wellfesto

May 9

The 7-Minute Workout

The New York Times just posted a short article about high-intensity interval training (HIIT) –something I’m always interested in learning more about because it’s so effective and efficient. The article shares the findings of a study published in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal, which concludes that 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair, and a wall constitute a HIIT workout and just take seven (uncomfortable — at a level 8 on a scale of 1-10) minutes. And according to the study authors, these precious seven minutes “produce molecular changes within muscles comparable of those of several hours of running or bike riding.” Seriously?! That’s AMAZING, totally defying everything many of us grew up thinking about exercise (i.e., more = better).

We all have at least seven minutes. In fact, I’d argue that we all have at least 28 minutes and could do this workout multiple times during the day. Yes, a long, luxurious workout beats this any day, but time is a scarce resource these days. And if I can get seven minutes, I’ll take it — in the gym, in the garage, in a conference room with the door closed, or in the parking lot waiting to pick up my kids.

Are you into HIIT, and if so, what’s your favorite workout/class? And if you haven’t tried it but would like to, check out my earlier post on Tabata and my friend Karisa’s simple-but-super-tough home workout.

May 8

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Breakfast Inspiration: Steel Cut Oats

photo by stacy spensley, via flickr creative commons

We all need an effortless morning once in a while (says the girl writing a blog post at 11pm), and having steel cut oats for breakfast is one of my favorite ways to ease into the day. If you’re looking for a new idea — or a new take on an old one — prep your steel cut oats the night before, so all you need to do is heat them up after you start the coffee! And if you’re like me and wondering if steel cut oats are any better for you than regular old Quaker oats, the answer is…no. Both stack up the same, from a health and an environmental perspective. But from a yumminess perspective, I vote for steel cut all the way…ideally topped with blueberries, slivered almonds, and a touch of honey.

How do you like yours? Do you have any ninja breakfast secrets that make your mornings easy and delish?

May 7

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The Most Important Relationship

I heard Diane von Furstenberg talk today, and she totally blew me away. I feel like I should go out and buy a new wrap dress tonight in her honor just to remember over and over again how her talk made me feel. I’m not exaggerating – she was one of the most grounded, authentic, bright, self-assured, funny, ageless, wise, beautifully human people I have ever heard, and she gracefully put words to so many of the things I believe.

She made one brief, yet powerful comment that sums up who she is: “The most important relationship you have in life is the one you have with yourself” (she later re-framed this as your “friendship with yourself”). After all, it’s impossible to have strong relationships with other people – your family, your partner, your kids, your colleagues, your friends – if you aren’t able to accept and embrace who you are. As my mother told me from the time I was little girl on, “you need to love yourself before you can love other people.” Diane called this “smiling at your shadow.”

I’ve heard these words before – maybe even said them before myself – but for some reason they really rang true today. She shared numerous stories about her hunger for independence, regardless of what relationships she was in. She talked about being able to pursue audacious dreams and achieve amazing things because she knew who she was and she gave herself the love and care she deserved, minimizing self-criticism and self-doubt. And she spoke about the lifelong quest for clarity about who we are and what we’re doing in the world.

Despite always being a little bit shy about standing ovations, I leapt to my feet after her talk to show my overwhelming gratitude – for both being a role model and for giving every woman in that room permission to treat ourselves with care…not in a way that minimizes the care of others, but as a way to make sure we have the energy to give our best to other people. I now see my wrap dresses in a whole new light…and I can’t wait to channel my inner DVF every time I wear one.

Have you ever met someone who changed the way you thought about your life in a very short time? Who was it, and what did you learn?

P.S. If you’re interested in a few other pieces of wisdom Diane shared today, here were some of my favorites:

“If you can pack a suitcase, you can organize your life.”
“Passion, instinct and love beat data every time.”
“You have to be serious at the base so you can be frivolous at the top.”
“The biggest gift you can give yourself is independence.”
“I have never met a woman who wasn’t strong.”

May 6

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Hockey Moments

photo by TAZphotos, via flickr creative commons

We went to watch one of the kids’ preschool teachers play hockey last night (yes SHE IS THAT AWESOME), and I was mesmerized by the sounds of ice scraping, the puck smashing into the wall, and the players yelling to one another between labored breaths. I hadn’t been to a hockey game in a long time, and there was something about the pace of the game – the constant shifting as players went on and off the ice – that felt so “present.”

I think I was particularly struck by this last night because I don’t always feel present in my life right now. My mind skips to work when I’m with my kids and it drifts to my kids when I’m at work. It meanders to future blog posts when I’m in spin class, and I sometimes check the yoga schedule when I’m mid-conversation with my husband. Time and thoughts are fluid these days, and as much as I wonder if I’d feel more at peace if they were more carefully delineated, they’re just not right now. I don’t know if they ever will be. Despite what productivity experts lead us to believe, life is messy and orderly and crazy and beautiful at the same time.

