Lightweight Eats

I just finished reading "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" by Scott Adams. For those that don't know, Scott Adams created Dilbert, that Sunday comic strip I never understood at age 10. His book is equally witty, entertaining and poignant.

Adams' life values are closely aligned with my own, and part of my enjoyment was certainly due to the pats on the back I gave myself every time my habits mirrored those of somebody so successful. Still, most of the books I read are doomed to be returned to the library and perhaps contemplated but not purchased. I think this book might have earned itself a coveted place on our bookshelf.

Of all the stories and advice, one overarching theme sang to me most marvelously: personal energy. Adams' talks about your personal energy levels as the key to being successful at just about everything. The book was filled with his tips for maximizing personal energy.

The conceptualization also helped me identify my own strategies for increasing personal energy, particularly before particularly tough workouts. And it has helped me identify some of the things that drain my energy unnecessarily. For example, an inconsistent workout schedule (i.e. mixing things up) exhausts me. For others, constant repetition (i.e. consistency) may be equally exhausting. Being in pajamas and cold weather also drain my energy terrifyingly fast.

But that's not all the book talks about. You can learn how to win the lottery (hint: it involves living a very, very, very long life), how to eat anything you want and not be fat, and how to cure the incurable. Sound hokey? Well, it really, really isn't. It's well researched, well-written and embarrassingly funny (if you're reading it on a crowded BART train).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17859574-how-to-fail-at-almost-everything-and-still-win-big

One of the things I learned during our Live Below the Line challenge was realistic budgeting. I've read about a lot of families chasing the elusive $50 grocery budget. Let's break that down:

$50/week for two people. That's roughly $3.50 per person, per day. Let's assume you need to provide each person with 2000 calories a day. That means each nickel needs to buy you around 30 calories, assuming you don't waste any food at all.

What can you afford?

Rice, oats, and dried beans definitely fit into this kind of a budget. Peanut butter, at $3 for a 3000 calorie jar, also fits the budget nicely.

What about meat? A pound of pork tenderloin has about 550 calories. The most you could spend on it and stay on budget? 90 cents. (5 cents times 550 calories / 30 calories = about 90.) Our local Safeway currently has boneless pork on sale for $2/pound. And let's not even talk about sustainably produced, high quality, organic meat.

Fruits and veggies are also questionable. Onions have around 175 calories per pound, so if you can find them for less than 30 cents a pound, you're in the clear. Bananas might fit as well, but you'd have to be looking at 15 cents for a large banana. Of course, going under budget with rice, beans, oats and peanut butter will provide you some leeway, but don't expect to be eating haricot vert, organic apples or hearts of romaine—unless, of course, you grow it yourself.

And packaged foods? Unlikely. If you can get a 2-liter bottle of soda for a dollar, you'd be within budget. But even candy, at 75 cents for a 250 calorie bar, is way out of budget. Crackers and chips are similar.

How about those questionable in-betweens? Like cheese and yogurt? Eggs? Wild rice? OLIVE OIL?!?!

It's easy to calculate yourself.

Want to know the maximum price for something to stay on budget? Take the calorie per unit of the food item and divide by the calorie per penny you have to achieve in your food budget (in this example, 6 calories per penny). There are 248 calories per ounce of olive oil. 248 / 6 = 41.3 cents per ounce. A 1-liter bottle (34 ounces) of olive oil would have to cost less than $14.

Have a price and calorie count? Divide the total calories by the price in cents; if it's more calories per penny, you're in the clear.


What's the practical application of all of this? Well, let's say I'm trying to stick to the budget above. I have a list of items that fall within that budget. Rice, oats, beans, peanut butter, onions, cheap bananas, oil, inexpensive nuts and seeds, etc. These items will have to be the bulk of my food, providing well over 50% of my daily calories.

If your grocery list includes organic kale, an abundance of seasonal fresh fruit, packaged snacks or anything but the most boring of ingredients, you're probably not going to make a $50/week budget. I don't think that's a bad thing.

For our family, good food is a priority. It's a choice we make. BUT, we also choose to buy oats instead of cold cereal so we can put money towards purchasing organic apples and cucumbers. My tips for shopping for quality food on a budget:
- Eat simpler, cheaper, higher quality foods: buy organic peanut butter instead of almond butter, or cabbage instead of kale. eat toast instead of a Clif bar, or use canned/frozen fruit in place of jam
- Shop around and do the math: do you know the best price for organic rolled oats in your neighborhood? we get ours for $1.29/lb. which is cheaper, dried or canned beans? are you sure?
- Know the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen: organic sweet potatoes are expensive, but conventionals show up in the bargain bin regularly; should I buy them? same goes for apples; same answer? we posted the list on our fridge, next to our shopping list, which also helped us make smart swaps on our menu plans.
- Don't waste food: let's not even start on letting things mold because you're too picky to eat leftovers. I'm talking broccoli stems, carrot tops and orange peels. they can go into smoothies, be made into cleaning products, candied, juiced, boiled into veggie stock and so much more.


What's your budget? How did you set it? How do you stick to it?

