all natural

The engine that keeps us going on our THPL journey reacts significantly to what we use as fuel. There are so many choices that we can make, the type of food, the food group, cooked, raw, packaged and so much more.  And when the choices line up well, to what our system needs, our engine runs “hot” and we can do more than expected or just feel better than otherwise.  There are a lot of guiding principles that we can follow when we are making our food choices but if we keep it really simple we would start with the idea that we need to eat natural foods.  From the earth in some way or form, less processing, less packaging, no chemicals, just what we would imagine natural to be.  We don’t need the FDA to tell us – we can tell the difference.  So, let’s see if we can choose natural foods more often, it will have the desired impact!  

Loving life when I am eating natural foods.

Peanut Butter Cookie Day

I suppose the only thing better than a PBJ sandwich is a peanut butter cookie.  And who would have known that June 12 is peanut butter cookie day.  The peanut butter cookie was invented in the 1910′s, when George Washington Carver published a peanut cookbook in an effort to promote the crop.  In the cookbook titled, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption,” Carver included several cookies recipes that called for chopped peanuts.  Peanut butter as an ingredient was added to recipes 20 years later along with the fork marks that are associated with the cookie today. 

I just wrote about peanut butter and our love of this creamy sensation.  We know by how much of it is sold in and around us that there it has a big and strong following – so -  in the spirit of THPL I see the peanut butter cookie as an opportunity to give us the chance to eat more peanut butter but in a different form.  There are so many versions of peanut butter cookies that I am sure there is one that just about anyone would like  - there is the peanut butter chocolate chip, the peanut butter thumbprint with Hershey kiss and the salted double chocolate peanut butter cookie.   Makes me hungry just writing about it.  I will make sure to mark June 12 in my 2015 calendar, I suggest you do as well.

Loving life, especially with a peanut butter cookie in my hand.

Ciao

joe

Breakfast options

We have all been told that there is no more important meal in the day than breakfast.  And while I have not surveyed our entire THPL community my selective sampling tells me that it is the favorite meal of those on the THPL journey.  Given that many of us seem from time to time conflicted by our full schedules such that we pass on this ever critical meal I am not sure what to make of a new and ever more present option for breakfast on the run.  It appears that the likes of the chain restaurants see this as a big opportunity and they are now offering options that might actually be “acceptable” and satisfying to our community.  An egg white McMufin , at $1, appears to be priced right and to have a decent nutrition profile. Dunkin Donuts has an egg white flatbread and then there is the Mediterranean egg white sandwich at Panera Bread.    There are of course smoothies and yogurt parfaits to offer an alternative to a donut on the run. 

So, it appears that we do have many options for breakfast and that the options will get more varied and “appropriate”.  Might it be then, that we should give a few of the new options a try when we have no other alternative?  It would be interesting to find out how it works.  And maybe if it is not perfect, it can serve as a backup plan or maybe we just like it.  Either way, let’s keep breakfast as our number one meal and not miss it.  Start the day on the right trajectory and the rest of the day falls into place nicely. 

Loving life and eating breakfast every day

Ciao

joe

photo: Behance Giron Mathlide

In Person

Every day we have an opportunity to witness high performance – we just have to keep our eyes and mind open so that we can see what is happening around us.  Walking into the Inn at Pound Ridge last night for the first Saturday that they were open we were greeted by Jean George, owner and chef of the Inn and owner of at least 20 other restaurants around the world.  Arguably one of the worlds most recognized chefs he was there greeting every patron that came in the door – he escorted many to their table in between he ran to the kitchen to make sure all was going perfectly on opening night.  And perfect it was – why?  Simple – the man, the leader, the inspiration was there when it mattered most, on opening day.  He did not delegate, he did not choose to be anywhere else – he showed up on site, to make sure that everything he planned and conceived came out as it should.  It worked for sure and even better was that he was still at it when we left greeting, overseeing and shepherding to success. 

A life lesson for our THPL community – when you are given the chance to “build” something, whether large or small – make sure you are there when it matters, minimally for the opening but more than likely every day that it matters.  It was stated by a four star general recently, you cannot commute to the war.  Jean George found a way to do be there in person – each and every one of should do the same

Loving life and being there in person

Ciao

Joe

What to Eat

It is often thought that the endurance athlete can just eat whatever they want - that because of all of the miles put in on the road or bike they will just lose weight.  But the truth is that when you increase mileage your appetite increases as does the need for calories and to ensure that you stay healthy your metabolism adapts to the new level of activity.  So, eating is not a passive part of THPL, in fact we have to be quite active about creating a match between nutrition and activity so that we can keep the body healthy and performing at the level required by the demands of your THPL activities. 

