#189: Hints for Healthy Holiday Eating
Janet Helm, nutritionist, blogger ‘Nutrition Unplugged,’author ‘Cooking Light’s 12 Healthy Habits’
Dimity and Sarah welcome Janet Helm, a registered dietitian in Chicago, on the show. The author of The Food Lover’s Healthy Habits Cookbook: Great Food & Expert Advice that Will Change Your Life and a mom of twins, Janet blasts away nutrition myths and misinformation and gives heaping helpings of holiday eating advice. Find out what triggers overeating—and how to move on—and why you need to give up the idea of perfection. (Both in your eating and your exercise!) Be prepared to drool in the final third of the show, when talk turns to examples of how taste and health can co-exist. The mother runners suspect you’ll buy a head of cauliflower within a day of listening to this episode—but probably not a Fathead!
Reminder: We hope to hear from you! We want you to record a voice memo on your smartphone in which you either reflect back on a major accomplishment in 2015 or you cast forward and tell us your 2016 goals and aspirations. Please record a voice memo in which you tell us your first name, how many kids you have, and where you’re calling from, then either your 2015 accomplishment or your 2016 goal. Please keep your entire voice memo to 90 seconds or less. Email it to us at: runmother [at] gmail [dot] com by Monday, December 21.
We want to have a slew of voice memos from a range of mother runners, so implore you to take the time to record and send one to us. Thanks in advance!
#188: Sports Acupuncture for Runners
No Yanni-esque ponytail or chimes in sight: Sarah with sports acupuncturist Erik Isaacman.
Sarah welcomes AMR columnist Adrienne Martini as guest co-host for a conversation about sports acupuncture; Erik Isaacman, the Portland-based acupuncturist who treated Sarah for her multi-fractured ankle earlier this year, joins the conversation in studio. Erik explains the origin of the hippie vibe surrounding the Eastern medicine, then dispels the patchouli-and-chimes misconceptions about acupuncture. Not just needles: Find out what all can be involved in an acupuncture session, and why Adrienne blurts out, “I love cupping!” Learn what running ailments and injuries sports acupuncture can treat best, how long a course of treatment might be, and how to find a practitioner in your area.
But first: Find out why Adrienne asked co-workers to feel her butt post-run, and why she does a striptease act on her out-and-back runs in upstate New York.
Dry Martini: Medals and More
I hope that your respective Thanksgivings were lovely. If you are not of a persuasion that celebrates either Thanksgiving or puts your Thanksgiving in October, I hope you had a lovely Thursday last week. Unless you are in Australia and my fourth Thursday in November was your fourth Friday in July. Time zones are confusing.
I don’t think I looked that angry throughout the whole race. My selfie game at the Trot was just not on fleek, as the kids say.
I did what many Americans do on our national day of feasting, which is fling on my running gear, race a little, then come back home and poke at a hot, nude, dead bird. As one does.
The first time I ran the Turkey Trot in Oneonta, temps were in the teens and there was a blinding snow. Last year, which I missed because we’d gone to my hometown for the holiday, the streets were covered in ice. This year I was ready. I had my new Saucony Siberius pants and trusty blue fleece ready to go. Instead, the weather was perfect for racing. Chilly, yes, but not windy or rainy. Once we got moving, it was ideal.
I had zero goals for the race, other than to run it. The last two weeks at work have been deadline-a-palooza and the thought of having to push through yet. another. thing. was more than I could deal with. So I planned to run hard for the first mile — Herr Garmin said 10:31 — then just see how I felt — good enough for mile 2 to be a 10:56. I lost focus during the last mile, mostly because walking a little started to seem like the best idea ever, and finished a respectable-for-me 33:25. That might even be a 5K PR but, unlike SBS, I don’t have that information stored in my head and am way too lazy to look it up.
The first time is the chip time; the second is the gun time. There was some confusion about where the start actually was.
Then I ate my weight in stuffing and pie. Again: as one does.
Not sure if I can fully blame the pie and stuffing but it felt like I was encased in ten-tons of don’t wanna when it was time for Saturday’s long run, a mere six miles in a cold drizzle. I did have an ace up my sleeve or, rather, a medal.
On a lark a few weeks ago, I signed up for the Hogwarts Running Club’s Patronus 5K. It’s a virtual race, which essentially means you donate to a worthy cause and then they send you a medal that you award yourself after you run the required distance. I’d like to say that I’d saved the medal as bait for a day when I really lacked the will to get myself out there. Truthfully, however, I totally forgot that it was on my desk, had unearthed it the day before, and decided to use it as bait.
That’s what we do in my house: turn our faults into features — or, at the very least, devise ways to work around them and hope no one notices.
Tedious. Just tedious.
When I finished my six miles, which brought me a new appreciation of the word “tedious,” I put my new medal around my neck, wore it around the house until I took a shower, then hung it on my official medal rack because I’d earned it.
Other than that, there’s not much I can report on my personal running front. The most exciting bit of news is that I made two discoveries during my previous weekend’s Eminem long run, which is a) negative splits are easy to arrange if the first half is uphill into a wind and b) northing you can get your hands on in the middle of a long run on rural streets can get the taste of a vanilla orange Roctane out of your mouth. While I love most other GUs, Vanilla Orange goes on my list of Do Not Want right next to Peanut Butter.
