and/or had the biggest impact on our grocery budget.

None of these ask you to decrease the quality of your diet (unless you think vegetables are a poor substitute for fruit). In fact, many of our food saving tips have increased the quality of our diet, like menu planning. We have also allocated some of that savings to purchasing higher quality foods, like organic produce and high quality spices.

How do you make your grocery budget work? Anything else we should try?

Basil and tomatoes

Radishes

Lime and lemon trees

Compost bin

The orange tree (I started pruning it back today)

We have a gazillion oranges left.

The necta-plum-cot tree

Cilantro

Blueberries

Future cabbages

spring mix

chives and parsley-to-be

the pea trellis

baby pea plants

Posting a fast time and being a great athlete are two different things altogether. Usually, though, fast times are a result of being a great athlete.

I'm not talking about genetics, musculature or the talent to throw a ball accurately. I'm talking about the attitude and dedication you bring to your training.

It's been a long journey, with a lot of years spent as a terrible athlete. Finally, though, I feel like I am making progress in the right direction. This is a collection of advice given to me and my experiences along the way.

1. Take a step back. In many ways, I made the most gains as an athlete in the year I took away from the sport. I came back with a new perspective: I understood that there was more to life than rowing, and a bad practice was not the end of the world--just something to learn from and improve upon. I also came back with a renewed passion and dedication: I knew I would rather be suffering through a grueling workout than sitting on the couch. I finally took ownership of my training.

2. Put yourself into uncomfortable situations. Make bets with your teammates; challenge people to races; give your friend a check for $500, and tell them to cash it if you don't do all of your weight lifting. You should always feel like your seat, your place on the team, is at risk--if you don't, seek out better competitors.

3. Accept where you are. Self-confidence is important, and sometimes you have to believe you are the fastest even when you aren't. But 99% of the time, the situation calls for understanding your place. This gives you freedom to lose to somebody better, and instead strive to close the margin.

4. Seek out your own weaknesses. As fatigue builds through a training cycle, I cave and prematurely scale back intensity. I'm lazy about stretching, lifting and resting. I overestimate the power of nutrition to make me faster (nobody has ever gone to the Olympics for eating well). I overanalyze everything. My erg scores are too slow. In summary, I have a lot to work on--but I'm making progress in the right direction.

5. Ask questions (and listen to the answers). Find successful coaches and ask them about being a better athlete. Find successful athletes who have achieved what you want to achieve, and ask them how they did it, what they would have done differently, etc. Ask your coaches, doctors and teammates for information--they can help you identify your weaknesses and keep you accountable for fixing them. Most importantly, though, listen to what these people have to say--write it down, think about it, and apply it to your training.

6. Have patience. The human body is incredible, but training for 8 hours on Tuesday will not improve your performance by Wednesday. You cannot lose a pound of fat in a day, nor gain a pound of muscle. If you are impatient, spend time developing good habits beyond your training schedule: stretch more, drink water, nap, de-stress, or educate yourself. Find other areas to make progress in the meantime.

And in line with #5, any other advice? What else can I work on?

I know red lentils get super mushy, but I love them. They make lentil soups seem creamy, and create a stewy texture. (I strongly prefer stew to soup--if it holds it shape when dished out, it's the perfect consistency.)

We've made a coconut curry and kale soup a few times, but we decided to change things up a bit this week. I found a recipe through FoodGawker, originally from the New York Times; I kept the basic spice profile, but used a slow cooker and added spinach.

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Red Lentil Stew
makes ~4 quarts


1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, sliced
Salt to taste
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons yellow curry powder
1 (28-ounce) can chopped tomatoes with juice (we used fire-roasted)
1 pound red lentils (about 2 1/8 cups), washed and picked over
2 quarts water
black pepper (more to taste)
Cayenne
Juice of 1/2 lime

1. Put all of the ingredients into the slow cooker
2. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or high 3-4 hours. Stir once, if possible, about halfway through.
3. Enjoy over rice or with bread. Also tasty with potatoes and soyrizo.
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