healthy living – Frozen Grapes Are Not Dessert

Back to It

When we were on vacation, I packed my running shoes, as I have for many other vacations, and — for a change — I used them. Running in rural Minnesota is truly ideal. It was a surprise to me, but I’ve found that my favorite time of day to run is early morning. 6am or so. This might be because it’s summer, and I don’t particularly like the idea of running in the heat of the afternoon, and it might be because this is the time that’s available to me, so I love it out of necessity. But there’s something about the whole brand-new-day factor. “Fresh, with no mistakes in it.” I find that you meet fewer people, which I like, because I become a little proprietary about where I run, and the people you do meet are friendly in a non-intrusive, 6am, we’re all in this together sort of way. On a Saturday at 6am in rural Minnesota, you’ve pretty much got the roads to yourself, which is ideal in my opinion. John Muir said, “Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” There’s just something about a dirt road that sings to the soul. Minnesota at 6am on a dirt road is a beautiful thing, for the eyes and for the soul.

Western South Dakota is also a gorgeously beautiful, mostly rural place to run. Unless, of course, you’re staying at a hotel with an attached water park in the business loop of Rapid City. I asked the front desk how to get out of the overflowing parking lot and into the neighborhood behind us. The answer was, You can’t, on foot. And while I could have gone back to our room, retrieved the car keys, driven to a neighborhood, or driven to somewhere beyond the neighborhood, I took the front desk’s advice to use the frontage road next to the hotel. Having just come from my nearly poetic Minnesota run, the frontage road of I-90 wasn’t quite as ideal. In Minnesota at 6am, the only sounds were birds, and roosters, and the dogs I woke up by running by (oops). I-90 isn’t crazy busy at 6am, but there’s still the sound of traffic. Really, I’m listening to music anyway, so I have no business complaining about ambient noise. But there is a definite difference. And the I-90 frontage road was fine. Paved. Safe. It’s sort of motivating to mark time by billboards. They seem close together when you’re driving by, but there are actually quite a few steps between them. There’s certainly no proprietary sense of owning the 6am morning, or owning the road, with interstate traffic speeding by beside you. But as you run by the stark black and white Who Is Jesus billboard, next to the Smoking Gun Indoor Range, you definitely have things to think about. And beyond both of those things, there’s a very pretty view of rolling green hills. You just have to work a little harder for it.

Returning to Colorado, pretty proud of myself for having kept up on running, even on vacation, I promptly got the kind of summer cold that makes you question every healthy thing you’re doing for your body, because obviously your body is a traitor who hates you, and why are you even attempting to make life better for that jerk? And so, for a week, when my alarm went off at 6am, I fought off the Nyquil haze only long enough to push aside the fluffy white pile of tissues beside me to hit snooze, and went back to bed. By Friday evening, I probably could have run but I opted for a phone call, sushi and a glass (and a half) of wine instead. Which I still think was a good choice. But Saturday is a new week, and 6am found me tying up my running shoes. “I probably won’t be gone long,” I told my husband. “It’s been a week, so I’m probably back to zero again.” But you know? I wasn’t. I was maybe an 8 out of 10, if you generously put where I was before the backstabbing summer cold as a 10. But beyond being a bit more expectorant-y, a little more out of breath, my body carried me through. Maybe it doesn’t hate me after all. Sorry I called you a traitor.

My Month Without Sugar, Grains or Dairy

Today I was supposed to have my one-month appointment with my nutritionist after she started me on the no-grain, no-dairy, no-sugar train 4 weeks ago. In the beginning of the month, I was counting down to today with the glee of a child (or teacher) coming to the end of the school year. As today got closer, my countdown became less about just muscling through the days, and more about the accomplishment (for me, major) of going so long without sugar. And grains and dairy, sure… But I was definitely anticipating the no sugar as being the most difficult.

Today, it’s been a month. And has it been difficult? It has. The first week especially was really rough. I was nauseous and headachey and tired. Throughout the month, if I didn’t plan ahead, I ran into trouble — and hunger. Dinner leftovers were a necessity, and so were the small bag of raw almonds that I started keeping both in my purse and in my desk. Almond butter, on the eat moderately list, became my new best friend. It was the creamy indulgence that I needed to push through some days. And avocados… high five, little guys. It’s funny because in the past month I haven’t thought about fat content at all. In fact, almonds, almond butter and avocados all have high fat content (healthy fats, of course), and despite eating them liberally, I’ve lost weight. But I was looking forward to adding some variety into my diet. I miss fruit especially… a peach, banana and mango salad sounds amazing. And watermelon… I’ve been seeing so many summer cocktail recipes lately, and watermelon has been on my mind.

