Strawberries

Once upon a time, I bought a total of 28 pounds of yam, here and here.  Not long after, the yams were all gone--I ate 27 pounds of yam, the Princess ate 1 pound, and my husband ate 0 pounds. 

This Saturday, I found a new food to buy in huge quantities--strawberries.  I actually upon the strawberries unintentionally.  After practice, I went to the local Farmer's Market, but did not see anything I really liked and was willing to pay for.  Near our house, there is a street corner where migrant workers often sell produce.  On an impulse, I stopped and bought strawberries.  Originally, I only wanted a few pints of strawberries, but somehow, I ended up with a whole flat of strawberries.  A flat is equivalent to 12 pints or TWELVE pounds of strawberries.

A flat of strawberries

I knew as soon as I bought it that a flat was way too many strawberries, but it was a good deal and my husband and the Princess both eat strawberries.  (The Princess pretty much eats anything.)

My husband's eyes got big when he saw the strawberries, but not from delight.  The first thing he said was, "What are you going to do with all those strawberries?"  Five minutes later, he asked, "Are you going to do anything with those strawberries?"  He had a look of concern when I did not immediately start devouring the strawberries as soon as I got home.  To be fair, this is not the first time I have come home with a whole flat of strawberries and there have been some strawberries that go bad because we could not eat them fast enough.

When I say that I eat a lot, I am not joking.  More than half of the flat is already gone--mostly consumed by yours truly.

Found!

The main swim set today was all freestyle and with fins:
1.  4x100yds, breathing on the right side for one lap and on the left side for the next lap
2.  3x150yds, first and third 150yds breathing on your "bad" side and second 150yds breathing on your "favorite" side
3.  2x200yds, first breathing on your "bad" side and second breathing on your "favorite" side
4.  2x150yds, first breathing on your "bad" side and second breathing on your "favorite" side
5.  4x100yds, breathing every third stroke

Usually, I am excited about swimming with fins, but today's workout might make me think twice.  The alternating side breathing is not too bad for me, although I generally breathe on my left side.  Fins are fun because you get to swim FAST, but it comes at a price--fins require more oxygen and leave you breathless.  I also tend to underestimate my speed as I come into the wall so by the time I do a flip turn, I am practically on the wall.  And Marcia was telling me, "Streamline, streamline!"  Like rowing where we have to practice and focus on holding our technique, swimming requires you to hold your core tight and your body in a streamline position, head down, as you push off the wall.  I am usually busy looking at the swimmer ahead and hold my head up in quite a non-aerodynamic fashion--it is no wonder I am not fast!

I have a confession to make.  Last night after practice, I went to Trader Joe's.  As my husband reminded me when I got home, that was four grocery trips in five days.  To be fair, I went to TJ's for race food--apples, crackers, Lavabars--for San Diego, but I did also look to see if they had any yams.  Nope, they had pitiful bags of sweet potatoes, but no yams.  Want to know the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?  Try here.  From reading the article, it actually looks like what I have been eating are sweet potatoes.  Either way, none of it was PURPLE!  None of it was this!

Call me crazy, but today I made one last ditch effort to find this elusive purple yam.  For those of you who are keeping count, yes, this is five grocery trips in six days.  (If you are counting my trips, does this mean you are also a stroke counter in the boat?  For non-rowers, stroke counters are rowers who count strokes to help pass the boredom during long rows or to help mentally cope with the pain during races.) 

I went to Ranch 99, a chain Chinese grocery store, and easily found what I was looking for.  It was almost surreal.  The purple yams were just sitting in the middle of the produce isle, waiting for me to pick them up.  Counter to what I thought before, they are actually a tan color on the outside and the skin only turns dark purple when cooked. 

One bag of two of purple yams

Uncooked: light brown on the outside, purple on the inside

I picked up those purple yams--two bags or a total of 14 pounds of them.  I am pretty sure that no normal person would buy 14 pounds of yams or sweet potatoes at one time, but at the store, I was suddenly overcome by this concern that maybe tomorrow, the price of orange yams would suddenly skyrocket and then, all the purple yam farmers would stop producing purple yams and start growing orange yams.  In that light, it made perfect sense to stock up on purple yams.  My distressed husband assured me that the price of yams would not change overnight and that you cannot even trade yams on the stock market, but you can trade corn, wheat, soy beans, oats, paddy rice, milk, and hogs on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Cooked: Brownish-purple on the outside, dark purple on the inside

I am sure that one day, maybe in a not-so-distant future, I will get tired of these yams.  For now, even if the purple yams do not taste as great as I remembered, I am not going to admit it because then, there is no possibility of luring my husband into helping me eat 14 pounds of yam.

