recipe - nurse betsy's cabbarage

A personal favorite for the Summer months.  Incredibly delicious, super healthy, paleo (just ditch the cheese, right?), and gets better day after day.  Thanks to the dynamic duo of Al and Chip for the name (both brussel sprouts and kale are part of the broader cabbage family), and to my mom for the base recipe!

don't be afraid of fat!

The name itself is terrifying to most people – Fat.  But it turns out that our supposed villain in this story of health has been framed!  The true culprits of our current health crisis are likely sugar and processed foods (along with the policies and poorly-performed studies that have built this worldwide fallacy), but I’ll focus here on the positive side of our tale, as we try to understand our maligned friend Fat.

it's going to be a dry june...

Since college, roughly ten years ago, I probably haven't gone a full week without an alcoholic drink.  The combination of a varied social life, an appreciation for good alcohol of many sorts (including actually making beer, wine, and liquor), and high-pressure jobs, has led me to enjoy many drinks over the years.  And I don’t regret those years and those drinks (well, most of them…), but I do realize that it is costly, a glut of empty calories, rough on sleep, a detriment to muscle recovery, and in general, bad for overall health.  Particularly as I try to optimize my health and running in preparation for an intense race this August, I want to make a drastic change, and challenge myself.

So for the month of June I’m going sober…kind of.

cutting caffeine - part 1: background and basic thoughts

I am a healthy guy.  I care about what goes into my body, though with an approach that takes mental health into consideration as well - meaning, if it's going to cause me considerable stress to not consume or do something, I probably won't worry about it.  That said, my two primary vices, as with most Americans, are booze and caffeine (I'll tackle booze in another article, some day).  My caffeine consumption is by no means serious, but my addiction is strong; a morning without caffeine finds me with a dull headache in the afternoon, and a pounding one the following morning - because of this I don't go many mornings without.  My thoughts on this are extremely conflicted, since I know there are few long-term physical downsides to moderate caffeine consumption, but I always wonder if I would be better without it.  Here are my thoughts:

my go-to green

Some people have a hard time eating the same thing every day – I’m not one of those people.  5 out of 7 days each week my green smoothie is the exact same.  It’s simple, consistent, and delicious.  But, it’s Not sweet; after drinking these for years, my green tolerance is high.  For newbies, consider changing the initial 1C water to 1/2C water and 1/2C pomegranate or acai juice (high in antioxidants) to start, or just add more berries.  Ingredients below are in the order that I add them.

7 ridiculous ways to slow down your runs

Yeah, the title is classic clickbait, I know.  But it’s also true, kind of – at least 3 of the 7 I’ll list below are a bit absurd and, I’d argue, fairly unknown.  The background here is, I’ve struggled to slow down my running for years.  I was a high school distance runner who raced the 400m and 800m races, which are essentially long sprints, and in the following years, my inconsistent training has encouraged a misguided philosophy of short and fast runs – I’m a fast runner who struggles to get the pace down and the miles up.  This may sound like veiled cockiness, but I’d guess most runners would benefit from slowing their pace on a majority of their runs – it helps reduce injuries, allows muscles to recover better, and staves off general burnout.  And if your aim is to race longer distances (half marathon or further), then your long runs become more and more critical, and it’s harder to do them if you don’t drop the pace a bit, at least to start.  Thankfully, I have many great friends who are also serious runners, and their advice, along with an injury, has guided me to better running habits.  Along the way, I tried out a few of my own, more ridiculous, ways to slow down my pace.  Maybe they’ll help you too.

for the love of the trail

I've always been a runner: I was that obnoxious sixth grader who was excited to run the mile during the Presidential Fitness Test (do they still do that?); I ran cross-country in middle school and was part of a record-breaking relay team in high school; and in college I ran to burn off the beer and the mental misery of bluebook exams.  But after college, it became harder to get a consistent schedule.  Like many, I was too busy - too wrapped up in work, social activities, and netflix.  I would run every other day for 2 weeks, feel great, and then a new project or a long weekend would blow a hole straight through my resolve.  It always felt good to lace up the shoes and get out the door, and the post-run endorphin rush was amazing, but the runs themselves were uneventful and monotonous - it's hard to motivate to do anything when you're not actively enjoying it.  And then I fell in love.