Vegetables

This should be a huge part of every meal. Fresh, organic vegetables and fruits. I encourage you to join a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, either one that delivers to a central drop off point, or to your home.


By doing this, you will be assured of eating what is in season, so that means that the food will be at the height of freshness and full of vitamins and minerals and anti-oxidants. When you belong to a CSA, they only deliver what they grew, and that means it is the right time to eat it. It tastes better when it is in season too.


It also ensures that the food is healthier for you. It won't be grown in a hot house, or flown from all over the world. It is meant to be eaten now.


What would I do with this delivery?


Strawberries and oranges would be eaten as they are.


Artichokes would be steamed.


Avocados would go in salad.


Beets would be roasted in the oven (in a pan with a little water, covered with foil) until tender, about 30 minutes.


Beet greens would be sauteed in olive oil, and served as a side dish.


Chard would be sauteed in olive oil and red pepper flakes added.


Carrots would be eaten in salad, or on their own as a snack.


Celery would be cut up for crunch in a salad.


Green onions, cut into large pieces on the diagonal, added to salad.


Cilantro? In salad, I love whole cilantro leaves for a burst of flavor.


And, of course the lettuce, it forms the base of the salad.

Long Hot Days

David said I look like I have a black eye. It's probably mascara and eyeliner smeared all over the place if you want to know the truth, that and my hair in my eyes. I am a mess!


Some days I really do want to rest, I want to go home and not rush to do all I do, and maybe just lay on the bed and read a bit. But luckily I have friends and strangers who say things to keep me motivated and I snap out of it quickly.


Today is Tuesday, it's about 7:30 pm, and the typical Tuesday goes like this:


Up at 4am, drink meal replacement, take supplements, check email, steal a glance at the sports page (of two newspapers). Arrive at the gym before they open at 5am. Weight train till 6:20, down my post training drink and more supplements, grab a coffee at the cafe and drive home fast, I need to be at work by 7:30.


Shower, put on make up, drink more coffee the whole time. Toss breakfast and two lunches into my car, drive to work and get there at 7:35.


My office is "connected" to another in that the heat and air is controlled by the other person. This person likes it hot. My office is 80 degrees every morning when I arrive. I start to sweat and turn the fan on the rest of the day. I am not joking. :(


Eat breakfast of chocolate waffles (yes they are diet food) at my desk while I check email. Work, meetings, yada, yada, yada. 


11:30 I change and grab my jump rope and ipod, and some cloth bags, it's CSA day. I jog to the Event Center, run up and down my stairs (300 up, 300 down, two at a time on the way up) and jump rope 300 times. It's hot, really hot, mid 80's I think. Being on top of a cement building seems to make the heat radiate off my body, that's OK, I take my shirt off and sweat away.


It seems to becoming popular, there are three people today and one guy who climbs the stairs backward, on his toes and hands....don't ask.


I grab my bags and jog to the Nutrition and Food Science Building and pick up my produce. Darn, no flowers today! I order flowers for my office and today they are out. :(


I start to walk back to the office, past the Event Center and a construction worker who has been there all summer in the courtyard says to me (as he walks in front of a semi truck, keeping students out of its path):


"I have never seen you walk!"


I laugh and tell him I walk all the time. Get back to the office at 12 noon and I get to eat! Good I am starving. 3 ounces brown rice, 4 ounces chicken breast, 2 cups vegetables (peppers and mushrooms) and supplements. I eat at my desk, working. You really don't want to see any of my keyboards....


More work, more meetings.


2:30, I am starving! I push it out another half hour since I cannot eat dinner as soon as I get home.


3:00: 4 ounces ground grass fed beef, tomatoes, pimiento peppers, arugula and fat free vinaigrette.


More work, more meetings. Sheesh!


5:00, leave for home, drive with the top down (of course!) and it's even hotter now, my car tells me it is now 86 degrees. The hot air blows in my hair and face. 


5:30 I am home. Do I really have to ? It's hot, I could probably skip it...No.


I change into the same damn clothes I have now worn twice already (this morning, lunch and now again). They are wet. I have to stop doing this, but they will only get wet again, so why put on clean ones? I will bring clean ones tomorrow when I train with Roy, I cannot subject anyone else to this wet mess. 


I grab a water, icy cold from the fridge and head out to the track across the street, the heat is radiating up making it hard to breathe.


