DREAMS, GOALS AND GLORY

Watching the Olympic Games currently being held in Vancouver got me thinking about dreams, goals and glory.  Some of these Olympians started their dreams well before they hit a double digit birthday and all of them have worked at their sport with a focus unlike no other.  Besides all of the training and preparation that they do for their particular sport, many of them are pursuing university degrees.  They are achievers.  They know their goals and understand the commitment it takes to get to the podium.

Watching Alexandre Bilodeau win the gold medal and Jennifer Heil win the silver medal in moguls and Kristina Groves win the bronze medal in the 3000 metre speed skating was exciting and thought provoking.  For the moguls, all of the work preparing for this moment is over after 23, 24 or 27 seconds (the time varies as men are faster racers than the women).   Achieving your dreams is measured in seconds.  Winning a medal depends on seconds.  Furthermore, the skill, nerve and sheer guts to hurtle down the mogul hill, take two jumps, fly through the air and come down properly on your skis and continue down to the finish line requires one to be a dare devil and have stead fast nerves.   I realize that the athletes doing these events didn't start off being able to do these difficult courses and it is years of culmination - you start off when young competing at novice events and over the course of years build up to tackling the advance courses.   The athletes competing at the Olympics are the best in their specialty.  In many ways this is no different than successful individuals who run corporations, head up government departments or operate their own businesses.  They learned their skills and business step by step over the course of years.  But success in sports is measured by degrees of difficulty and seconds and that is very different to the world that you and I operate in.

What is evident is the abuse and tears your body takes to be an athlete.  For those of you that run, play tennis, squash or curl, your knees tend to feel the effects.  Multiply that to the sports such as skiing and speed skating and it is clearly evident that your surgeon may be your next best friend.  One of the Canadian mogul skiers has had a number of surgeries done on his knees by his father who is a surgeon in Quebec City.  

It was clear watching these competitors the role that their teammates and family plays in achieving success.  For their teammates, even though they compete against each other, you could see the bond and supportive gestures made at the moguls and speed skating events while waiting for the particular individual results.  Starting prior to the Olympics there has been a lot of media on the family support and sacrifice made to support these athletics.  It is clear that every successful athlete has had emotional and financial support from his or her family.  I offer a few examples.  While flying home from a holiday in California I happened to sit beside Jay Morrison, a World Cup speed skater. For several reasons including surgery last summer, he didn't make the cut for the Olympics.  His younger brother Denny is competing at the Olympics.  I knew of some of the speed skaters from home so the ice was broken and we chatted for about two hours.   One topic that was discussed was his parents' commitment to the training, support and travelling to speed skating events when the two boys were at the junior level.  The dreams that these boys had in their youth while living in a smaller northern B.C. community were made into reality by their parents.   The second example is the win by Bilodeau.  In television clips prior to this competition and following his gold medal, he expressively talked about the support his family has given him and the inspiration that his disabled older brother has provided.  "Can't" is not in this gold winner's vocabulary.  Brian Williams interviewed the Bilodeau family Sunday night on CTV at its Olympic broadcasting site and his family was with Alexandre - his parents, brother and sister.  I haven't seen too many post medal interviews with the while family present and being interviewed.   The funny part of this interview was one of the other sports commentators (a former football player) brought out a bottle of champagne and glasses to toast this event.  It was quite humorous as this was live and not a taped event.

A closing comment needs to be made about glory.  Glory has a price and Nodar Kumaritashvili, the luger from Georgia who was killed during a training run, died in the pursuit of glory.  There is risk with all of these Olympic events, even curling as you can fall backwards, hit your head on the ice and badly injure yourself.    It is important to understand the glory and the risks and fulfilling your dreams as you only go around once.

DID YOU KNOW - FOOD FACTS

I have a few books by Dr. Joey Shulman, a nutritionist, based out of Toronto.  She also has a website - www.drjoey.com and you can subscribe to her free newsletter.   While watching the olympics on television, I have been reading her book "Healthy Sin Foods" and learned some interesting facts.  I thought I should share some of these nutritional food facts.