I did get to don my Siberius pants and trusty blue fleece this week on Monday’s 4.5, which I did at o’dark thirty when it was a balmy 19F. While I did immediately park my heiner in front of our wood stove the instant I got home, it didn’t help much. I’m still not sure everything is thawed out back there. I don’t blame my gear (although I am starting to think about packing some chemical hand warmers back there). We have simply reached the point in the year when assicles abound.
My other exciting news is that I bought new running shoes, because it was past time to do so. Which brings me to my perennial question: what should I do with the old pair, other than toss them into my closet with all of the other old pairs? There’s not much running life left in them, otherwise I’d ship them off to Heart Strides. Anyone know of a good place to donate my old kicks?
The Holidays: A Race I Didn’t Enter
The family. A picture which may or may not make it into a few mailboxes around the country this holiday season.
I’m not really a Scrooge—I love the lights and finding the perfect present and all the fa la la that goes with it—but December always takes me by surprise. Like I somehow landed at the starting line of a half-marathon that I have no memory of entering, let alone training for.
But the gun goes off on December 1, and I start loping along with everybody else who seems to have prepared way better than I have. I always feel resentful the first few miles. Why do our neighbors put their lights up so dang early? Why do my (already very fortunate) kids fixate on presents—gifts that will likely be gathering dust by mid-January, if not sooner? Why hasn’t a cute sparkly skirt, perfect for holiday parties, magically appeared in my closet? Why do I keep clicking on emails for deals on stuff that I’ll never buy?
And don’t even get me started on holiday cards.
Then I make a batch of Peanut Butter Kiss cookies on a snowy day, and settle in. Still not willingly, mind you, but I resign myself to the fact that if I’ve got to run, I may as well try to find a rhythm. My husband strings up our lights, a display that feels weak, at best, compared to the penguins and snowmen and blinking bling hanging out on other roofs. But hey: the lights are up, and they make our house look festive, especially after a light snowfall. My daughter and I sing “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” at the top of our lungs as I drive her to swim practice. I drop money in the Salvation Army kettle every time I hear the bell. I pretend to listen to every story the kids want to tell me about each tree ornament. (“I made this Frosty in Pre-K with Ms. Sadie…”)
I still don’t have a cute sparkly skirt though, and I don’t have teacher gifts. I have to get some teacher gifts stat. Oh, and I can’t forget the postman and milk guy and garbagemen and…I shovel about five Kiss cookies down the hatch as I melt thinking about all the things left to do.
By the time we host our annual cookie decorating party for kids—the only tradition I have continued from my childhood—I can, way off in the distance, kinda see the finish line. It’s a comforting mirage, but I know I’m kidding myself if I think I’m going to get there anytime soon. Run the mile you’re in.
I put aside the thought of the great germ transfer that’s about to happen (I’ve seen kids lick the frosting knives and done or said nothing) and do my best to smile through the sugar-fueled energy that overtakes our house. When the final kid has been picked up, I crack a Milk Stout—hey, I gotta fuel, right?—and page through Sunset magazine to relax, shake out my arms, find my breath again.
Who am I kidding? There’s no relaxing in this race. I promise myself I’m going to try one of Sunset’s DIY wreaths, even if it’s just the paper one.
I wear last year’s skirt to the parties, and tell myself nobody will notice. Enough egg nog at the aid stations, and I won’t notice either.
Passing the halfway mark, I have a serious case of performance anxiety. I fret that I haven’t balanced out the presents between the two kids. That I’ve spent too much money. That I haven’t spent enough. That my husband doesn’t need another sweater, but what else do you get him? That the holiday experience our family has created doesn’t measure up to the one I had as a kid.
I calm down by reminding myself I don’t remember, save a few random sweaters and a Pappgallo purse I simply couldn’t live without, any gifts from my youth. That the best part of Christmas is the excitement, the build-up, the time spent together getting ready for one big day. I drink another Milk Stout, and look for the elusive Zone in which I can simply just exist and run. I download the “Take a Break” meditation app, and give it a whirl, then make a note to myself: meditate before opening a beer.
The days and miles march on. I get sick of hearing Madonna sing Santa Baby, but I can’t bring myself to change the channel. I’ve got a canker sore in my mouth, but there’s just two decorated cookies left in this bin, so I may as well just eat them. I stop into a few cute shops on Pearl Street, just in case there’s something else somebody just has to have.
I’m running without thinking: my preferred way.
I actually look forward to having the kids home for break. For about two hours. Then the bickering starts. I start assigning random chores just to separate them and vow we are going to have daily quiet time (one hour, minimum). Two weeks and two days of vacation? WTH?
Somehow, I make it to mile 12, and the end truly is in sight. After fighting with Ben about how he needs to wear pants, not the same shorts he’s slept in for three days, to church on Christmas Eve, I put on last year’s sparkly skirt again.
As the organ booms and congregation sings Joy to the World, I inevitably tear up. I look down at my family. I can’t believe they all belong to me. I’m so grateful for this moment, so grateful to be alive. It’s momentary, but it’s enough. My legs don’t remember the previous miles, the late-night wrapping and the sprinkle sweeping and the second guessing.
Joy to the Finish Line. Joy to the World.
The final .1 mile—Christmas morning—is a sprint. Despite my pleading to slow down, the kids go as fast as they can, emptying their tanks as they rip through presents. It’s over. I wrap a blanket around myself, grab some snacks and beverages, breathe a sign of relief and look forward to my favorite part of any race: getting the stories from friends and family.
How do you approach the holidays? A race you happily enter? Reluctantly enter? You don’t even remember you entered?