Watching the players skate across the ice last night made me think that the way to be more present isn’t to be more present in every single moment. That’s just way too much pressure. But it is about finding the “hockey moments” – the narrow (or broad, if you’re lucky) slices of time where you can be 100% in the moment. Where you can find your flow and lose track of time “until the bell rings.” For this beautiful teacher, her moments are on the ice. For a dear friend of mine, it’s when she’s doing crafts with her daughter. For another friend, it’s cooking a meal. For me lately, it’s writing these posts and standing on my head (not at the same time).

The more we can find these little micro-moments that help us stay in the now, the more we’ll actually be in the now. So for me, moving from chaos to presence is about the little things adding up and becoming big things more than it’s about drastic changes or forcing focus. It’s about starting with the low-hanging fruit and building upon that, moment by moment, day by day, and year by year.

When’s the last time you were truly “in the moment?” What helps you stay in the present?

May 3

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Dinner Al Fresco

view from the picnic table, elizabeth gamble gardens, palo alto

We’re in the midst of a surprise heat wave here in Northern California, boasting 80+ degree days for the last few weeks. Within a matter of days, I packed up my tall boots and busted out my sandals, started sleeping with the windows open at night, wanted to bike everywhere, and began eating dinner outside again.

There’s something magical about eating outside. Similar to the way candlelight helps us savor and honor our food, eating with our feet in the grass helps us slow down. Food seems to taste better, the evening light makes people look extra beautiful, and the stress of the day washes away more quickly. We’re less likely to use our phones. We’re more playful. We’re nicer to each other. We feel healthier. Dinners last longer than five minutes. And the grown-ups don’t need to get on our hands and knees to scrape mashed veggies off the floor when we’re finished eating (BONUS)!

Tonight before we even started cooking, the kids said “can we please eat outside tonight…can we please eat outside every single night from now until forever?” They put words to what I was feeling. In this case, we’re all on the same page. The kids and the grown-ups want the very same, simple, universal pleasure: dinner al fresco.

What’s your favorite meal to make when you’re eating outside? And if you can’t eat outside at your home, where do you love to go? (The photo above is one of my favorite spots to eat takeout on a picnic bench while literally, smelling the roses.)

May 2

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No Boundaries

photo by ex-smith, via flickr creative commons

I recently came across a list of “70 Things to Do Before You Have Children.” I love lists — these dreamy, cheesy bucket lists included. I always click on them…curious to see what simple things and what complicated things and what amazing and what surprising things people aspire to.

When I saw this title I clicked with a tiny bit of fear. “What should we have done before having kids? Eeeeek…are those things off the table now that we’re parents? Where was this list 10 years ago?” all drifted through my head as I scrolled down the page. I looked through the list with the lens of my current life circumstance and breathed a sigh of relief. Everything on that list is doable as a parent. Everything. Every single thing.

Yes, some things might not be as desirable once you’re responsible for other human beings (#4 Jump out of a perfectly good airplane and #49 Experience Spring Break in its glory in Cancun) and some things become more logistically complicated (#13 Live in Southern California for at least a year and #57 Spend a whole day making love without every leaving the house). And some of these things are better done alone or with friends or with your partner (#27 Stage dive or crowd surf at a concert). But none of these things are off the table.

We (at least those of us in the U.S.) live in a world where life is punctuated by stages. “Oh, that’s what young single people do.” “That’s where the boring marrieds hang out.” “You need a stroller to do that.” “That hotel is for old people.” We love to group people into categories and then define what’s in bounds and off limits for them, and these messages are so loud that I think people actually start to believe them.

It doesn’t have to be this way. My friends just came back from a multi-day trek with Patagonia during which they carried their daughter on their back. An old boss took his 5th grade daughter on a year-long trip around the world. Sean and I went to the Great Barrier Reef without our kids. Families are climbing mountains. Moms are going to surf camp. A mom friend of mine recently piloted an airplane. People are getting fitter than ever when they’re 40. Today’s world is about opportunities, not limits. And as each of us navigates our own life stages and choices, let’s not forget that.

What’s the craziest thing on your bucket list, and are there life changes you think could get in your way of getting it done?

May 1

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Trusting Our Guts

This morning was one of those mornings when I felt like I’d run a marathon before I even left the house. Jolted out of a dream at 6am by the sound of two sets of feet running full tilt into the bedroom, I went through the usual motions – brew coffee, give breakfast options, cook breakfast, start making lunches, set table, serve breakfast (my kids are still too little to make their own breakfast). As soon as two steaming bowls of oatmeal were on the table, a three-alarm tantrum began. “I don’t want oatmeal…I want eggs! I want eggs! I want eggs! I know I didn’t say it, but I want eggs. I WANT EGGGGSSSSS!” This went on for twenty solid minutes, at which point my son finally bellied up to the table and said he’d finish his (then cold) oatmeal if I’d make him some eggs once his bowl was empty. Impressed by his problem solving, I conceded, knowing that I had 25 minutes to shower, get dressed, get them dressed, finish the lunches, get my work stuff together, COOK EGGS, and get out the door. Needless to say, I’m lucky my clothes matched.