1. If you want to know how much sugar is in a food item, there are 4 grams in 1 tsp of refined sugar.  If a product contains 16 grams of sugar per serving, that represents about 4 tsp of sugar.  The World Health Organization recommends that sugar should not account for more than 10 percent of an individual's daily caloric intake.  If you are consuming 2,000 calories a day, this would be 200 calories.  This recommendation does not include naturally occurring sugars found in fruit, vegetables and dairy products.   
2. On the nutritional list of the food product you are eating, the manufacturer will lump together the naturally occurring and added sugars.   So  a cup of milk contains almost 3 tsp (12 grams) of sugar even though it doesn't have any sugar added to it.  Examples of sugar added to food includes: sucrose, fructose, maple syrup, molasses, dextrose, carob powder, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, dehydrated cane juice, glucose, honey, invert sugar, raw sugar, fruit juice concentrate, maltitol, sorbitol, isomalt and xylitol. 
3. To reduce your sugar intake avoid soft drinks and fruit punches; eat cereal that has less than 1 to 2 tsp (4 to 8 grams) of sugar per serving; eliminate foods with sugar as the first or second ingredient; try to add only 1 tsp of sugar to your coffee; and watch how much flavoured yogurt you eat.  
4. Not all breads are created equal and the best kind is to consume bread that is made with whole grain.  Whole grain contains the bran, germ and endosperm and whole grain bread will have a lower glycemic index.  Examples of whole grain include 100 percent whole grain bread, barley, brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal, popcorn, whole oats, whole rye, wild rice, quinoa, spelt, kamut and millet.  
5. If a bread or wrap says it is made from sprouted grains, it means that the whole grain kernel has been sprouted which takes a certain amount of time to do, eg 24 to 48 hours.  The sprouting process predigests some of the starch in the grain and therefore lowers the glycemic index of the bread. These sprouts are used in the bread making process. 
6. Bananas are starchier than other fruits and carrots have a higher sugar content than most other vegetables.   Some diets restrict or won't allow the consumption bananas or carrots.  Consuming bananas and carrots won't make you fat.  There are other culprits - portion size, refined sugars and flours, lack of activity and eating too much fast food.   
7. Fat makes food taste good and lower fat foods or fat free food usually has sugar added to it to compensate for taste.  

I didn't elaborate at all on glycemic index or glycemic load.  There is a lot of information available on this and easily found on google.  In a future posting I could explain the background on these terms and how they are used.   Likely my biggest challenge in eating more healthy is dealing with those sugar cravings.   I am talking about that after supper craving for a square of good chocolate, the candy sampling that sometimes occurs during the day at work, and the weekly bowl of ice cream.   It is too hard and unrealistic to be perfect.  Treats during the week need to be accepted and acknowledged, the decision is the frequency and the amount.  

THE MANY CHAPTERS IN YOUR LIFE

I recently read an interesting article about myths and realities of the mid-life years (Science Daily Jan 22, 2010).  The author of several recently published articles, Professor Carlo Strenger, has made a number of interesting observations.  About 40 years ago, Elliot Jacques coined the term "mid-life crisis".  At that time, the average lifespan was 70 years and 35 years was seen as the midpoint of your life.  People expected that their quality of life would decline after they reached that midpoint so they reacted to the fear of their own mortality and some did things out of character.

Professor Strenger has pointed out that your midlife years are the best time of life to flourish and grow.  Based on research, he feels that adult lives have second acts.   You take the lessons learned during the first half of your life and apply these to the second half of your life.

I think we can go further than that.  I think each decade of your life is a chapter and that you take what you learned during each decade and use those experiences to improve, make changes, grow or expand your horizons during the following ten years of our life.   Using the period of your twenties as an example, you have finished school, have your first full time job, may be purchasing your first home and car, getting married and having children.  You have made a lot of important decisions during your twenties.  These experiences and self awareness add to your knowledge bank of dealing with changes, unplanned situations and growth as a person.   I would venture to say that each decade you experience is better than the previous decade because of personal growth and ability to cope, change and succeed.

If we drill down deeper, what we need to do is celebrate our birthdays.  Growing up I enjoyed organizing my own birthday parties.  I would invite  my classmates and I still remember eating hotdogs and orange pop and my parents commenting on the pop spilled onto our dark beige living room carpet.   Why we need to celebrate our birthdays is because we have experienced another year of growth, we value our family and friends and pets and our life.