Yesterday, my doctor’s office called to say that my nutritionist was out sick and that they would touch base to reschedule my appointment “sometime next week.” My initial reaction was dismay. I’d worked so hard to get to THIS DATE. And rescheduling next week meant an appointment even further out.

“But Matt,” I said to the receptionist, “Lauren has me on a no grain, no sugar, no dairy diet.” I paused, but he didn’t gasp in horror, so I went on, “I was really hoping to re-introduce some things with the holiday weekend!” Matt laughed, as though we had a mutual joke, “Well, no one here is ever going to tell you to reintroduce grains.”

I hung up the phone feeling cheated and discouraged. But it also made me question the entire journey in a different way. The quest for wellness is certainly a first world luxury, and it’s a booming industry. Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get different advice. This doctor or nutrition expert (or non-expert) will swear by going gluten-free, while the next person recommends macrobiotics, or flexitarian or paleo diets. Detox diets, Atkins diets, juice cleanses and never eat anything except free-range, grass-fed meat and organic produce. Some of that makes sense to me, some of it does not. How is a regular person supposed to figure it out when the experts, and I use the term loosely, offer such different solutions?

“No one here is ever going to suggest you reintroduce grains.” Hm. Then maybe this isn’t the right place for me, because while I don’t pretend to have answers, cutting out entire parts of the food pyramid (that ancient artifact) just doesn’t ring true for me long term. I may be wrong, but that’s where my gut is coming from, and since it’s my gut I’m healing, it seems wise to listen to it.

And yet now I’m not sure where to go from here. I feel a lot better these days, and my clothes fit better and my complexion is better. Better is good. I don’t want to lose that, but I seem to do best when I have hard and fast rules for myself. No gluten has worked for me, but I’ve often wondered if it’s the lack of gluten that makes me feel better, or is it the natural substitutions from pretzels to veggies and humus, the ability to say no to cake for a currently-societally-acceptable reason? No sugar is non-negotiable and honestly if I can do it, it’s totally doable (at least for a month). But what if I want to just occasionally have a piece of chocolate? How do I make sure that that occasional piece doesn’t sneak back in with the Easter-basket-raiding ferocity of my life-long sugar habit? It’s been a long and stressful month at work, and I did it without grains or sugar (or dairy, but that’s almost an afterthought). That should feel empowering, but I also know that part of the reason I didn’t stress eat my worries was because I had a zero tolerance policy. But that’s the old ship in harbor metaphor. That’s not what ships are for.

Up next: trusting myself enough to loosen the reins without giving up control of my direction.

View from the Top

I was much braver when I was younger. Or perhaps I was just younger. I studied abroad without knowing a soul; I moved across the country without a job and with very little money. And those risks paid off. While in England, I met lifelong friends, traveled to places with history measured in tens of centuries rather than centennials and came home with my viewpoint forever broadened. Becoming a Coloradan a dozen years ago (though a dozen years puts me no closer to being one of those rare breeds, a native), clearly changed my life. Roads diverged, and here we are.

Somehow, though, in the last decade, I’ve taken fewer risks. You don’t like change, my husband would say with a shrug, and somehow that had become true, and hearing it said made it more true. It became a reason and an excuse all in one. I went into a period of anxiety, which I still fight in thankfully lesser ways, where routine seemed even more important. Sit down you’re rocking the boat. When getting through the day in one piece is a battle, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for risk. My career path had always lacked ambition – I didn’t know how to marry my wish to never be management with career advancement – and anyway it seemed like my husband had enough ambition for both of us. But eventually it seemed like it wasn’t just my career path that lacked ambition, but my life. The most terrifying quote on Earth, I think, is Annie Dillard’s, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I didn’t feel like I was leaving much of a legacy, in big ways or small ways. For a while, I just dwelled lethargically in that place until finally, the risks of stagnancy were bigger than the risks of moving forward. It was out of this place that I began making small changes and my Frozen Grapes goal to be alert, healthy and present was born.