Up the stadium stairs and down, up and down, then sprinting...6 times. I am breathing hard, the heat makes me go slower, but I am still doing it, I didn't quit. I jog home, then walk the last bit (where is my construction worker now?)


Make my dinner, still I am soaking wet, I only took my shoes off. I have 2 cups of vegetables (peppers, mushrooms, eggplant), 5 ounces tilapia, a hard cooked egg. Vinegar and Sriracha sauce. More supplements.


Make lunches for the next day, take my make up off, shower. 


Write, check email (this computer seems to suck a lot of my time huh?)


Make last meal. 1 cup egg whites and one cup mushrooms (I am a fungus gal for sure), a big glass of orange xtend, more supplements.


Sleepy time tea and off to bed to read a bit. 


My long hot day is gonna be a long hot night.


That's how Monday went and how Thursday will be also. Wednesday and Friday are a bit different since I train with Roy so things get a bit flip flopped. But I still have what seems to be a constant, never ending cycle of eating and training. 

Body and Soul

The boys were out of town for the weekend, I was on my own. Ah sweet nothingness! Actually I never do "nothing",  I feel like I will miss something in life. What would I do while they were gone? The same thing I do when they are here, only louder and with light! ha ha

I woke up at the crack of dawn and turned lights on! It was great to be able to walk around and see as I got ready for the gym. I met Maria for a while and we trained legs and glutes...I then went home and cooked my food for the upcoming week, chicken, beef, and lots of vegetables since I got two CSA deliveries. Virginia went out of town so she asked if I wanted hers, and I always get a delivery at work. I have enough produce for a family of 10 now. Good, I am cutting starches way back and will need the vegetables.

Stacy and I went to the San Jose Jazz Festival and wandered, people watching. She and I are more alike than I had realized. When she says "should I bring food?" I know that means her own particular meals, it won't be crackers, cheese, chips or junk.

When I say "let's get a drink" she knows that means water.

We both schedule our lives around our training and food prep, and we understand that about each other. 

I was feeling good as I walked through the crowds of people, and it really shows when you feel good about yourself. 

A man smiles at me and says "nice tan!" I am not tan, but I may look tan. I have had basal cell cancer, I use tanning lotion, tanning is for fools. But I also have a trick: Body Bling. The gold bottle is for blonds, it gives a beautiful golden color; the black bottle is darker, it gives a more tan color, sometimes I mix them.

Body Bling makes your skin look like a golden statue, it's amazing. I put it on my legs and it transforms plain legs to glistening works of art. Even Stacy asked me about my tan....


A woman and man at a booth selling drinks waved me over. She leaned out and said "Your arms are amazing! He was going on and on about your arms and I told him I am trying to work on mine but we wanted to see you up close!" I smiled and laughed and waved as I walked away.


We walked on, towards the blues stage, I wanted to see Eric Lindell.


A woman looks at me and says "You have a beautiful body!" and her friend turns to look and says "Uh huh, I noticed she sure does!"


I smile and thank them and walk on. I tell Stacy it happens all the time, almost everyday, I just don't get it. "It all makes the hard work worth it though." I told her, she agreed.  


A couple guys talk to me, I haven't the heart to tell them I am older than their mother..or maybe they don't care?


We talked and joked with the police on every corner, they sure were friendly! 


A guy asks if Stacy and I are single, they are having a dating show for single women. I tell him we are single for a couple hours, we have no time for his show. He laughs and agrees. As we walk away I laugh and tell her that we don't need a show to find a date anyway! We both bust out in laughter and people wonder what we have been drinking...

We enjoy the music and watch the people, pointing out the beautiful bodies to one another. I like to look at beautiful bodies. We critique and comment about what appears to be original parts and what is "refurbished". We talk about how some could improve in certain areas with proper training or a modified diet. 


We spend a long time watching a woman dancing by herself. We wonder if it is drugs or just a very free spirit. She certainly was having a good time and danced beautifully. She left when the music stopped, we assumed to spread her joy elsewhere. 


We left, driving home with the top down, each would go home to more cooking and planning, we run our schedules the same it seems. 


I felt good, I felt wonderful to relax, to have all my hard work recognized by strangers, to enjoy the festival completely straight but high on life. 


And to be in the company of a wonderful person who values the same things in life I do, hard training, physical activity, great healthy food; and the curiosity of what makes people tick.


I started cooking again, went to bed early and planned to get plenty of rest for my next long day at the gym. Sunday would be back day, and I planned to turn the lights on and make some noise when I got out of bed!