Yams

I have mentioned before about this amazing ability that I have.  Well, this amazing ability becomes a problem during the week before a race when we taper.  Before a big race, most athletes go through a tapering phase where the volume and intensity of the workouts decrease in order to allow for sufficient rest and recovery.  If you time your tapering phase correctly, you should feel relatively "fresh" on race day.

I often find tapering challenging for two reasons.  First, with shorter and fewer workouts, I accumulate a lot of nervous energy, thinking about the upcoming race.  Second, tapering makes me want to EAT, but it is just as important not to overeat as it is to be properly fueled!  Since I cannot relieve the anxiety by working out, I want to use food to help me relax.  We are still working out and maybe still doing intervals, but we are not burning as many calories as during normal training.  This morning, we did 2x2,000m on the water, but have you ever wondered how many calories you burn?  Have you ever looked at the calories/hour reading on the erg after a 2,000m erg piece?  The last time I checked, I burned only 140 calories for my 2k erg test.  All that work for 140 calories.  That is nothing!  That is half of a normal ice cream sandwich or half a cup of cooked pasta or a slice of whole grain toast with peanut butter thinly spread across.  I could eat that in two bites.  Concept2 has a good calories burned calculator that takes weight into account, if you are ever interested.

As San Diego Crew Classic approaches, Chris has reminded us several times to take care of ourselves--making sure we rest and recover before and after hard workouts, getting enough sleep, and staying healthy.  For me, another aspect to that is eating well, healthy.  I try to cut back on my processed foods and eat more wholesome, natural foods.  Recently, I have had this insane craving for yams, but not any particular yam.  PURPLE YAMS.  Two weeks ago, my parents baked purple yams that were so delicious.  These yams are dark purple on the outside and bright purple on the inside.  The texture is smoother and less stringy than the normal orange yams, and the taste is sweeter.

This past weekend, I was determined to eat purple yams.  I actually thought about these purple yams all day Friday on my way home from Ohio.  Then, on Saturday, I made a special trip to Safeway to buy the yams.  Well, Safeway only had the normal orange yams.  With the Princess refusing to stay seated in her nice little seat in the front of the grocery cart, I made a hurried decision and grabbed a big bag of orange yams.  When my husband saw my seven pounds of yam, he was not amused.  He has seen me go through phases where I am obsessed with a certain food and buy tons of it only to lose interest a week later.  I have gone through a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner phase, a butternut squash phase, a cottage cheese phase, a vegetarian chili phase, a smoked salmon phase.  There is only one thing that my husband hates more than wasting food, and that is having to help me eat all the food that I buy in huge quantities before it goes bad.  And he is not a fan of yams (nor of Chinese food as I found out after we got married).

Normal, orange yams

I baked all seven pounds of yam and probably ate about half of that on my own before realizing that I was sick of eating these yams and that I still wanted purple yams!

Sunday, after practice, I went to Whole Foods to get these special purple yams.  Whole Foods had two types of yams--the normal type and a type called "Japanese yams."  I was again in somewhat of a hurry and quickly grabbed a big bag, i.e. another seven pounds, of the Japanese yams, which were purple on the outside.  I could almost taste these yams on the way home.  Another unamused look from my husband who did not fail to remind me that this was the third time I went to the grocery store this week.  To my utter horror when I went to bake these Japanese yams, they were NOT purple yams.  Inside, they were a soft whitish-yellow. 

My seven pounds of Japanese yams, minus the four yams that I already put into the oven

Definitely NOT purple on the inside

I am still fixed on getting those purple yams at some point in time, after I finish all the yams I have at home.  Luckily, I have two things in my favor.  First, the Japanese yams taste pretty good and I have not gotten tired of eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Second, although my husband has so far refused to help me eat the yams, I have found a willing helper in the Princess!  She has no problem helping herself to some yam, purple or not purple.