And since this is not an easy topic to master, there are a few approaches that THPL members practice more than they do not:

• Keep the flow of calories to match your activity level.  Do not cut out too much in any one period of time – small reductions in calories are recommended as you need energy to maintain your strength. 
• Eat quickly after your workout – assuming you have been at it for more than an hour (no need for calories when you exercise less than an hour); the sooner you put food (reasonable amounts) back in you and the faster you will metabolize the calories and start recovering
• Eat when you are hungry – sounds obvious but we often eat because food is available (even if we are not hungry).  We need to work on figuring out the difference between real hunger (calories needed to perform) and calories that we ingest for social or satiation needs.  The later not helping in any physiological way.
• Rev up your metabolism – by doing different exercises and challenging your muscles with intensity and variety you will increase the calories that you burn and by sitting less you will be more active which can only help you.  All of this is a natural way to reduce weight and make you stronger.

Of course there are many other good techniques for creating a healthy body including, eating vegetables, eating foods high in fiber, and foods high in nutrient value (superfoods).  Bottom line is we need to be aware of our food needs and be active in how we think about what we put in our body as we pursue THPL.  Create your own version of these approaches and stay true to them – you will be happy for it

Loving life while eating my way to high performance

Ciao

Joe

Photo: Smitten Kitchen

Yumbutter

We all know that food is central to the idea of THPL.  As the saying goes, we are what we eat.  And when we eat “well” we can perform well.  And while there are a lot of different views on the foods we should eat from the vegan diet to the Paleo diet there are a few other factors to consider as we eat the foods that we do.  There are a growing number of socially responsible food companies, from farmers to packaged food companies who have a strong core value system as the foundation for what they do and it is just plain awesome to support them.  Being the big peanut butter eater that I am it was quite satisfying to find Yumbutter who has figured out that you can sell great tasting peanut butter and have a deeper social mission.  Here is their mission:

We aim to bring more goodness into everyday lives.  We believe that eating nutritious, life-giving food is directly related to health.  That’s why we are focused on four foundations:

1.    Delicious food that is clear, fun and fair

2.    Openly sharing about holistic health.

3.    Growing compassion by serving others (see BuyOne:FeedOne)

4.    Supporting organics and creating a more ethical supply chain.

We call this Holistic Responsibility. With our dreams well underway, we’re here to help you achieve yours.

What is really cool is their BuyOne: FeedOne initiative.  Its goal is to create lifesaving impact. So, every time you buy a jar of Yumbutter, you’re directly helping to feed a malnourished child in the developing world. Currently, they purchase a RUTF (ready-to-use therapeutic food) for every jar you buy. What a wonderful foundation for a most remote, yet impactful version of THPL

We need to find more companies like this one and more product that is indeed a platform for health around the world.  What more can we ask for!

Check them or buy some of their amazing product! 

Loving life and eating more peanut butter!

Ciao

Joe

Christmas Cookies

Having a healthy relationship with food seems like it should be an easy thing to do.  We know inherently we should eat what is often referred to as a “healthy diet”; we also know those food items that are classified as “bad”.  Yet the risk is that we, as THPL practitioners, turn the food / eating process into a science experiment trading one against the other as if there was a strict formula for success.  With this mindset we run the risk of going to extremes and we can miss either our body calling out for nutrients or enjoying foods that we should love to eat.

 There is no question that food, should be considered as friend not foe.  It can make us perform better and can also make us feel better.  And during this time of year when athletic performance is a bit less of a priority it is time to enjoy the food around us and appreciate it for what it is, a welcome pleasure and a natural part of our lives.  The “christmas cookie” is the case in point.  There is a mix of great taste, tradition, human connection and fun that comes together in the christmas cookies that are baked, shared and consumed at this time of the year.  It would be a shame and unnecessary to avoid partaking in this very human / pleasurable act of eating cookies.  We can all figure out how many cookies are enough for the way we are living at the moment based on our activity level and our overall fitness state.  But by all means it is time to enjoy in this once a year, wonderful cookie sharing and eating tradition.  Just remember to have a favorite cookie and eat more of those than any others that you can get your hands on!

Loving life with a lot of Christmas Cookies!

Ciao

Joe

The Right Choices

Food is so important to life that we often take it for granted.  Not sure if this is because it is getting easier and easier to get food or because we have minimal direct connection between what we eat and how we live our lives.  Our food choices after all have as big an impact, on us, as our decisions to exercise, to learn, to think etc. – food really does play out importantly as it relates to each and every aspect of our THPL lives. 