SPINACH AND WHITE BEAN SOUP

Always on the lookout for new soup recipes, I came across a recipe on the internet site 'allrecipes.com' that uses white beans, spinach and couscous.  Since I had a small opened bag of spinach in the fridge that was soon going to have to be used or thrown out, I decided to adapt the recipe and add or change a number of the ingredients.  I always keep a few cans of different kinds of beans in the pantry so I don't need a lot of prep time to make the soup if I had to use dry beans which requires soaking and cooking.   You can add other vegetables to this recipe and make changes according to your preferences and what is in your fridge.

In recent years, spinach has been in the limelight because of its nutritional components and some call spinach a superfood.  Spinach is an excellent source of vitamins A, Bs and K, caroteniods (which help protect artery walls), many minerals and it also contains antioxidants and is rich in chlorophyll.  There are numerous recipes that use spinach that range from dips to soups to salads to pasta to eggs and so forth.

SPINACH AND WHITE BEAN SOUP

INGREDIENTS:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, diced

3 carrots, chopped

6-7 cups chicken broth or water with 2 tsp chicken bouillon

1 large can cannellini or romano beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups shredded zucchini

1 bay leaf

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 cup couscous

2 cups packed fresh spinach

salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, celery and carrots; saute until tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the chicken broth, beans, couscous, zucchini, bay leaf and cumin. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.  Cover, and simmer until vegetables are tender.  Add the spinach.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serves 8. 

THE ART OF TRACKING

Being a lifetime weight watcher’s member I have mastered the art of tracking what I eat and the exercise I do on a daily basis.   At times I have wondered whether this was on the verge of being obsessive.  I may not always track what I eat but I have tracked daily exercise for about 18 years.  This tracking of exercise became more of a process when I started to run in the mid 1990's.  Using the odometer in my vehicle, as GPS was not available, I measured running routes.  I also knew the routes mapped out by other runners so I was well prepared.  I even had official running journals where you could record daily distance ran, time that you ran, outside temperature, how you felt that day etc.   I had a big collection of these journals that I kept over a number of years.  Several years ago I realized that keeping 10 years worth of running journals was probably not needed and put them into the recycling box.   To this day, I still track the time I spend walking the dog and if I know the distance, I also note that.   With the introduction of GPS watches, I now had the opportunity to measure all kinds of walking distances.   This is simply gadget heaven.   I have an old GPS watch with the separate transmitter and I know that I should be upgrading to a single unit.  My fondness for gadgets is likely good material for another blog.

Over the years I have also collected pedometers.  I have several of them and the technology has improved with time.  Well this Christmas I received the latest in technology in pedometers from one of my girlfriends.

This baby measures overall steps, steps and time covered doing a good brisk walk, kcal burned, km covered and the current time of day.  It also retains memory of the last seven days.  I am in tracking heaven.  I generally wear the pedometer all day and my daily goal is to take 10,000 steps or more.  I know the number of steps from my desk at work to the bathroom and I have figured out that if I walk five times a day to the bathroom, I am close to covering ¼ of a mile.   What I like about a pedometer is that you can challenge yourself to do more the following day and if you know that you should be burning more kcal, you can measure it!

Am I obsessive?  I will leave that for you to ponder.

ORZO, SPINACH AND FETA

Orzo, is sometimes called Italian rice and its translation means barley, from which orzo was originally made. However, in common usage in North America, orzo is understood to mean pasta.  Orzo has a rice shape and is made from hard wheat.  I don’t cook often with orzo and after making a great dish with it for supper tonight, I plan to use it more often.  In some ways I would prefer using it in pasta salads or other dishes that require a small pasta shape than the usual small pasta shells, macaroni or rotini.     

You can use either feta cheese or parmesan in this recipe and I used a ¼ cup of parmesan.  You could go to ½ a cup if you wanted a stronger cheese flavor.   This recipe is definitely a keeper and I plan to make it often.  There are lots of vegetable variations you can do including adding artichokes, hearts of palms or broccoli.  This dish can be served warm or cold.

ORZO, SPINACH AND FETA CHEESE

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup orzo

1 small bag of spinach, chopped

¼ cup feta crumbled or parmesan cheese, grated

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tomato, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Cook orzo and during the last two to three of minutes of cooking, add the chopped spinach to the pot.  Drain the pasta and spinach well.  Place into a serving bowl and add the rest of the ingredients.  Serves 3 to 4.  