Company Credit Card and the Amish

Yesterday, I touched on several reasons why I am not a fan of work travel.  One of those reasons was that work travel is disruptive to my normal eating routine and often makes it difficult to eat healthy.  There is, however, one positive to eating while traveling for work--the company credit card.  My company pays for all employee meals when on travel.  There is no official limit to how much your meals can cost, but any meal over $25 must have an itemized receipt included in your expense report.  If the meal looks too extravagant, you might get a few questions.  While many of my co-workers like to take the opportunity to swipe the company credit card for lavish steaks, big meals, and drinks, I like to use it to order food that is healthy, but that I am too cheap to pay for on my own.

Tonight, I made a stop for dinner at Panera Bread, a chain bakery and cafe found across the U.S.  Here's what I ordered, to-go: 1 cup of chicken noodle soup (love chicken soup although I do not eat chicken), 1 cup of black bean soup, 1 full Mediterranean Veggie sandwich, and 1 Greek salad.  Three baguette pieces and 1 bag of potato chips were also included in the meal.  My meal came in one of those large brown shopping bags, often used for carrying catered food. 

Here was my rationale.  It was very cold outside, almost freezing, hence, I wanted soup.  I could not decide between chicken soup and black bean soup, both of which are very good.  Since cost is no object in this situation, I got both.  When I personally eat out, I am too cheap to order salad because salad is often overpriced and not very filling.  Since, again, cost is no object here, I ordered $6 worth of romaine lettuce, sparsely sprinkled with feta cheese, tomatoes, and olives.  Finally, I had to have a main course, which was the sandwich.

I wonder if the girl who took my order thought I was ordering food for two people.  I wonder if the hotel check-in manager thought I was having a party in my room with my big bag of food.  Lastly, I wonder what my manager at work who will have to approve my expense report will think when he sees my receipt.  Yes, I ordered a lot of food.  No, I did not order food for anyone else.  Yes, I followed the company corporate policy.  No, I did not have dinner with anyone else.

On a different note, I did learn a few more things about Ohio today so I can be less of an ignorant Californian.  Northern Ohio is pretty flat while the southern portion of the state is more hilly (but nothing like San Francisco).  Apparently, the difference in Ohio geography was caused by a glacier thousands of years ago; the glacier flattened northern Ohio, but it never reached southern Ohio.  In the Cincinnati area and along the border with Kentucky, you will start meeting people with Southern accents.  When you go east towards the Appalachian Mountains, you will find what a manager at work here calls “clannish people”—people who are wary of outsiders and live barely above the poverty level.  There are also a number of subsistence farmers and a handful of "truck" farms, large farms that import in Hispanic farm hands during the harvest season.  

The Amish people also have large farms, 40-80 acres that are often bought through their church so technically the church owns the farms.  The Amish do not hire hands to help with the harvest.  Instead, the whole community pitches in to help with farming.  In addition, the Amish do not believe in and have no need for insurance.  If someone's house burns down, all families pitch in to help rebuild the house.  Did you know that the Amish are famous builders in this area?  Although they do not believe in electricity, they can build houses equipped with electricity and there is such a thing as an Amish electrician.  The Amish refer to the non-Amish as the "English."  Children of Amish parents, at some point in time, are allowed to go out into the world and explore the "English" ways.  They then must decide whether they want to lead an Amish or an "English" life.  Once that decision has been made, the idea is that there is no turning back.  I wonder if these people pay taxes.  I wonder how these people do their taxes, obviously not by Turbo Tax!

Ignorant Californian

As much as I think about how cool it would be to go on adventures, travel the world, and explore new places, in the very end, I am a big homebody.  I love having a schedule, going to familiar places, and knowing exactly what to expect.

Thus, traveling for work is not one of my favorite things.  First, work travel disrupts training.  It is hard to be a serious athlete when you are working 12 hour plant days, dining and wining with clients, or constantly catching red-eyes.  Your hotel may or may not have a tiny fitness room with one lonely treadmill and some free weights.  It is so important, however, that you do something active during your travels.  Something, anything to maintain your fitness level.

Second, work travel disrupts eating.  Many times, it is difficult to eat out healthy without sounding like a complete health nut, insane calorie-watching woman, and stereotypical California ("Excuse me, no butter or hydrogenated fats please!").  In addition, travel can be stressful and it is so tempting to munch on candies, chips, trail mix, etc. to ease the anxiety.

