Action vs. Talk

Yesterday I felt like sitting around (or lying around) in the living room and watching pay per view movies all day. But I saw the sun out there, bright as usual, and felt like I should get some motion in my day...take some ACTION. I loaded up the bike and headed downto the Rio Grande. El Paso County and the City, unbelievably, are coughing up $30 million to build the Rio Grande Riverpark Trail System. For once I agree with El Paso's use of tax dollars. This city bleeds its citizens, some of the poorest in the nation, for taxes. You can't find decent roads or clean highways, but you can find free services at local hospitals if you are a non citizen, and the city spends millions fighting off a copper smelter that would bring in millions of tax dollars and hundreds of high pay blue collar jobs to the region. But I digress.


The action of getting up and going on the ride paid off. As usual, when I get off my rear and get going, good things happen. Above is a picture of Geococcyx Californianus. The Roadrunner. He was pretty spry so I feel fortunate to have snapped this quick pic before he scooted across the path and into the river bank. These are fairly common desert birds, but I've only seen a few in the past couple of years.


Here's the river near Anthony, NM. I rode 13 miles north from El Paso on the trail to get to this bend. The river meanders through the Mesilla Valley in southern New Mexico, just before turning east and heading 900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. During Spring and Summer this river is full and rapid in El Paso, swelled with irrigation water released from Elephant Butte, 150 miles north. The region is in a terrible drought right now, as is much of the West. Some friends of mine who farm are very concerned about the future of food production in this region of the country. For those who don't know, this area is one of the top pecan producing areas in the world. Lots of cotton, onions, lettuce, and, of course, long green chile and jalapenos come from here as well.


I love this sign. Every time I see it I think about the time I saw a rattlesnake in Chaparral, NM 7 years ago. It was late evening and the sun was very low on the horizon. I saw a stick, straight as can be, lying in the road. As I drove past it, I realized it was no stick. A lady in her car next to me leaned out and said Machuca lo! Which I think means "run over it." I declined, because I thought it was dead. When I swung the car door open and my boots hit the road, Mr. Rattler curled up quick as an oil change and started rattling in my direction. Back in the car I went, and the lady vamoosed. When I ride my bike past this sign I know that I am at the 20 mile mark and also that I may end up having to make a quick and wide detour at any point.


So what do you eat after a 26 mile bike ride with half of it against a 10 mile an hour headwind? I had 8 ounces of pork shoulder roast, 3 ounces of pico de gallo, 5 stuffed mushrooms, and a cup and a half of homemade coleslaw. About 8 grams of carbohydrates, total. This was a big meal...I had to eat it in portions because I got full pretty quick. But I had to eat it because I hadn't eaten much all day and I don't want to get into a cycle of not eating. I like the short term results of starvation too much...the weight loss is intoxicating but the end result is more fat, more weight, more misery. No thanks!

The Joy of Eating Well

Eating well means different things to different folks. Eating styles, manners, and fare vary widely within and among cultures, and are largely a personal matter even when regional and religious preferences are taken into consideration. We love to eat, and the eating varies. I am no exception.

For most of my adult life, unfortunately, eating has meant trying to get as much into my mouth and down the hatch as possible before moving on to the next gorge. I don't know why that happened. I've spent a lot of time on this subject as you might imagine, but in the end it boils down to a simple truth, I like to eat, and I eat too much when I do.

For the past year, since beginning a low carb plan of eating combined with seeking help for my food addiction, eating well has come to mean something uniquely affirming for me. I am a simple guy -- I've eaten a lot of fancy meals (or at least I think I have) -- but food that is easy to prepare, fun to eat, and quickly cleaned up and tupperwared are the best kinds of meals for me. And when they include foods that feed my body and spirit, that is the gold standard.

Tonight's meal was simple and tasty. I put a whole chicken in the slow cooker this morning, coated it with Sate seasoning (Penzey's), and let 'er go. Tonight, the wife fried some cabbage with onion and bacon in a cast iron skillet, and I threw in some stuffed mushrooms I made yesterday (cream cheese, onions, garlic, cheese). It was quick, easy, nutritious, and low carb. I count about 9 carbs total in that meal, and that may be a liberal estimate.

Then I had some dessert. Pumpkin cheesecake and some sugar-free whipped cream. Another 5 carbs. Sorry for the crummy picture. But it tasted a lot better than it looks here. Recipe customized from the original good one by Sugar Free Sheila.

Let's contrast with the meal my (non low carb) daughter ate tonight. She is 3, somewhat picky regarding what she eats, and probably represents a typical kid in the U.S. when it comes to preferences at meal time. She mostly eats what we eat, but sometimes life calls for fish sticks and ketchup. We threw in the corn and the peas, so all in all I would call this a successful meal. Standards and ideals automatically adjust for a parent. It's part of the continuum of eating well.