Today, we went for a hike as a family as we try to do on a Sunday. Our hike is generally fairly local and not too arduous, but with deep-sigh-contentment scenery. Today’s hike was no exception. One town to the south of us is Castle Rock, and Castle Rock boasts a “castle rock,” a big square rock on the top of a high plateau. We’ve been meaning to hike to the top of that rock, from Rock Park, for a while. The actual path of the hike was pretty similar to most of our other family hikes. Dirt inclines with some rough steps built into the trail here and there, some rocks creating natural steps other places. When we got to the top of the trail, though, we realized that the top of the rock, our destination, was simply up the rock itself. We’d been scrambling over other rocks to explore small caves and crevices, but this was the first scale of significance. But, we’d come to see the view from the top of the castle rock.

The way up is about 80 feet high, and though not particularly perilous, it involves several places where there isn’t a clear path forward. Find three points of balance, my husband told the girls (and me), and you’ll be fine. Midway up, Eva started to cry. “I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” This is one of those parenting moments when there are valid points on each side. If your child is scared to tears (although with Eva tears are usually pretty temporary), where’s the lesson? Trust your gut? Push through your fear? We’re right here beside you? Hopefully the right answer is a little of all three. We pushed on, heaping praise on our young scramblers, and taking photos from the top.

On the way down, momentum is different, and where you could pull yourself up on the ascent, it’s dropping yourself down on the descent. At one point, Patrick, carefully balanced, lifted Eva down, but as Samantha’s spotter, I didn’t have the strength for that, and her legs weren’t quite long enough to feel the ledge below. I braced my foot on the ledge to give her another couple of inches, but going backwards, it was still a game of trust. “There’s a ledge right there, I promise. You’ll step on my foot, and then be down.” And she did, and she was.

Sometimes courage comes in smaller doses, but it’s no less valiant for that. Knowing that you can navigate in a daily way gives confidence for the bigger challenges. I think I realized today that I’ve been equating courage with the willingness to step into a new frontier without a safety net. But really, it’s not so much that I haven’t changed my life in major ways lately, but that I feel like I’m finally moving forward again, and that I like the view from here.

Feeding the Habit

So, here’s an interesting thing that has happened as I tackle no grain, no dairy, no sugar. Every time I eat? It turns out it’s because I’m hungry. It’s hunger that is my cue to go in search of food, and this — I’m going to be honest — is pretty new to me. Of all the reasons I eat: I’m bored, I’m tired, I’m sad, I’m bored, I’m feeling angrily passive aggressive with no one close enough to take it out on… (because those people have decided they’d rather hang out with someone nice like Gordon Ramsey, instead…) Of all those reasons, hunger is usually farther down the list (a lot farther). I don’t want to say that the foods that are left after removing grains, dairy and sugar aren’t still good, solid, quality foods. A crisp red pepper? Grilled shrimp? Delicious stuff. My typical breakfast lately is over-easy eggs on a bed of Applegate deli turkey with a side of avocado. It’s great! But it’s also a little repetitive. Sometimes I switch it up with a lettuce wrap… with Applegate deli turkey and avocado. And if I’ve done a good job of planning, snacks of grilled chicken or a grab bag of cut celery and grape tomatoes? They certainly don’t sit tantalizingly in the work fridge, taunting me at my desk. If I haven’t done a good job of planning, my fall back spoonful of almond butter (moderate list!) also isn’t the stuff of food fantasies. InstagramCapture_708ed770-8261-4d37-8e41-c0d0ffdefce6

Habit is a great thing. It’s the foundation of civility, I think. It keeps us breaking at stop signs, even as we’re also running down the “did you do/grab/get/ask?” list during morning carpool. It means we say thank you as part of our routines and smile acknowledgment at strangers. But the other side of habit is rut. And I’ve definitely fallen into a rut of boredom and emotional eating. It’s been such a long day, I deserve this cookie, chocolate, wine, sundae… And you know what, sometimes I absolutely do. But as a treat, not as a dangling-carrot reward for staying ambulatory past 6pm and not just because it’s the first thing I blindly grab for in the dim, forgiving light of the rut. While I have 12 days in and 16 days left of this rather stringent diet (yes, I’m counting), they say that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I’ll have that and more under my belt, and I hope I take the lesson to heart and climb out of the rut.

I’m on my way. I’ve come to know what hunger feels like. And actually, it probably feels like my body regulating itself. I’m assuming. I’m new at this.