Third, work travel often means driving around in unfamiliar places and navigating your way around a new town.  In my line of work, which involves manufacturing, I often find myself traveling to the Midwest and the South.  If you do not know, I am pretty much 100% Californian--born and raised in California--and I am also pretty much the stereotypical ignorant Californian.  The middle of America is one big blob in my head.  I have no sense of where North Dakota is relative to Iowa or how far east or west Michigan is from Ohio.  Ohio, Iowa, Idaho all seem the same in my head, like this. 

When I first arranged this week's trip to Ohio, I had pictured traveling to several different suppliers, all located in Ohio.  Little did I know that Ohio is no puny state!  It would take almost four hours to drive from one end of the state to the other end, about 220 miles.  In my head, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Akron were all located right next to each other.  After all, how big could Ohio be?  What an ignorant Californian!

In order to rectify my mistakes, I have learned a thing or two about Ohio.  Ohio is the seventh most populous state with a population of 11.5 million.  Ohio is on Eastern Standard Time, something that I was confused about when I got off the plane this morning; it is also the most western state in the EST zone.  The Pro Football Hall of Fame and the First Ladies National Historic Site are located in Canton, close to where I am visiting this week.  Apparently, there is also an Amish colony nearby.  The Ohio state mascot and mascot for Ohio State University is the buckeye or Aesculus glabra, which is a tree native to the Midwest. 

Now that I have learned a little bit about this new state, I think I have done my duty.  I cannot wait to get home!

Rabbit Food

In college when I was trying to make weight, I would eat what my friends would call "rabbit food"--raw vegetables, Fiber One cereal, and whole grain bran muffins.  It is pretty hilarious when I look back now, but at the time, my rabbit food was very serious.  Crew was very serious, and not making weight was simply unacceptable.  At the time, I really lacked the maturity and mindset to make weight without developing poor eating habits, such as going through cycles of binging and starving.  In the end, I could only make weight by crash dieting, and dehydration worked to shed the last few pounds.

For my birthday the year I was trying to make weight for the Head of the Charles, my roommate gave me a cake made of "rabbit food."

"Rabbit food" cake

This is how I spent my junior year in college.  Picture a 100 person lecture hall with a professor standing in the front of the room, droning on in his heavy foreign accent about some upper division mechanical engineering concept--heat transfer to be specific.  I am wearing my crew sweats and slouching in my seat in the back row of the lecture hall with my notebook open to take notes.  I am snacking on my raw broccoli and whole grain brain muffins, which my friends think are disgusting.  I have to admit that the muffins really just tasted like cardboard, but they were the closest thing to complex carbohydrates that I would allow myself to eat.  I am trying to pay attention to the professor while my friends are making snide comments about the lecture (thus one of the reasons why we are sitting in the back).  What I am really thinking about during lecture is food and all the things I want to eat, but should not eat, cannot eat, must not eat.  Twenty minutes into lecture, I am fast asleep (the another reason why we are sitting in the back). 

I was a pretty bad student.  In all four years of college, the best sleep I got was in lecture.  The warm lecture halls and the monotone voice of the professor created the perfect nap envirnoment.  I was always behind on sleep, thanks to crew, and always falling asleep in lecture with my rabbit food in hand.

NyQuil and Chocolate Cake

Part Two of "I did NOT want to get up this morning, coffee or no coffee."  You can read Part One here.

To be truthful, I think my body simply shut down from too much stress, lack of sleep, and probably too much coffee.  Passing out early the other night was my body holding up a white flag.  That whole night, I had the chills and aches, followed by a low-grade fever and headache.  The following day or yesterday, I left work early to come home and rest.  No rower wants to hear or face the reality that perhaps, she is cracking under too much stress.  Somewhere in her contorted mind, it implies to her that she cannot handle the physical and mental stress of the training schedule.  There are several components that make up a top athlete: strength, endurance, core strength and balance, mental toughness, consistency, and stress.  None of the other components mean anything if you cannot perform under stress.  And trust me, sitting at the start line of a 2,000m race is very stressful because no one else can help you.  Nothing, but rowing those 2,000m and completing the race can bring you salvation, but yet, it is that 2,000 meters that is so uncertain and brings about the anxiety of anticipation.

