Beginning Training and Searching for Yogurt Divinity...But Who Isn't?

I would like to talk about health in many forms, but the two topics I'd really like to hit on are exercise and nutrition. Now, not being a personal trainer or a nutritionist, these are really more like musings, so take what I say with some grains of all natural sea salt. Feel free correct me of certain assumptions or enlighten me, but keep in mind, I'm not claiming to be an expert. I've just learned a thing or two about being healthy and want to continue my education and pass on my knowledge. I also think that a lot of making healthier choices in life has a lot to do with your mental motivation so I'll be addressing this from time to time as well.

Exercise
I've officially started training for the Bolder Boulder. That's right, this 10K tradition is a mere 3 months away and I need to hit the training hard if I'm going to make my goal this year. Last year I ran it in 67 minutes. This year I want to run it in under an hour. That's a little more than a minute that I need to shave off of each mile. Right now I can run 2ish miles at that pace. And my best distance time is a 5K right on pace with my BB time from last year. Needless to say...I need more training! The sun will be up soon and hopefully I'll get an outside run (yay running outside) before I start my hectic day.

Nutrition
(disclaimer: I'm not paid to advertise anything I write about here, I just really have found some things that I like and want to share with the world). I haven't gotten to the stage where I cut out all delicious foods yet, but I'm really trying to give up on ones that are a crutch.

The quest for the perfect yogurt. I have tried many different yogurts, but I'm sure I haven't come close to trying them all. There are many thoughts about yogurt. When I became a vegan the first (very jarring) book I read told me yogurt was out. Now there are definitely some practices I took from veganism and some I left in the dust. Soy yogurt is not my favorite. I fact I have a general annoyance for soy products that are intended to substitute a meat/dairy product (e.g. soy cheese. Trust me, there are much better alternatives for cheese that a weak imitation that tries unsuccessfully to approximate the flavor of cheese. It's like when a book is turned into a movie and the movie tries to just be a whitewashed version of the book (coughs The Da Vinci Code). Usually this type of movie is much more successful if it tries to capture the themes and ideas of the book while still recognizing that it is a movie. Same with cheese. More on this in a later post). There are some benefits to yogurt, though. The active yeast cultures help your digestive system, it's a great source of protein, and they can actually tide you over as part of your breakfast or a snack when you're just fracking hungry.

Moving on to the yogurt. The first kind I fell in love with were the regular fruit on the bottom yogurts. None of the milkfat is skimmed off in these little babies and you're given a full dose of sugar (and it fact it usually isn't just sugar we're talking about but the devil HFC: high fructose corn syrup, which I'm not going to attempt to go off on now, but let me give you the short version. Cheap, highly processed, easily burned by your body = sugar crashes, empty carbs, lots of price markup)...which is why you want to profess deep undying love to these beauties and why you don't want to eat just one. If you're looking for an alternative to ice cream, this might be a route to consider, but keep in mind, these puppies pack around 200 calories a shot and for a few more calories you might be better off with the occasional ice cream.

When I was a heavy aspartame consumer (I know, I know...cancer causing, bad for you, blah blah blah) I did the no fat no sugar (no satisfaction) yogurts. These range from around 60 to 110 calories depending on how much actual fruit is in them and how many ounces they are. The biggest problem I have with these is that they're only so-so in flavor, and I ended up usually throwing a BUNCH of sweet granola on top to make them heartier and tastier. Plus there is that unavoidable aftertaste of artificial sweeteners. And these lovelies usually have: a LOT of ingredients (generally considered bad form in the food world...in a way that Good Times commercial touting the joys of simple ingredients had a good point: "I don't even know what monosodiumtetracycline is but it can't be good. Too many syllables." If you see something like that in your food, buyer beware. The more syllables, the more ingredients, the more processed and less like actual food the product is. More on that in a later post...drat I have so much to say!)

So there I was, in search of some kind of balance. Something that didn't give me a sugar high/crash, or more body fat count, or cancer in my old years, or a desire to eat more yogurt in one sitting. I discovered the world of the "organic" yogurt. I'm using this term loosely mind you, but in this specific instance I mean made with organic fruit, sugars that take more time for your body to process (read less of a high, less of a crash, less of annoying sugar cravings), and milk that has come from cows without growth hormones (growth hormones don't sound so great to me). I've tried several different brands and liked most of them (some good ones were, from most awesome to just fairly awesome: Rachel's (I'll get to this in a sec), Brown Cow (and not just because it's fun to say...they know how to do peach right!), Safeway brand (local grocery store), and Horizon. Some of them have added pectin to make them thicker, so keep that in mind. I personally would rather do without it (one more thing interrupting my yogurt yumminess). Now many of these yogurts are still up in the higher 100s in calories, so keep that in mind. They DO have sugar in them. Just because your body doesn't have a shocking reaction to it doesn't mean that it has any less calories than that HFC punk. Now to my favorite of these babies: Rachel's (especially the Exotic flavors). Let me get this out of the way first: the only place I've found these at a convenient location is Target (I think Whole Foods and King Soopers sells them as well, but those are not in good spot for me) Why I like this one: very little pectin, 150 calories, no artificial growth hormones, evaporated cane juice, and quite frankly the tastiest tangiest yogurts out there (I kid you not, these exotics rock). If you want to read a slightly more expert opinion, check out this review of the health benefits.

Positive Brain Waves
Current mental state: tired but happy. Having this goal of under 60 minutes for the BB has been a huge motivator for me, especially since I'll be running it with friends. A bigger motivator to living a healthy balanced life than I've had in a while.