Tomatillo Salsa

I treat my body as royalty, I deserve the best! I am talking about my food.....So many people buy the cheapest thing they can get, I shake my head with wonder as I listen to people talk about how cheap their tilapia is or their frozen vegetables are. I think they don't even realize that the more alive your food is, the more nutrients and taste it has!

I get a CSA delivery of vegetables and fruit at my office every Tuesday, I get what I get, it's what is in season and I love it! It comes from J.P. Organics, but that doesn't last long so I also go to the Campbell Farmers Market every Sunday too.  

I fell in love with these purple tomatillos from Catalan Family Farm. The taste is sweeter than green tomatillos. Last week I made salsa with avocado for the boys, this week I made some a little different without the avocado, I wanted to control the fats a bit more. I decided to use the sweet tomatillos, shiny chilaka chiles (use pasilla if you cannot find these) and cilantro. 

First I shucked the tomatillos and pan roasted them until they were blistered and starting to bubble inside, some bursting slightly.

I then blistered the chiles on a cast iron pan, I wanted a slightly charred taste to go with the sweetness of the tomatillos. 

I roughly chopped the chiles, then put the chiles, tomatillos, cilantro and a splash of water into a blender and whisked it up. I added some salt and pepper then the juice of half a lime.

It was stunning. It was a party in my mouth! The sweet and tangy tomatillos, the earthy chiles and just a hint of lime.

For lunch I topped my bowl with some, I had 4 ounces sauteed ground turkey breast, cauliflower, 3 ounces rice and green beans. And my party salsa.


This is great because it is packed with flavor, no fat, minimal carbs (and it's not starches anyway, its mainly sugars just like a tomato). A little goes a long way, so adding just a bit adds pizazz to my meal.

For dinner I had Knee Deep Cattle Company vitellone. This is not veal, it is free range,  grass fed young beef. I buy it from Prather Ranch at the farmers market. I cooked it rare (you can see I think) topped it with a couple tablespoons of salsa and had green beans and my favorite, mushrooms.


Try the salsa, it is amazing!

Organic Vegetables

We all want to be lean, or at least not have what some idiot came up with to describe a huge fat stomach that hangs over our pants - a "muffin top" right?

No one wants to feel hungry. Although, I must say, a great deal of "hunger" is thirst and also psychological, but that is way beyond this little blurb!

Anyway, we all eat garbage that may fill us up at the moment, may taste good at the moment, yet it does not sustain us, it does not build muscle and healthy bones, and it makes us fat.

We all know what these foods are- or do we?

Obviously cakes and cookies and ANY packaged snack- I don't care if it is "healthy baked sun-chips" is crap. You can indulge once in a while, and that does not mean every weekend.

Treat your body the way it deserves to be treated. It is a work of art (or it COULD be) and it needs to be treated as such. 

Only put healthy foods into it. Keep it clean with a mild soap, wax it (hee hee), decorate it, cover it at night and keep it warm and safe.

Oh- Eat lots of veg too will ya?

What you see above is my weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) delivery. I get this at work every Tuesday. Here is what I received this week:

Eggs, potatoes, red leaf lettuce, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, beets, broccoli, sugar snap peas, strawberries and oranges. The food is all organic, just picked and it cost $27.00 (that's including the dozen eggs!)

I look forward to my "box" every week. On Tuesdays as I head out the door to run my stairs, I grab my cloth bag, because my delivery is dropped off at the University Food Science building. I run my stairs, jump my rope, then I run to the building where this is delivered. I usually munch on something as I walk back to my office, unless of course I am prepping for a competition, then fruit does not pass my lips, nor does any snack not on the schedule!

It is very important to eat a lot of vegetables not only for the vitamins and minerals, but to provide fiber and the feeling of fullness. When you are reducing calories, it will be the starches. The bread, rice, beans, pasta, the good stuff that we all fill up on. To counteract this, we need to eat more vegetables.

When I am striving to drop body fat, I reduce or eliminate starches at dinner most nights (but I do add it back in every few nights so my metabolism doesn't get used to this). So, I eat 2 to 3 cups of vegetables at dinner. I am full, I am getting carbs (but not starchy carbs) and it is satisfying.

Check out a CSA. I have found that it ensures I eat produce that is in season, not just what's in the store. It is organic, it is local and it is fresh. 

Lots of CSA's deliver to a home and people pick up there, many deliver to businesses. Google CSA today!