This is the start of a new series. I read that successful people regularly think about things for which they are grateful. This might be a gross generalization, but it's free and it can't hurt my chances. It only seems appropriate to begin in the month of the Thanksgiving holiday.

This week, I am thankful for...

When I rowed in high school, I had no idea that anybody rowed after college. Clearly, it happens. Rowing has four main categories of athlete: junior, collegiate, open and masters, in approximate age order. Each of these categories has different competitions and seasons.


The junior athletes row for their high school or a local club team. Rules vary, but these athletes are almost exclusively in high school, with a few programs accepting 7th and 8th graders for learn-to-row type programs. Many junior athletes start their fall season in August and September, training for longer head races typical of September, October and November (where weather allows). Others will start rowing in the early spring months.

Junior athletes see the culmination of their season in May or June with regional and national championships, respectively. The best athletes are often invited to Junior National Team camps in the summer to compete for Team USA on the international racing circuit. All of these major races are overseen by USRowing. Many juniors also continue to row for club programs during the summer months.


Although collegiate athletes also start in September, they compete in a different arena. Collegiate programs fall into a wide variety of categories, from club to varsity teams, and with different combinations of genders and weight classes practicing together.

For collegiate programs, there are three major year-end regattas: NCAAs, IRAs and Dad Vails. Only openweight women's programs fall under the NCAA, and the top school from each conference, plus a number of at-large bids, are invited to compete. The NCAA championships have categories for DI, DII and DIII schools.

The IRA championship regatta is the equivalent of NCAA for the remaining three weight and gender classes: lightweight women, lightweight men, and heavyweight men. The event is invitation only, and based on season performance.

For many small and young programs, the Dad Vail regatta marks the season's end, with competitors from all over the country competing. Regular attendance at NCAAs and IRAs precludes crews from competing at the Dad Vail regatta.


Post-collegiate athletes divide themselves into two categories: open and masters athletes. Unlike scholastic athletes, these rowers compete primarily in the summer season.

Although open competition is just that—open to anyone—it has de facto become the racing venue for elite athletes. A number of events key to elite athletes span the seasons, from the October Head of the Charles, to the late spring National Selection Regattas and speed orders. For the top level athletes, the summer is spent on the international racing circuit, competing at World Cup and World Championship Regattas.

The open rowers can be found throughout the country, racing for clubs like CRC, Riverside, Penn A.C, Seattle RC and more. The best of these athletes often also have the choice of training at an official USRowing training center.


Masters athletes also compete year round, with long fall head races and shorter summer sprint races. In fact, the masters racing calendar is the most sensible of all. The year begins in the fall with regional head races and the major Head of the Charles regatta, all long races. Winter is spent preparing for the San Diego Crew Classic, a 2000 meter race. This is followed by a summer of 1000 meter racing, culminating in regional and national championships in mid-summer.

Masters athletes are divided into age brackets. Within each bracket, the oldest boats are given the biggest headstart. For example, a boat with an average age of 64 might race a boat with average age 62, and simply start a few seconds earlier.


Individual regattas choose to include certain classes of athletes. The Head of the Charles is all-inclusive, whereas many local regattas cater to only high school or collegiate athletes. And oftentimes, the "open" category at regattas is populated by master, junior and collegiate athletes looking for better competition. But, for better or worse, that is the lay of the land (water?).

As we've worked meats and cheeses out of our diets—flavors that often stand alone—Dan and I have developed our flavor palates significantly. Creating tasty vegan sauces is the key to creating tasty vegan meals.

In our trials we've noticed two things that consistently improve meals.

If it's savory, add sweet. If it's sweet, add acid.

For example, we use sweet soy sauce (similar to a molasses and soy sauce combo) instead of regular soy sauce to season our tofu. Salt + sugar + fat is delicious, and your taste buds will make sure you know it.

Maybe you're trying to cut down on sugar; we decided to do that by not eating brownies and cake and ice cream instead of trying to eliminate a teaspoon of sugar from our stirfries. It's up to you, but your taste buds might thank you.


Of course, taking away ice cream and cake and brownies means that suddenly, even a fruit smoothie tastes cloyingly sweet. We've taken to fixing that by throwing in something acidic: a peeled lemon or lime, a hunk of ginger, orange/grapefruit sections, etc. It helps brighten the whole affair, infusing it with life and making it dance on your tongue.

The same goes for sweets: topping your pancakes with powdered sugar and lemon zest is highly recommended; adding chunks of crystallized ginger to muffins is also lightweight approved.


What are your go-to methods for making any meal tastier?

"Individual workouts will rarely be perceived as exceptionally difficult or bordering on impossible. It will be a challenge to perform day after day..." - The Wolverine Plan

At some point during my training, I crossed a threshold—the point where I was no longer limited by my fitness but by my ability to recovery between workout sessions. This never happened in college, perhaps because our coaches were clever enough to keep our training volume relatively low to account for our otherwise hectic lives. It only happened when I began to train for 3-4 hours a day, week after week, month after month.