This morning, I left the house with no coffee and with a low-grade fever and chills, but I had a plan--NyQuil.  I am not a big believer in taking medicine for minor colds or discomforts, but I am a big believer in sleep, and NyQuil will give me sleep.

We had 1 LMRC double, 1 men's single, 1 LMRC eight (same line-up as Saturday and Monday), 2 JLAC women's eights, and 1 JLAC men's eight on the water today.  At the finger, Chris had the eight practice a catch drill where a pair sits at the finish and then rows up to the catch.  At the catch, the two rowers will simply lift their hands off the handle, allowing gravity to do its job and the oar to plunk right into the water.  The drill demonstrates that your hands should lift, and not drop, into the catch.  We continued to warm up to the log boom.  From the log boom back to the finger, we practiced starts.  None of the starts were particularly great even when Chris had us slow down the speed and ease off on the pressure.  Our main piece was from the finger to the log boom at a 24spm and at steady state pressure with a focus on length.  The last drill that we did before going in was the "chop-chop" drill.  (Anyone know the actual name?!)  The whole boat sat at the finish with arms away and simply tapped the oar handle up and down, hence the chop-chop.  Once the boat was able to maintain timing and togetherness, the coxswain would call "Way enough" and the rowers would stop their blades in the air. 

With a quick stop at Safeway after practice, I had my NyQuil, and with my NyQuil, I slept a fitful, yet much needed five hours.  I woke up with the chills gone, but my head in a daze, probably from the NyQuil.  I woke up to one thought in my head--CHOCOLATE CAKE.  I pictured luscious, rich chocolate cupcakes and a whole 9x13in pan of moist chocolate cake coming out of my oven.  I have no idea where this thought came from because one, there is no chocolate cake in the house, and two, I usually prefer white or yellow cake over chocolate cake.  But once the thought of food enters my head, it is a beast to shake off.

If you have not yet heard of my amazing ability, please do indulge me by reading about it here because being sick is no deterrent for me.  I assessed my situation.  There was no chocolate cake in the house, but I did have sugar-free chocolate popsicles and chocolate pudding and real sugar, full fat chocolate chips and several boxes of brownie mix.  In my former, less glamorous lightweight days, I would have gone for the boxes of brownie mix, which I would rip open, pour into a bowl, along with some yogurt, butter, and/or egg whites and would try desperately to make a brownie meant to be baked in the oven for over 30 minutes, in the microwave in 30 seconds.  Then, in worried panic that I might finish off the rest of the brownie mix, I would throw it out and take out the trash because once the brownie mix was in the dumpster, I could not be tempted to fish it out.  Today though, I worked my way up, first from the popsicles and pudding to the chocolate chips.  With my head still in a daze and my stomach bloated from sugar-free crap, I have come to the realization that may be I should just take another NyQuil and sleep it all away.

Amazing Ability

I have this amazing ability. I am probably the only person you know who can gain weight while sick. This is the same ability that allowed me today to continue eating and snacking while having a massive stomach ache.

A few months ago, my mixed double's partner was explaining to me about how sick he had been that week and as a result, how much weight he had lost. He had actually lost a fair amount of weight while ill. Of course, most of the weight was regained after a few healthy days, but like normal people, he still came out with a net loss. Whenever I am sick, I come out with a net gain. Being sick might suppress my appetite, but it does not mean that I eat less. I usually eat more because I am so miserable being sick that I am constantly looking for a pick-me-up, usually in the form of food whether it is a bar of candy or five bowls of chicken soup. Add on top of that not being able to workout and it becomes a simple inequality--calories in >> calories out. No wonder the scale reads a few pounds heavier.

For the last month, I have been trying to eat healthier by the usual means--more fruits and veggies and less processed food and sweets. Today, I was quite on track towards the end of the day, eating my carrots and sugar snap peas. These veggies were not quite filling so I had some oatmeal too. Somehow, these foods or this combination at this particular time of day did not agree with my stomach and I ended up with a bloated, uncomfortable stomach. Then, somehow in my twisted logic under physical distress, I reasoned that eating more food would help the situation. Of course, that did not provide the relief I was looking for. Any normal person would have known to stop eating, drink warm herbal tea, and lie down.

Learning that food is not the answer to illness, stomach aches, stress, bad days, screaming babies, etc. is clearly something I need to work on. This amazing ability has got to go.