So the mantra for today, as we get closer and closer to the full blown holiday season is to resolve to be active about the food choices that we make.  We know food choices have an impact so let’s step up to the challenge of, minimally, being aware of what we eat.  Make sure you think about what you decide to eat, that you make an active tradeoff between “what you want” and “what you should have”.  That you hold yourself accountable to your food choices.  To help, you might want to keep a virtual ledger that has you counting the number of times that you pick the “good for you stuff” more than the alternative.  Then you can challenge yourself to try more natural foods, with less packages, less ingredients, and more natural aspects It really is not hard to do – If you ask yourself how did this food get on my plate (or in my mouth) and you are not sure you like the answer (packaged, full of additives, too many ingredients etc) then maybe it is time to make another choice.  If you do this just a few times every week, over time your diet will just get better and better and you benefit from it in so many ways

Loving life and making the right choices

Ciao

joe                           

Photo Credit: puffclinty via Compfight cc

Greek Yogurt

The nutritional profile of the new Greek yogurts is great – high protein, low sugar, and natural ingredients.  A great food category to eat on the THPL journey.  And in the world that we live in of over-processed foods we need more options that, even though they are packaged foods, they are good for us to eat.  And with the growth of this category of yogurt it might be that we have made the move from yogurt as “dessert food” to yogurt as a health food.  

So, how about a quick summary of how we got here.  Industrial production of yogurt began in Europe in 1919.  Made it to the U.S. in 1942 in the Bronx under the name Dannon.  In 1953 they introduced vanilla yogurt and it had become a completely Americanized product.  In the mid-seventies we added more sugar and made the product just easy to eat.  With the aura that the product was a health food, consumption grew five times from 1980 to 2005.   The lowest moment in yogurts history was when Yoplait introduced Go-Gurt, colored electric blue and packaged it in tubes and the connection to healthy foods was fading.  The category continued to be over processed and over packaged and then a “sort of” miracle happened when Hamdi Ulukaya, from Turkey (in one of the most amazing business stories of the past few decades) launched Chobani in 2008 and since then the Greek yogurt has re-claimed the category and you can actually get wholesome, natural, nutritional yogurt that fits an active lifestyle. 

There are many great THPL lessons in this story that it seems it was written around the idea of THPL.  Life, in this case making choices to do things better and differently - we can now choose without compromise. Learning, there is knowledge and insight the world around that we can tap into to do things with the same effort and get better results.  And it is easy to see the Fitness element because if you put in the time to get more fit you need more protein and this is just a great (and tasty) source to fuel your THPL build.  

Through all of this, though, we know, we are far from perfect. There are parts of the story that we know can get better, the focus on hormone free milk (for example) but with new and better choices we are at least, for now, enabled by an improving food profile that we can enjoy and benefit from.

Loving life, yogurt in hand!

Ciao

Joe

Food Network

Life, Learning and Fitness – a reminder that these three core elements make up THPL.  Core to the Life element is how we bring food into our life and our journey.  Topics that range from organic to local and meatless to nutrient rich all are to be considered, each that will affect how we feel and perform in our lives.  Knowing, though, what to do, with food choices has previously been a challenge, the good news is that now there are many sources of information from TasteSpotting, to celebrity chef cook books to watching the Food Network on cable.  The topic has become so big that you could drown in food content for 24 hours a day with recipes, photos, nutrition, you name it – all there to be consumed if you want (or don’t want to as the case may be).  And to bring the point from the ridiculous to the sublime is to know that a TV show about food has been on for 20 years.  Is this really possible?  Yes, the Food Network is celebrating its 20^th anniversary.  Exciting and crazy all at the same time.  It is a sign of the changing times and an indication that when we generate content driven to the specific interests amazing things can happen.

Loving life and the wonderful food that comes along with it

Ciao

Joe

GoudaMonster

Less than Ten

It matters none whether you are a meat eater, vegetarian, pescatarian, or vegan, it is always better to cut back on processed foods.  I was buying a simple bread the other day and counted out twenty ingredients.  Not sure how it is possible to need so many ingredients in a simple staple such as bread and it got me to thinking more about what I eat and the responsibility I have for what I eat.  Not being a nutritionist, nor a scientist, I have only my life performance to be the guide for what might be “good food”.  And so the premise is that to live THPL you need all energy focused on productive endeavors.  And in the case of eating foods, it seems to me that if a food product that you eat has more than ten ingredients, and that many of the additional ingredients are unintelligible, then processing them out of your body (if you can get them out) is taking productive energy and wasting it. 

For certain, just because a food is packaged does not mean it is bad for you (eg. Plain yogurt) – rather if someone else has packaged a food for you it is your responsibility to verify that you are “ok” with what they put in the package.  Mother Nature keeps it quite simple – your food preparer (like Kraft, General Foods, etc) should work to keep your food profile simple as well.  Seems to me that this is not how they operate and that it must be easier to prepare and sell foods that have a LOT of ingredients.  And this is where we need to draw the line.  We cannot live THPL and be passive about what is in the packaged foods we buy and we eat.  We need to read the ingredient label and actively decide that we want to eat what is in the package. 

So, here is a plan for how to do this –

First - look at all labels and verify that the food is made with ingredients that we know. 

Second - can you pronounce the ingredients on the label?

