Tag Archives: Facebook

Yum: An after-dinner update

paleo dinnerEarlier today I wrote a blog post in which I included a recipe for Spaghetti Squash & Sausage that Sarah Garvin posted on the Warrior CrossFit Muscatine Facebook page for the posted toFebruary 2013 30-Day Paleo Challenge.

As luck would have it, I had all of the ingredients on hand except for some sausage — even had two squash. Or is that squashes? :) So, I stopped at the store on the way home, bought some sausage and made this for dinner.

It was delish. Definitely, I will make it again. It even has me wondering if not trying the 30-Day Paleo Challenge was the right decision. If Sarah has more recipes like this, you can definitely eat Paleo and not deprive yourself of good food.

A second followup: Earlier today, I also wrote a blog post about Muscatine’s selection as a Blue Zone’s community.

To me, this is a good thing.

Of course, I shared the blog post on Twitter and Facebook. And it was retweeted by someone called Bleeding Heartland.

desmoinesdem 4:16pm via Web

Has perhaps #Iowa‘s worst #air quality; fixing that key RT @CSteinbach Thoughts about Muscatine’s new Blue Zones status wp.me/pKaly-1m0

I don’t know who this is and I doubt if it’s anyone with whom I want to get into a debate.

Are there air-quality issues in Muscatine? Sure.

Should that disqualify Muscatine residents from learning to eat better and exercise more? Not if you ask me.

Until they prove me wrong, I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to the companies in Muscatine that are working to address pollution issues in the community.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone to do whatever they can to adopt the ideas promoted by Blue Zones author Dan Buettner.

It can’t hurt. And it could help. A lot.

Thoughts about Muscatine’s new Blue Zones status

lunch

Today’s lunch. No French fries. At least not for me today.

Officials today in Des Moines selected Muscatine as a Blue Zones community, along with Cedar Rapids, Iowa City, Marion, Oskaloosa and Sioux City. Those Iowa cities and towns join Mason City, Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Spencer, which were named Blue Zones last year.

Of course, I tweeted news about the announcement and posted it on my Facebook page. And then I sent another tweet:

status update

Another friend pointed out later on that his sandwich at lunch included three vegetables: ketchup, mustard AND a pickle. And yet another friend told me via Twitter that French fries really aren’t a vegetable.

The funny thing about these comments from my so-called friends is that they were made by people who, I’m pretty sure, eat healthier than many others in Muscatine. And they all exercise more than average, too. Their smart-aleck comments are to be expected because they were, after all, made by my friends. It’s also pretty common, I think, to joke about things that are new or maybe not understood.

Muscatine residents will begin hearing and learning more about Blue Zones in the weeks and months ahead. There will be skepticism. This is, after all, Muscatine. And the Blue Zones project has its critics in the communities where it has already been launched. I’ve seen and read some of the negative comments.

But any effort to help make Muscatine a healthier and better community can be viewed only as a good thing. I have blogged often about my efforts to lose weight, be more active and fit. My struggle is not unique. I see plenty of other Muscatine residents fighting the same battle, along with just as many who appear to have given up. They don’t move. They aren’t active. They eat too much. And far too often they eat too much of the wrong things. At far too young of an age, they wind up struggling with ailments once only known to the oldest among us.

Imagine how much better off we would all be, however, if we never again saw a very heavy young person — someone who is 40 or younger — forced to ride around Wal-Mart on a scooter.

This is an opportunity like any other we encounter in life. As a community, we will only get out of it what we are all willing to put into it. Being named a Blue Zones community could become one of the best things to ever happen to Muscatine if enough of us want to make it so.

I’m on board.

Are you?

Wise words about diet and exercise

LarryThe inspiration for the next 800 words or so comes from Larry Sandhaas, a friend from the Muscatine Community Y, Warrior Crossfit Muscatine and Facebook.

Larry is a principal structural engineer at Stanley Consultants in Muscatine and one of the smartest people I know. He has life figured out in ways I’m not sure I ever will. But don’t take my word for it. With 21 words today on his Facebook page Larry offered perhaps the best summary I’ve ever read on eating healthy: Just cook a lot from basic ingredients, and aim for something somebody from 100 years ago would recognize as food.

His approach to fitness is also pretty simple: Larry seriously dabbles in many different activities. He runs, bikes, practices yoga, lifts weights and does Crossfit when the mood strikes him. He also cuts fire wood to help heat his home and makes time to do a fair number of strenuous activities around the Illinois farm where he lives with his wife and children.

All of these things make Larry a guy who is worthy of admiration in my book. When you factor in that he also likes Johnny Cash, well, if I gush any more, I may be accused of having a man crush.

But his advice for healthy eating resonated with me today as I contemplated separate, but perhaps related, things going on in Muscatine:

  • isitpaleoflowchartCompeting in a 30-day paleo diet challenge that my friends at Warrior Crossfit Muscatine will kick off on Friday.
  • Stepping Monday on to a set of scales that shouted back: Step away, fat man.