The day progressed at a similar pace – albeit with rational grown-ups, not tantrum-y kids — until my meetings ended at 2pm. My brain was tired from work and my heart was still unshakably heavy from the seemingly endless morning tantrum, and I knew I needed a re-set in order to make the rest of the day productive. So I gave myself one. I laced up my running shoes and headed out of the office for a 40-minute loop in the sunshine. Transported by Pandora’s “Dance Cardio” station, my frustration quickly faded away, opening up space for new energy and fresh thinking. After just a few minutes of running, I was able to focus on what I needed to do in the afternoon. As my stride evened out, my perspective shifted, and I returned back to my afternoon workload in a much brighter place.

I bring this up because although I write a lot about (and wholeheartedly believe in) planning and thinking ahead and optimizing and being proactive, the reality of life is that gut feelings…reactions…instincts often trump all of those things. Structure and guardrails and commitments are there to guide us and remind us of what matters most and how we want to live. They’re there to push us to do things like wake up in the dark to squeeze in a workout or clean our veggies on Sunday so we don’t eat cheese and crackers for dinner every night. But life doesn’t always go according to plan, and spontaneous decisions are sometimes the best way to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves in the moment.

Today trusting my gut meant taking a run in the middle of a busy workday when the rational side of me would have said “you don’t have time.” Other days it means ordering take-out because I would rather spend time with my kids than cook. And sometimes it means letting my kids play on their own because I need to talk to my best friend on the phone. Being able to trust our guts and act on what they’re telling us takes practice and a few “wins” to show us that it paid off. Today’s run was one of my wins.

How do you make in-the-moment trade-offs that help you take care of yourself? When have you succeeded? Have these trade-offs ever backfired?

Apr 30

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Nibbles and Bits

photo by steven lilley, via flickr creative commons

The average American wastes 1,400 calories worth of food every day. This translates into the staggering number popularized by Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). According to his calculations, 40 percent of the total food we serve every day is wasted.

I grew up in the Midwest, and as a kid, the clean plate club was prized and food waste was shunned. In fact, my mom got around the food waste issue by making “just enough” for family holidays – thereby needing to institute the FHB (family hold back) rule to make sure guests got enough to eat. As a result of this foundation – and my inability to reconcile the fact that there is such abundance in my neighborhood while breakfast-less families wake up less than a mile away – I really, really don’t like wasting food.

But I also really, really don’t like finishing half-eaten pieces of quiche or a bowl of bacon-y brussels sprouts “just because” either. This finishing-half-eaten-weirdness thing started when my kids began eating real food and I suddenly found myself scraping their bowls of avocado clean and eating the last pancake because it seemed easier than putting it into the fridge. I’d end up feeling sort of full and relatively dissatisfied and disinterested in cooking anything interesting for Sean and me (we now eat mostly family meals, but some nights we still eat separately).

Knowing that wasting tons of food makes me feel guilty and eating random scraps makes me cranky, I’m trying to strike a balance: minimizing waste, but at the end of the day, opting for a little bit of waste over a scrap-based fourth meal. This is a conscious trade-off, and every time I reach for the last few apple slices I’m really not hungry to eat, I remind myself that food should be fuel and pleasure…not obligation. As I feed my family, I try not to forget, I’m feeding myself too.

How do you make sure you’re eating foods that make you feel like you, and honoring your meals? How do you maximize nourishment and minimize waste?

Apr 29

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Cheering Us On

“Girls don’t do those long races…just boys do,” my 4-yr-old son informed me knowingly as we drove out to watch my husband’s 50-mile trail (running) race this past weekend. I asked him why he thought that, and he replied, “if girls did them, you’d be running today too, mom!”

Flattered that he thought I might be an aspiring ultra-marathoner (which in case you’re wondering, I’m not) and relived that he’s not sexist, I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Your dad’s insane…I’m not” didn’t feel quite right. “I don’t want to be arthritic when I’m 45” is probably a bit over his head, I thought. And “believe me, I’d much rather be on a trail than sitting in this car” sounded spiteful. So I settled on the truth. “Daddy loves these races, but I love other things. We both spend our time doing things we love…just because we choose different things doesn’t mean they’re only for boys or only for girls.” And on we went to the race, where we all cheered for every single “boy” and every single “girl” who came through the aid station.