SHOULD I BE ENVIOUS?

Several weeks ago there was an article in our local paper about Suzanna, an almost two year old yellow labrador retriever, who has royal lineage and comes from Britain.  She was a gift to the RCMP from the Queen of England and was born on one of her estates, at the Sandringham Kennels.

The picture in the paper has Suzanna seated quietly beside the acting commander of the RCMP Academy Depot Division.  She has a light leash attached to her collar and is sitting very regal and looks very pretty.  Well, I have never had the opportunity to have my 4 1/2 year old yellow lab sit quietly beside me with only a light leash holding him.  To walk Shane, I use a haltie and a strong leather leash with two knots in the leash that provide more traction in my hands in case he starts to go and I have to hang on to him.  He is my 70 pound linebacker.  To have him sit quietly beside me would require constant dog treats being waved in front of his nose and commands being given or a clicker being used to make sure he was listening to me.   Furthermore, the picture of Suzanna was taken at a school where she was being introduced to the children and the media.  If Shane was there, I would be dragged across the room so he could check out the children, see if they had cookies, he would sniff the media and then see if there was any post that required him to leave his calling card.

Suzanna serves as the mascot at the RCMP training academy.  She lives with the commanding officer and during the day she goes to work!  At work, she interacts with employees and troops and participates in events on the base.  The commander noted in the article that she is well trained and won't go far from his side.  Furthermore, she works out with the cadets.  I think she is in dog heaven.   Where I work we don't bring our pets for a number of good reasons.  I did bring Shane to the office on several occasions when I had to pop into the office on a weekend to pick up or leave some paperwork.  When let loose in our office, he would check out what he could find under people's desk or if there was anything interesting on top.  Several things stand out for me.  Some women have a collection of shoes under their desk.  He would retrieve some of them, prance around and begin showing off what he had in his mouth and then drop them somewhere in the office.  I would be searching for these shoes and making sure that the right shoes were put back under the right desk.  One person in my office had a small collection of little stuffed animals on her desk.  Well, he would put his paws on the top of the desk and grab these toys.  He would run around and I would being trying to retrieve these toys out of his mouth before he destroyed them.  I did have one memorable event where I had to do about 15 minutes work at my desk.  I closed the door in my office so that he had to remain with me.  He was bored and agitated and I did not have any of his chew toys with me.  For the sake of world peace, I gave him one of my old running shoes that I had in the office for these infrequent lunch time walks.   He laid on the carpet floor and literally destroyed one of my shoes.  I now know what goes into making a running shoe.  I had to clean up ripped canvas, foam and other unnamed parts of a shoe from the floor.   I still keep the other half of the shoe in my office in case an emergency arises and I need one running shoe.   It is actually a conversation piece as I have it displayed on top of my bookcase.  I can't image Suzanna, the RCMP dog, ever behaving like this in an office.  I imagine she has her spot in the office, lies peacefully there and watches and waits for her master to get up from his desk and then see if he asks her to walk with him by his side. Only in my dreams!!  Actually Shane is not that bad, but he is not in the same league as this Suzanna.  Should I be envious?  Maybe a smidgen.

CHICKEN AND PEPPERS

Chicken is a very popular recipe in cookbooks and on-line sites.  Just about every ethnic nationality has got specialty chicken dishes.  Sometimes the biggest decision is what ingredients do I have in the house in order to make the one of many available dishes.   The following recipe is easy and quick to make.  The recipe calls for peppers but if you don’t have any peppers in your fridge you can substitute mushrooms or use carrots and celery.  Along with the photo of the chicken in the skillet with the peppers and onions, I have also included a photo of the couscous that I made to accompany the chicken.

CHICKEN AND PEPPERS

INGREDIENTS:

Vegetables:

2 tsp olive oil

1 medium sized onion, sliced

1 pepper (green, red or yellow), sliced

1 garlic clove, crushed

salt and pepper to taste

¼ tsp dried basil

¼ tsp thyme

Chicken:

2 skinless chicken breasts

ground pepper

2 tsp olive oil

2 tsp flour

½ cup chicken broth

¼ cup white wine or cooking wine

½ tsp Dijon mustard

DIRECTIONS:

Vegetables: Heat olive oil in a large skillet or wok.   Add onions, peppers and garlic and sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes.  If vegetables stick to pan, add a  little bit of water.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, basil and thyme.  Remove vegetables from the skillet.