If anything, the scales give some support to why I should try the 30-day paleo challenge. Paying close scrutiny to what I put in my mouth for 30 days would be a useful exercise. But it also seems logical that the best diet is one you can maintain for a lifetime, which is why I’m leaning towards saying no to the challenge. I’m pretty sure I know what would happen at the end of 30 days if I managed to successfully deprive myself of things I’d have to give up. I’d eat them until I practically foundered myself.

I have a lot of experience with this sort of thing. Six years ago, I lost a lot of weight by adopting most of the lessons I learned from my friend, Jill Skeem. But then a bunch of things changed in my life, I wasn’t able to maintain Jill’s way of living and have since regained most of the weight I lost. And to be brutally honest, as I re-read the previous sentence, I have to admit not nearly enough has changed because all I’ve done is fall back into the really bad habit of overeating when I am angry, stressed, frustrated, unhappy, etc.

And, yes, I know all I’m doing is making excuses.

It’s the ups and downs — the weight lost and gained back — that has me rooting for Muscatine to become a Blue Zones. I sort of feel as if I could be a poster boy for the effort even though my situation isn’t unique and may not be as bad even as what some other Muscatine residents face. When it comes to living an active life, I have come a long way in the past 10 years. But I still have obvious issues with food that need to be addressed. Making healthy living a priority for the entire community couldn’t possibly hurt my effort to do the same, so I’m hoping for good news Wednesday on the Blue Zones front.

So while part of me feels compelled to try to the 30-day challenge, here is what I am going to do instead (and by writing about it, I hope some of you feel compelled to help make me be accountable):

  • Eat three meals a day made of real food, placing an emphasis on protein and vegetables. I’m going to cut back on — if not outright eliminate — sugars and processed foods. No soft drinks or junk food. In other words, I intend to eat things that people would have recognized as food 100 years ago.
  • Do something strenuous every day — break a sweat.
  • Do more strength training — at least three times a week. I have to work up the courage to go back to Crossfit.
  • Stop watching TV in the month of February.
  • Replace snacking in the middle of the day and at night with going for walks or knocking off some squats. The worst times for me to eat things I shouldn’t are between 3-4 p.m. and 8-10 p.m. My diet will improve tremendously if I can overcome these obstacles.
  • Give up beer for the month of February.

And if I succeed at even 90 percent of this, I figure the worst thing that can happen is I may start to make homemade beef jerky or I might start making wine or running endurance races. But that wouldn’t be so bad because Gatorade got it wrong.

I want to be like Larry.

In tune: Muscatine radio station sounded good Monday

For today, I’m backing into my point by first talking about social media.

Most dictionaries offer at least two definitions for shoot from the hip, an idiom with roots in the Old West:

  • Literally firing a gun that is held beside the shooter’s hip to increase how quickly the gun is fired.
  • Figuratively speaking frankly.

wal-martBut when it comes to the latter definition, shooting from the lip might be more appropriate in the age of social media. Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, etc. make it so easy. Or maybe it’s just me who sometimes rattles off quick and unnecessary remarks. It happened Monday while I was waiting in line at the customer-service counter at the local Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is an easy target. And I don’t like to wait in line any more than the next person. So, like growing numbers of impatient smart-phone users, I logged onto Foursquare, shot a photo and fired off a complaint about the line moving too slowly.

But the truth is, since I type very slowly on my iPhone, it took me as long to complain as it took the Wal-Mart personnel to work their way to me in line. They actually did a pretty good job. My complaint was overblown.

Jamie Hopkins

Jamie Hopkins

The lesson of that experience is one of the many reasons why I want to wholeheartedly encourage Jamie Hopkins and the staff at Vintage Sound 93.1 FM and wish them well.

It would be easy to write off what they are attempting. After all, I know I am not the only music fan who has switched from commercial radio to Web-based services such Pandora or Spotify. And local commercial radio stations will never get all of those listeners back. It’s hard to compete with a service that doesn’t have announcers OR commercials and never stops playing uninterrupted music from every genre you can imagine (and probably some you can’t.)

vintage

If you have become as accustomed as I have to listening to music on your phone, Vintage Sound does use the Tune In Radio app for smart phones. This should also appeal to Muscatine residents who have moved away, but may want to listen to the FM station they listened to in high school.

But not everyone has a smart phone or an unlimited data plan to go with it. If you should find yourself in Muscatine without those luxuries, you ought to like Vintage Sound in its original format, which you can listen to for free on your radio. This will be especially true if, like me, your musical tastes run toward what I like to call old, white guy rock ‘n roll. I heard some good music Monday.

What I really liked was that it wasn’t just 30-year-old Top 40. Redneck Friend is far from the biggest hit of Jackson Browne’s career. It peaked on the charts at No. 85 in 1973. But I heard it Monday on the Muscatine radio station. And that’s good enough to get me to come back to listen some more. I’m sure I will listen to it more than I did its predecessor, MAC-FM.

With all of the things today that compete for our attention, Hopkins and the rest of the staff at Vintage Sound can’t ask for much more than being given such a chance. I’d encourage others in Muscatine to give it to them. And I hope they make the most of it.