My son’s question was important, both because of what he asked and what he didn’t ask. I’ve never heard him say anything like “why is daddy spending the whole day running? Why isn’t he with me?” He’s never upset when I head out for a bike ride or a yoga class…in fact, I often find my kids with yoga mats outstretched — practicing their own downward dogs — when I get home from yoga. Just as parents want their kids to be happy and free, I think kids…even little ones…want their parents to be the same. And even more, they are watching our every move. If we think running is cool, so do they. If we eat asparagus, the odds go up that they’ll give it a try too. If we play board games, they might opt for UNO over iPad.

This brings me to the next chapter of this blog. I’m going to start focusing content more narrowly on parents, and what they can do to hack their health and design the lives they want to lead amidst the emotional and structural challenges of raising kids. This is not turning into a parenting blog. It’s not turning into a family blog. It is a blog for the GROWN-UPS. There are a ton of amazing resources out there focused on taking care of your kids and families (and I’m not trying to undermine the importance of that in any way)…but this one is about taking care of YOU. It’s about staying connected with who you are at the core and what you care about most and what you’re working on in your life. It’s about the constant shifting of priorities that mark these years. It’s about the focus that brings peace, and the experiences that connect us.

I firmly believe that we can only help our kids become the best version of themselves if we are the best versions of ourselves. And when we’re doing those things, our kids will be there to cheer us on…just as we are for them. As I’ve said before, the kids will be alright.

P.S. If you’re not a parent, it’s my hope that you’ll still find lots of interesting ideas on this blog. Again, it’s a blog for the grown-ups, so if your “baby” is a company or a hobby or a sport or a book or a band, I encourage you to stay tuned!

Apr 26

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Trusting the Experts, Not the Internetz

I’ve been knocked down with the stomach flu for the past few days and spent yesterday afternoon in bed foggily staring out the window, dozing off, and surfing the web. The surfing started innocently with a relatively highbrow TED talk about what makes us love our work (feelings of forward progress and purpose), deteriorated into mindless social media scrolling, and further progressed into the worst of the worst ways to spend time on the Internet: obsessive Google searching about weird medical conditions.

I’ve always been super interested in health and remember being a little kid and loving the “Human Body” special edition of our Encyclopedia Britannica and reading my Harvard Guide to Women’s Health for fun in college. But all of this was informational and disconnected from my own body. It felt academic…even clinical, and it satiated my generalized curiosity versus my internalized paranoia. It was safe, fueling my knowledge base, but not my hypochondria.

Then came the Internet, and with it, a wealth of information about health…and disease. I love the web for the health information I can access, and I hate it for the disease information I can so easily uncover. Yesterday was the perfect example. I have the FLU. The PLAIN OLD FLU. I am certain of it. But, concerned that my abdomen was quite sore (along with every other body part), I consulted Google “just to see” what else it might be (part curiosity, part hypochondria, part boredom). Search terms: “vomiting, sore abdomen, fatigue.” Google’s results: every kind of cancer you can imagine, weird bacterial infections you can only get in a far-off rainforest, ulcers ectopic pregnancy. Rather than closing my computer as I knew I should have, I added “sore neck” to the mix, returning a slue of articles about meningitis. I was engrossed in what could be…what might be…not what actually was.

I’d love to say this was the first time that this has happened, but that’s obviously (and embarrassingly) not the case. When I’m honest with myself, my search history from the past year includes things like “wrist pain, toddler with short legs, neurofibromatosis, Achilles tendinitis, ankle reconstruction, dairy allergy, and kids with freckles.” YES, FRECKLES. Did any of this result in a diagnosis…a cure…peace of mind…or anything positive? Of course not. It just led to an intermittently worried mom missing out on the constant beauty and the good fortune of a blissfully healthy family.

I love the Internet for all the information and connection and power and joy it gives us…and I can’t stand the comparison, the time sucking, and the unnecessary worry that it can bring about if misused. Just as we can set parental controls to restrict our kids’ usage, I wish we could have “crazy adult controls” to keep us from searching for weird amorphous symptoms and self cures. In the absence of that, my resolve is to stay off the internet if I’m even slightly worried about a medical condition and leave it to the professionals….to either let it go or visit the doctor.

So with that, I’m going to go back to recovering from the PLAIN OLD FLU. The flu that 100 years ago people would have taken at face value, simply waiting for it to pass. The flu that will remind me (hopefully by tomorrow) how amazing it is to have a healthy body and a clear mind. And the flu that, for better or for worse, is forcing my body to do what it probably needs…rest.

Does health information on the Internet empower you or make you paranoid? How do you steer clear of the Web when you’re under the weather?

The 7-Minute Workout

Breakfast Inspiration: Steel Cut Oats

The Most Important Relationship

Hockey Moments

Dinner Al Fresco

No Boundaries

Trusting Our Guts

Nibbles and Bits

Cheering Us On

Trusting the Experts, Not the Internetz

Get Ideas In Your Inbox

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