Eventually, as the quote above explains, rowing for 20 kilometers didn't seem like a particular challenge. The challenge was then spending 90 minutes lifting weights in the afternoon, just to come back and do another 20 kilometers the next day.

And that is why, although I spend only 3-4 hours a day with my heart rate in the training zone, I spend more than 40 hours a week training. My days between workouts are filled with stretching, ice baths, extra sleep, good nutrition, meditation, education and more.

This article covers the basics of post-workout recovery, including a 10-step protocol for recovery taking 3-4 hours, including a 1-2 hour nap. I find that incorporating all 10 steps daily is not realistic for me, especially not twice daily. Instead, I try to do more of these on the days when I have particularly tough training sessions.

For example, after a 10K run and 90 minute endurance weight session, I will take an ice bath while drinking a smoothie immediately after training, followed by 30 minutes of stretching. This prepares me to perform better on an afternoon training session that I may have otherwise been too fatigued to execute well.

There is also some science that shows certain foods aid recovery, like tart cherry juice. On particularly tough weeks, when I need to get extra calories anyways, sometimes I add these types of foods to my diet.

Finally, I make sure to under-schedule myself. I've found that I can commit to no more than one additional activity per day—going grocery shopping, dentist appointment, weeding the garden, running laundry. It's frustrating at times, feeling like I should be able to go out and have lunch with friends or take advantage of all the great activities. But ultimately, those things will directly affect my training and my success, so I've learned to limit myself.

Recovery isn't only a daily task, though. Each training season and year should have recovery periods built in as well. This may be the week or two you take off after running a marathon, followed by a month of unstructured easy running. Or it might be specifically scheduled volume reduction provided by a training plan. A lot of scholastic athletes get this break during the summer season, when, even those with the best of intentions, tend to slack off on their training a bit.

Our training schedule at CRC emphasizes not only periods of decreased volume but periods with lots of cross-training—from erging to hiking and biking to beach golf, we use these months as an opportunity to refresh our brains and our bodies while maintaining and even increasing fitness. When we come back, we've had a month or so to forget our bad rowing habits, which makes for some big technical gains in the first weeks back.

For clubs where the water freezes in winter, this is almost an automatic procedure. At CRC we've had to plan the rest period into our training schedule, which allows us some flexibility. This year, I'll be taking my off-water season travelling up to Oregon and cross country to Connecticut. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to break the routine!

What are your tricks for recovering between hard workouts? What do you sacrifice for your fitness?

August 18th was all set to be a spectacular Sunday. After squeezing in an erg session in the morning, Dan and I headed out to San Francisco with our bicycles. We both meant to grab our iPads for reading in a café, but forgot in our rush to get out the door.

We spent the morning cycling over to the Fort Mason farmer's market, where we chowed on tasty hummus, bread and veggies, met up with a friend and even caught one of the sailboat races in the Louis Vuitton cup. We cycled around the city, and made our way over to the Ferry Building, where we sat for a while with our feet up and enjoyed the view.

It was brilliant.

Hungry, we hopped on BART and headed back across the bay and up the hill home. That's when things started to get weird. Our gate was unlocked and open. (It turns out, it was having trouble latching properly.) Ever the optimist, we walked around back and started to lock up our bikes.

Then I hear, "Ho-ly fuck."

I looked over towards Dan to see our back window in pieces, shards of glass everywhere. We called the police and my mom and went inside to survey the house.

They took a lot. (We know it was a pair, because our neighbors saw two random people come scout our house.) They took our computers, our iPads, Dan's camera, and more. The list is really just depressing, and frustrating, and disappointing.

And parts of it are amusing, too. They ripped the two dollar mirrors off of the walls, presumably in the hopes of finding a hidden safe or some sort of secret stash. They took a bowl that can't have been worth more than $25 brand new (and certainly was not worth the weight of carrying it.) Clearly, these guys were stealing things for a reason—it seems they may not have been clever enough to do much else.

Insurance will help us recover most of the financial loss, although dealing with insurance companies is never fun. What we definitely can't get back is the feeling of safety.

The whole break-in really made us consider our situation. We are living in this beautiful area with so many great opportunities and things to enjoy, but it's too expensive to live someplace safe and we don't make enough money to enjoy many of the opportunities. Money is definitely a source of stress. And flying across the country multiple times a year for racing is not making the situation much better. Within hours, it became clear that Oakland was no longer our home—it was time to move on.

And so, Dan and I are starting the next phase of our lives. We've called Oakland home for two years now, and made some great memories here. But, on November 1st, we are packing our bags and starting out on a great adventure. Our route hasn't been decided yet, although we have a date for the Oregon-Oregon State Civil War game in Oregon on Thanksgiving weekend. And ultimately, we will make our way out to the great state of Connecticut, out on the right coast of the good ol' US of A.

There are a lot of things we will miss: mild winters, seeing family, diving in Monterey (ok, only Dan will miss that one), bountiful organic produce, vegan options in restaurants, and much more. But there are also a lot of things we won't miss: getting cat called every time I walk outside, crowded neighborhoods and sidewalks, bone dry summers, TV spoilers on Twitter (just kidding!), to name a few.