Chicken: Cut chicken breasts into strips, sprinkle with pepper.  Heat olive oil in the skillet.  Stir fry chicken over medium heat for about 4 minutes.  Sprinkle flour over the chicken.  Cook about a minute longer to lightly brown the flour and scrap up any browned bits.  Add wine, broth and mustard.  Increase heat until the mixture comes to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for about 4 minutes.  Stir in vegetables.  Cook for another few more minutes. 

Makes 2 servings.  Serve with rice or couscous.  Adapted from MealLeaniYumm.

WHOLE WHEAT ORANGE MUFFINS

With a snowstorm going on outside, it was the type of morning to make muffins.  Walking the dog with a strong wind and snow in your face did not seem inviting this morning.  The walk will have to wait.  My sister-in-law sent me a recipe yesterday for whole wheat orange muffins.  They are fibre rich muffins and therefore are a denser muffin.   In making these muffins, I used splenda instead of brown sugar, used regular milk and soured it with 2 teaspoons of vinegar as I did not have buttermilk, and also added a bit more than half cup of milk as the batter was stiff to mix.  I also used the juice from the two zested oranges.  The oranges were large.  If you don't have oranges in the house you could substitute lemon juice and zest from a lemon.  I don't think I would add half a cup of lemon juice as a straight substitute for orange juice and would likely add 1/4 to 1/3 cup of lemon juice.   The muffins are very good according to my DH.  I like them because they have body, have an assortment of peel, raisins, nuts and flax and don't taste like cake.  One of my pet peeves are muffins that taste like cake which if so, should really be called a cupcake.   My sister-in-law took the photo of the muffins that she made. 

WHOLE WHEAT ORANGE MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS:

2 ½ cup whole wheat flour        

½ cup ground flax

2 tsp baking powder        

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt        

1 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs        

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup orange juice

zest of two oranges

1/3 cup canola oil        

¾ cup brown sugar or splenda

1 tsp vanilla        

¾ cup chopped nuts

¾ cup raisins

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, flax, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon.

In another bowl beat together eggs, orange juice, zest, buttermilk, oil, brown sugar & vanilla

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, stir with wooden spoon to mix.  Gently fold in the chopped nuts and raisins.

Spoon into muffin cups until almost full, bake at 375°F about 20 minutes.  Makes 22 to 24 muffins.

Joshua Tree National Park

On my recent travels, I had the opportunity to visit Joshua Tree National Park for several hours.  This national park is in California and is noted for the many different rock formations, abundance of Joshua Trees, cacti, desert plants, birds and animals.  The park is close to 793,000 acres in size.  The Joshua tree is an important part of the Mojave Desert ecosystem.  The oldest tree in the park is estimated to be 300 hundred years old.  This picture is of a Joshua tree situated by a pullout section in the road that allows for cars to stop.

This park has a range of different rock formations with some fantastic shapes.  We saw a number of rock climbers at various locations in the park.  The following picture has some rock climbers scaling one particular formation but you likely won't be able to pick them out in the photo as this was the best close-up I could take.

We saw some wildlife while walking a nature trail, the Hidden Valley and while stopped at pullouts on the park road.  We saw a roadrunner, hawk, jay, lizard, a ground squirrel, raven, and a coyote.  The coyote was in scrub brush close to where you parked your car to start the Hidden Valley nature trail.  He/she may have been hanging around looking for food scraps.  As soon as I saw the coyote I started to stalk it.  He/she was slowly sauntering off in the brush and I was determined to get closer and take a picture.  The irony of this is that at home, there are coyotes in the area where I walk the dog and I try to avoid them.  I am not anxious to meet up with one while out with the dog.  Yet here I was slowly walking in the brush and trying to get closer to see the animal and take a picture.  The picture is not great as the sun was in my eyes, I wasn't sure if the photo was focussed and I knew that I had to keep a reasonable distance away.   The coyote was in good shape.  In the photo, you see the back side of the coyote and it is standing beside an old tree stump.