Third - Did the ingredient come from some part of the plant or animal kingdom?

Fourth – are there less than ten ingredients?  How about less than five?

Based on the answers you should decide if you buy the food product or not.  Yes, for certain, there will be times when it is not possible to vet everything we buy or eat, but for THPL to come to life and for it to be a productive journey, we need to eat the “right stuff” more than not.  How about a good challenge going into the weekend?  Try eating only foods with ten or less ingredients.  See how it goes.  Enjoy the challenge. 

Loving life and eating well

Ciao

Joe

Can White Be Good For You

In eating there is a long held premise that “white foods” are rarely good for you.  We are told that most superfoods are those with vibrant colors.  But, as we know, it is better to be informed and know what is really “true” and not just a tale told that we believe in but are not sure why.  An example of this is Cauliflower.  Yes, the all but forgotten vegetable that many thought was flavorless, bland and either very hard or rather mushy.  Ah, but things do change, and as we take our THPL journey and look for food to make our “Life” better it is good to have an open mind and better info lest we be disappointed when we are left out of something good. 

Cauliflower is quite the versatile vegetable, super high in Vitamins C, B and K it can take on a lot of flavors and textures that bring a plate to life.  When roasted, cauliflower has a nutty taste that is slightly sweet and blends well with just about any cuisine.  When raw, it is a great food for a dip and it can stand up to hearty dishes like steak and fish.  It can also be the base of a wicked good puree that can replace mashed potatoes when you are looking for something interesting and different to eat. 

The more we look to tasty, healthy, versatile vegetables to serve as the base for our meals the more we will be able to extend our food experience, set a foundation for high performance and set a plate for great taste that is natural and unexpected.

Loving life while eating cauliflower

Ciao

joe

True Kitchen

We all live in a highly distributed, digital, fast paced life. This is especially true for the members of the THPL community.  We rarely seem to have a moment that is not full and we tend to pace through life quickly. To move quickly, though, you need to be in alignment with the people you interact with, or the places you go, the foods that you eat.  This is because it takes less energy to work across all elements of THPL.  It might be obvious, however it bears repeating….. When you are in alignment with all elements of THPL, especially other people, you will be much more efficient and effective.  And so it goes…..

But lest we become skeptical that anything will change there are those moments or surprise when alignment falls in place, when all energies are focused on forward momentum.  At these moments it is great to seize on the opportunity and run with it wherever it might take you.  Tonight I had one of those moments when Learning and Life were elevated just by picking the right restaurant to eat at and have the right server to connect the dots. 

In Scottsdale, AZ there is a restaurant named True Food Kitchen.  You don’t have to be a die-hard THPLer to dine at True Food Kitchen. You need only a desire to give your body nutrients, and your palate something memorable. The basis for Dr. Andrew Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet isn’t meant to deprive a healthy body of great flavors, it’s meant to take popular trends in cuisine and pair them with healthy living.  At the True Food Kitchen, they want you to feel better, live longer, and make your mouth happy in the process.  So how might it get better than this?  For a vegetarian member of THPL community it is a very happy moment when you find such a place.  It reminds me or how great it is when the community works together for a common good.  Our THPL community does this and I have found another organization who is creating a community that also does this.  And yes they are not the only two who do this – there are many an organization that can help  - this is good and it is also good to celebrate this new found enthusiasm for life and THPL

Loving life especially when in alignment

Ciao

Joe

Whole Foods

OK, call me silly, but my drive from Scranton PA to Boston just got way, way better!  Whole Foods has opened a store on Route 84 in Danbury, CT.  Two hours from Scranton, right off of Exit4, and a perfect location to stop for the best dinner ever.  I am sure that some of you have had the pleasure of eating at Whole Foods and some have not.  The quick rundown is that Whole Foods started in 1980 in Austin TX when four locals (including John Mackay the current CEO) decided to start a Natural Foods grocery store.  23 years later they have grown to 340 locations but have never lost their roots or purpose.  I have been a customer of Whole Foods for at least 10 years and find their food profile to fit my interests and nutritional needs perfectly.  It is so fun to be able to eat from their food bar and to assemble a wide array of food items. They really do have something for everyone.  Food for vegetarians and carnivores the themes are the same, natural products, organic, high quality, good taste and as local as possible. 

When we talk about Life, Learning and Fitness, the food element of THPL can be slotted in any of the three categories but I would argue that it fits best in the Life category.  Food is important culturally, nutritionally and socially and a good food profile can stimulate the senses of taste, smell and touch.  So, there is no doubt that food is important to us day to day and it amps up a level when we have the right food you get the most out your journey in pursuit of THPL.  Focusing on eating the right food is critical as it provides you power and energy – the kind that keeps you at the top of your game.  And so I am now enabled – Whole Foods here I come!

Loving life as I Whole Foods groupie

Ciao

Joe