last 3 runs, bike commute, veggie mini-sermon, and tighter belt

This week will be my last 3 runs along the route I have taken since returning to Rock Island in late August.  I find that I really somehow "bond" with land when I spend a lot of time running, biking, or riding horses over it.  Some sort of physical connection that draws up comforting emotion.  I like my little mile-and-a-quarter slot of road.  This time next week, I will be in my new apartment just across the river, in a new neighborhood, working out where to run.  Ahhh change...

Meanwhile, yesterday I biked to a show in what will be my new neighborhood.  I went slow and easy, just enjoying myself, and proved that I can bike commute for work in 28 minutes, which included moseying easily enough not to sweat, as well as hitting almost every single light between here red.  Looks highly likely to me that regular biking to and from work is dead ahead on Karen's journey.  


I am really pleased to keep continually discovering that eating healthy doesn't feel like deprivation.  I kind of feel like I'm eating like royalty, most of the time as I feast on fresh fruits and veggies.  Saturday evening I made this great vegan dish that is brown rice, lentils, and a few other ingredients.  It has that "comfort food" feeling and it was very cheap and extremely easy to make.  Yesterday I built a taco salad, layering romaine, onions, bell peppers, green and black olives, lots of tomatoes, a nice pile of that rice/lentil stuff, and guacamole, greek yogurt, and Tabasco sauce on top.  It was as good as any bad-for-me alternative I might have chosen, and guilt-free to boot.  Nifty stuff!  


I'm currently reading a book called "Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.  A friend shared it with me, with both a high recommendation as far as getting educated, and a warning that Dr. Fuhrman is quite militant in his views.  I was reluctant to open it for awhile, due to the warning.  But I'm finding it's a good book.  A lot of what I am reading there (all backed up with lots of case studies and science) is confirming the things I've been learning are so important:

• Raw or only slightly cooked veggies and fruits are insanely good for the body
• Animal products - (that'd be meat and dairy) are tied to a depressingly consistent string of nasty diseases that are on the rise and that we've come to basically accept as part of aging here the states
• Most of the "grains" we tend to eat here are basically just an invitation to be overweight and have blood sugar issues along with heart health problems and such
• And he hasn't said it yet, but I just KNOW he's going to come to the place of explaining how ingesting soda is basically intentionally taking in toxins

Most interestingly, he asserts that our main problem here in the states is malnutrition.  We stuff our bodies full of high-calorie, low-nutrition food  and our bodies scream for more nutrition.  Add to that the fact that the trifecta of fat, sugar, and processed flour is like a prescription for "make my body hungrier and hungrier" and this is why obesity and its many related health problems are hitting such a meteoric rise.  


He says we shouldn't eat LESS.  Many of us should eat MORE.  With the difference being that 90% of our calories should be from raw vegges and fruits, basically (that's the simplest possible explanation of the wealth of what I've read thus far).  


Anyway I would say I've been well-prepared to read him, with all the other things the Lord has brought across my path on the way to this book (which Dr. Fuhrman says will make you a nutrition expert if you read, and I believe that).  While I am STILL not ready to become a 100% vegan, the more I read, the easier it is to eat that way almost all of the time, with animal products just being an occasional treat and not a staple of my diet. 


In other news, my belt got smaller midday yesterday.  I am not making this up!  I put it through one specific hole in the morning, and by after lunch, it had to go one notch smaller!  Weird, eh?  But cool.


Happy Monday, all.